Sponsors (8)
The bill funds and strengthens maritime safety and behavioral-health training for fishing crews with multi-year federal grants and Coast Guard-informed standards, at the cost of modest additional federal spending and increased administrative/competitive burdens that may disadvantage smaller fishing organizations.
Fishing vessel operators and crewmembers gain access to federally funded safety and health training (including substance use disorder and fatigue education), improving on-the-job safety and behavioral health support for maritime workers.
The bill provides predictable annual funding ($6 million per year, 2025–2029) to HHS for grant programs that support fishing safety and health training, creating stable program financing over multiple years.
Competitive grant awards using criteria developed with the Coast Guard are likely to raise program quality and maritime relevance of training programs.
Smaller or less-resourced fishing organizations and crews may be disadvantaged by the competitive grant process and face higher administrative/compliance costs to meet program standards, limiting their ability to access funds and implement training.
Directing $6 million per year to HHS increases federal spending and could create budgetary tradeoffs or pressures on other programs, imposing a modest cost to taxpayers.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Introduced November 19, 2025 by Edward John Markey · Last progress November 19, 2025
Authorizes multi-year federal funding and updates a grant program to expand safety, health, and wellness training for fishing vessel operators and crewmembers. It directs $6,000,000 per year to the Department of Health and Human Services for fiscal years 2025–2029 for competitive grants that can cover behavioral and physical health risks (explicitly including substance use disorder and worker fatigue) and requires that grant selection criteria be developed in consultation with the Commandant of the Coast Guard. The measure replaces a prior single-year $3,000,000 allocation with a five-year $6,000,000 annual authorization, formalizes Coast Guard consultation on grant criteria, and moves the program toward competitively awarded grants focused on prevention and training related to both physical safety and behavioral health risks in the commercial fishing workforce.