The last bill, House Bill (HB)-1049, standing in the Virginia General Assembly to place restrictions on Virginia’s reduction menhaden fishery failed on Feb. 18 in the House Appropriations Committee.
HB-1049 moved forward in the House Agriculture, Chesapeake, and Natural Resources committee on Feb. 11 when the committee voted, 12-10, to refer the bill to the Virginia Department of Planning and Budget for a “fiscal impact statement.”
HB-1049 was introduced by Betty Carr, D-Richmond, and would have directed the Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC) to set different menhaden harvest levels at different points of the year and require observers on Ocean Harvesters menhaden fishing boats. Omega Protein and its fishing partner Ocean Harvesters work out of Reedville, Va. Virginia has the only menhaden reduction fishery on the East Coast.
The bill called for developing and maintaining a quota period management system for a Bay Cap designed to ensure that the removal of menhaden from the Chesapeake Bay “is more evenly distributed throughout the harvest season to mitigate the negative impacts of concentrated, high volume menhaden removals from the Bay,” stated the bill.
HB-1049 also directed VMRC to establish either a monthly-based or trimester-based quota system and provides that “no unused or underutilized portion of a quota period may be carried or rolled over into the following quota period.”
Finally, the bill required that VMRC ensure that 10 percent of all fishing trips for the menhaden reduction fishery carry at least one trained observer to “document the composition and weight of the actual catch and observers report such documentation to the (VMRC) commission.”
The fiscal summary, which in part resulted in the bill to stall, stated, the fiscal impact on VMRC would be $223,313 every fiscal year from FY27 through FY31.
The fiscal summary also stated, “it is anticipated that this bill will result in an ongoing general fund expenditure impact to VMRC...costing $172,677 to address the increase in workload resulting from the bill.”
VMRC also anticipated needing $50,636 for increased travel, contractual, supplies and materials, and equipment costs associated with this position. The agency states that these costs cannot be absorbed within the existing resources.
This year two other menhaden bills were stalled in the Va. General Assembly. HB-1048 would have prohibited the reduction fishery from fishing until “research specific to the bay demonstrates that the fishery does not negatively impact other fisheries of menhaden-dependent species.” The bill was tabled in the Chesapeake Subcommittee of the Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee, a method in Virginia’s assembly to kill a bill.
Senate Bill (SB)-474 introduced by David Marsden, D-Fairfax, to establish a Atlantic Menhaden Research Fund to be used by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) in collaboration with VMRC to conduct a menhaden population study and report to the General Assembly failed in committee.
All of this activity in the Virginia’s legislator has been on the heals of President Donald Trump’s approved of a bill on Jan. 23, 2026 that will provide $2.5 million for research on menhaden in Chesapeake Bay.
This study could well determine the future of Virginia’s menhaden reduction fishery and guide the next round of debate between the longtime Reedville fishing community who want to continue to fish and those environmentalists and some in the general public who want the fishery more strongly regulated, or more to the point - gone from Virginia waters.
