Sponsor
Daniel Scott Sullivan
Senator · R-AK
Senator · R-AK
Official title: Reduce trawl gear impacts on bycatch and seafloor habitat in the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands, and Gulf of Alaska, to establish gear performance standards, seafloor contact detection, and salmon excluder requirements, to improve Council transparency and participation, to prioritize ecosystem analyses, to modernize electronic monitoring, to prohibit unsustainable foreign seafood imports, and to establish a Bycatch Mitigation and Habitat Protection Assistance Fund.
Introduced June 24, 2026 by Daniel Scott Sullivan · Last progress June 24, 2026
The bill materially strengthens marine conservation, scientific monitoring, transparency, and support for gear innovation—benefiting fish stocks, coastal communities, and consumers—but does so while imposing new compliance costs, privacy and legal risks, and administrative and budgetary burdens that will fall hardest on small fishing operations and require federal implementation capacity.
Fishermen, coastal communities, and marine life benefit from reduced bycatch and less seafloor damage because the bill requires gear modifications, seafloor-contact standards, salmon excluders, and targeted bycatch-reduction measures.
Fishing businesses, gear developers, and workers gain financial and technical support—grants, prototype testing, a flume tank, workforce training, and NOAA assistance—to develop, test, and adopt bycatch‑reducing gear and techniques.
Fisheries managers, scientists, and the public get better, faster science and data (baseline reports, National Academies review, tagging/genetics, standardized electronic monitoring and open-data tools) to support more informed, timely management decisions.
Small commercial vessel owners and processors face substantial upfront and near‑term costs because they must buy, retrofit, install, or maintain new gear, monitoring systems, or salmon excluders—often on short (one‑to‑two year) deadlines.
Taxpayers and NOAA budgets could face higher federal spending for grants, research programs, a flume tank, monitoring pilots, and administration (including a $10M/year bycatch program), potentially requiring new appropriations or reallocations.
Fishing operations and other stakeholders risk loss of confidentiality and commercial sensitivity because of near‑real‑time data transmission, public posting of monitoring data, roll‑call votes, and broader open‑data requirements.
Based on analysis of 10 sections of legislative text.
Sets gear standards and monitoring, funds grants and testing infrastructure, requires salmon excluders, and restricts seafood imports from fisheries that don't meet U.S. conservation standards.
Creates new programs, rules, and funding to reduce bycatch and seafloor contact in North Pacific fisheries. It directs the North Pacific Fishery Management Council and NOAA to set gear performance standards, require bycatch-reduction devices and seafloor‑contact‑reducing gear modifications, expand monitoring and observer data integration, support gear testing and research, and authorize a dedicated fund to help industry buy or modify gear. The bill also increases transparency and public participation for Regional Fishery Management Councils, reconstitutes and expands a research task force, restricts imports of seafood from fisheries that do not meet U.S. conservation standards, and creates grant programs and infrastructure (a flume tank and research funds) to test and accelerate adoption of bycatch‑reducing technologies.