Nantucket Current | Legislative Efforts to Stop Proposed Ship Speed…

Nantucket may have some unlikely allies in its fight to block proposed federal speed restrictions that are meant to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales but could have dire consequences for the island’s economy.

Several legislative efforts have been launched in the U.S. Congress to prevent or rescind the proposed “North Atlantic Right Whale Collision Reduction Rule,” but none of them have been filed by lawmakers representing Nantucket or Massachusetts.

The Commerce, Justice, and Science Subcommittee of the U.S. House Appropriations Committee released its appropriations bill for fiscal year 2024-25 on Tuesday, which includes a rider that would prohibit funding for enforcement of the speed limit rule.

“None of the funds made available by this Act may be used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or any part of the Department of Commerce, to enforce any vessel speed restriction for the North Atlantic right whale that was not in place until January. 20, 2021,” reads section 620 of the appropriations bill. It was not immediately clear which lawmaker was responsible for the rider.

Meanwhile, two bills have been introduced in Congress – one in the House of Representatives and another in the US Senate – aimed at preventing the implementation of the proposed speed restrictions “until the protocols mitigation measures are fully developed and deployed.

The Senate bill, sponsored by West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and Arkansas Sen. John Boozman, “would prohibit the issuance of an interim or final rule that amends, updates, modifies, or replaces the North Atlantic Right Whale Collision Mitigation Rule until mitigation protocols are fully developed and deployed.”

In the U.S. House of Representatives, a nearly identical bill was sponsored by Georgia Representative Buddy Carter.

“We all want to protect the right whale from extinction, but this is not the right way to do it,” Carter told the Georgia Recorder. “Before we implement a sweeping rule that will bring small businesses across the East Coast to their knees, including 27,000 in Georgia alone, we must use every technological advancement at our disposal to ensure that right whales and business owners “businesses can prosper together.”

While the legislative efforts did not originate in Massachusetts, they represent another avenue to oppose a rule that the town says could have a “devastating and life-changing impact on Nantucket” and an opportunity to build a broader coalition.

The regulation, proposed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale, would limit the maximum speed of vessels longer than 10 meters (about 11.5 miles per hour). h) from November 1 to May 30. This would prevent all high-speed boat travel to and from Nantucket during this time, likely forcing the closure of Hy-Line Cruises and significantly reducing the island’s ability to access needed goods and services from the continent. Under the new regulations, even slow-speed boats would take longer to cross the strait.

The regulation aims to protect the North Atlantic right whale, which has been the subject of much debate around offshore wind development in the region. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration believes this rule is necessary to reduce fatal vessel strikes on right whales and contribute to the recovery of the species. Although the species is known to frequent nearby areas, including Cape Cod Bay and areas southeast of the island, not a single right whale has been spotted in Nantucket Sound or the Sound of Vineyard by Steamship Authority or Hy-Line Cruises crews for decades.

As the City of Nantucket has stepped up its efforts to fight the proposed speed limit – issuing an “urgent” call for citizens to write letters to lawmakers – and the Steamship Authority and Hy-Line Cruises have launched in their own lobbying efforts, it is legislative efforts that are perhaps most likely to prevent its implementation.

Proposed speed restrictions to protect North Atlantic right whales have been on hold since 2022, but the issue is becoming increasingly urgent after NOAA recently recommended to the Office of Management and Budget that the rule be put implemented, advancing the proposal to the final stage in the federal review process.