A Sea Change for US Ocean Policy?

AIBS Washington Watch, March 2002

Adrienne Froelich

For the first time in over 30 years, not one but two panels of experts are reviewing US oceans policy. In July 2000, Congress enacted the Oceans Act of 2000 to develop and implement "a coherent, comprehensive, and long-range national policy to explore, protect and use ocean and coastal resources" through the creation of a 16-member commission to review current ocean issues and policy. While the Oceans Act of 2000 was making its way through Congress, the Pew Charitable Trust threw its hat into the ring and established a private commission with a focus on "improving ocean stewardship through recommendations to sustain marine life." Unlike the Pew Commission, which is more narrowly focused on living marine resources, the new 16-member federal commission—the US Commission on Ocean Policy (USCOP)—has been tasked with a wide variety of topics, ranging from national security to offshore oil and gas operations.

Ironically, a major reason cited by the legislation’s sponsors for the current review is the plethora of laws enacted as a result of recommendations from the original ocean commission, named after its chair, Julius Stratton, then Ford Foundation chairman of the board. In the 10 years following the 1969 release of the Stratton Commission’s report, Our Nation and the Sea, two federal agencies were created (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and Environmental Protection Agency) and nine major pieces of legislation affecting marine resource management were enacted, including the Coastal Zone Management Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. As a result of the large number of regulations pertaining to the ocean environment, many federal agencies and congressional committees have overlapping jurisdictions. Tony MacDonald, director of the Coastal States Organization, summarized the problem at a recent commission meeting: "The Stratton Commission spawned many children, which are now in need of spiritual guidance."

To further complicate ocean resource management, the agencies responsible for managing the ocean are plagued by a lack of funding for collecting the scientific information necessary to make sound policy decisions. Senator Fritz Hollings (D-SC), sponsor of the Oceans Act, noted in an address to Congress that "the oceans are home to 80% of all life forms on Earth, but only 1% of our biotechnology R&D budget will focus on marine life forms." This distribution of funds is not limited to the biotechnology sector; the Consortium for Oceanographic Research and Education recently told USCOP that ocean-related research receives less than 4% of the total federal research and development budget.

Jane Lubchenco, one of four research scientists on the 18-member Pew Commission, acknowledges the underinvestment in marine research but also points out that the government is not making the best use of information in hand: "The urgent need for more knowledge and monitoring is indeed critical. My own feeling is that we need to operate on two parallel tracks: making better use of existing information (in policy and management) and at the same time supporting a much more vigorous research enterprise to discover the new information that will enable even better decisionmaking."

Although a lack of scientific information may hinder management of some marine resources, Andy Rosenberg, former deputy director of the National Marine Fisheries Service and member of the US Commission on Ocean Policy, cites a lack of political willpower as the major obstacle to sound management of many fisheries. Rosenberg notes that fisheries management decisions "have impacts on real people" and that the arguments in fisheries management are typically not over the science but over the reconciliation of science with socioeconomic issues.

The commission’s recommendations to Congress and to the Bush administration will themselves be a test of political willpower. However, the Oceans Act guarantees a response from the administration: It requires the president to submit responses and proposals for ocean and coastal resource management within 120 days of delivery of the commission’s report. It remains to be seen what the administration will propose, of course, but members of the 1966 Stratton Commission reported that one of the main lessons learned from their experience was not to underestimate the power of political champions. Jane Lubchenco echoes this sentiment: "The formation of the US House Oceans Caucus, the enactment of the Oceans Act, and the work of the two commissions [Pew Commission and USCOP] is reason to be optimistic."


Adrienne Froelich is the AIBS public policy representative and can be contacted by e-mail at afroelich@aibs.org.

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