On the deregulation side, the US Fish and Wildlife Service finalized revisions to Endangered Species Act regulations, eliminating the blanket protection default for threatened species and reweighting critical habitat decisions to account for economic and national security impacts. Days earlier, President Trump’s Executive Proclamation reopened three Pacific marine national monuments— including areas within Papahānaumokuākea and the Mariana Trench—to US commercial fishing fleets.
Congress, meanwhile, has been busy defending the instruments and institutions that make ocean management possible in the first place. The Saving the OOI Act—a bipartisan, two-page bill from Senators Merkley and Murkowski—passed the Senate unanimously to pause NSF’s dismantling of its 900-instrument Ocean Observatories Initiative, prompting NSF to halt further sensor removal pending stakeholder review. That same bipartisan energy carried into the POLAR Act, which would permanently elevate NSF’s Office of Polar Programs to a full directorate, and Senator Baldwin’s newly introduced MRRRI Act, modeled on the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative to fund resilience and habitat work along the Mississippi River corridor.
Across the Atlantic, the UK closed a chapter that’s been open since 2023: Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper formally ratified the UN’s High Seas Treaty (the BBNJ Agreement), joining more than 90 other countries in a pact that, for the first time, creates a legal mechanism for marine protected areas beyond national jurisdiction.
Spaces we’re watching: policy and regulation changes, ocean exploration, and heat waves
You’ll find news and insights on all the above in “the water column”—an exclusive editorial dedicated to giving our readers an alternate, bird’s-eye view of the most significant happenings across the marine science, industry, and policy space. To keep abreast of all the latest developments, access the water column in print editions of eco magazine, nestled among the pages of Environmental Policy news, and in a monthly circulating digital edition found on LinkedIn and our website.
