Several seafood provisions being considered in United States Congress are on hold as the nation again faces the prospect of a government shutdown.
Facing a 1 October deadline for a fiscal year 2026 budget, Republican leaders in the House and Senate are pushing for lawmakers to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open for seven weeks, but it’s unclear if there will be enough votes for it to pass the Senate.
Those efforts have placed the regular appropriations process – wherein lawmakers are considering several seafood and aquaculture provisions as well as the budget for NOAA Fisheries – in limbo amid uncertainty whether Congress will ever return to finish the 2026 fiscal year appropriations legislation or instead choose to keep the government running through a series of continuing resolutions.
The traditional appropriations process gives legislators a chance to shape federal agencies’ budgets and guide their policies for the coming fiscal year. Among the seafood provisions incorporated into various appropriations bills under consideration are a directive that NOAA Fisheries review some of the recently released Marine Mammal Protection Act comparability findings for foreign fisheries; guidance on management of the South Atlantic red snapper fishery; demands for improved fisheries surveys; and earmarked funding for several seafood and aquaculture projects. However, those provisions may get left on the chopping block as lawmakers pivot to avoid a government shutdown.
That’s exactly what happened last year, when lawmakers worked for several weeks on budgets governing NOAA Fisheries and guiding the nation’s fisheries policies, only to see that work scrapped in favor of passing multiple continuing resolutions.
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump suggested cutting NOAA Fisheries by more than 30 percent from the USD 1.15 billion (EUR 977 million) enacted for fiscal year 2024, and the House version of the Department of Commerce funding bill would slash NOAA Fisheries budget by 40 percent to just USD 685,699,000 (EUR 583 million). NGO Ocean Conservancy called the bill “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.”
The Senate version of the same bill includes roughly flat funding for the agency, setting up a fight between the bodies over just how much funding the agency should receive in fiscal year 2026. Again, that battle could be moot if Congress decides to keep the government operating through a series of continuing resolutions.
A government shutdown could also quickly return momentum to the Trump administration’s goal of shrinking the federal workforce. At the beginning of Trump’s second term, billionaire Elon Musk led the newly created Department of Government Efficiency in a wide-sweeping effort to lay off federal employees in a blunt effort to shrink the size of government. In February, hundreds of NOAA staff were laid off, while roughly 1,000 NOAA employees voluntarily left the government as part of the Trump administration’s deferred resignation program, which offered financial incentives to those who agreed to leave their position.
Democrats and experts have since noted its effect on government missions, with offices struggling to keep labs operating, regulators moving late to open fisheries, and general instability.
Typically, the federal government's first course of action is to furlough non-essential staff during a shutdown, but the White House Office of Management and Budget has advised federal agencies to issue reduction-in-force notices to employees who don’t align with “the President’s priorities.” Agencies can later adjust those reduction-in-force notices to retain the minimum level of employees needed – effectively allowing the Trump administration to remove many of the employees it has lacked the authority to fire so far.
Even if a government shutdown is averted and Congress returns to the regular appropriations process, many staff positions could still be under threat. The Trump administration proposed reducing NOAA’s overall workforce by 17 percent in its 2026 budget justification, removing roughly 2,000 of the agency’s remaining 12,000 employees.
In a departure, the Office of Management and Budget said that it would not be sharing agency contingency plans for what departments will do if a shutdown does take place, instead directing people to individual agency websites for more information. As of publication, the most updated contingency document on the Department of Commerce website is from 2024.
