Everyone deserves healthy oceans. Everyone deserves to vacation at a beach without trash. Everyone deserves to take their kids fishing without concern for mercury or toxins. And we deserve to have robust coastal communities and ocean and coastal economies.
Luckily, we have the National Ocean Policy, which represents a huge step forward for anyone who treasures our ocean, coasts and Great Lakes. Full implementation of the National Ocean Policy will help move our country towards management that protects, maintains, and restores ocean and coastal ecosystems while providing all the things that we need and enjoy from our ocean and coasts.
To ensure that we fulfill the full potential of the National Ocean Policy, Congress must ensure restrictions are not placed on implementation. Importantly, the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions are poised to finalize the first ever regional ocean plans that will guide how our federal, state and Tribal governments work together with stakeholders to use data and coordinating actions to identify the ecologically special places and spur sustainable uses in the ocean.
Now more than ever we need our elected leaders to support full implementation of the National Ocean Policy.
During June, National Oceans Month, please join us and send Congress a message to support full implementation of the National Ocean Policy.
Everyone deserves healthy oceans. We deserve clean beaches, healthy fish and robust coastal communities.
Luckily, we have the National Ocean Policy, a common-sense approach to smart stewardship of our ocean, coasts and Great Lakes. It directs government agencies with differing mandates -- from overseeing military readiness, fishing, shipping, offshore energy, to coastal development -- to work together to improve government efficiency, increase coordination, and improve the data collection and public involvement that informs decision-making.
To ensure that we fulfill the full potential of the National Ocean Policy, Congress must ensure restrictions are not placed on implementation. This is especially important as the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions work to finalize the first ever ocean plans to guide federal agencies, state governments and Tribal nations in working together toward better ocean stewardship.
Halting implementation of the National Ocean Policy would throw away seven years worth of work, investment and commitment by state governments, commercial and industrial ocean users, universities and scientists, 25 federal agencies and departments and tens of thousands of citizens across the country.
I urge you to support the full implementation of the National Ocean Policy and oppose any restrictions that would harm implementation for the National Ocean Policy.
