Biden administration withdraws proposal to expand protections for rare whales

The Biden administration on Thursday withdrew a proposal to expand protections for an endangered whale species. The rules would have required some ships along the Eastern Seaboard to slow down.

North Atlantic right whales, a rare species conservationists have aimed to safeguard, have been injured or killed by collisions with vessels along the East coast. In August 2022, the National Marine Fisheries Service proposed rules to lower the risk of whale strikes by expanding existing slow zones and regulating more types of ships. But after bristling public debate over the rules and with just days left in President Joe Biden’s term, the agency canned the suggested change.

The fisheries service received over 90,000 public comments on the rule change, according to the agency’s filing, which was published in the Federal Register on Thursday.

“Despite its best efforts, NMFS does not have sufficient time to finalize this regulation in this administration due to the scope and volume of public comments,” the agency said in the filing.

The issue had particularly generated discussion in Massachusetts, because of the state’s extensive coastline, which harbors a major fishing industry.

Gov. Maura Healey of Massachusetts, a Democrat who was opposed to the measures, celebrated the rollback.

“This decision is good news for residents and businesses on Cape Cod and the Islands, and we look forward to continuing to work together to protect right whales and the local economy,” Healey said in a statement.

The rules would have also affected ferry service to destinations such as Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.

Conservation groups blasted the withdrawal as further imperiling right whales’ recovery in the North Atlantic.

“Failing to implement stronger vessel-strike protection measures puts these animals at further risk of extinction,” Jessica Redfern, a conservation scientist at New England Aquarium in Boston, said in a statement. “To survive, right whales require immediate, decisive and effective solutions to protect individuals from preventable deaths.”

The National Marine Fisheries Service reported 15 fatal and seven nonfatal vessel strikes since 2017, though not all whale deaths are easily documented. In October, the agency estimated that there were only about 370 right whales left as of 2023.

Existing boundaries for seasonal slow zones and rules limiting the speed of some ship classes will remain in place. These areas including waters off the coast of Cape Cod, bays dotting the Mid-Atlantic and most of the coastline off South Carolina and Georgia.

President-elect Donald Trump, who will be sworn in Monday, is unlikely to prioritize similar rules to save endangered species.

In recent weeks, he has made inaccurate claims about what he saw as the unnecessary protection of delta smelt, an endangered fish, for impeding wildfire containment efforts in Los Angeles.

On the campaign trail, Trump has long assailed offshore wind farms for killing whales, though no scientific evidence supports his claim. He announced in early January that he planned to halt the construction of new wind farms.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2025 The New York Times Company