A legislative resolution urging a continued and better-enforced ban on Russian seafood in the United States is headed to Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
Part of a series of actions by Alaska lawmakers to try to shore up the state’s ailing seafood industry, House Joint Resolution 29 won final passage last week and was transferred to the governor on Monday.
The resolution calls for continuation of the ban on Russian seafood imports imposed in 2022, after that country’s invasion of Ukraine. The ban was expanded in 2023 to cover imports of Russian seafood to the U.S. through a third-party country, usually China, where fish are processed.
The import ban is set to expire later this year. That makes the resolution timely, supporters aid.
Among the supporters is Jeremy Woodrow, executive director of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute.
Woodrow, in testimony to the Senate Resources Committee on Feb. 27, said a stockpile of Russian fish that was in the U.S. before the ban went into full effect is just now being depleted.
“We need more time to really capture the U.S. marketplace. Our industry has not recovered yet,” Woodrow said. Even though last year’s fishing season was better, it was still one of the worst years in the last 20 years, he said.
“This is one measure that will help our fishermen. We’re starting to see the fruits of this ban coming into play, but we need more time to provide stability to our industry. We need more time to see it come to fruition,” he told the committee.
In addition to seeking an extension of the import ban, the resolution calls for stronger monitoring and enforcement to “ensure fair trade, protect the state’s seafood industry, and promote sustainable and ethical seafood production.”
Legislative resolutions do not have the power of law, but they can influence actions by Congress, the federal executive branch or other institutions.
The Russian seafood import ban resolution was not among the measures introduced by the Joint Legislative Task Force Evaluating Alaska’s Seafood Industry, formed in 2024. However, it addresses an aspect of international trade, one of the issues raised by the task force. The task force’s report recommended an update to a Russia-focused resolution passed by the legislature in 2022, Senate Joint Resolution 16.
The eight-member task force, comprising Senate and House members from fishery-dependent districts, issued its recommendation report in January 2025, at the start of last year’s session. Recommendations for action resulted in the introduction of a series of bills intended to help the industry, which has struggled with low fish prices, glutted international markets, high costs and other challenges.
Other bills focus on tax credits and revenues
One of the task force’s bills, aimed at encouraging seafood product development and diversification, is headed for a vote in the Senate this week.
That measure, Senate Bill 130, concerns the state’s fisheries product development tax credit system. Currently, seafood companies are allowed to deduct the cost of new equipment used to develop value-added products from salmon, herring, pollock, sablefish and Pacific cod. The bill would expand that to all fish species, including shellfish. That is in line with the recommendation in the task force report, which identifies arrowtooth flounder, fish meal and crab shells as examples of some underused or discarded products that could be processed into something marketable.
The bill, in the amended form before the Senate, also seeks to expand the range of technology for which investment would qualify for credits, and it would extend the sunset date for the credit to 2037. Currently, the tax credit is due to expire next year.
The revenue impact of the bill, if it wins final passage, is difficult to determine because there are several unknown variables, said the fiscal note prepared by the state Alaska Department of Revenue. Estimated annual revenues losses to the state would range from $1 million to nearly $4 million, according to the fiscal note.
Another task force bill, aimed at helping fishery-dependent local governments, had not moved out of the Senate Finance Committee as of Tuesday. That measure, Senate Bill 135, would allow municipalities to increase their share of fisheries business tax and fishery resource landing tax revenues. Currently, the state and local governments split those tax revenues equally. The bill would allow local governments to get up to 75% of the tax revenues.
The legislature passed two seafood task force bills last year, each of which had wide support. However, Dunleavy vetoed one of the bills.
The bill that escaped the governor’s veto, House Bill 116, allows for the formation and operation of member-owned commercial fishing insurance cooperatives. Such cooperativesexist in other states and were used by some Alaska fishers. The bill passed unanimously.
The vetoed bill, Senate Bill 156, would have transferred $3.69 million from a defunct state loan fund to the Alaska Commercial Fishing and Agriculture Bank. The state-owned bank needed the boost to keep serving the seafood industry, bill supporters argued. But Dunleavy argued that the cost of the action was too great for the state budget to bear.