In 2015, Barack Obama had considered allowing the use of seismic airguns, but was met with staunch opposition from both scientists and local communities. In response, during the waning days of his presidency, he announced a ban on drilling in the Atlantic and denied six applications for seismic exploration. “Guided by an abundance of caution, we believe that the value of obtaining the geophysical and geological information from new air-gun seismic surveys in the Atlantic does not outweigh the potential risks of those surveys’ acoustic pulse impacts on marine life,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in a statement.

On April 28, Donald Trump took the first steps to undo those decisions. As part of an executive order that put forward an “America First Offshore Energy Strategy,” he specifically charged Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke to expeditiously consider any applications for seismic exploration. Zinke quickly took up this mandate on May 1, and moved to re-evaluate the denied permits. “You should be excited,” he said to the attendees at an offshore drilling conference, as reported in The Hill.

On June 5, the NMFS drafted Incidental Harassment Authorizations for five companies—rulings that would allow them to use airguns on the grounds that they would only have a “negligible impact” on marine mammals. Those authorizations have been subject to a 30-day period of public comment that was due to end tomorrow, but has since been extended by 15 days. If they are approved, permits could be issued immediately. “They could be blasting the Atlantic ocean by this fall,” says Frank Knapp Jr., one of the directors of the Business Alliance for Protecting the Atlantic Coast.

It is easy to paint environmental issues as fights between moralizing tree-huggers and hard-working business-owners. But the opposition to airgun testing transcends such caricatures. “There is no separation between the interests of environmentalists and the business community,” says Knapp, whose bipartisan organization represents 41,000 businesses and 500,000 commercial fishing families who oppose seismic testing. They do so because the blasts can harm and displace fish, greatly reducing the populations that both commercial and recreational fishers depend upon. In other parts of the world, catch rates for species like cod and rockfish have fallen by 50 to 70 percent in the days after seismic tests. The tourism industry can also be affected, since airgun noise can potentially force whales to beach themselves. “Tourists don’t like to see dying marine mammals on the beach,” Knapp says.

“We are absolutely bipartisan in support,” he adds. “There might be some pockets of resistance from businesses who are willing to put partisan politics above even their local economies. But you can go up and down the coast, and the vast majority of businesses will say this is crazy. Why would we want to blast away at our marine life?”