Chris Payne of Cumberland is a graduate student at the University of New England.

Commercial fishing in Maine is breaking the people who sustain it.

Four out of five fishermen report overuse injuries — torn shoulders, damaged knees, chronic back pain — from work that hasn’t fundamentally changed in generations. Most don’t retire from the job. Their bodies give out first.

We know how to reduce that damage. What’s missing is consistent federal support. This isn’t an abstract policy debate — it’s being decided right now in the federal budget process.

Maine already has organizations doing the work. Groups like the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association and Fishing Partnership Support Services provide injury prevention training, early access to physical therapy and practical equipment changes that reduce strain before injuries become permanent. They also address mental health and addiction — a critical need in a profession where chronic pain often leads to self-medication.

These programs are not theoretical. They are working. But they operate in a funding gap that federal policy has long promised to close and repeatedly failed to.

The urgency is growing. The administration’s proposed fiscal year 2026 budget would eliminate Maine Sea Grant and cut the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by roughly one-third. That comes just months after the administration abruptly terminated Maine’s Sea Grant program in January 2025 — later partially reversed after intense pushback — following a political dispute that had nothing to do with fisheries, safety or workforce development.

Programs like Sea Grant do more than fund research. They support the training, safety systems and local partnerships that keep fishermen on the water longer and in better health. In 2023, Maine Sea Grant generated roughly $15 in economic activity for every federal dollar invested. Eliminating it is not cost savings. It is economic contraction.

Congress already has tools to address this. The FISH Wellness Act would expand existing fishing safety grants, add behavioral health support and remove cost-match requirements that currently exclude many small operators. These are practical, bipartisan solutions built on programs that already exist.

What they lack is stable funding and sustained attention.

That instability has real consequences. Without consistent investment in training and safety, fishermen enter one of the most physically demanding jobs in America without the support systems common in other industries. Injuries accumulate. Careers shorten. Knowledge leaves the water faster than it can be replaced.

This is not a niche issue. Commercial fishing is a cornerstone of Maine’s coastal economy and identity. The people doing that work are not asking for special treatment. They are asking for the same basic infrastructure other industries expect as standard: training, health support and a viable path into the profession that does not depend on physical sacrifice.

Maine’s congressional delegation has shown it can fight when funding is threatened. It helped restore Sea Grant once. But reacting after the fact is not enough.

In the months ahead, Congress will decide whether programs like Sea Grant survive and whether legislation like the FISH Wellness Act moves forward. Those decisions will determine whether fishermen get the training, health support and safety infrastructure that other industries expect as standard — or continue working until their bodies give out.

That makes this a test of priorities. Will Maine’s delegation push for sustained funding for fishing safety and workforce development before more cuts take hold? And will candidates seeking to represent Maine commit to making that funding permanent, not discretionary?

Fishing communities cannot rebuild their workforce or protect their health one budget fight at a time. If Maine wants a future on the water, Congress needs to fund it — deliberately and as policy.