UROLOGY

Urine, not water for efficient production of green hydrogen

University of Adelaide

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University of Adelaide PhD candidate Xintong Gao

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Credit: University of Adelaide

Researchers have developed two unique energy-efficient and cost-effective systems that use urea found in urine and wastewater to generate hydrogen.

The unique systems reveal new pathways to economically generate ‘green’ hydrogen, a sustainable and renewable energy source, and the potential to remediate nitrogenous waste in aquatic environments.

Typically, hydrogen is generated through the use of electrolysis to split water into oxygen and hydrogen. It is a promising technology to help address the global energy crisis, but the process is energy intensive, which renders it cost-prohibitive when compared to extracting hydrogen from fossil fuels (grey hydrogen), itself an undesirable process because of the carbon emissions it generates.

In contrast to water, an electrolysis system that generates hydrogen from urea uses significantly less energy.

Despite this advantage, existing urea-based systems face several limitations, such as the low amounts of hydrogen that are able to be extracted and the generation of undesirable nitrogenous by-products (nitrates and nitrites) that are toxic and compete with hydrogen production, further reducing overall system efficiency.

Researchers from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Carbon Science and Innovation (COE-CSI) and the University of Adelaide have developed two urea-based electrolysis systems that overcome these problems and can generate green hydrogen at a cost that they have calculated is comparable or cheaper than the cost of producing grey hydrogen.

The research for each system was published in separate papers, one in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, the other in Nature Communications. PhD candidate Xintong Gao was first author on the Angewandte Chemie International Edition paper and is from the University’s team headed by COE-CSI Chief Investigator, Professor Yao Zheng and Professor Shizhang Qiao, Deputy Director and Chief Investigator of COE-CSI who are from the School of Chemical Engineering.

Making hydrogen from pure urea is not new, but the team has found a more accessible and cost-effective process that uses urine as an alternative source to pure urea.

“While we haven’t solved all the problems, should these systems be scaled up, our systems produce harmless nitrogen gas instead of the toxic nitrates and nitrites, and either system will use between 20-27 per cent less electricity than water splitting systems,” says Professor Zheng.

“We need to reduce the cost of making hydrogen, but in a carbon-neutral way. The system in our first paper, while using a unique membrane-free system and novel copper-based catalyst, used pure urea, which is produced through the Haber-Bosch ammonia synthesis process that is energy intensive and releases lots of CO2.

“We solved this by using a green source of urea – human urine – which is the basis of the system examined in our second paper.”

Urine or urea can also be sourced from sewage and other wastewater high in nitrogenous waste. Urine in an electro-catalytic system, however, presents another issue. Chloride ions in urine will trigger a reaction generating chlorine that causes irreversible corrosion of the system’s anode where oxidation and loss of electrons occurs.

“In the first system we developed an innovative and highly efficient membrane-free urea electrolysis system for low-cost hydrogen production. In this second system, we developed a novel chlorine-mediated oxidation mechanism that used platinum-based catalysts on carbon supports to generate hydrogen from urine,” says Professor Qiao.

Platinum is an expensive, precious and finite metal and its increasing demand as a catalytic material is unsustainable. It is a core mission of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Carbon Science and Innovation to enable transformative carbon catalyst technologies for the traditional energy and chemical industries.

The University of Adelaide team will build on this fundamental research by developing carbon-supported, non-precious metal catalysts for constructing membrane-free urine-wastewater systems, achieving lower-cost recovery of green hydrogen while remediating the wastewater environment.

---

Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-025-57798-3 

Article Title

Urine electrooxidation for energy–saving hydrogen generation

Average asking rents down annually for seventh straight month at $2,127: report

By The Canadian Press
 May 08, 2025 

The national average asking rent in April was down year-over-year for the seventh straight month at $2,127, marking a decrease of 2.8 per cent. A realtors sign advertises a house as for sale or for rent, in Ottawa

. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

TORONTO — The national average asking rent in April was down year-over-year for the seventh straight month at $2,127, marking a decrease of 2.8 per cent.

The latest data from Rentals.ca and Urbanation says despite asking rents remaining comparatively lower than 2024 so far this year, April saw a month-over-month increase of 0.4 per cent from March, reaching a five-month high.

Urbanation president Shaun Hildebrand says the rental market has shown some early signs of stabilizing, as renters are starting to take advantage of an improvement in affordability “which is thanks to the record amount of new supply hitting the market.”

The report says average asking rents in Canada are 6.2 per cent higher than they were two years ago.

Purpose-built apartment asking rents declined 0.9 per cent from a year ago to an average of $2,105, while asking rents for condominium apartments fell 5.2 per cent to $2,210.

Ontario recorded the largest rent decline in April, with asking rents falling 2.7 per cent to an average of $2,338, followed by Alberta’s 1.8 per cent decrease to $1,716, Quebec’s 1.7 per cent decrease to $1,976 and B.C.’s one per cent decrease to $2,483.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 8, 2025.

How trade war can elevate mortgage stress in Canada in 3 charts

By Bloomberg News
May 08, 2025 

The Bank of Canada warned that a severe and long-lasting global trade war may cause more mortgage borrowers to fall behind on their payments — even beyond levels reached in the global financial crisis.

In its financial stability report published Thursday, the Canadian central bank said a prolonged trade dispute would reduce economic growth and increase unemployment.

Here are three charts looking at the potential chain reaction, from businesses facing increased financial difficulties to households struggling to pay off their debt after layoffs.

(Bank of Canada)

Signs of financial stress are currently concentrated among households without a mortgage: Their rates of arrears on credit cards and auto loans have risen from a year ago and are above their historical levels.

For households with a mortgage, rates of arrears remain below historical averages. Still, Governor Tiff Macklem said that if a large economic shock causes job losses, more households will struggle to keep up with debt payments.

(Statistics Canada, Bank of Canad)

The trade war is threatening jobs and incomes, particularly those tied to trade-dependent industries. Businesses that export a large share of their production to the U.S. and have higher leverage, low profitability and low cash reserves are particularly vulnerable to a long-lasting trade war.

Most of these firms are in manufacturing subsectors, including transportation equipment and primary metals.

(Bank of Canada)

Even though existing and new government support programs would likely help businesses and the economy in a prolonged trade war, some affected firms may still lay off workers as they adjust to lower demand.

Canadians who face a large reduction in income after losing their job could have trouble repaying their debt.

According to the bank’s simulations, the share of mortgages in arrears by at least 90 days could rise to a level comparable with — or higher than — those seen during the global financial crisis.

Randy Thanthong-Knight and Mario Baker Ramirez, Bloomberg News

Brookfield targets U.K. pension market for growth as earnings jump 30%

By Bloomberg News
Published: May 08, 2025 


Brookfield Corp. is eyeing faster international growth in its insurance and wealth business, with a particular focus on the U.K., after that division helped propel the firm’s earnings in the first quarter.

The company’s distributable earnings climbed to US$1.3 billion, or 82 cents a share, excluding gains on asset sales, according to a statement Thursday. That was an increase of 30 per cent compared with the prior year.

The jump was driven by rising profit in the division known as Brookfield Wealth Solutions, which rose 57 per cent to $430 million, exceeding the combined earnings from Brookfield’s operating businesses in infrastructure, renewable energy, real estate and private equity.

Brookfield expects quarterly earnings in that unit to reach $500 million in the near term, Chief Executive Officer Bruce Flatt said in a letter to shareholders. To date, most of its acquisition activity in wealth solutions has been in the U.S., but now the company is turning its attention to other markets, he added, noting that it’s now got a license to participate in the U.K. pension-risk transfer business.

(Brookfield)

“With over £500 billion (US$665 billion) of corporate pension transfers to insurance companies expected over the next decade in the U.K., this represents a key market for continued growth,” Flatt said.

Brookfield plans to “slowly migrate” some of its real estate assets into insurance accounts it manages. Last year, the insurance business held investments of $1.2 billion in “real estate partnerships associated with Brookfield office and retail real estate properties,” according to public records.

The firm’s assets are not immune to disruption from the trade war, but they’re “insulated” because many of its operating businesses don’t rely on the cross-border movement of goods, Flatt said.

Brookfield expects the demand for electricity in the U.S. to continue to rise amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s effort to boost industrial, manufacturing and data centre activity, Flatt wrote. While shifting U.S. energy policy introduces some risk to the renewable power sector, it also presents opportunity.

“We believe the growth prospects for low-cost, mature renewable technologies are stronger than ever, as they will play a crucial role in meeting these increasing generation capacity requirements.”

Brookfield has repurchased $850 million of its shares so far this year.

In late 2022, Brookfield Corp. reorganized, spinning off Brookfield Asset Management as a “pure play” fund manager to appeal to investors who wanted growth without being as exposed to its direct holdings, which include one of the world’s largest portfolios of office real estate.

Last year, Brookfield moved its head office to New York from Toronto to try to gain inclusion in more U.S. stock indexes and attract more investors.

Layan Odeh, Bloomberg News

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.

Fired Brookfield VC Head Says Firm Asked Him to Lie to Investors

By Bloomberg News
Published: May 09, 2025

(Bloomberg) -- The former head of Brookfield Asset Management’s venture capital arm accused the firm of wrongfully firing him after he refused to lie to investors.

Josh Raffaelli on Thursday sued Brookfield, which manages more than $1 trillion, in California state court, claiming his former employer offered him nearly $46 million to help sell a plan that would “benefit their bottom line at the expense of their investors.”

Bloomberg News reported in February that Brookfield quietly shuttered the arm led by Raffaelli and was in the process of moving some its assets and staff to an entity called Pinegrove Capital. According to the suit, Pinegrove is a joint venture between Brookfield and Sequoia Capital’s wealth-management arm that acquired the VC arm of Silicon Valley Bank. Raffaelli is not suing Sequoia or Pinegrove.

“This suit is absolutely without merit and these baseless claims run counter to how Brookfield manages its business,” Kerrie McHugh, a spokeswoman for Brookfield, said in a statement. “We will vigorously defend against this meritless suit, which was brought by a disgruntled former employee.”

Neither Pinegrove nor Sequoia immediately responded to a request for comment.

In his suit, Raffaelli claimed Pinegrove “inflated” the amount of money it raised, and that Brookfield was also seeking to deceive prospective investors, including pension funds, about what the combination would mean for their VC funds’ strategy.

He said he was terminated shortly after he filed whistleblower complaints internally and with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Raffaelli, whose suit was reported earlier by the New York Times, made his name with investments in Elon Musk’s companies, including SpaceX and SolarCity. As a Brookfield fund manager, he provided $250 million in 2022 to help finance Musk’s buyout of Twitter Inc.

But Raffaelli claims that the circumstances of Pinegrove’s founding out of the collapse of SVB led it to enter into anticompetitive agreements with all the major Silicon Valley VC firms. Those agreements meant Pinegrove could no longer invest directly in companies, only through other funds and secondaries. Brookfield offered him tens of millions of dollars to mislead clients about the change in strategy, he says.

He “refused to accept a bribe offered by the Brookfield Defendants in exchange for him lying to investors about the supposed advantages of merging their venture capital funds into one that had such an opposite trading strategy that it was sure to kill their investments,” Mark Mermelstein, Raffaelli’s lawyer, wrote in the complaint.

Raffaelli is seeking monetary damages from Brookfield for mental anguish and loss of past and future earnings, including bonuses and unpaid wages, according to the 100-page complaint.

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.

‘Just stay away’: Financial accounting professor says crypto industry moving more toward speculation

By Daniel Johnson
May 05, 2025

BNNBLOOMBERG

The cryptocurrency industry is broadly moving toward a more speculative system amid political influences and one professor of financial accounting advises investors to stick to some of the mainstay assets in the industry or avoid the sector altogether.

Erica Pimentel, a professor at the Smith School of Business, said in a recent interview with BNNBloomberg.ca that it’s difficult to ignore the political ties emerging from U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and the crypto industry. Last month, Bloomberg News reported that Trump will host a dinner later this month with the top 220 holders of the president’s meme coin.

“I think when you have an elected official that has all these overlapping commercial interests with their government activities, it becomes especially dangerous in an area like crypto that’s already sort of on the margins in terms of regulation and is already very vague and very misunderstood, and then it leads to market manipulation, because you have these huge shifts in price that occur every time Trump makes an announcement,” she said.

Around 10,000 digital wallets engaged in transfers of Trump coin after the dinner was announced, Bloomberg News reported, which marked a 200 per cent increase from the previous day. The activity appeared to be dominated by smaller owners of the meme coin.

Pimentel said there is also a large degree of correlation between the prices of different crypto currencies and when Bitcoin prices move, so does the price of all other crypto assets.


“So, we’re seeing these ripples caused by this new activity by Trump on his meme coin. Inevitably, we’re going to have market manipulation” she said.

“We’re going to have price movement on these other coins as well. So, it ripples across the crypto space, and all it does is undermine the credibility of crypto as a possible legitimate financial asset, for investment, for savings, for wealth creation.”

In the current environment, Pimentel said she sees a lack of regulatory safeguards, where institutional investors attempting to evaluate fundamentals may look at the industry and think “this is really just a circus.”

In early April, Bloomberg News reported the U.S. Justice Department moved to limit the types of crypto-related crimes it would investigate and prosecute to specifically focus on instances related to terrorism, drug cartels, victimizing investors and other limited areas.

“While some people might argue that the increased interest in crypto and Bitcoin brought on by Trump is a good thing, I would argue that it’s bringing the wrong type of attention to the space, and it’s delegitimizing crypto as a viable financial asset, because it’s being more and more dragged into the speculative space away from…like real economic questions,” Pimentel said.

As a result, she recommends investors either stick to a small number of digital assets or avoid the sector all together.

“I would literally tell people if you’re not investing in Bitcoin or Ether, which are kind of two coins that we’re comfortable with, or maybe like Ripple or Cardano or the top 10, stay away. Just stay away. Stay away from the meme coins. Stay away from the NFTs. Just stay away because there’s too much change happening too quickly, without a documented process to explain how these decisions are being made,” Pimentel said.

Pre-tariff car buying frenzy leaves Americans with big debt problem

By Claire Ballentine and Keith Naughton
Published: May 07, 2025 

New Ford vehicles for sale at a Ford dealership in Thousand Oaks, California.

 (Jill Connelly/Photographer: Jill Connelly/Bloo)

Bliss Bednar’s 2023 Volkswagen Atlas was running just fine. Sure, it wasn’t the fanciest car she’d ever owned, but with home renovations to plan and rising construction costs already threatening her remodeling budget, the retired teacher in central Texas planned to stick with the three-row SUV for the foreseeable future.

Then President Donald Trump outlined 25 per cent tariffs on auto imports, and she joined the millions of Americans racing to dealerships to snap up new models before the higher levies drive up prices by thousands of dollars.

“I was a little reluctant, because there was nothing wrong with the car I had,” says Bednar, 58. After offloading the VW, she purchased a 2025 BMW X3 for about $65,000 with a $20,000 down payment, leaving her with a $500 monthly bill. It’s affordable for now, but she worries she’ll feel squeezed if everyday prices continue to rise. “I was afraid of tariffs, and I was afraid prices were going to skyrocket. Then I was like, ‘Maybe I jumped on this too soon,’ ” she says.

Because of Trump’s tariffs, which went into effect on April 3 for finished cars and trucks but will take time to trickle down to the models on dealers’ lots, financial planners across the U.S. say they’ve received an onslaught of inquiries from clients trying to purchase new vehicles. The president’s directives signed last week are meant to soften the car-tariff blow, in part by preventing multiple levies from piling on top of each other, but those buyers who raced to lock down vehicles are still on the hook for years of payments. For financially stable buyers, getting out ahead of price hikes can be a “prudent decision,” says Michael Girard, senior director for asset-backed securities in North America for Fitch Ratings Inc. But the high cost of new cars combined with the urgency to buy before tariffs hit could be a recipe for remorse should the economy slip into recession.Trade War coverage on BNNBloomberg.ca

Automakers and their dealers—which have goaded would-be buyers with employee-pricing-for-everyone deals and appeals to buy before pre-tariff inventory runs out sometime this summer—have indisputably seen a FOMO-driven boom. In March, Honda Motor Co. recorded a 13 per cent jump in U.S. sales, while Nissan Motor Co. said volumes rose 10 per cent. The U.S. annual selling rate—which extrapolates an entire year’s sales from a monthly pace—came in at 17.8 million in March and 17.3 million in April. Last year about 16 million new cars were purchased in America.


But this frothy auto market will likely leave some buyers with a financial hangover, especially since there already have been signs that more car buyers are missing payments. Delinquencies on auto loans have been rising, and car repossessions spiked to 2.7 million last year, almost double the rate of repos in 2021, according to the Recovery Database Network. Despite an average new-car loan rate of more than 9 per cent, banks this spring began extending more loans to subprime buyers, according to researcher Cox Automotive. At the same time, prices remain stubbornly high, with average monthly payments for a new vehicle costing $734 in March, up about 27 per cent since early 2020, according to automotive researcher Edmunds.com Inc.

To cope, new-car buyers have been extending the length of their loans, with one in five now taking out a seven-year note, Edmunds says. That’s likely to leave more owners upside down on their loans. One-quarter of trade-ins now are worth less than what’s owed on the loan, a situation known as negative equity. “You don’t want to be stuck with a seven- or eight-year loan that you absolutely hate and can’t afford in a couple of years,” says Joseph Yoon, a market analyst with Edmunds. “It’s going to be an expensive and painful mistake.”

Brittany Wolff, a financial adviser in Greenville, South Carolina, is telling clients that if they weren’t already planning on buying a new car in the next year, there’s no reason to buy one now. She recommends that households spend no more than 10 per cent of take-home pay on a car payment. It’s also worth remembering that cars are almost always a depreciating asset; unlike an investment in a house or a portfolio of stocks, the value of a car usually goes down over time. Shane Sideris, managing partner at Synchronous Wealth Advisors in Santa Barbara, California, has been reminding clients that even if they technically can pay off their car bill each month, that could come at the expense of retirement or savings goals or the paying down of other higher-interest debt. Still, he says, his clients are responding to car dealers’ fear tactics. Buyers are being encouraged to “get it before it gets worse,” says Jonathan Smoke, Cox’s chief economist.

That’s the mentality that drove Jackie Erker to the dealership. The 26-year-old had been driving a 2007 Jeep Patriot for years that was fully paid off. But when Erker, who lives outside Chicago and works as a freelance graphic designer, began noticing higher prices on parts to repair her Jeep, she decided that buying something newer would be better in the long run. So in early April, she purchased a slightly used 2023 Hyundai Palisade for about $40,000. Because of still-high interest payments, she now has a $525 monthly bill.

“We’ve had to make cuts in other areas,” she says. She and her partner have started buying cheaper brands and splitting large Costco hauls with family to save money. “A new car wasn’t in the cards.”

Plenty of new-car buyers will be fine, especially those who’d already budgeted for a big purchase. In the worst-case scenario, though, some buyers who rushed in risk falling behind on the payments. That can both tank their credit score and potentially leave them without necessary transportation. To be sure, delinquencies don’t always lead to defaults, since borrowers will often prioritize auto loans over other forms of debt to make sure that they don’t lose their vehicles through a repossession.

But Vaughn Clemmons, president of the American Recovery Association, a trade group, says his industry is preparing for a big year of repo work anyway. “Repossessions are definitely on a trajectory up,” he says, citing an increased number of Americans already delinquent on their loans. “The cost to survive is skyrocketing, and the consumer is going to feel it.”

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.

White House downplays North American auto industry’s concerns about U.K. trade deal

By The Canadian Press
Published: May 09, 2025 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on Friday, May 9, 2025 in Washington. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Alex Brandon

WASHINGTON — The White House is downplaying the North American automobile industry’s claim that U.S. President Donald Trump’s new trade deal with the United Kingdom could make the sector less competitive.

The preliminary deal announced Thursday would drop tariffs on U.K. automobiles to 10 per cent for a quota of 100,000 vehicles.

The American Automotive Policy Council — which represents the Big Three automakers — says the deal makes it cheaper to import U.K. vehicles than to import cars from Canada or Mexico that are half-constructed of American parts.

Vehicles imported into the United States that comply with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade are being hit with 25 per cent duties on their non-American components.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says Trump wants to put American automakers on the best “pedestal” to compete and says that if they build in the U.S., they’ll face no tariffs.

Leavitt also says the U.K. deal on automobiles won’t set a template for deals Trump’s administration negotiates with other countries.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 9, 2025.

Kelly Geraldine Malone, The Canadian Press

Ferrari sees its first electric car powering a comeback in China

By Daniele Lepido and Linda Lew
Published: May 09, 2025 

A Ferrari dealership on Park Ave. in New York.

 Photographer: Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg (Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Ferrari NV is looking to its first fully electric supercar to revive sales in China because the model will benefit from lower tariff and tax rates.

The Elettrica EV that Ferrari will unveil starting in October is expected to be taxed at a compound rate of 30 per cent of the manufacturer’s suggested retail price. The carmaker’s models equipped with its roaring 12-cylinder engines face a combined import, consumption and value-added tax that’s almost four times that rate.

One of the cars Ferrari is launching this year will “fit better” for the Greater China region, Chief Executive Officer Benedetto Vigna said during an earnings call this week, without specifying the model. “That will improve the picture.”

Ferrari’s sales in China have stagnated due to muted demand for luxury vehicles. Local manufacturers led by BYD Co. also are pushing into top-end segments with models intended to compete with supercar brands. Ferrari’s shipments to the greater China region fell 25 per cent in the first quarter to the lowest in almost four years.

China’s luxury-car market shrank in 2024 due to the nation’s economic slowdown and weakened consumer sentiment. For the segment that starts from 500,000 yuan ($69,200), volumes were stable at around 850,000 units between 2020 and 2023. But last year, that number dropped roughly 20 per cent to around 677,000, according to data from Shanghai-based automotive consultancy Thinkercar.

Ferrari is less exposed to China than many of its Western peers because the company limits shipments to the region to around 10% of its total. The company could rethink that cap as it enters the EV segment, Vigna said earlier this year.

China has been limiting the influx of fuel-thirsty combustion-engine cars even before US President Donald Trump ratcheted up global trade tensions. Imported vehicles with engines larger than four liters are subject to a 15 per cent import tariff, a 40 per cent consumption tax and a VAT of at least 13 per cent in China. China exempts EVs from the consumption tax.

Ferrari’s biggest single market is the US, where the company plans to raise some car prices due to Trump’s tariffs.

--With assistance from Craig Trudell.

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.

Fishermen battling with changing oceans chart new course after Trump’s push to deregulate

By The Associated Press
Published: May 09, 2025

Commercial dealers weigh creates of lobsters on a dock in Stonington, Maine, on Friday, May 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

STONINGTON, Maine (AP) — Virginia Olsen has pulled lobsters from Maine’s chilly Atlantic waters for decades while watching threats to the state’s lifeblood industry mount.

Trade imbalances with Canada, tight regulations on fisheries and offshore wind farms towering like skyscrapers on open water pose three of those threats, said Olsen, part of the fifth generation in her family to make a living in the lobster trade.

That’s why she was encouraged last month when President Donald Trump signed an executive order that promises to restore American fisheries to their former glory. The order promises to shred fishing regulations, and Olsen said that will allow fishermen to do what they do best — fish.

That will make a huge difference in communities like her home of Stonington, the busiest lobster fishing port in the country, Olsen said. It’s a tiny island town of winding streets, swooping gulls and mansard roof houses with an economy almost entirely dependent on commercial fishing, some three hours up the coast from Portland, Maine’s biggest city.

Olsen knows firsthand how much has changed over the years. Hundreds of fish and shellfish populations globally have dwindled to dangerously low levels, alarming scientists and prompting the restrictions and catch limits that Trump’s order could wash away with the stroke of a pen. But she’s heartened that the livelihoods of people who work the traps and cast the nets have become a priority in faraway places where they often felt their voices weren’t heard.


“I do think it’s time to have the conversation on what regulations that the industry does need. We’re fishing different than we did 100 years ago,” she said. “If everything is being looked at, we should be looking at the regulations within the fishing industry.”

A question of sustainability and competitiveness

But if fishing and lobstering interests finally have a seat at the table, the questions become how much seafood can be served there — and for how long. Trump’s April 17 order, called “Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness,” promises an overhaul of the way America fishes, and cites a national seafood trade deficit of more than $20 billion as the reason to do it. The order calls on the federal government to reduce the regulatory burden on fishermen by later this month.

It arrives at a time when conservation groups and many marine scientists say the ocean needs more regulation, not less. One oft-cited 2020 study led by a scientist at the University of British Columbia looked at more than 1,300 fish and invertebrate populations and found that 82% were below levels that can produce maximum sustainable yields. The university said the study “discovered global declines, some severe, of many popularly consumed species.”

Trump’s order prioritizes commerce over conservation. It also calls for the development of a comprehensive seafood trade strategy and a review of existing marine monuments, which are underwater protected zones, to see if any should be opened for fishing. At least one, the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument, has already been reopened.

Many commercial fishermen and fishing trade groups lauded the order. Members of the industry, one of the oldest in the country, have long made the case that heavy regulations — many intended to protect the health of fish populations — leave the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage to the fleets of countries that don’t bear the same kind of burden. That disadvantage is a big piece of why America imports more than two-thirds of its seafood, they argue.

“The president’s executive order recognizes the challenges our fishing families and communities face, and we appreciate the commitment to reduce burdensome regulations and strengthen the competitiveness of American seafood,” said Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.

Some fishermen, including Maine lobsterman Don McHenan, said they’re looking forward to members of the industry being able to fish in areas of the ocean that have been closed off to them for years. McHenan said he’s also hopeful the pace of new regulations will slow.

“As long as they don’t put any more onto us,” McHenan said. “We’ll see — time will tell.”

Not all fishermen are on board

But the support for deregulation is not unanimous among fishermen. Some say strong conservation laws are critical to protecting species that fishermen rely on to make a living.

In Alaska, for example, Matt Wiebe said the executive order “terrifies” him. A commercial fisherman with more than 50 years of experience fishing for salmon, he said the order could potentially harm the Bristol Bay sockeye salmon fishery, which has received praise from sustainability organizations for careful management of the fish supply.

Absent that management, he said the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery could go the way of the New England cod fishing business, which collapsed due in large part to overfishing and has never recovered.

“Since New England fishers lost their cod fishery due to overfishing, many other fisheries came to respect and depend on conservation efforts,” Wiebe said. “We fish because it’s what we do, and conservation efforts mean we and our kids can fish into the future.”

The executive order arrived at a time when America’s commercial fishermen are coping with environmental challenges and the decline of some once-marketable species. Maine’s historic shrimp fishery shuttered more than a decade ago, California’s salmon industry is struggling through closures and the number of fish stocks on the federal overfished list has grown in recent years.

There is also the looming question of what Trump’s trade war with major seafood producers such as Canada and China will mean for the U.S. industry — not to mention American consumers.

To many in Maine’s lobster and fishing business, the answer is clear: Cut regulations and let them do their thing.

“We definitely feel the industry is over-regulated as a whole,” said Dustin Delano, a fourth-generation Maine lobsterman who is also chief operating officer of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association. “We hope that this will help for sure. It does seek to initiate that America-first strategy in the fishery.”

___

Patrick Whittle And Robert F. Bukaty, The Associated Press