U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, thanked Senate colleagues this week for unanimously passing the Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research and Control Amendments (HABHRCA) Act of 2025.
A Sept. 12 press release from the senator’s office said the bipartisan legislation will reauthorize the original HABHRCA Act of 1998 for “coordinated, effective federal-state responses to harmful algal blooms (HABs).” The legislation is expected to strengthen harmful algal bloom programs to ensure communities have access to observation data, training in monitoring, prevention and mitigation, and access to testing for toxins.
Emma Pate, executive director of the Nome Eskimo Community, said in the release that the reauthorized legislation is “a vital heartbeat” in marine environmental research, with essential data assisting in adaptive management decisions for food security and safety.
Harmful algal blooms occur in rivers, lakes and coastal waters in all 50 states. The increasing occurrence and severity of harmful algal blooms has been noted by researchers in recent years, with the EPA citing climate change indicators like warming water temperatures, higher carbon dioxide levels, coastal upwelling, sea level rise and rainfall pattern changes as contributing factors.
The release states that harmful algal blooms directly threaten food security and subsistence, and can reduce oxygen levels in the water in events called hypoxia, killing fish and other marine life and harming coastal ecosystems and economies. It also points out that this issue directly affects Alaskans, with the 2022 algal bloom in Alaska’s Bering Strait region being one of the largest and most toxic blooms ever observed nationwide. Closer to home, Kachemak Bay has had two reported harmful algal bloom scares this summer: one in July that testing confirmed was not an issue and one this month, with blue mussels collected in the Homer Harbor testing at over twice the regulatory limit for paralytic shellfish toxins.
Don Anderson, senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and director of the U.S. National Office of Harmful Algal Blooms, said in the release that the legislation recognizes the need for a comprehensive response to harmful algal blooms by authorizing multiple funding programs and management activities across federal agencies. He said the success of the nationwide harmful algal blooms program is built on HABHRCA’s “emphasis on facilitating partnerships among federal, state, academic, and industry stakeholders, underscoring the bipartisan nature of HAB and hypoxia problems and their national importance.”
Sen. Sullivan said unchecked harmful algal blooms can threaten marine life and coastal ecosystems, the livelihoods of commercial fisheries and coastal communities, and the health and well-being of Alaskans.
“Alaska is our country’s leading seafood producer and home to more coastline than the contiguous Lower 48 states combined, making our response to HABs critically important.”
The legislation was cosponsored in the Senate by both Democrats and Republicans, including U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
