MARINE FISHERIES AND THE MID-TERMS

 

Two days from now, voters across the United States will have the chance to vote on—if they haven’t already taken advantage of early voting opportunities—who will fill all 435 seats in the House of Representatives.  Voters in 33 of the 50 states will also have the chance to decide on who will hold one of their states’ seats in the United States Senate.

In many states, newcomers are mounting strong challenges to incumbents.  Currently, the Republican Party controls both houses of Congress, with a 219 to 214 majority in the House (there are also two vacant seats, one formerly Republican, one formerly Democratic) and a 53 to 47 majority in the Senate.  Based on current polling, it seems extremely likely that Democrats will gain control of the House of Representatives, with professional election experts saying that there is anywhere between an 80 and a 95.1 percent chance of that happening.  The outcome for the Senate is a lot cloudier, with a number of races still being considered “tossups,” even though the polls are showing Democratic candidates leading by a narrow margin in most of those; still, predictions somewhat favor the Democrats, with the experts pegging their chances at anywhere between 60 and 77.7 percent.

The prediction markets are suggesting a similar outcome, with Kalshi giving the Democrats a 93.8% chance of controlling the House and a 72% chance of taking over the Senate; Polymarket giving them a 95% chance of controlling the House and concurs with Kalshi on their chances of Senate control.

Of course, the polls have been wrong before, but should control of the House and/or the Senate shift, there will be implications for marine fisheries management.  And there will be implications in the unlikely event that no change of control occurs.

That being said, even if the Democrats win control of both the House and the Senate, we shouldn’t expect any big steps forward in marine conservation.  Any Senate legislation is still going to need 60 votes to advance, and even the most wildly optimistic estimates only predict that—if every close election breaks Democratic, which is probably a highly unlikely outcome—the Democrats would only control 57 seats.  If the same close elections all break Republican, the Republican Party will retain its current 53-47 majority.

Any way the election shakes out, the Democrats would need at least some Republican votes to move marine conservation legislation forward, and those votes might be hard to find in a Senate that has just been through one of the more bitterly fought mid-term elections in recent history.  That would be particularly true if the Democrats win more than a token majority of the Senate seats, begin holding oversight hearings targeting various administration policy and officials, and so alienate the few Republican senators who have, in the past, been willing to reach across the aisle to pass bipartisan legislation.

Even if enough senators from both parties come together to pass fisheries conservation bills, those bills would still have to be signed by President Trump who, given the language of Executive Order 14276, Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness, and Executive Order 14430, Restoring American Saltwater Angling and Recreation, clearly prioritizes deregulation of marine fisheries, and monetizing marine resources in a way that maximizes short-term economic returns, over conservation efforts that promote long-term sustainability.  That being the case, it is likely that any legislation that proposed meaningful fisheries conservation initiatives would face a Presidential veto, and anyone who believes that there would be enough Republican senators and representatives willing to join with Democrats to override any such veto is certainly far more optimistic than I am.

But that doesn’t mean that a change of control, in the House in particular, would be meaningless.  It just means that any successful Democratic efforts would probably be defensive in nature, keeping bad legislation from passing rather than moving good legislation forward.

Perhaps the best example of that would be funding the National Marine Fisheries Service’s scientific efforts. 

In 2014, NMFS discretionary funding was $950 million.  Although the agency’s funding increased steadily through most of those years, when that funding is measured in constant 2014 dollars, it actually fell below 2014 levels until 2023 and 2024, when it increased to $966 million and $963 million in 2014 dollars ($1,198 million and $1,225 million in current-year dollars), respectively.  After the current administration took over the White House, and the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, NMFS funding was cut to $1,143 million ($878 million in 2014 dollars) in 2025 and $1,239 million ($930 million in 2014 dollars) in 2026.

President Trump’s budget would cut NMFS funding to a mere $712 million in 2027, while the House would budget a somewhat better, but still meager, $946 million for next year.

Fortunately, the Senate better understands the value of fisheries science and management, and senators from both parties could be expected to insist on higher levels of funding for the agency, just as they did in 2025 and 2026.  Democratic control of the House, even if the Senate remains Republican, would eliminate recent House efforts to shortchange the National Marine Fisheries Service, and might hopefully lead to restoring past levels of funding to NMFS’ regional fisheries science centers and other important agency functions.

A change of control in the House and/or Senate would also make it less likely that problematic fisheries bills would be enacted into law.  Currently, legislation such as H.R. 207/S. 2314, the so-called “SHARKED Act,” sponsored by Rep. Robert Wittman (R-VA) and Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), respectively, which would create a panel to study why sharks attack fish already hooked by anglers and could potentially lead to efforts to reduce shark populations, might well pass in a Republican-controlled Congress. 

The same could be said for a bill like H.R. 5699, the “Fisheries Data Modernization and Accuracy Act,” sponsored by Rep. John Rutherford, which would undercut the federal Marine Recreational Information Program used to estimate recreational catch, landings, and effort along the entire East Coast and in multiple states in the Gulf of Mexico, and replace it with a patchwork of state programs that would have to be calibrated to a single “common currency” before they could be used to manage and assess a single fish stock, or H.R. 470/S. 111, the “Red Snapper Act,” sponsored by Rep. Rutherford and Sen. Scott, which would prohibit NMFS from imposing a seasonal bottom closure in the South Atlantic to prevent anglers from killing and discarding hundreds of thousands of red snapper annually, unless and until a particular study is completed and the results of such study incorporated into the South Atlantic red snapper stock assessment, whether or not the study passes peer review or whether biologists conducting the stock assessment or the Scientific and Statistical Committee of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council consider it scientifically appropriate to use the results of the study in that manner.

As suggested by the identity of the legislators who sponsored the abovementioned bills, most such legislation is introduced by Republican lawmakers, located almost exclusively in the Southeast, at the request of the same recreational fishing industry organizations that lauded Executive Order 14430, which repeatedly subordinate conservation concerns to the economic concerns of the industry. 

A change of control in the House and/or Senate would go a long way toward restoring fisheries conservation as a legislative priority.  Should control not change, bills favoring the industry’s economic concerns over the long-term health of the nation’s fisheries will likely continue to be introduced, with those that manage to be enacted almost certain to weaken the conservation and management provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

About six years ago, I wrote an essay for this blog titled “Elections:  The Sportsman’s Dilemma,” which acknowledged the different forces that pull anglers and hunters toward and away from particular candidates and political parties.  While that essay was written ahead of a presidential election, and addressed a number of issues that don’t apply today, it closed with the following words.

“And thus, the Sportsman’s Dilemma.

“Do you vote for the party that will protect natural resources, but might restrict your ability to access them?  Our do you vote for the party that might guarantee gas and guns, but by supporting extractive industry, take away your reason for wanting them in the first place?

“Everyone must make their own choice, but for me, it always comes down to the resource.  Not only our chosen sport, but our very quality of life, depend on clean air and water, on abundant fish and wildlife, and on extensive and available public lands and waters where we, and the rest of nature, can wander.

“Without healthy, abundant, and accessible populations of wildfowl, upland birds, and game, my rifles and shotguns will stay in the safe, for I’ll have no reason to use, or even own, them.

“Without healthy oceans, that support an abundance of marine resources, there’s no reason for me to own a boat.

“Without clean air and water, and wild places where beauty remains unsullied by drill rigs and unscarred by mines, I don’t have much need for my truck or canoe, because I can find plenty that’s polluted and ugly very close to home.

“So, come next Tuesday, I’ll be voting for clean air and clean water.  I’ll be voting for science-based management of natural resources.  I’ll be voting for national monuments, and undrilled, unmined, and unfracked public lands.  I’ll be voting for beauty and life.

“I’ve solved my own Sportsman’s Dilemma.

“You may find a different solution.

“Although to be honest, I hope that you don’t”