Alaska fishermen left out of federal farm supplemental; Murkowski presses for fix

Alaska fishermen are not covered by the administration's supplemental disaster request, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski pressed Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Tuesday to explain why and what comes next.

The administration's request includes $10 billion in temporary assistance for 2026 row and specialty crop producers and $1.1 billion to help producers recover from a catastrophic freeze in Florida this past winter. It does not address prior-year disaster losses in Alaska, Maine, or other states that were raised at the hearing.

For Alaska's commercial fishing industry, the omission carries real costs. Fishermen have faced high fuel costs, tariff disruptions, and disaster-driven losses that parallel what crop producers across the country have experienced. But fishery disasters operate under different statutory rules than crop disasters, and the supplemental was built around USDA's crop-focused authority.

Murkowski asked Rollins directly whether any fishermen would be eligible for supplemental funding. Rollins recalled a prior commitment she had made to Murkowski and others on the committee, saying "it's time for USDA to recognize our fishermen as part of our farmers of the sea. That's never happened before. We now have an office at USDA focused on fishermen." Rollins said USDA is "very supportive of treating our, our fishermen similarly to the rest of our farmers" as Congress shapes the supplemental.

Rollins also addressed the broader gap on prior-year disaster declarations. Asked why the request focused on the 2026 freeze rather than prior-year losses, she said USDA is "we are obviously 100% in support of any sort of disaster relief program for our farmers, whether it's hurricane, uh, tornado, drought, freeze, etc." She deferred to Congress on how to structure broader coverage, saying discussions with the Office of Management and Budget are ongoing.

Sen. John Boozman, who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, said after hearing testimony about the breadth of unmet agricultural losses that the supplemental may need to grow. "After hearing the testimony today and the concerns, we might need to look at bumping that up a little bit," he said.

Rollins pointed to new trade deals, record corn and soybean prices, and a planned ammonia fertilizer plant in Louisiana as signs of longer-term recovery for agriculture broadly. She framed the supplemental as a bridge while those structural changes take hold.

What Comes Next for Alaska Fishermen

Alaska's fishing industry has repeatedly sought inclusion in federal disaster and trade-relief programs built primarily around farms and crops. NOAA announced a $123.6 million fishery resource disaster allocation under the American Relief Act, 2025, but additional Alaska disaster requests remain pending. USDA has extended tariff relief to Alaska seafood harvesters in the past, establishing some precedent for treating fishermen as eligible recipients.