The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it will drop proposed ship speed limits that were aimed at reducing collisions with North Atlantic right whales.
Regulatory officials said there wasn't enough time to review the 90,000 comments they received and finalize new ship speed rules before the Trump administration takes office next week.
The proposal included new seasonal speed zones and mandatory speed restrictions when whales are observed or acoustically detected on the East Coast. It would have applied to vessels 35 feet in length or longer, but included some exceptions for those less than 65 feet in length under certain conditions.
NOAA officials said current speed rules will remain in place. The existing slowdown rules are largely voluntary for boaters in certain areas, and large vessels are subject to speed limits in specific zones seasonally.
"If you don't put speed limits on the highway and you suggest that people slow down, [I'm] pretty sure the accident rates are going to go up," said Regina Asmutis-Silvia, executive director of Whale and Dolphin Conservation. "No one's going to come home and call up and say hey, I went over the speed limit."
Wednesday's announcement is particularly frustrating and disappointing, Asmutis-Silvia said, because some conservationists have been asking for new speed limits for more than a decade.
NOAA last implemented new ship speed rules aimed at protecting right whales back in 2008.
"And now the clock ran out. And it's just really disheartening," Asmutis-Silvia said. She said she is not confident the incoming Trump administration will restart the rulemaking.
There have been at least four right whale deaths and five serious injuries due to vessel strikes since NOAA's new speed limits were first proposed more than two years ago, said Jessica Redfern, associate vice president of ocean conservation science at the New England Aquarium's Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life.
Today's announcement is a serious setback in the effort to protect the critically endangered species, Redfern said. But she added that marine scientists and others would not give up in their efforts to preserve the population.
"If we can stop human-caused mortality of right whales, this species does not have to go extinct," she said. "They can come back."
National marine manufacturing and retail groups praised Wednesday's announcement and argued that the speed restrictions would have negatively affected recreational boaters and the fishing and shipping industries.
For its part, comments that the Maine Lobstermen's Association submitted to NOAA about the proposed speed limits were largely supportive, though the group told federal regulators back in 2022 that fishing and sailing vessels under 65 feet should not be subject to the new rules.
In a statement, MLA said the federal government has long held Maine's lobster fishery to more stringent standards compared to the shipping industry, despite the number of right whale deaths directly attributed to shipping vessel strikes.
“It is imperative that the issue of US vessel strikes be addressed, however, [National Marine Fisheries Service] must partner with the boating community to find a solution that will work for them," the association said Wednesday evening in an email. "If boaters do not comply with new rules, then whales won’t be protected. For more than two decades, the lobster industry has changed its fishing practices to comply with rules that protect these whales. Yet, regulators have failed to account for and acknowledge the lobster fishery’s demonstrated success in reducing its impact. Today’s decision means the lobster industry will continue to be held to a higher standard while giving others a free pass.”
Ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear are the two leading causes of death and injury to right whales. The population has roughly 370 individuals remaining.
