ASSOCIATED PRESS • January 23, 2023
The federal government has denied a request from a group of environmental organizations to immediately apply proposed ship-speed restrictions in an effort to save a vanishing species of whale. The proposed rules would expand “slow zones” off the East Coast and require more vessels to comply with those rules. The environmental groups had asked NOAA to immediately implement pieces of the proposed rule that would aid the whales this winter and spring, when the whales travel from their calving grounds off the southern states to feeding grounds off New England and Canada. The agency informed the conservation groups on Jan. 20 that it was denying the request on the basis that it is “focused on implementing long-term, substantive vessel strike risk reduction measures.”