US aquaculture lobby intensifies push for MARA Act with Congress deadline looming

United States pro-fish farming lobby group Stronger America Through Seafood (SATS) is stepping up pressure on Congress to pass aquaculture permitting legislation before the current term expires, launching a month-long campaign that highlights the costs of regulatory inaction.

The "8 Years, 8 Ways America is Missing Out" campaign, running throughout October to coincide with National Seafood Month, centres on what SATS describes as the "urgent need" for a clear, predictable federal permitting pathway to expand American aquaculture. The campaign will use social media to spotlight eight areas where the US could benefit from such a pathway: seafood production, food security, economic opportunity, coastal communities, US agriculture, innovation and US investment, sustainability and climate resilience, and US competitiveness.

The campaign's name refers to the first open ocean aquaculture demonstration project in US federal waters to receive approval this year, which spent eight years navigating 12 federal and state agencies to secure approval for a single net pen in the Gulf of Mexico. "Eight years for a single net pen is not a pathway to a competitive US aquaculture industry," SATS said.

SATS campaign manager Drue Banta Winters said there was growing congressional support for action. "There is growing bipartisan recognition in Congress that expanding American aquaculture is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss," she said. "The US has the science, technology and resources to sustainably grow more seafood in our own waters, complement our wild-capture fisheries and strengthen our domestic seafood supply."

The campaign coincides with Congress actively considering the bipartisan Marine Aquaculture Research for America (MARA) Act — Senate bill no. 2586 and House of Representatives bill no. 9802 — which would establish a science-based framework to advance commercial-scale open ocean aquaculture demonstration projects in US federal waters.

Congress has just over three months to pass the MARA Act in both chambers before the current Congress expires at noon on 3 January 2027. If the bill is not passed before that deadline, it lapses and must be reintroduced to the new Congress. Previous attempts to pass legislation simplifying aquaculture permitting in the US have timed out in earlier congressional sessions.

Winters urged immediate action. "There has never been a greater opportunity for Congress to give American aquaculture the clear pathway it needs to grow," she said. "America can't afford to wait another year. The time for congressional action is now."