Emergency Environmental Compliance Reviews
- Conduct emergency consultations to mitigate impacts of response activities on threatened and endangered species, critical habitat and essential fish habitat
- Provide technical advice, including Best Management Practices and other guidance, for minimizing adverse effects to trust resources during emergency response
Fishery Closures and Other Temporary Rules
- Close fisheries if needed to protect public health
- Authorize turtle excluder device exemptions if debris or other environmental conditions are impeding conservation benefits of turtle excluder devices
- Provide select fisheries paper-based recordkeeping and reporting allowances
Fishery Disaster Assistance Evaluations
- Support state agencies requesting fishery disaster declarations, evaluate requests, and assist in distributing any funds appropriated by Congress
Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Stranding Response Coordination
- Oversee, coordinate, and authorize stranding network responses to marine mammal and sea turtle strandings
- Investigate cause of strandings and, when appropriate, respond with emergency rulemaking if fishery-related
Incident Command Post Staffing and Assistance
- Staff Incident Command Posts, as needed, to provide local expertise and technical assistance and guidance and/or to support field activities including wildlife response and Shoreline Cleanup and Assessment Technique operations
Contact: nmfs.ser.emergency.consult@noaa.gov, (727) 824-5301
Southeast Region Disaster Response One-Page Overview (PDF, 1 page) Download File
*Executive Order 14172, “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness” (Jan. 20, 2025), directs that the Gulf of Mexico be renamed the Gulf of America. On August 7, 2025, NOAA Fisheries and the National Ocean Service amended regulations in the Code of Federal Regulations to reflect the renaming. The name change did not result in any changes to, and had no effect on the applicability or enforceability of, any existing regulations. This website continues to use “Gulf of Mexico” when quoting statutes or previously published materials.
