Environment America is the new home of U.S. PIRG’s environmental work.
Statement of Buffy Baumann,
Oceans Advocate, U.S. PIRG:
President Bush responded
to the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy's (USCOP) report today by signing an
executive order to establish a cabinet-level Committee on Ocean Policy. U.S.
PIRG commends the White House for recognizing that our oceans are in crisis.
The creation of a cabinet-level
body to coordinate the management of our oceans sounds promising, and we remain
cautiously optimistic about the initiative the administration seems to be taking
on this issue. But the devil is in the details, and we urge the administration
to ensure that the guiding principles of the Committee on Ocean Policy are to
protect, restore and conserve our oceans and coasts.
While the creation of this
Committee is a commendable first step, it comes as the Bush administration is
poised to weaken through agency action the standard that serves as the national
guideline for what is considered to be "overfishing." This effort
ignores the USCOP's warning that overfishing is a major contributing factor
to the decline of ocean health. In the spirit of the president's goal of improving
the management of our federal fisheries, his administration should reconsider
their proposed revisions and instead keep this standard as currently written.
President Bush has an historic
opportunity to be a true champion for the oceans, a welcome contrast to his
historically anti-environmental record. America's coasts and oceans, and all
those that depend on them, are all counting on him to create a legacy of true
ocean protection.
