Setting lobster traps in Casco Bay. (Photo by AnnMarie Hilton/Maine Morning Star)
Amid efforts by President Donald Trump to halt future offshore wind efforts, U.S. Rep. Jared Golden is hoping to codify protections for lobster fishing in the Gulf of Maine.
“Maine’s fishermen deserve to know that waters critical to our historic, high-value industry are protected — not by promises, but by federal law,” Golden said. “President Trump’s recent Executive Order provides some measure of reprieve, but we need a more permanent solution.”
Even though the fishing area is currently excluded from approved offshore wind development areas, Golden wants to “take protections for Maine’s fisheries out of the discretion of the chief executive and codify it into law,” according to the news release from his office. Just days into his second term, Trump has taken steps to undo the offshore wind advances of the Biden administration.
Golden, a Democrat who represents Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, introduced bipartisan legislation Thursday with Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey to prohibit commercial offshore wind development in a key fishing area. The Northern Fisheries Heritage Protection Act would safeguard nearly 14,000 square miles of fishing waters — known as Lobster Management Area 1 — that stretch from the U.S. border with Canada to the north shore of Cape Cod in Massachusetts.
While a key area for lobstermen, those waters are also important for more than a dozen other types of fishing including halibut, tuna, oysters and scallops, according to the release from Golden’s office.
The legislation comes days after Trump signed a Day 1 executive order prohibiting new offshore wind leases on the outer continental shelf, which includes the portion of the Gulf of Maine where eight lease areas have already been mapped. The order also includes a review of the federal government’s leasing and permitting process for existing wind projects.
Four of the Gulf of Maine lease areas were auctioned off by the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which is responsible for mapping out the lease areas, in October and the agreements will remain intact, as of now. The U.S. Department of Interior under Biden said would sell the remaining Gulf of Maine lease areas in 2028, but that could be affected by Trump’s order.
All eight lease areas off the coast of Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire already avoid the fishing area Golden’s bill seeks to protect after Maine’s congressional delegation and Gov. Janet Mills asked BOEM to exclude the area from potential development.
In 2023, Mills signed a law to produce 3,000 megawatts of offshore wind energy by the end of 2040. That legislation also seeks to protect Maine’s fishermen by giving preference to projects sited outside of Lobster Management Area 1.
“For more than a century, these waters have supported thousands of Maine families, and the industrialization of these waters would disrupt vital fishing grounds and harm the generations-old tradition of lobstering,” said Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, in the release.
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