The U.S. House has proposed slashing NOAA Fisheries funding by 40 percent, setting up a battle with the U.S. Senate over how deep to cut the agency’s budget for fiscal year 2026. Though both houses are controlled by Republicans, the senate has so far rejected the steeper cuts requested by the Trump administration.
The U.S. House Committee on Appropriations held its markup of the annual appropriations bill funding the Department of Commerce on 10 September, finally releasing the figures for how much it wanted to cut NOAA Fisheries’’ budget by.
The House legislation includes USD 685,699,000 (EUR 582,520,378) for NOAA Fisheries, a roughly 40 percent drop over the 2024 enacted level of USD 1.15 billion (EUR 977,027,000) and more than USD 100 million (EUR 84,969,365) less than the USD 789,327,000 (EUR 670,603,175) requested by the Trump administration. It’s also far less than the roughly USD 1.2 billion (EUR 1 billion) included in the Senate version of the same bill.
The cut of USD 464,301,000 (EUR 394,513,614) was immediately criticized by nonprofit Ocean Conservancy, which called the move “draconian.”
“Simply put, a cut of that magnitude would destroy our world-class fishery management system and trigger the decline of our coastal communities,” Ocean Conservancy Senior Director of Fish Conservation Meredith Moore said in a release. “NOAA Fisheries ensures that U.S. fisheries are healthy and well-managed for the benefit of all Americans. These cuts would deeply undermine the foundational science and management needed for sustainable fisheries, hamper seafood safety, and weaken the protection of marine wildlife and habitats.”
In addition to the seafood provisions previously laid out in a House subcommittee’s report on the legislation, the House Committee on Appropriations approved an amendment directing NOAA Fisheries to review some of the comparability findings the agency recently released for foreign fisheries. The findings include the agency’s determination on whether other nations’ fisheries are in alignment with the U.S. Marine Mammals Protection Act, and products harvested from fisheries deemed to not be adequately protecting their mammals will be banned from being exported to the U.S. On 28 August, NOAA Fisheries announced that 240 fisheries from 46 nations were denied comparability findings.
In the amendment, lawmakers ask NOAA Fisheries to again look at applications from countries that did not receive affirmative comparability findings for all of their commercial fisheries.
“The Committee is concerned with the implementation timeline of restrictions placed on fishery imports from nations that were granted comparability findings for a subset of their fisheries by the 2025 Marine Mammal Protection Act comparability finding determinations and the burden it places on importers,” the amendment added. “The Committee directs the National Marine Fisheries Services to promptly review and consider comparability finding applications from nations that received comparability findings for only a subset of their fisheries.”
The provision was part of a bloc amendment offered by committee Republicans with a dozen unrelated provisions. The amendment was adopted by voice vote during a 10 September committee markup meeting. No one rose to explain or oppose the comparability findings provision.
The 34 countries that received affirmative comparability findings for only some of their commercial fisheries are Bangladesh, Brazil, Cameroon, Chile, China, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ghana, Indonesia, Ireland, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mauritania, Mexico, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nigeria, Oman, Peru, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Somalia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, St. Kitts and Nevis, Suriname, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam.
