Begich bill would make Alaska trawlers carry salmon excluder gear

Trawl vessels working the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska would have to carry salmon excluder devices and seafloor contact detection gear under a bill Rep. Nick Begich III introduced Monday in the US House.

The measure sets gear performance standards for those fisheries. It also creates a Bycatch Mitigation and Habitat Protection Assistance Fund to help pay for the required equipment. Other provisions would modernize electronic monitoring, prioritize ecosystem analyses, prohibit imports of unsustainable foreign seafood, and expand transparency and participation in regional fishery management council processes.

The bill, H.R. 9953, was referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources the same day.

In a press release dated July 27, Begich said the legislation would "prioritize technology that supports research, bycatch reduction, and protection of marine seafloor habitat" and "establish a fund to provide financial assistance for the deployment of gear and technology for reducing bycatch."

The House bill follows S. 4938, introduced by Sen. Dan Sullivan on June 24 with the same gear standards, excluder requirements and assistance fund. That bill sits in the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

The Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission reported that Bering Sea groundfish fisheries killed 12,065 Chinook salmon between the June 10 start of the B season and June 18. Pollock trawlers accounted for 84% of that total. Genetic sampling attributed 63.7% of the 19,797 Chinook taken by pollock trawlers in 2025 to Kuskokwim or Bristol Bay stocks.

Alaska fishing groups and Tribes have backed stronger bycatch-reduction and bottom-trawl accountability measures, including clearer definitions and funding for mitigation projects. They say industrial trawl bycatch and seafloor contact affect salmon runs, subsistence priorities and the livelihoods of fishing-dependent communities. In a statement supporting earlier bottom-trawl legislation, the groups said tighter definitions are "necessary because recent studies have shown that 'midwater' trawl gear actually drags the bottom up to 100% of the time." Other Alaska fishing advocates argue proposals to restrict trawl gear are overbroad and should be handled through clearer definitions and case-by-case standards rather than blanket limits.

Commercial trawl operators would be directly affected by the new gear, monitoring and excluder mandates, and could face compliance costs. The assistance fund is intended to help pay for deploying the equipment. How eligibility and cost sharing would work is not spelled out in the bill's summary. The dispute sits inside a longer fisheries governance fight over bycatch, habitat impacts, monitoring technology and who bears the cost of compliance.