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President Trump’s outrageous act of locking up children after separating them from their immigrant parents is providing effective cover for other outrageous acts that go largely unnoticed. Trump is redefining America’s relationship to our public oceans. And he’s doing it at a time of chaotic marine and climatic change for which we desperately need a well thought out plan and response.
On June 19th President Trump rescinded President Obama’s 2010 National Ocean Policy Executive Order, which was issued in the wake of the BP oil spill disaster. Its demise was almost guaranteed after a former right-wing Texas Congressman labeled it “Obamacare for the Ocean.”
In fact, the National Ocean Policy had its origin in two ocean commission reports published in 2003 and 2004 under President George W. Bush Jr. Both identified the ecological decline of our public seas as a threat to the environment, economy, and national security and called for better, more democratic planning for the sustainable use of our blue frontier.
Kris Krüg
Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Gulf of Mexico, June 2010.
A series of public hearings around the nation in 2009 mobilized thousands of people to pressure the Obama administration to follow through on the commission reports recommendations. People wanted to see a planning process to promote ocean health and ensure the sustainable use of our limited marine resources. It seemed straightforward and sensible, but it would take a historic disaster—the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout—to move the ever-cautious Obama to issue his order.
Despite the Trump White House’s claim of “rolling back excessive bureaucracy,” a key accomplishment of the National Ocean Policy was to get the twenty-six federal agencies working in our public seas to better coordinate with each other. It also aimed to empower state and tribal governments and other ocean stakeholders to do science-based and regionally based planning for our last great commons.
The first regional ocean plan came out less than two years ago with the participation and support of six New England states, ten federally recognized tribes, ten federal agencies and the New England Fishery Management Council.
Participants planned to work together to resolve potential conflicts between offshore fisheries, shipping, the Navy and new maritime players like offshore wind farms and aquaculture. Science portals began providing improved coastal and offshore user maps and data to the public, useful in the placement of offshore wind turbines and fiber-optic cables, the reduction of whale strikes by commercial shipping, entanglements in fishing gear, and more.
The hard, unromantic work of hammering out regional compromises among many different maritime interests brought us closer to a healthy ocean and cleaner water for all.
Unfortunately, in place of Obama’s initiative, President Trump has issued his own Executive Order, which emphasizes offshore oil development and drops all references to a healthy ocean, conservation, and climate change.
Trump's plan also moves decision-making away from states, tribes and other stakeholders and into the White House. Decisions will be managed by the head of the Council on Environmental Quality (presently engaged in trying to dismantle the National Environmental Policy Act) and the White House science advisor. A year and a half into Administration, neither of these posts have been filled.
In his new Executive Order Trump also makes the argument that “ocean industries employ millions of Americans and support a strong national economy. Domestic energy production from Federal waters strengthens the Nation’s security.”
President Trump has issued his own Executive Order, which emphasizes offshore oil development and drops all references to a healthy ocean, conservation, and climate change.
Just as he approaches global trade through a rear-view prism—looking only at industrial extraction and manufacturing in sectors like coal, steel and auto while ignoring our booming service economy and intellectual property exports—Trump’s idea of ocean industries is focused almost exclusively on offshore oil drilling. He ignores the hundreds of billions of dollars of blue economic activity and jobs generated by coastal tourism and recreation, real-estate, harbors and ports, commercial fishing and newer sectors such as ocean farming, marine technology, and offshore wind.
On June 9th thousands of people marched for the ocean in Washington, D.C. and in over 100 sister marches around the world to promote practical solutions to ocean threats like offshore oil drilling and spilling.
Of course when we marched past the White House, it was empty. The President was off at the G-7 meeting in Canada refusing to sign a common resolution and tweeting that Canada’s Prime Minister was “dishonest and weak.”
The Canadians had proposed the G-7 meeting focus on the ocean, climate, and energy but Trump’s threats of a global trade war disrupted their plans.
Our neighbors to the North had the right idea about the importance of the seas around us. That’s why people marched for the ocean in June and that’s why they will vote for the ocean in November.
David Helvarg is an author and Executive Director of Blue Frontier, an ocean conservation and policy group. He chaired the steering committee for the global March for the Ocean on June 9.