The proposed speed limits would have impacted all ferry service to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, as well as ferries from Boston to Provincetown.

The rule would have limited boats as small as 35 feet to 10 knots when North Atlantic right whales were migrating through NC's near-shore waters.

After conservationists pushed for more, NOAA Fisheries withdrew a proposal that would have expanded boat speed limits and protected North Atlantic Right Whales.

Federal regulators are abandoning a proposal to expand ocean speed limits that were designed to protect North Atlantic right whales. The whales, which give birth off Georgia’s coast in the winter, are nearing extinction: just 370 remain,