Members of Congress routinely post news releases on legislation they introduce and cosponsor, including for Alaska's delegation, a plethora of seafood legislation impacting the seafood industry.
Once in a while, one of these bills becomes law. The odds are 1-3 percent.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, and former Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, who are both running for his current Senate seat, have issued news releases stating their priorities for federal regulations related to the nation's federal fisheries. Many of their campaigns are focused on convincing Alaskans engaged in the fisheries industry that they can do the most to protect and improve benefits for Alaskans working in that industry.
Purchases of Russian seafood were blocked from federal school lunch programs by an amendment introduced by Sullivan, which passed the Senate in November 2023. That amendment closed a loophole that had allowed Russian seafood processed in China to bypass the National School Lunch Program "Buy American" requirements.
In 2022, the Alaska Salmon Task Force Act, sponsored by Sullivan, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, and Rep. Don Young, Alaska's all Republican delegation, was established as a federal task force. On July 12, 2024, the task force submitted its final science report on the complex biological, environmental and socioeconomic factors impacting Alaska salmon to the Secretary of Commerce, the Alaska Legislature and relevant congressional committees.
On June 25, Sullivan introduced the Bycatch Reduction Act, an updated version of bycatch legislation introduced by the Alaska congressional delegation in January of 2026, which remains in the introduced stage in the Senate and the House.
Sullivan said this legislation was an outgrowth of his Alaska Salmon Task Force Act. It would establish a genetic sampling grant program, mandate salmon excluder devices on trawl vessels, and form a Bycatch Reduction and Research Task Force to improve transparent data collection. It would require tracking of Alaska salmon migrations in the ocean through salmon tagging to reduce bycatch, genetic testing, and a thorough ecosystem analysis across the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska, looking at ocean conditions, life food availability, marine heatwaves, sea ice loss and ocean acidification to understand how changing oceans impact survival of salmon, halibut, crab and other species.
The senator's other key legislation priorities include the Fighting Foreign Illegal Seafood Harvest (FISH) Act, which passed the Senate on March 22 and is now awaiting a vote on the House floor. the bill would combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing through several actionable measures.
Key supporters of Peltola because of her stance on fisheries issues include the Alaska Native regional corporation Sealaska, grassroots Alaskans and the Environment America Action Fund. Seaalaska backed her congressional and Senate bids due to shared goals of protecting subsistence lifestyles and coastal communities. Rural advocates and rural village residents support her historic fight against factory trawlers and to restore local salmon runs.
The environmental action fund cited her "pro-fish" campaign and commitment to preserving fisheries.
Sullivan grew up in suburban Ohio. He holds degrees from Harvard and Georgetown universities. He moved to Alaska in 1997 after completing active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps and served as the state's attorney general and commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources.
He has served in the U.S. Senate since 2014. His stated priorities in federal fisheries legislation are bycatch reduction, combating foreign illegal fishing and support of domestic fishing competitiveness.
Peltola grew up in Southwest Alaska, mostly living in Bethel and nearby communities. She began working in the commercial fishing industry with her father as a six-year-old. She financed her education at the University of Northern Colorado and the University of Alaska working as a salmon and herring technician for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. She served in the Alaska House of Representatives from 1999 to 2009 before winning a special election to serve in the U.S. House following the death of Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, and went on to serve from September of 2022 to January 2025.
Peltola's current stated campaign priorities include a ban on factory trawling, securing robust fishery disaster funds for harvesters and communities, fully funding fish stock assessments, expanding use of modern electronic monitoring to detect bycatch in real time, investment in Alaska's fish by-product economy and non-fish mariculture industry, a ban on national finfish farm permits and adding tribal seats on the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.
