Angus King

WASHINGTON — Senate Commerce Chairman Ted Cruz said his panel will take up legislation next month to extend a moratorium on new North Atlantic right whale protections, a move the Texas Republican credited to Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins five days out from one of the most pivotal elections of her career. Collins, who is in a competitive reelection campaign against Democratic nominee Troy Jackson, requested the committee take up the lobster industry-backed bill in a September letter with Sen. Angus King, I-Maine. Cruz wrote Thursday on X that Collins’ “leadership has been instrumental in advancing this bill to protect Maine’s lobstermen from burdensome regulations. I hope we can move this bill without changes or further delay to put on President Trump’s desk ASAP.” The House-passed bill is a priority for the state’s lobster industry, which argues an extension of the moratorium, set to expire Dec. 31, 2028, for another seven years would provide greater certainty — particularly with the presidency up in the air in 2028. Congress first imposed the moratorium in late 2022 at the behest of the Maine delegation on both sides of the aisle, inserting it into a year-end spending package. The move came in response to a Biden administration “biological opinion” issued in 2021 recommending tougher restrictions to try to keep the endangered right whales from getting tangled up in commercial fishing lines — a major contributor to the population’s decline. But the potential for major changes such as a mandate to use “ropeless” gear and fishery closures was too much for the Maine lobster industry, which fears a future administration could revive similar efforts. To try to balance the concerns of environmentalists, the 2022 law appropriated $20 million to “support the adoption of innovative fishing gear deployment and fishing techniques to reduce entanglement risk to North Atlantic right whales,” part of an overall $280 million appropriated in recent years for right whale recovery efforts. The Maine Department of Marine Resources has been using the congressionally appropriated funds to collect data for the past few years. Collins and King wrote last month that extending the regulatory pause would allow such efforts to continue and better inform future decisions. According to the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, the industry supports about $2 billion in annual economic activity and 17,500 jobs. “It is critical that any future regulatory actions appropriately balance protecting North Atlantic right whales with the economic and practical realities facing Maine’s lobster industry,” Collins and King wrote. Tight margins Compounding matters for the industry has been tariff-driven uncertainty and higher inflation. In response to Trump administration tariffs, the Canadian government initially retaliated against a range of U.S. exports, including seafood; after Collins and others intervened, Canada walked those levies back. Still, other tariffs and cost increases have hit th