Ecocentric

Developing a (Slightly) More Organized Ocean Policy

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The Gulf oil spill is a visceral example—a sticky and black one—of how dysfunctional our national policy on oceans and shorelines really is. In granting energy companies leases to drill ever deeper in the Gulf of Mexico, the Department of the Interior seemed to give little thought to how a blown well might impact the region’s multi-billion dollar fishery, or how an oil spill could speed up the erosion that is carrying off chunks of the Louisiana coastline each year. Our marine systems are connected—just ask the people of Florida, who rejected offshore drilling only to see BP’s oil wash up on their shores regardless—but for too long the federal government has treated ocean issues “in a stovepipe fashion,” according to Chris Mann, senior officer for the Pew Environment Group. “Shipping and fishing and oil rigs and water pollution—it’s all dealt with separately.”

But that might be changing—at least a little bit. This afternoon the White House announced that it was forming a new National Ocean Council, to try to make sense of the scores of regulations, laws and agencies that cover differing aspect of ocean, coastal and Great Lakes policy. The new body will include representatives from 24 federal agencies, and though they won’t have the power to issue any new laws or regulations, the panel is meant to weigh and measure the different demands on U.S. marine resources. “This report outlines a way to improve ocean management at all levels,” Nancy Sutley, the chair of the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), told reporters this afternoon. (You can read the full report here.)

The report and the new ocean council is the result of an interagency task force, led by CEQ, that was formed on the order of President Obama in June 2009 with the idea of bringing some logic to the country’s chaotic oceans policy. Over the course of more than a year, the task force—which includes 24 senior-level policy officials—issued preliminary reports that were available for public comment before coming out with its final recommendations today. Under the new policy, coastal and marine spatial planning is to be regional, with more cooperation among local, state and federal officials—and more input from the scientific community. “A hallmark of this—like the oil spill response—is a commitment to science-based decision making,” said John Holdren, the head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “The President has said he wants to apply the best available science for our natural resources.”

Environmentalists reacted positively to the new ocean policy—even though it doesn’t seem likely to bring about any clear, immediate changes in the way the U.S. uses its marine resources. “This announcement is mostly about the future and what we hope will happen,” says Mann. “The idea is to get the feds to work together with the states and figure out our broad goals for the oceans.” And as Mann points out, marine policy has to be collaborative. Oceans and seas cross state and national borders, and as do marine resources like fish—and unfortunately, pollution. “The Gulf spill shows that decisions made in federal waters can impact other states,” he says.

Of course, the Gulf spill also shows that when we have competing demands on our shorelines and oceans—fossil fuel exploration, fishing, clean water—we may not be able to enjoy all of them. As a nation—and eventually as a planet—we’ll need to decide what we really want to prioritize, and that’s a decision that’s well above an interagency ocean task force.