This bill creates an Office of Aquaculture inside the National Marine Fisheries Service at NOAA. It directs NOAA to run an assessment program that will use commercial-scale demonstration projects to study offshore aquaculture in the exclusive economic zone. The bill sets rules for permits for those demonstration projects, including eligibility, public notice and comment, required monitoring and reporting, and a 10-year permit term with possible renewal. It also calls for Aquaculture Centers of Excellence at eligible colleges, grants to preserve working waterfronts, workforce and marketing grants, a public database, and outreach. The bill requires studies and reports by the National Academies (Ocean Studies Board) and the Government Accountability Office.
If you are a coastal community, fishery worker, student, or seafood industry participant, the bill would create programs to test and measure commercial offshore fish and shellfish farms. Companies that want to run demonstration offshore farms would apply for permits and must meet rules on species, escapes, wildlife protections, pollution control, and monitoring. Colleges and minority-serving institutions could get grants to build aquaculture training and research programs. Coastal towns could apply for working waterfront grants to support fishing, aquaculture, or boatbuilding projects.
The bill authorizes specific appropriations for two grant programs: $25,000,000 per year for fiscal years 2026 through 2030 for Aquaculture Centers of Excellence, and $20,000,000 per year for fiscal years 2026 through 2030 for the Working Waterfronts Preservation Grant Program. The Administrator must include the new Office of Aquaculture as a separate line item in NOAA's budget justification. No publicly available information on the total estimated cost of implementing the entire bill beyond those authorizations.
The bill lists its purposes: to let NOAA establish and study commercial-scale demonstration projects to answer scientific questions needed for safe regulation; to commission studies on environmental and regulatory viability; to support workforce development and working waterfronts and create or preserve jobs in the seafood sector; to establish Aquaculture Centers of Excellence to support a growing domestic aquaculture industry; and to help reduce the U.S. seafood trade deficit by expanding domestic seafood supply.
No publicly available information.