Comments closed September 3
Support Georges Bank groundfish catch limits that prevent overfishing
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration · Georges Bank, Northeastern United States federal waters
- What
- New science-based catch limits aim to stop overfishing and rebuild depleted Northeast groundfish stocks.
- Where
- Georges Bank, Northeastern United States federal waters
- How much
- Groundfish populations including Atlantic cod, haddock, and Georges Bank yellowtail flounder remain depleted or at risk of overfishing.
- Decided
- Comments closed September 3, 2026. No decision document is on file yet.Date from Federal Register ↗, read October 29, 2026.
Where these four lines come from
- WhatOur plain-English read of the Federal Register 2026-15784 ↗. Check it against the agency’s own words under Case.
- WhereThe places and states the notice names, as PLAN read them.
- How muchThe first sentence of our What’s at risk read of the notice; the whole read is under Case.
- DecidedSeptember 3, 2026, from Federal Register, the notice's DATES field (federalregister.gov API) ↗: “Comments must be received by 5 pm EST on September 3, 2026.”. Read October 29, 2026. The decision document is the one on file in PLAN’s record.
- Read from PLAN’s record November 9, 2026.
Samuel D. Rauch III
Deputy Assistant Administrator for Regulatory Programs, National Marine Fisheries Service
A person signed this, not an agency. The window has closed and the signature stands, which is exactly when accountability matters.
NOAA Fisheries Directorate
Assistant Administrator of Fisheries
Short is better. You are asking the Assistant Administrator of Fisheries to answer for a decision their office made.
My name is [your name] and I'm calling from [your city and state]. Samuel D. Rauch III, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Regulatory Programs, National Marine Fisheries Service, signed the decision on Support Georges Bank groundfish catch limits that prevent overfishing. I'm asking the NOAA Fisheries Directorate to withdraw that decision and require full environmental review before anything proceeds. Please record that I called and tell me what the office intends to do.
Official channels only, about this decision. No personal phone numbers, no home addresses, no personal social accounts, and nothing abusive. The point is to make the office answer, and an abusive call is the one thing that lets it off the hook.
What the proposal said, and what the decision did
No figure from the proposal has been checked against the decision on this fight yet. What the record does hold is the issues ledger below.
No decision document is on PLAN’s record for this fight yet. When the agency’s decision lands, what it answered goes here.
Protective action worth supporting
New science-based catch limits aim to stop overfishing and rebuild depleted Northeast groundfish stocks.
What’s at risk
If we stay silent
Our plain-English read of the official notice ↗. Check it against the agency’s own words below.
The agency’s own analysis
What the notice says, and what it leaves out
The window has closed; the record of what was missing stays.
The agency says
“The Regional Administrator, after consultation with the NEFMC, may adjust recreational measures for cod and haddock stocks that do not have a recreational allocation to set consistent measures with other stock areas, as appropriate.”
The document delegates to the Regional Administrator broad authority to set recreational measures for GB cod, GB haddock, and EGOM cod without a recreational sub-ACL, including adjusting seasons, minimum sizes, and possession limits.
In the agency’s own words
NMFS issues this interim final rule to implement Framework Adjustment 72 (Framework 72) to the Northeast Multispecies Fishery Management Plan (FMP), specifically to implement status determination criteria for Georges Bank yellowtail flounder, set catch limits for multispecies (groundfish) stocks, and revise the process for setting recreational measures for Atlantic cod and haddock. This action is necessary to respond to updated scientific information and to achieve the goals and objectives of the FMP. The measures are intended to help prevent overfishing, rebuild overfished stocks, achieve optimum yield, and ensu…
Who signs it
Samuel D. Rauch III
Deputy Assistant Administrator for Regulatory Programs, National Marine Fisheries Service
Where the notice says so
The ground
The window has closed, so there’s no watch to set on it here.
In court on this ground
This fight isn’t bound to a land unit in PLAN’s record yet, so there are no court cases to show for its ground.
Who holds the vote
PLAN’s record doesn’t tie a member of Congress to this fight yet. The scorecard grades the votes and bills that decide public lands; nothing joins a vote or a bill to this decision, so there’s no member to name here without guessing.
See how your members vote ↗Know an open comment period we are missing, or spotted a wrong deadline? .
More fights that need you
Go deeper, free
See how your members of Congress vote on public lands
Every representative, graded on the votes that decide the fate of parks, forests, and refuges.
Open ↗The mapSee the places under active threat
A live map of the parks, monuments, and wild country in the crosshairs right now.
Open ↗A wrong fact, a dead link, a form that wouldn’t take your letter: one tap and it comes to the people who build PLAN, with this fight attached.