NOAA Fisheries lists agency priorities to restore seafood competitiveness

NOAA Fisheries Assistant Administrator Eugenio Piñeiro Soler published the agency’s own to-do list on Sept. 2, 2026, under Executive Order 14276, Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness. He called it an operational roadmap for regulatory, scientific, and administrative work inside NOAA Fisheries, and a bridge to a broader America First Seafood Strategy the administration says is still coming. The list was informed by 787 public comments on the 2025 order. It sits next to regional guidance the agency sent councils on July 2.

The protected-resources items include modernizing the North Atlantic right whale vessel-speed rule with technology from an advance notice of proposed rulemaking, and a flat statement that NOAA Fisheries will not mandate ropeless gear in the Northeast lobster fishery. The agency also says it will expedite Magnuson-Stevens rulemaking to remove commercial-fishing prohibitions at Pacific marine monuments, naming the Mariana Trench, Papahānaumokuākea, Rose Atoll, and Pacific Remote Islands monuments. Other lines cover a humpback status review tied to Dungeness crab entanglement models, turtle-excluder device flexibility, and pinniped depredation.

On science and standards, the list calls for a national electronic-monitoring roadmap, a Recreational Angler Partnership Improvement Directive (RAPID) to rebuild marine recreational catch estimates with the states, and reviews of National Standard guidelines — including optimum-yield flexibilities, industry data in assessments, fishing-community impacts, and bycatch tools other than static closures. Pacific salmon work is aimed at extending fishing opportunity into 2027, using newer Endangered Species Act interpretations and tighter catch accounting. The message says the agency still has a public-trust duty to stock and ecosystem health.

Conservation groups have criticized the same list as deregulation. Earthjustice and the Environmental Defense Fund told Mongabay on Sept. 18 that loosening monument rules, gear limits, and National Standard guidelines could harm the stocks those rules were written to protect. Mongabay also quoted industry voices who welcomed monitoring upgrades and opposed a weaker Magnuson-Stevens framework.

Photo: NOAA Fisheries (Assistant Administrator Eugenio Piñeiro Soler).

This is a The Gillnet news desk summary, not a reprint.

Source: NOAA Fisheries — Advancing Agency-Level Reforms to Restore American Seafood Competitiveness (Sept. 2, 2026). Also: Mongabay — US move to loosen restrictions on fishing could harm vital ecosystems, experts warn (Sept. 18, 2026).