Peltola releases Alaska fisheries platform anchored in factory trawling ban

Senate candidate Mary Peltola, a Democrat running against incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, released a fisheries platform Tuesday calling for a ban on factory trawling, tribal seats on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, and a freeze on the current composition of the Federal Subsistence Board. The platform was released through her campaign Substack as part of her broader "fish, family, freedom" agenda.

Peltola — a former U.S. representative, lifelong fisherman, and former fishing boat captain — cited declining salmon returns as the urgency, saying the rate has fallen from six fish per spawner to fewer than one. Her campaign attributed the decline to "out-of-state factory trawlers, excessive bycatch, and destruction of Alaska's fisheries." The specific six-to-one stock-recruit figure was not attributed to a specific stock or research source in the campaign materials.

"Alaska deserves a senator who cares more about fish stocks than their stock portfolio," Peltola said on her campaign Substack.

The platform's structural reforms include adding tribal seats to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, which currently has 11 voting members under the Magnuson-Stevens Act framework with no statutory tribal seats, and freezing the current composition of the Federal Subsistence Board, which manages subsistence on federal lands and waters under ANILCA.

Peltola also proposed full fishery disaster funding, expanded electronic monitoring to detect bycatch in real time, enforcement of National Standards 8 and 9 (Magnuson-Stevens provisions on fishing community importance and bycatch minimization), keeping mid-water trawlers off the bottom, federal grants for a fish by-product economy, increased mariculture funding, fully funded fish stock assessments, and a ban on federal finfish farm permitting. Peltola's campaign noted she secured more than $500 million in federal funding for Alaska fisheries during her time in the U.S. House.