Expanded speed restrictions off the United States East Coast are now off the table.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which proposed the restrictions to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale, announced they are no longer being considered.
The yachting and commercial shipping industries spoke out against the measures; the government received more than 90,000 public comments. NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service wrote in the Federal Register that it was withdrawing the proposal “in light of numerous and ongoing requests from the public for further opportunity to review and engage with the Agency on the proposal.”
Existing speed rules remain in effect. NOAA first set restrictions in 2008, bringing in rules that imposed a 10-knot speed limit on vessels larger than 65 feet in various North Atlantic right whale protected areas off the coast from Massachusetts to north Florida. Those restrictions remain in place. The proposed new regulations would have expanded the speed restriction zones and dropped affected vessel size from 65 feet to 35 feet.
Yachting leaders had complained that yachting was being lumped in with what they dub mostly a commercial shipping problem. Some have also suggested the ocean could be made safer for endangered sea life through technology. In 2024, the International Superyacht Society awarded FarSounder its Excellence in Technology Award for its work in, among other things, helping vessels avoid whales.
"In my mind, this is really a question of why not, why shouldn’t we all be contributing to these global efforts to help us understand the ocean,” FarSounder CEO and co-founder Matthew Zimmerman said at the time.