A potentially game-changing bill for the US offshore aquaculture industry has been reintroduced in the US Senate -- the third attempt by lawmakers to establish a new framework allowing the industry to get off the ground.
The bill, known as the Advancing the Quality and Understanding of American Aquaculture (AQUAA) Act of 2021, plans to establish national standards for sustainable offshore aquaculture, and would designate the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as the lead federal agency for marine aquaculture.
The legislation would also direct NOAA to harmonize the permitting system for offshore aquaculture for farms in federal waters, and direct the agency to lead a research and development grant program to spur innovation throughout the industry. The lawmakers have allocated $60 million (€51 million) for the bill by fiscal year 2023 if it is approved.
Senator Roger Wicker, a Republican from Mississippi, introduced the bill with co-sponsors Marco Rubio of Florida, also Republican, and Brian Schatz of Hawaii, a Democrat.
In January, US seafood companies, including Red Lobster, Pacific Seafoods, High Liner, Cargill, Seattle Fish Company and Fortune International, who are part of the seafood advocacy group Stronger America Through Seafood (SATS), wrote to President Joe Biden urging his administration to continue the pro-aquaculture activities of his predecessor.
Last year's version of the AQUAA bill was hailed as a substantial improvement over a 2018 version, including more information on how the federal government could establish aquaculture opportunity areas, which were part of then-President Donald Trump's executive order on promoting American seafood competitiveness and economic growth.
The areas would "prefer species that are native or historically naturalized to the region," according to the bill, versus using non-native finfish species.
The introduction of the 2020 version of the bill came a month after NOAA Fisheries announced federal waters off southern California and in the Gulf of Mexico would be the country's first two regions to host the so-called aquaculture opportunity areas: regions identified as starting points for the development of the US offshore aquaculture sector.
Concurrent with last year's bill from Rubio, Wicker and Schatz, Congressmen Collin Peterson and Steven Palazzo introduced companion bills in the US House of Representatives.
For the AQUAA law to go into effect, bills in the Senate and the House would need to be harmonized, pass approval in both chambers, and be signed by US President Joe Biden.
The effort to develop an offshore aquaculture sector has gained increasing support over the past several years, though there remain detractors that claim the industry would harm the environment and the economic viability of the US fisheries industry.
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