From the President’s Office – 11/2/09
Filed under: About,From The President's Office,News & Resources
As I have mentioned in previous newsletters, Ocean Leadership continues to ramp up its advocacy efforts in Washington on behalf of the ocean research and education community. This week we submitted formal recommendations to the Presidential Ocean Policy Task Force regarding the science requirements
for marine spatial planning (MSP) (link to document on website). We were asked by the President’s Council on Environmental Quality to help coordinate this effort, thus worked closely with our Member institutions over the past several weeks to develop a document that succinctly describes the MSP process and makes a compelling case for ensuring that it is based on the best science available. I hope you share my opinion that the resulting product was well worth the time and effort of so many people.
The federal agencies are currently developing a framework for MSP as part of the pending National Ocean Policy, which will likely be unveiled in early 2010. This new national policy and framework for MSP will beinstrumental in determining the future direction of ocean policy and research and related funding over the next decade. Thus, we have been working closely with the federal agencies throughout the process.
Ocean Leadership also weighed in on the annual appropriation process this week sending a letter (link to letter) to the conferees for the Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations bill which funds NSF, NOAA and NASA. The Senate passed its version of the bill last night and will begin working with the House to reach
a conference agreement that can hopefully be approved by Congress and sent to the President for his signature later this month.
Remember that we are here in this town to represent you so please let us know your thoughts and ideas of how we can be more effective.
Bob
