The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has unveiled new agency priorities that critics say will roll back science-based fisheries management in favour of the commercial fishing industry. The changes, framed by NOAA as cutting bureaucracy and modernising regulation, form part of the Trump administration's "Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness" executive order signed in April 2025, and follow earlier moves this year to ease protections for endangered turtles, sea lions and whales.

The plan proposes opening marine national monuments to commercial fishing, scaling back critical habitat protections in favour of economic considerations, and reassessing four of the ten "National Standards" set out in the 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Act, covering overfishing prevention, best available science, community impact and bycatch reduction. It also shelves planned ropeless fishing gear intended to protect the roughly 350 remaining North Atlantic right whales from entanglement. Conservation groups, including Earthjustice and The Ocean Conservancy, warn the reforms could undermine peer-reviewed science and long-term fish stocks, while the National Fisheries Institute, representing the commercial seafood industry, has welcomed the move as reducing regulatory burden.