Wednesday, July 29, 2026
- Jul 29
- 6 min read
National
Proposed roadmap would strengthen seafood industry competitiveness
The Cordova Times by Margaret Bauman - July 28, 2026
A new report from Seafood Harvesters of America identifies priorities to strengthen the competitiveness of the U.S. seafood industry, with a focus on the nation’s science-based fisheries management.
Legal group that won IEEPA lawsuits takes aim at latest Section 301 tariffs
SeafoodSource by Chris Chase - July 28, 2026
The legal team that successfully challenged U.S. President Donald Trump’s International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA)-backed tariffs is now pursuing a case against the administration’s latest Section 301 tariffs.
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NOAA Opens Public Comment on Potential MMPA Import Rule Overhaul, Seafood Industry Gets a Say
SeafoodNews by Ryan Doyle - July 29, 2026
NOAA Fisheries is inviting public comment on a potential overhaul of the Marine Mammal Protection Act's import provisions, a framework that determines which countries can sell seafood in the US market. The comment window closes September 28, 2026.
The notice does not propose specific rule changes. It is the earliest stage of the regulatory process, an open invitation for the seafood industry, foreign governments, trade groups, and conservation organizations to weigh in on how the program should be reformed before NOAA drafts any actual proposals.
The timing is significant. The MMPA import provisions took full effect on January 1, 2026, triggering import restrictions on approximately 240 fisheries across 46 countries. The Philippines and Venezuela are the most high-profile casualties to date; the Philippines lost US market access for its blue swimming crab fisheries in June after failing to satisfy NOAA's comparability requirements, while Venezuela's crab industry was cut off at the start of the year after missing application deadlines entirely.
Together, those two countries have removed an estimated 17–22% of traditional US blue crab supply from the market, pushing blue pasteurized jumbo lump prices 35% above year-ago levels earlier this year.
The program's scope is sweeping. In its first full round of comparability findings, NOAA evaluated roughly 2,500 fisheries across 135 countries. Of those, 89 nations received full comparability findings, 34 were denied findings for at least one fishery, and 12 countries, including Venezuela, Russia, and Iran, were denied findings entirely or failed to submit applications. NMFS estimated the value of 2024 trade affected by partial denials alone at approximately $3.6 billion.
A Program Tested by Its Own Ambition
The blue swimming crab market became the most visible pressure point. NOAA's September 2025 determinations found swimming crab fisheries in Vietnam, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines non-compliant with US marine mammal protection standards, a finding that threatened to cut off the majority of US crab meat imports simultaneously.
The National Fisheries Institute, the Restaurant Law Center, and a coalition of seafood companies sued, and the US Court of International Trade stayed the January 1 import deadline on October 31, 2025, ordering NOAA to reconsider.
"In so many cases with the implementation of this Act, we're not talking about 'violations' that put marine mammals at risk, we're talking about box checking and regulatory equivalence rather than outcomes," said NFI Chief Strategy Officer Gavin Gibbons during the legal proceedings.
"Meanwhile, in the case of blue swimming crab there's no domestic substitute that can feasibly replace the product. So, the consequence of failing to have a bureaucratic comparison is taking crab cakes off menus and putting Americans out of work."
In May 2026, NOAA's reconsideration produced a split result: Vietnam, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka received comparability findings valid through December 31, 2029, while the Philippines was denied and its ban took effect June 11.
Venezuela, excluded from the court-ordered stay entirely, has remained shut out since January 1, its processing industry largely dormant, with most plants on Lake Maracaibo shuttered.
The Philippines has since moved to address NOAA's findings, issuing Fisheries Administrative Order No. 277 on July 22 — a 500-meter cap on aggregate gillnet length per fishing operation designed to reduce Irrawaddy dolphin bycatch.
Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. has expressed confidence that US market access can be restored before year-end. But the country is racing against competitors who already hold multi-year market certainty, and whether NMFS will act on a Philippine reapplication quickly enough to matter commercially in 2026 remains an open question.
Why NOAA Is Revisiting the Rules
In the Federal Register notice, NOAA is candid about the program's growing pains. The first full round of comparability findings took more than three years to complete, well beyond what the agency anticipated when the 2016 final rule was published.
Applying a regulatory framework designed for US domestic fisheries consistently across countries with vastly different legal systems, institutional capacity, and data availability has proved enormously complex.
The Certification of Admissibility process, which requires government-signed documentation at the border to verify that seafood wasn't harvested in a prohibited fishery, has created port delays, administrative backlogs, and enforcement challenges.
NOAA acknowledges in the notice that for highly processed products like fish oil and fish sauce, traceability back to a specific fishery of harvest may not even be feasible.
"Administering the program at the scale required by the current regulations is resource-intensive and operationally complex," NOAA wrote in the notice.
NOAA is soliciting input across 16 specific questions covering the full scope of the program. Several have direct implications for seafood trade.
The most significant is whether NOAA should introduce conditional comparability findings, essentially a grace period allowing countries to commit to corrective actions rather than face an immediate import ban.
Had such a provision existed, the Philippines' situation may have played out very differently: the country ultimately enacted the regulatory reforms NOAA was looking for, but only after its import ban had already taken effect and market share had begun shifting to competitors.
NOAA is also asking whether certain low-risk fisheries should be categorically excluded from the comparability process altogether based on gear type or marine mammal interaction rates, and whether the current four-year application and review cycle should be modified to reduce administrative burden on both the agency and harvesting nations.
Perhaps most consequentially for the import community, NOAA is asking whether economic impacts on harvesting nations, small businesses, and the trade community should factor into comparability decisions — a question that, if answered affirmatively, could reshape how the agency weighs bans against the commercial disruption they cause.
The crab meat market's experience over the past year — supply shortages, price spikes, and sourcing disruptions hitting US processors and restaurants during peak season — offers a ready-made case study for why that question matters.NOAA is also asking for input on redefining what "US standards" means for purposes of comparability, a term the agency acknowledges has been difficult to apply consistently across countries with fundamentally different fisheries management systems.
This comment period represents an opportunity for seafood importers, processors, trade associations, and affected foreign governments to shape the next version of the program. The blue swimming crab saga — from the September 2025 non-compliance findings, through the NFI lawsuit and court stay, to the split May 2026 reconsideration and the Philippines and Venezuela's ongoing scramble to requalify — has handed the industry a detailed, documented record of exactly where the current framework falls short.
The comment deadline is September 28, 2026. Comments can be submitted electronically at regulations.gov using docket number NOAA-NMFS-2026-0826.
International
US senators call for sanctions on vessels that support China’s distant water fishing fleet
SeafoodSource by Nathan Strout - July 28, 2026
A handful of U.S. senators have asked the Department of the Treasury to issue sanctions on vessels that support China’s distant water fishing fleet, continuing a push from U.S. lawmakers to limit China’s commercial fishing and seafood sectors.
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EU reveals newest sanctions package with seafood again left out
SeafoodSource by Chris Chase - July 27, 2026
The European Council has revealed its 21st sanctions package on Russia, leaving off any seafood products despite earlier plans.
https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/eu-publishes-newest-sanctions-package-with-seafood-again-left-out
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Environment/Science
Sitka researchers turn dehydrated fish waste into shelf-stable fertilizer
Wrangell Sentinel by staff - July 28, 2026
“It smells really good,” said Brenna Haakinson. “Do you want to touch it? It’s very moisturizing — fish are really oily.” Haakinson ran her fingers through the bucket of fine brown …
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Federal Register
Fisheries of the Exclusive Economic Zone off Alaska; Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Crab Rationalization Cost Recovery Program
A Notice by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on 07/28/2026
NMFS publishes notification of a 0.67 percent fee for cost recovery under the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Crab Rationalization Program (Program). This action is intended to provide holders of crab allocations notice of the 2026/2027 crab fishing year fee percentage so they can calculate the required cost recovery fee payment, which must be submitted to NMFS by July 31, 2027.
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