September 17, 2010

NOAA Regional Ocean Partnership Funding Program: FY2011 Funding Competition

On September 13, 2010, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published Federal Register notice advising that NOAA is soliciting proposals for competitive funding for Regional Ocean Partnerships.  Eligible entities include state, local, territory and tribal governments, regional ocean partnerships, institutions of higher learning, and non-profit and for-profit organizations.  Eligible Partnerships are those that include or emphasize regional Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning (CMSP) efforts.  These efforts include protection of marine mammals.

This funding completion focuses on advancing effective coastal and ocean management through regional ocean governance and on advancing the goals for national ocean policy set out in the July 2010 Final Recommendations of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force. The Regional Ocean Partnership Funding Program will support two categories of activities:

Obama’s Ocean Policy Initiative: Washington’s Latest Power Grab

by Bonner R. Cohen, Ph.D.

As if the sputtering U.S. economy weren’t in enough trouble already, the Obama administration is cooking up a new scheme that will extend the heavy hand of Washington to where it has never gone before.

Unveiled with precious little fanfare on July 19 in the form of an Executive Order, the White House’s Ocean Policy Initiative will subject America’s waterways – oceans, rivers, bays, estuaries, and the Great Lakes plus coastal and even inland areas – to federal zoning. Under the scheme, these areas would be managed according to the Orwellian-sounding notion of “coastal and marine spatial planning.” As an unnamed administration official told the Los Angeles Times: “This sets the nation on a path of much more comprehensive planning to both conservation and sustainable use of [ocean] resources.”1

September 13, 2010

New National Ocean Policy Will Help Protect the “Blue Heart of the Planet”

From NRDC Staff Blog

Tomorrow evening at the Commonwealth Club of California, the Council on Environmental Quality Chairwoman Nancy Sutley and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Administrator Jane Lubchenco will be discussing the Obama administration’s national ocean policy.

Just as we have the Clean Water Act for our water and the Clean Air Act for our air, we now have a bedrock environmental policy like this for our oceans. On July 19, President Obama signed an executive order that created a national ocean policy to protect and restore our oceans and that created a framework for coastal and marine spatial planning.

September 8, 2010

Climate change conference to focus on oceans

From OSU News and Communications

A one-day symposium in Eugene will bring together policy experts and marine scientists – an important step in exploring how climate change impacts on the world’s oceans may necessitate new policies and management approaches.

The free public symposium will be held at the University of Oregon’s Knight Law Center (room 175) from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 10. More information on the event, including registration, is available at www.waynemorsecenter.uoregon.edu/_pages/events_themes/oceans_conference.html. The center is located at 1515 Agate St.