How “fishery sensitive” is the ReSCUE Oceans Act?
By Sarah Schumann
May 24, 2026—The U.S. could soon see its first-ever federal law dedicated to marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR): the Removing and Sequestering Carbon Unleashed in the Environment and Oceans Act, or the ReSCUE Oceans Act. Introduced in the House by Representative Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR) and in the Senate by Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI), the bill would, if enacted, promote federally coordinated mCDR research through grants programs, interagency coordination, and the establishment of designated mCDR research areas with advisory panels to oversee them.
Members of the Fishery Friendly Climate Action Campaign’s bicoastal network of commercial fishermen may be wondering: What could the ReSCUE Oceans Act mean for fisheries? This blog post will provide some initial answers to this question. A deeper dive can be found in our 19-page policy analysis, “How ‘fishery sensitive’ is the ReSCUE Oceans Act?”
What is “fishery sensitive” mCDR?
The Fishery Friendly Climate Action Campaign and its partners define a “fishery sensitive” approach to mCDR as one that is attuned to and compatible with the objectives of sustainable wild seafood production and harvesting. According to a set of mCDR roundtables led through the Fishery Friendly Climate Action Campaign in 2025, this approach involves fishing communities in research and decision making at every stage of the process. It adheres to a stage-gate approach that limits project size to the smallest scale capable of delivering answers to the most pressing questions while providing mechanisms to revoke permits when a project’s negative impacts are greater than expected. It restricts the field and its projects from escalating too quickly, instead favoring incremental advancement, closely overseen by public bodies. It minimizes risks and pursue co-benefits, while buffering decision making against biases that can creep in when public interest science takes a back seat to human hubris, financialization and profit motives, and the solutions-grasping and hype that can accompany techno-fixes related to climate mitigation. It is complemented—and preceded—by a genuine commitment to reducing future carbon emissions at their source. It involves benefit sharing with local communities and provides impacts mitigation for community members who have been adversely affected. Finally, it is transparent, with all resulting data communicated broadly to potentially affected communities and beyond.
So how well do the contents of the ReSCUE Oceans Act match up with this definition? Where do they fall short? How could fishermen make the Act better through advocacy?
Here are the essentials:
Engagement opportunities: The ReSCUE Oceans Act bill text provides multiple opportunities for stakeholder participation. While it does not call out fishery stakeholders by name, fishermen and their representatives could leverage the Act’s generic stakeholder and community engagement opportunities to have a voice in shaping mCDR research if the Act becomes law. They could also advocate for future versions of the bill to call out fishing communities more explicitly, including through a cross-reference to the Magnuson Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act’s definition of a fishing community as “a community which is substantially dependent on or substantially engaged in the harvest or processing of fishery resources to meet social and economic needs, and includes fishing vessel owners, operators, and crew and United States fish processors that are based in such community.”
Funding for stakeholder engagement: The bill sets a minimum amount for engagement-focused grants of $10,000. The inclusion of a minimum suggests recognition of the importance of engagement, but the small amount is not scaled appropriately. Moreover, this blog has previously highlighted a need for investing in the fishing community’s capacity to engage in mCDR research, literacy, field-building, and governance, by allocating directly to community-based organizations led by and situated in fishing and coastal communities. Unfortunately, the ReSCUE Oceans Act does not contemplate this kind of investment at all. The Act could be more fishery sensitive by creating a dedicated fund for capacity building across coastal communities.
Fishermen as co-producers of knowledge: The ReSCUE Oceans Act does not make mention of Fishermen’s Ecological Knowledge (FEK) or the participation of fishermen in mCDR research, but it does include requirements related to local ecological knowledge (LEK) and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). The Act could be made more fishery sensitive by clarifying where FEK fits into these designations, or adding FEK to the list of knowledge types used in mCDR planning and decision-making if FEK is determined not to fit within LEK and/or TEK.
Stage-gate approach: The ReSCUE Oceans Act does not explicitly differentiate among projects of different scales, nor does it limit the size of projects receiving support under its research funding provisions (e.g., through a cap on the spatial footprint or the amount of carbon removed by a project). It does not explicitly call for a stage-gate approach, but it does require a code of conduct established under the Act to ensure “that open-water testing is preceded and informed by laboratory, mesocosm, and modeling research.” In sum, there is evidence of a stage-gate approach in the bill, but to be truly “fishery sensitive,” this language could be strengthened and made more overarching.
Preventing premature commercialization: The ReSCUE Oceans Act alludes to future commercialization of mCDR, but without laying out a clear path forward or a rigorous set of standards that mCDR must meet before embarking on this path. The Act hints at a presumption that mCDR will eventually be deployed commercially, and that voluntary carbon markets will be the mechanism for such deployment—two assumptions that may cause fishermen to worry. The Act could be made more fishery sensitive by including a pause in commercial sales of mCDR-based carbon credits until such time as: (a) science has determined that mCDR is safe, effective, and measurable; and (b) adequate governance frameworks are in place to regulate it.
Preventing and mitigating negative impacts: The ReSCUE Oceans Act does not shy away from acknowledging the potential for ecological, social, cultural, and economic harm, and requirements related to the prevention and mitigation of negative impacts can be found throughout. However, these requirements do not go as far as those found in model mCDR research legislation developed by Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, which would require anyone holding an mCDR research permit to maintain a bond or other financial assurance to ensure that funds are available for cleanup of any environmental harms caused by a research project. Fishermen-led advocacy around the ReSCUE Oceans Act could interrogate why similar requirements have not been included in the ReSCUE Oceans Act, and could press the case for adding them into future versions of the Act.
Transparency: Fishermen participating in the Fishery Friendly Climate Action Campaign’s 2025 mCDR roundtables were emphatic about the need for mCDR research plans and findings to be fully available and accessible to members of the public—a need that is reiterated in the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance’s 2026 guidance memo on “Elements of Effective Governance for Fishery-Sensitive mCDR Development.” The ReSCUE Oceans Act promotes transparency in various ways, such as requiring all data collected pursuant to the Act to be made available on a digital portal where it is easily accessible and requiring mCDR researchers to publicly disclose funding sources and provide open access to data and scientific publications.
What’s next?
The ReSCUE Oceans Act represents the first major U.S. legislative proposal related to mCDR. It was first introduced in the 118th Congress and then reintroduced in the 119th Congress. If not enacted by January 3, 2027, the current version will expire; its sponsors may then reintroduce the same bill or a revised version (e.g., reflecting additional stakeholder input) in the 120th Congress. As fishing communities deepen their understanding of mCDR technologies and their potential ecological and economic implications, they have opportunity to engage with congressional offices to refine the ReSCUE Oceans Act and help ensure that any federally funded or supported mCDR research is truly “fishery-sensitive.”
If you are a fisherman, fisheries representative, or member of a fishing community who is interested in deepening your advocacy around fishery sensitive mCDR, reach out to fisheryfriendlyclimateaction@gmail.com for more information about how you can plug in.
