1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Coastal Seaweed Farm Act of 2023 . 2. Program on coastal seaweed farming (a) Preliminary study on coastal seaweed farming (1) In general Not later than 2 years after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretaries shall jointly submit a preliminary report to Congress and publish such report on such Secretaries’ agency websites analyzing— (A) the effects of coastal seaweed farming on surrounding communities, the ecosystem, and marine and coastal wildlife; (B) best practices for cultivating and sourcing local seeds to propagate for coastal seaweed farming; (C) best practices to prevent the escape or spread of any organism that would alter the natural ecosystem or present a biofouling risk; (D) best practices relating to species selection, harvesting cycles, spatial planning and siting, engineering and design, and environmental aspects of coastal seaweed farming that— (i) maximize benefits, and avoid adverse effects, on the marine ecosystem and marine and coastal wildlife; (ii) lead to optimal yields; (iii) account for the impact climate change may have on natural habitats and coastal seaweed farming operations; (iv) minimize entanglements and other harmful interactions between marine life and nearshore seaweed farming infrastructure and gear; (v) account for changes in migration patterns of marine mammals and highly migratory species (as defined in section 3 of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act ( 16 U.S.C. 1802 )); and (vi) account for and avoid interference with competing uses, including vessel traffic and commercial and recreational fishing; (E) the potential for growing seaweed for long-term carbon sequestration and best practices for measurement, reporting, and verification approaches for growing seaweed for long-term carbon sequestration specific to the sequestration reservoir; (F) the effects of co-cultivation of bivalves with seaweed on the ecosystem, ocean acidification, and hypoxia levels