HARPOON Act
S. 2674119th Congress

HARPOON Act

Introduced in the SenateSen. Todd Young (R-IN)17 sections · 1 min read
Version: Introduced in Senate · Aug 1, 2025

Section 1. Short title

This Act may be cited as the Helping Allies Respond to Piracy, Overfishing, and Oceanic Negligence Act or the HARPOON Act.

Section 2. Definitions

In this Act:

(1) Commandant

The term Commandant means the Commandant of the Coast Guard.

(2) Illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing; IUU fishing

The terms illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing and IUU fishing means activities described as illegal fishing, unreported fishing, or unregulated fishing in paragraph 3 of the International Plan of Action to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing, adopted at the 24th Session of the Committee on Fisheries in Rome on March 2, 2001.

(3) Secretary

The term Secretary means the Secretary of the Navy.

Section 3. Modification of authority to build capacity of foreign security forces

Section 333(a) of title 10, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new paragraph:

(10) Counter-illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing operations.

(a) In general

The Secretary and the Commandant shall seek to engage with foreign partners to establish joint patrols to enhance counter-IUU fishing efforts, combat transnational crime, and enhance regional security.

(1) In general

Not later than one year after the date of the enactment of this Act, and annually thereafter, the Secretary and the Commandant shall jointly submit to the appropriate committees of Congress a report on engagements with foreign partners under subsection (a), including—

(A) an identification of specific regions and countries interested in increased cooperation;

(B) a description of any limitations on enhanced partnerships due to insufficient resources;

(C) recommendations for increased program effectiveness;

(D) an assessment of the effectiveness of ongoing partner operations; and

(E) any other information the Secretary and the Commandant consider appropriate.

(2) Appropriate committees of Congress defined

In this subsection, the term appropriate committees of Congress means—

(A) the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and the Committee on Armed Services of the Senate; and

(B) the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and the Committee on Armed Services of the House of Representatives.

to ask questions about this bill.