The Forage Fish Conservation Act of 2025 would amend the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act to create a federal framework for identifying, defining, and managing forage fish. The bill directs the Secretary of Commerce, with advice from the regional fishery councils, to issue a formal definition of “forage fish” within 12 months and to consider characteristics such as low trophic level, small size, schooling behavior, and importance as prey for other marine species. It also adds findings to the law recognizing forage fish as a key link in marine food webs and as important to ecosystem function and sustainable fisheries.
The bill would require scientific and statistical committees to provide ongoing advice on forage fish abundance, distribution, bycatch, habitat, and socioeconomic impacts. It would direct councils to identify unmanaged forage fish and recommend a moratorium on new directed forage fish fisheries until the council has evaluated ecological and fishery impacts and, if needed, developed an approved management plan. It also requires fishery management plans to account for the diet needs of predators when setting annual catch limits for forage fish, and directs the Secretary to issue implementing guidelines and hold workshops with scientific, fisheries, and conservation stakeholders.
A separate section focuses on river herring and shad in the Atlantic herring and Atlantic mackerel, squid, and butterfish fisheries. The Secretary would have to amend those plans to add river herring and shad as managed stocks, then complete additional plan amendments within one year to establish required conservation measures. The bill also requires increased at-sea monitoring on at least half of relevant trips for vessels using mid-water trawl or paired mid-water trawl gear in those fisheries. The bill includes a rule of construction stating it does not alter state jurisdiction or affect existing interstate fisheries laws.
Overall, the bill would expand federal fishery management responsibilities by explicitly incorporating forage fish into stock definitions, scientific advice, council planning, and catch-limit decisions. It would likely affect the National Marine Fisheries Service, regional fishery management councils, commercial fishing operations targeting forage fish, and fisheries that interact with river herring and shad, especially in the Atlantic region. The bill’s phased effective dates suggest a gradual implementation timeline, with some provisions taking effect in 2 years and others in 5 years.
The bill would amend multiple sections of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act to add a federal definition of forage fish, require councils to identify and manage them, and require fishery management plans to consider forage fish as prey supporting higher trophic-level species. It would also require new federal guidelines from the Secretary of Commerce and specific plan amendments for Atlantic river herring and shad fisheries, including enhanced monitoring requirements for certain mid-water trawl vessels. The bill expressly preserves state authority within state boundaries and does not alter the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act or Magnuson-Stevens section 306.
No committee transcript or vote record is provided, so there is no recorded floor or committee debate to gauge detailed sentiment. Based on the bill’s bipartisan sponsorship by Representatives Dingell and Mast and its conservation-oriented structure, the measure appears to have an ecosystem-management and fisheries-science framing rather than a partisan one. The absence of votes or amendments in the provided record means support or opposition cannot be measured from legislative action history here.
The main points of potential contention are likely to be the creation of a new federal definition of forage fish, the moratorium on new directed forage fish fisheries until councils complete scientific review and management planning, and the requirement that catch limits reflect predator diet needs rather than only target-stock status. Commercial fishing interests may view these provisions as limiting access to emerging fisheries or constraining harvest levels, while conservation advocates are likely to support them as necessary to protect marine food webs. The added monitoring requirements for mid-water trawl fisheries in the Atlantic, and the mandate to treat river herring and shad as managed stocks, could also draw concern from affected fleets because of added compliance costs and tighter management.