The White House Monday unveiled the nation's first national oceans policy, which intends to cut through a growing mish-mash of competing interests – from offshore drilling to fishing to shipping – and create a comprehensive, integrated stewardship approach toward oceans, coastal areas, and the Great Lakes.
To accomplish that, the new policy mandates no new federal rules but instead sets up a new National Ocean Council (NOC) made up of federal agencies, state, and regional groups. The goal is to have them work together to create a degree of unity in what has been a highly fragmented area of governance.
Environmentalists hailed it as "a momentous day for America’s oceans." Critics including sport fishermen worried that it would create "new bureaucracies that would impose top-down regulations."
For President Obama, however, it is merely a way to get everyone a seat at the table – a problem-solving approach characteristic of Obama, now applied to the oceans.
"Right now we have agencies that work along under individual mandates. This policy says the president wants you to work together for the best overall way," says Andrew Rosenberg, a professor of natural resources at the University of New Hampshire and an adviser to the president's task force.
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