House Committee Bill Could Derail Work to Restore Bay Oyster Reefs and Habitat
Funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) work to restore the Bay and its waterways, fisheries, and wildlife would take a serious hit in the fiscal year 2026 funding bill the House Appropriations Committee adopted yesterday by a vote of 34-28.
Troubling provisions in the bill also would open restored oyster sanctuaries to commercial fishing and cut off restoration funds for sanctuaries where oyster numbers have been struggling to rebound.
The first provision would only allow oyster restoration funds to be used “if oysters planted using such funds are made eligible for managed commercial harvest by licensed watermen after a period of three years from the date of planting.”
The second would prevent funds to be spent “at any site that has been designated as underperforming for five or more years following initial federal investment, unless the Secretary of Commerce certifies in writing that the site has a new, independently conducted and peer-reviewed restoration plan that demonstrates a high likelihood of meeting significant ecological or economic outcomes within 2 years of enactment of this legislation.”
The bill sets fiscal 2026 funding levels for the Department of Commerce and several federal science agencies. NOAA is part of the Commerce Department.
The House Appropriations Committee bill would allocate $15 million for NOAA’s oyster restoration nationwide. It does not specify how much would fund work in the Bay region. In contrast, the Senate Appropriations Committee’s version would increase funding to restore oysters in the Bay to $4.5 million next year from the current level of $3 million.
The House committee’s bill also calls for slashing spending on NOAA Fisheries’ habitat conservation and restoration work nationwide to $35 million in fiscal 2026, cutting $21.2 million from the current level of $56.2 million. The majority of the NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office’s work is funded by the NOAA Fisheries habitat restoration and conservation budget.
The Chesapeake Bay Office leads conservation and restoration work and conducts research that helps protect native species like oysters, blue crabs, and striped bass; improves climate resilience in the region; and funds hands-on environmental education of the next generation of Bay stewards.
The Senate Appropriations Committee bill, approved in July, would bump funding for NOAA Fisheries habitat conservation and restoration funding up $1.5 million to $57.7 million next year. That’s $22.7 million, or nearly 40 percent, more than what the House Appropriations Committee would provide.
The Trump administration fiscal 2026 budget would eliminate the NOAA Fisheries habitat conservation and restoration budget altogether.
NOAA also funds the Bay Watershed Education and Training (B-WET) environmental education grant program. B-WET operates in seven regions of the country, including the Chesapeake Bay. Chesapeake B-WET grants provide financial support for elementary and secondary school students in the Bay region to study environmental issues facing their communities and how they affect the Bay and its local rivers and streams.
Like its Senate counterpart, the House Appropriations Committee would hold funding for all regional B-WET grant programs, including Chesapeake B-WET, constant at $8.7 million in fiscal 2026. The committee also joined its Senate counterpart in rejecting the White House proposal to zero out funding for all NOAA education programs, including Chesapeake B-WET.
Chesapeake Bay Foundation Senior Policy Director Keisha Sedlacek issued the following statement:
“This bill could be a disaster for the Chesapeake Bay and its world renown fisheries.
“The massive cut to NOAA’s habitat research and restoration work could devastate efforts to protect economically important species like oysters, blue crabs, and striped bass. Provisions to open restored oyster sanctuaries to commercial fishing and choke off funding for those struggling to recover would undermine one of the cleanup’s greatest successes so far—the large-scale restoration of oyster reefs in 10 Bay tributaries.
“At least the bill rejects the Trump administration’s senseless proposal to end funding environmental education. But that’s not enough to salvage it.
“We urge House members to reject this bill and call on congressional leaders to adopt the Senate Appropriations Committee’s more responsible funding numbers in the final NOAA budget instead.”
