Nathan Strout is a Portland, Maine-based associate editor of SeafoodSource. Previously, Nathan covered the U.S. military’s space activities and emerging technologies at C4ISRNET and Defense News, where he won awards for his reporting on the U.S. Space Force’s missile warning capabilities. Nathan got his start in journalism writing about several communities in Midcoast Maine for a local daily paper, The Times Record.
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A U.S. commercial fisherman has filed suit against domestic shale oil producers, alleging that the companies conspired with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to artificially raise the prices for marine fuel.
“Every time marine fuel prices go up, the amount I can make on the water goes down,” San Francisco, California, U.S.A.-based commercial fisherman John Mellor said. “While the CEOs of these oil
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Experts are predicting a drastic shortage of crawfish in the U.S. state of Louisiana, and in response, U.S. Representative Clay Higgins (R-Louisiana) is seeking federal financial relief.
“It’s going to be the worst season ever,” Louisiana State University AgCenter Representative Mark Shirley told the Louisiana Radio Network. “The population is just not there.”
A severe drought in 2023, as well as a recent freeze,
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A lawmaker in the U.S. state of Alabama has introduced a bill that would require grocery stores and restaurants to show where seafood sold in their stores came from.
“The seafood industry is essential to the economy throughout Alabama’s Gulf Coast region, and with foreign-caught products flooding the U.S. market, we must take every step to both support it and protect it,” State Representative Chip Brown (R-Hollingers Island)
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The U.S. Department of Commerce has allocated USD 20.6 million (EUR 19.2 million) in financial relief to the state of California following the closure of its Chinook salmon season in 2023.
“Fishery disasters have wide-ranging impacts and can affect commercial and recreational fishermen, subsistence users, charter businesses, shore-side infrastructure, and the marine environment,” U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said.
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The U.S. Department of Commerce has allocated USD 42 million (EUR 39 million) in financial relief for fishery disasters NOAA Fisheries has determined took place.
“Sustainable fisheries are essential to the health of our communities and support the nation’s economic well-being,” U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo said. “With these allocations, it is our hope that these funds help the affected communities and
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More than 100 chefs have signed a letter organized by nonprofit Oceana calling on U.S. President Joe Biden to expand the Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP), which imposes traceability requirements on some seafood species to prevent illegal fishing.
SIMP currently covers just 13 species or species groups, but many fishery observers and lawmakers have called on the program to expand.
“Chefs don’t want to serve their customers
Fishermen and government officials in the northeastern U.S. region of New England are surveying the damage caused by a pair of massive storms that hit the region in early January.
The first storm hit on 10 January, bringing precipitation totaling nearly 3 feet that sunk vessels, damaged docks, and flooded coastal communities. As New England began picking up the pieces, a second storm hit on 13 January with a record-breaking high tide and
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has partnered with the state government of Alaska on strengthening the supply chain of local and regional food systems.
Together, the USDA and Alaska are offering more than USD 1.9 million (EUR 1.7 million) in competitive infrastructure grants for projects that can “build resilience across the middle of the supply chain.”
“This partnership between USDA and Alaska is allowing critical
The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), which has been representing commercial fishermen in an ongoing case before the U.S. Supreme Court, expressed cautious optimism that the court would align with their reasoning following oral arguments.
“After many years, our clients were finally before a court that seemed disinclined to defer to the agency they have been fighting as to what the law is,” NCLA Senior Litigation Counsel John
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A challenge by New Jersey herring fishermen to a rule requiring commercial fishermen to pay for at-sea monitoring equipment could significantly weaken the rulemaking authority of NOAA Fisheries and U.S. regulatory agencies more broadly.
On 17 January, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. The case began as an attempt to overturn a single rule originally set by the New England Fishery
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