The Northeast Lobsterman Protection Act of 2026 passed the House, largely along party lines, on Tuesday. The bill would extend a moratorium on new lobster and crab gear regulations for an additional seven years, including the introduction of ropeless gear. There are still more than two years before the current moratorium is set to expire.
Kathleen Collins, with the International Fund for Animal Welfare in Washington, D.C., says the bill has more to do with partisan politics than protecting fisheries.
"We are very optimistic that this will not pass as a standalone bill in the Senate, the way that it just passed in the House," she said. "But we are concerned that it could be added on to the fiscal year 2027 appropriations package."
Collins says, since 2022 when the first bill was enacted, 31 right whales have been injured or killed due to entanglements.
"We are not seeing right whales die from old age," she said. "We are seeing right whales die from human interactions."
North Atlantic right whales are critically endangered, with only about 75 reproductive females remaining. In addition to gear entanglements, vessel strikes, sound pollution, and a warming ocean are also contributing to their plight.
Collins added, "Delaying these regulations will only make things harder for everyone. It will make things more dire for the whales, and it will make future regulations, when they do come down, that much more severe, not only for lobstermen, but also for a variety of other industry members."
But second-generation Massachusetts lobsterman Dean Karoblis said the legislation is meaningful to his business, and the House vote comes as a relief.
"For me, this is a great thing, he said. "It doesn't stop, you know, further regulations in the future. But it definitely gives some reprieve for us for the next few years."
Karoblis said he already deals with a lot of regulations and the moratorium extension would be good news for his business.
"For the time being, I can breathe," he said. "There's been many times other rulings have come down and we were like, holy heck, this could be like the end right here, right now."
Karoblis added that lobstermen have been coexisting with right whales for generations.
"The last thing we want is the death of a large marine mammal, plain and simple," he said. "Like, that's not good for anybody. It's a bad look for us. It always was, and it always will be."
H.R. 9436 now moves on to the Senate.
