A bureau at NOAA is pushing the agency to reimplement an existing rule for how seismic testing affects marine mammals in the Gulf of Mexico ahead of the rule’s expiration next spring.
If extended, the rule would reauthorize harassment of marine mammals by oil and gas industry companies that conduct seismic tests in the Gulf, which President Donald Trump renamed the Gulf of America earlier this year.
In an August letter, Director Jennifer Wallace of NOAA Fisheries’ Office of Policy wrote to the head of the Office of Protected Resources asking that the current rule be reimplemented going forward. That rule includes monitoring requirements, efforts by companies to detect marine mammals and maximum harassment levels.
It is “appropriate to request the reimplementation of the current [incidental take regulations], which would avoid a lapse in incidental take coverage,” Wallace wrote in the letter. “This request is based on the same ongoing specified activity and associated estimates of take numbers, which were recently re-evaluated on the basis of current scientific information.”
