OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Northeast Lobsterman Protection Act of 2026

Floor Speech

Date: Sept. 1, 2026
Location: Washington, DC

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. HAGEMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 9436, the Northeast Lobsterman Protection Act. This legislation will help to safeguard some of the United States' most iconic fisheries, American lobster and Jonah crab.

In Maine, the lobster industry has been subject to regulatory whiplash and operational uncertainty due to pending burdensome regulations and activist litigation.

In 2022, NOAA was poised to finalize regulations to protect the North Atlantic right whale, a move that risked shutting down this fishery entirely. Leaders in the industry argue that those regulations were developed with flawed, inaccurate data.

To combat this, in 2022 Congress enacted a 6-year pause on the enactment of new regulations, which gave the State regulators and the industry more time to gather more up-to-date science and data to inform new regulations.

While that work is ongoing and has been productive, it has been made clear that more time is needed to incorporate the latest data into final regulations.

H.R. 9436 does just that, ensuring that final regulatory decisions are made in a thoughtful, deliberate manner.

Most importantly, this bill advances the goals and objectives laid out in President Trump's executive order, ``Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness.''

By allowing adequate time to incorporate the latest science and data into regulations, we can ensure that one of the country's most vital fisheries can continue to operate while safeguarding endangered species like the North Atlantic right whale.

This bill also allows for the ability to further study the impact of offshore wind farms on our aquatic resources, including the North Atlantic right whale. Anyone who claims to care about our whale and fishery populations would surely support such investigations to ensure data-driven and science-based decisionmaking.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Lawler for his leadership on this bill and his work to protect our fishermen, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this important bill.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT


Source
arrow_upward