Most American supermarkets have a little blue label with a fish outline and a checkmark at the seafood counter. This badge certifies that the product originated from a fishery that satisfies the Marine Stewardship Council’s sustainability standards. When they see it, the majority of shoppers take it as comfort.
They are likely unaware that the label represents the standards of a private organization that are completely different from the U.S. federal government’s definition of sustainable seafood, that neither of those frameworks is the same as what the Federal Trade Commission enforces, and that none of it addresses the distinct and documented issue that the fish in the package might not be the species listed on the label at all. There isn’t a single legally binding definition for the phrase “sustainable” in the US, and since an executive order in 2025 made domestic seafood competitiveness a federal goal, the debate over who gets to define it has intensified.
Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness, an executive order signed on April 17, 2025, called for lowering regulatory obstacles to domestic aquaculture and wild-capture fishing. It also assigned NOAA the responsibility of gathering public input on “fishery-related regulatory barriers” through October 2025. The order specifically expanded upon a 2020 predecessor that employed like language. In a May 2025 peer-reviewed publication, ScienceDirect researchers examined the two papers and found one distinct and significant difference: “sustainability” was referenced five times in the 2020 edict.
It was not mentioned once in the 2025 order. The report described the new approach as “regulatory dismantling rather than reform” and cautioned that the evidence basis that would support any future sustainability judgment could be compromised by defunding federal scientific databases and interagency coordination mechanisms. However, according to NOAA’s own website, “you can feel confident you’re making a sustainable seafood choice” if the seafood you buy is harvested or farmed in the United States. It is difficult to reconcile these two viewpoints.
Independent of all of this, the Marine Stewardship Council evaluates fisheries worldwide, including those in the United States, using its own set of scientific standards. The fishing industry uses MSC’s 2025 report that almost 90% of U.S. fisheries satisfy its sustainable requirements as proof that domestic fisheries are well-managed and that more regulation is not required. Conservation organizations interpret the same data differently, pointing out that NOAA’s more general domestic sustainability claim allows the 10% of products that don’t satisfy MSC standards to still be sold in U.S. marketplaces.
The import side has its own layer. On January 1, 2026, NOAA started prohibiting fish and fish products from foreign fisheries without a “comparability finding” under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. This enforcement action is external in nature and applies more stringent standards to imported seafood than the U.S. government does to its own domestic claims. There is a significant discrepancy between how the United States defines sustainable production and how it controls imports.
The situation is further complicated by NOAA’s funding reduction in 2025 and 2026. Any reliable assessment of sustainability ultimately relies on population monitoring, catch statistics, and stock assessments from federal scientific bodies.
Regardless of the administration’s preferred definition of the term, it is reasonable to question the quality of the science underlying U.S. sustainability claims if those agencies are shrinking, and staffing and budget reductions at NOAA have been a consistent story over the past two years. The FTC has the authority to regulate misleading advertising. It is unable to determine whether a fishery is truly sustainable. Scientists with boats, equipment, money, and time are needed for that.
Observing this accumulation of conflicting incentives and overlapping frameworks gives the impression that the “sustainable seafood” category is less of a clear signal to consumers and more of a battlefield where conflicting interests—federal agencies, private certifiers, industry associations, and conservation organizations—all have legitimate but distinct stakes in the outcome.
When a customer at the seafood counter reads the blue label, the country-of-origin sticker, and the “wild-caught” classification, they are making decisions based on inadequate information in a system that has not yet figured out what it is attempting to tell them. If a resolution is reached, it will result from ongoing scientific discussions, regulatory actions, and legal challenges.
