A new rule floated by the Biden administration limiting the speed of boats longer than 35 feet to 11 miles per hour is causing substantial backlash among small boating businesses.
The proposal aims to protect the endangered right whale by reducing "the likelihood of lethal collisions" between boats and the species, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
"Endangered North Atlantic right whales are at heightened risk for vessel strikes because they spend a lot of time at or close to the water surface," the agency wrote. "Vessel strikes are a primary threat to the species."
They can also "be very difficult to spot from a boat due to their dark color and lack of a dorsal fin," it continued. "Poor weather and sea state or low light conditions can make spotting these whales nearly impossible."
Currently, the speed restriction by NOAA applies only to boats over 65 feet. The new rule would expand that and double the total protected area in the North Atlantic.
"This is a beach-town Armageddon," Freddy Gamboa, the operator of a charter boat company in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, told Fox News this week. "No one is going to want to get on this boat" if it can go only up to 10 knots.
Meanwhile, critics like Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., have pointed out that there have been only five whale strikes from boats under 65 feet in the past 15 years.
He and Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, teamed up Friday to introduce legislation that would defund the rule before it is implemented, according to Fox.
"We care about the right whales," Carter said. "But we can't destroy our economy because of some rules and regulations that have been implemented by unelected bureaucrats."
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