PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The federal government is withdrawing a proposal that would require more ships to slow down in East Coast waters to try to save a disappearing whale species, officials said Wednesday.
The move in the final days of the Biden administration will leave the endangered North Atlantic right whale vulnerable to extinction as the Trump administration signals a shift from environmental conservation to support for the maritime industry, conservation groups said. But federal authorities say there is no way to implement the rules before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Monday.
The new vessel speed rules proposed by the National Marine Fisheries Service more than two years ago have been the subject of much debate among shippers, commercial fishermen and conservationists, all of whom have a stake in the fate of the whale. The whale, which is vulnerable to collisions with ships, numbers fewer than 380 individuals and the population has plummeted in recent years.
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The Trump administration is likely to be less enthusiastic about new restrictions on shipping, said Gib Brogan, campaign manager at conservation group Oceana.
“As we have waited and watched the proposed rule develop and ultimately stall, we have looked at the water outcomes of the current inadequate protections,” Brogan said. “And we’ve seen whales killed by speeding boats.”
Thousands of public comments
The proposed rules would have expanded the slow zones off the East Coast, as well as the size classes of boats and ships that must slow down.
The Fisheries Service received about 90,000 public comments on the matter, according to documents to be published Thursday in the Federal Register. The filing states that the agency “does not have sufficient time to finalize this settlement in this administration due to the scope and volume of public comments.”
The final rule to change speed rules for North Atlantic whaling vessels lay with the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which reviews new rules before implementing them, said Katherine Silverstein, a spokesperson for the National Marine Fisheries Service. She confirmed that the fisheries department rescinded the rule on Wednesday.
Conservation groups have long argued that stricter rules on ship speeds are needed to protect the whales, in part because warm ocean waters appear to cause the animals to stray from protected areas. The federal government first announced the proposal in the summer of 2022, and a coalition of environmental groups filed a lawsuit last year in an effort to speed the finalization of the rules.
However, some shippers have argued that the rules could be economically devastating to the shipping and shipping industries.
“This is a huge step forward for American boat manufacturers, coastal economies and U.S. outdoor enthusiasts,” said Frank Hugelmeyer, president and CEO of the National Marine Manufacturers Association, North America’s largest trade association for the recreational boating industry. “The way this rule was written gave the regulation a bad name and created a completely avoidable dynamic.”
The right whale is disappearing
Whales were once plentiful off the east coast, but their numbers were devastated during the era of commercial whaling. They have been a protected species for years, but are slowly recovering.
The whales migrate from their calving grounds near Florida and Georgia to feeding grounds near New England and Canada. The journey has become increasingly dangerous as the small organisms they eat seek out colder waters, causing the whales to leave established protected areas, scientists say.
Conservation groups that have pushed for the rules to be finalized said they were motivated in part by documented deaths of whales during collisions in recent years. In one highly publicized case last year, a calf stranded near Georgia suffered head injuries consistent with a ship collision, government investigators said.
In 2010 there were more than 480 whales, but that number dropped by more than 25% over the next decade. Recently the situation has increased slightly, but the animal remains critically endangered. Ship strikes are “a major cause of the species’ decline,” the National Marine Fisheries Service said in documents.
