Agency Affirmative - Gonzaga 2014

Aff
1AC
Contention 1 Exploration
US neglecting ocean exploration now
Drs. McClain, Deep Sea News Editor & Dove, Georgia Aquarium Research Center
Research and Conservation Director, 12
[Craig, National Evolutionary Synthesis Center Assistant Director of Science, & Alistair, Al Dove is an
Australian marine biologist currently serving as Director of Research and Conservation at the Georgia
Aquarium Research Center in Atlanta, 10-16-12, Deep Sea News, We Need an Ocean NASA Now Pt.1,
http://deepseanews.com/2012/10/we-need-an-ocean-nasa-now-pt-1/, accessed 6-24-14, AFB]
Whether giant fish or giant crustaceans, are opportunities to uncover the oceans mysteries are
quickly dwindling.
The Ghost of Ocean Science Present
Our nation faces a pivotal moment in exploration of the oceans. The most remote regions of the
deep oceans should be more accessible now than ever due to engineering and technological advances.
What limits our exploration of the oceans is not imagination or technology but funding. We as a
society started to make a choice: to deprioritize ocean exploration and science.
In general, science in the U.S. is poorly funded; while the total number of dollars spent here is large, we
only rank 6th in world in the proportion of gross domestic product invested into research. The
outlook for ocean science is even bleaker. In many cases, funding of marine science and exploration,
especially for the deep sea, are at historical lows. In others, funding remains stagnant, despite
rising costs of equipment and personnel.
The Joint Ocean Commission Initiative, a committee comprised of leading ocean scientists, policy
makers, and former U.S. secretaries and congressmen, gave the grade of D- to funding of ocean
science in the U.S. Recently the Obama Administration proposed to cut the National Undersea
Research Program (NURP) within NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a
move supported by the Senate. In NOAAs own words, NOAA determined that NURP was a lowerpriority function within its portfolio of research activities. Yet, NURP is one of the main suppliers
of funding and equipment for ocean exploration, including both submersibles at the Hawaiian
Underwater Research Laboratory and the underwater habitat Aquarius. This cut has come despite an
overall request for a 3.1% increase in funding for NOAA. Cutting NURP saves a meager $4,000,000
or 1/10 of NOAAs budget and 1,675 times less than we spend on the Afghan war in just one month.
One of the main reasons NOAA argues for cutting funding of NURP is that other avenues of
Federal funding for such activities might be pursued. However, other avenues are fading as
well. Some funding for ocean exploration is still available through NOAAs Ocean Exploration
Program. However, the Office of Ocean Exploration, the division that contains NURP, took the
second biggest cut of all programs (-16.5%) and is down 33% since 2009. Likewise, U.S. Naval
funding for basic research has also diminished.
The other main source of funding for deep-sea science in the U.S. is the National Science Foundation
which primarily supports biological research through the Biological Oceanography Program.
Funding for science within this program remains stagnant, funding larger but fewer grants. This trend
most likely reflects the ever increasing costs of personnel, equipment, and consumables which only
larger projects can support. Indeed, compared to rising fuel costs, a necessity for oceanographic
vessels, NSF funds do not stretch as far as even a decade ago.
Shrinking funds and high fuel costs have also taken their toll on The University-National
Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) which operates the U.S. public research fleet. Over
the last decade, only 80% of available ship days were supported through funding. Over the last two
years the gap has increasingly widened, and over the last ten years operations costs increased
steadily at 5% annually. With an estimated shortfall of $12 million, the only solution is to reduce
the U.S. research fleet size. Currently this is expected to be a total of 6 vessels that are near
retirement, but there is no plan of replacing these lost ships.
The situation in the U.S. contrasts greatly with other countries. The budget for the Japanese
Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) continues to increase, although much
less so in recent years. The 2007 operating budget for the smaller JAMSTEC was $527 million, over
$100 million dollars more than the 2013 proposed NOAA budget. Likewise, China is increasing
funding to ocean science over the next five years and has recently succeeded in building a new deepsea research and exploration submersible, the Jiaolong. The only deep submersible still operating in the
US is the DSV Alvin, originally built in 1968.
Exploration funding key to protect ocean biodiversity and the ocean economy
Adams, National Resources Defense Council Oceans Advocate, 14
(Alexandra, 3/25/14, National Resources Defense Council Ocean Advocate, Natural Resources Defense
Council, A Blue Budget Beyond Sequester: Taking care of our oceans,
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/aadams/a_blue_budget_beyond_sequester.html, accessed 6/27/14,
BCG)
This past year was a tough year - from deep sequester cuts to a government shutdown. Our oceans
definitely felt the budget crunch. After much excruciating negotiation, Congress finally passed a
budget and now we are on the road to what we hope will be a saner way to govern and plan.
The President has just released his budget for Fiscal Year 2015. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) budget can mean the difference between thriving oceans and coastal
communities, or the decline in this invaluable public resource. This years budget signals that we
will invest in protecting that resource, but by no means provides all that will be needed for the big
job ahead. With half of Americans living in coastal areas, NOAAs work means protecting our
citizens and our natural resources. Moreover, with a national ocean economy that is larger than the
entire U.S. farm sector in terms of jobs and economic output, keeping this economic powerhouse
functioning matters to us all.
For fiscal year 2015, NOAA has proposed a budget of approximately $5.5 billion, an increase of 3.2%
above the 2014 enacted funding levels, which took steps to mitigate the worst effects of sequestration but
did not fund programs at the levels to which they ultimately need to be supported. This is a very modest
increase, given the enormity of the agencys task. Based on this request, there is every reason why
Congress should fund the Presidents Budget. Even the small increases this year recognize the agencys
critical role in feeding our nation, protecting our coastal economies and preserving our precious ocean
resources.
NOAA has dual responsiblilities ranging from mapping the ocean floor to maintaining orbiting
satellites for weather forecasting. And if we want to see investments in protecting coastal economies
and ocean health, in addition to accurate weather data, we need to ensure that NOAAs budget is
able to support both its wet, ocean side, as well as the dry weather forecasting activities. This
means funding both effective ocean, coastal, and fisheries programs, in addition to weather
forecasts, warnings and satellites. The National Ocean Service (NOS), which helps us understand and
protect our oceans and coasts, will need investments to continue its work. In FY 2015, NOAA requests a
small increase of $20.6 million for NOS over the 2014 enacted levels.
With renewed commitment from both the Administration and communities around our nation to prepare
for the impacts of a changing climate, NOAAs budget includes programs to help our nation adapt to these
changes. Some of our nations fishermen are on the front lines of climate impacts, as they watch more
acidic waters decimate oyster harvests while fish populations shift away from their classic geographic
range. Because ocean acidification is changing the very chemistry of our waters and threatening
productive coastal economies, the Presidents Budget has committed $15 million in funding for
ocean acidification research and monitoring. Just ask any shellfish farmer and you will hear that this
investment is long overdue and will help make the difference between abundant harvests and seasons
without oysters to sell.
NOAAs National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is tasked with managing our oceans fisheries. In
years past we have seen our fish stocks crash, but thanks to Congressional action in 1996 and 2006 on the
Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Management Act, stocks around the nation are now rebounding.
Implementing this highly successful Act requires funding to gather accurate data on the status of our fish
stocks and fishery managers to help implement programs. Funding these programs will help ensure our
nations fisheries can continue to support coastal economies while filling our dinner plates for years to
come. This year, NOAA is requesting nearly flat funding for NMFS compared to the FY14 enacted levels,
as those provided funds for fisheries disaster assistance which are not reoccurring.
Unfortunately, some critical programs wont get what they need this year. This years budget cuts
funding for Ocean Exploration and Research by $7 million. This funding has supported
exploration by the research vessel Okeanos of deep sea corals and other marine life in the
submarine canyons and seamounts off the Mid-Atlantic and New England coasts that fisheries
managers and ocean conservation groups, including NRDC, are working to protect. Even though
funds are stretched, shortchanging exploration and research will lead to weaker protections for
species and resources that are already under stress.
Scenario 1 Ocean Collapse

Ocean ecosystem collapse risks mass extinction
Lewis, University of Iowa senior research writer and editor, 11
[Richard, 1/10/2011, Brown University, Species loss tied to ecosystem collapse and recovery,
https://news.brown.edu/articles/2011/01/extinction, accessed 7/1/2014 CK]
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] The worlds oceans are under siege. Conservation
biologists regularly note the precipitous decline of key species, such as cod, bluefin tuna, swordfish
and sharks. Lose enough of these top-line predators (among other species), and the fear is that the
oceanic web of life may collapse.
In a new paper in Geology, researchers at Brown University and the University of Washington used a
group of marine creatures similar to todays nautilus to examine the collapse of marine ecosystems
that coincided with two of the greatest mass extinctions in the Earths history. They attribute the
ecosystems collapse to a loss of enough species occupying the same space in the oceans, called
ecological redundancy.
While the term is not new, the paper marks the first time that a loss of ecological redundancy is
directly blamed for a marine ecosystems collapse in the fossil record. Just as ominously, the authors
write that it took up to 10 million years after the mass extinctions for enough variety of species to
repopulate the ocean restoring ecological redundancy for the ecosystem to stabilize.
Its definitely a cautionary tale because we know its happened at least twice before, said Jessica
Whiteside, assistant professor of geological sciences at Brown and the papers lead author. And you
have long periods of time before you have reestablishment of ecological redundancy.
If the theory is true, the implications could not be clearer today. According to the United Nationssponsored report Global Biodiversity Outlook 2, the population of nearly one-third of marine species
that were tracked had declined over the three decades that ended in 2000. The numbers were the
same for land-based species. In effect, we are currently responsible for the sixth major extinction
event in the history of the Earth, and the greatest since the dinosaurs disappeared, 65 million years
ago, the 2006 report states.
Scenario 2 - Economy
The time for an Ocean NASA is now - OSEA will bring sustainable growth to the
economy
http://deepseanews.com/2012/10/we-need-an-ocean-nasa-now-pt-3/, accessed 6-24-14, BCG]
We are at a time for renewed commitment to ocean exploration and science. As stated by the Joint
Ocean Commission, Ocean programs continue to be chronically underfunded, highlighting the need
for a dedicated ocean investment fund. Captain Don Walsh, one of three men to visit the deepest part
of the ocean, recently stated it best: What we need is an Ocean NASA. We borrow and modify John
F. Kennedys famous speech at Rice University on the decision to go to the moon: In short, our
leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves
as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good
of all men, and to become the worlds leading ocean-faring nationWe set sail because there is new
knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all
people. There is much to be gained from creating NASA-style Ocean Science and Exploration
Agency (OSEA). Every dollar we commit to science returns $2.21 in goods and services. Meeting the
scientific, technological, logistical, and administrative demands of scientific exploration creates jobs
and requires substantial personnel beyond just scientists and engineers. The materials purchased
for this cause support even further employment. As with NASA, meeting these scientific and
engineering challenges will disseminate ideas, knowledge, applications, and technology to rest of
society. This knowledge gained from basic research will form the backbone for applied research and
economic gain later. And much like NASA has, OSEA will inspire the next generation of scientist and
engineers, instilling in the young a renewed appreciation for the oceans of which we are all stewards: our
oceans. It will provide a positive focus for society in a time where hope is often lacking and faith in
science is low. OSEA will be the positive message that renews interest in our oceans and their
conservation.
Failure to restore economic power compromises US foreign policy, risking war

Lieberthal & OHanlon, Brookings Institution foreign policy scholars, 12
[Kenneth M. & Michael, 7-3-12, Los Angeles Times, The real national security threat: America's debt,
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/03/opinion/la-oe-ohanlon-fiscal-reform-20120703, accessed 7-2-14,
AFB]
Alas, globalization and automation trends of the last generation have increasingly called the
American dream into question for the working classes. Another decade of underinvestment in what
is required to remedy this situation will make an isolationist or populist president far more likely
because much of the country will question whether an internationalist role makes sense for America
especially if it costs us well over half a trillion dollars in defense spending annually yet seems
correlated with more job losses.
Lastly, American economic weakness undercuts U.S. leadership abroad. Other countries sense our
weakness and wonder about our purported decline. If this perception becomes more widespread,
and the case that we are in decline becomes more persuasive, countries will begin to take actions
that reflect their skepticism about America's future. Allies and friends will doubt our commitment
and may pursue nuclear weapons for their own security, for example; adversaries will sense
opportunity and be less restrained in throwing around their weight in their own neighborhoods. The
crucial Persian Gulf and Western Pacific regions will likely become less stable. Major war will
become more likely.
When running for president last time, Obama eloquently articulated big foreign policy visions: healing
America's breach with the Muslim world, controlling global climate change, dramatically curbing global
poverty through development aid, moving toward a world free of nuclear weapons. These were, and
remain, worthy if elusive goals. However, for Obama or his successor, there is now a much more urgent
big-picture issue: restoring U.S. economic strength. Nothing else is really possible if that
fundamental prerequisite to effective foreign policy is not reestablished.
Coordinated and prioritized ocean exploration strategy key to solve effective ocean
policy, ensuring leadership and competitiveness
Sutley & Holdren National Ocean Council co-chairs 13
[Nancy H. Chair: Council on Environmental Quality, John P. Director, Office of Science and Technology
Policy, National Ocean Council, April 2013, NATIONAL OCEAN POLICY IMPLEMENTATION
PLAN, http://www.oceanchampions.org/pdfs/national_ocean_policy_implementation_plan.pdf, accessed
6/26/14, CK]
For the United States to continue to be a global leader in understanding and acting on the
connections between our well-being and the health of the natural environment, we need to continue
exploring and expanding our knowledge of the ocean, our coasts, and the Great Lakes. Management
and policy decisions must be based in the context sound science provides, through the integration of
natural and social science data, information, and knowledge. National Ocean Policy actions will
contribute to high- quality science and ensure that information based on that science is made
available to guide decisions and actions. Insight gained from scientific research, advances in
observations, and innovative technologies will further enable evaluation of trade-offs between
alternative management scenarios, enhance our ability to balance competing demands on
ecosystems, and strengthen our Nation's economic and scientific competiveness. At the same time,
increasing understanding of the ocean, coasts, and Great Lakes among our people and communities
will empower better-informed public stewardship of ocean resources.
Advance fundamental scientific knowledge through exploration and research. Through Federal research
and exploration activities and partnerships with non-governmental organizations, new ocean
discoveries will expand our knowledge and understanding of oceanic and Great Lakes biodiversity,
biogeochemical processes, ecosystem services, and climate interactions. Agencies will use the Ocean
Research Priorities Plan, a document built with input from the ocean science and technology
community, as a reference in determining research directions. They will conduct expeditions in
poorly known or unknown regions of the ocean and Great Lakes. They will also work to incorporate
natural, social, and behavioral-science information in decision-support tools, which will enable
Federal, State, tribal, regional, and local authorities to manage ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes
resources more efficiently and effectively.
Advance technologies to explore and better understand the complexities of land, ocean, atmosphere,
ice, biological, and social interactions on a global scale. Environmental observation provides the
basis for informing decision-making. New technologies, including improved remote sensing systems,
and the coordination among agencies needed to develop and implement them, are critical to
improving our understanding of the underlying physical and ecological processes driving the ocean,
coasts, and Great Lakes, as well as to identifying more efficient means of monitoring these
ecosystems. Federal agencies will evaluate how to most effectively integrate observational data, test
and develop ocean sensors and communication standards, and implement data and modeling
techniques to support a global observational capability to show how observed variables change over
time.
Scenario 3 Diseases
Ocean exploration is key to unlocking medical innovations to solve diseases
National Academies Reports, 7
[National non-profit organization for science, engineering, and medicine, Oceans and Human Health,
http://dels.nas.edu/resources/static-assets/osb/miscellaneous/Oceans-Human-Health.pdf, p. 2-4, accessed
6/28/14, BCG)
The ocean benefits human health and well-being in immeasurable ways. The nutritional benefits of
eating fish, rich in protein and omega-3 fatty acids, make the ocean an indispensablebut not
unlimitedsource of healthy food. Ocean science is revealing many other ways the ocean can benefit
human health, from providing new sources of drugs to helping unravel many of the mysteries of
human disease.
THE OCEAN IS THE MOST PROMISING FRONTIER FOR SOURCES OF NEW DRUGS
In 1945, a young organic chemist named Werner Bergmann set out to explore the waters off the coast of
southern Florida. Among the marine organisms he scooped from the sand that day was a Caribbean
sponge that would later be called Cryptotethya crypta. Back in his lab, Bergmann extracted a novel
compound from this sponge that aroused his curiosity.
The chemical Bergmann identified in this sponge, spongothymidine, eventually led to the
development of a whole class of drugs that treat cancer and viral diseases and are still in use today.
For example, Zidovudine (AZT) fights the AIDS virus, HIV, and cytosine arabinoside (Ara-C) is used
in the treatment of leukemias and lymphomas. Acyclovir speeds the healing of eczema and some
herpes viruses. These are just a few examples of how the study of marine organisms contributes to
the health of thousands of men, women, and children around the world.
New antibiotics, in addition to new drugs for fighting cancer, inflammatory diseases, and
neurodegenerative diseases (which often cannot be treated successfully today), are greatly needed.
With drug resistance nibbling away at the once-full toolbox of antibiotics, the limited effectiveness
of currently available drugs has dire consequences for public health.
Historically, many medicines have come from nature mostly from land-based natural organisms.
Because scientists have nearly exhausted the supply of terrestrial plants, animals, and
microorganisms that have interesting medical properties, new sources of drugs are needed.
Occupying more than 70 percent of the Earths surface, the ocean is a virtually unexplored treasure
chest of new and unidentified speciesone of the last frontiers for sources of new natural products.
These natural products are of special interest because of the dazzling diversity and uniqueness of
the creatures that make the sea their home.
One reason marine organisms are so interesting to scientists is because in adapting to the various ocean
environments, they have evolved fascinating repertoires of unique chemicals to help them survive.
For example, anchored to the seafloor, a sponge that protects itself from an animal trying to take over its
space by killing the invader has been compared with the human immune system trying to kill foreign
cancer cells. That same sponge, bathed in seawater containing millions of bacteria, viruses, and fungi,
some of which could be pathogens, has developed antibiotics to keep those pathogens under control.
Those same antibiotics could be used to treat infections in humans.
Sponges, in fact, are among the most prolific sources of diverse chemical compounds. An estimated 30
percent of all potential marine-derived medications currently in the pipelineand about 75 percent of
recently patented marine-derived anticancer compoundscome from marine sponges.
Marine-based microorganisms are another particularly rich source of new medicines. More than 10 drugs
available today derive from land-based microbes. Scientists see marine-based microbes as the most
promising source of novel medicines from the sea. In all, more than that the exploration of unique
habitats, such as deep-sea environments, and the isolation and culture of marine microorganisms
offer two underexplored opportunities for discovery of novel chemicals with therapeutic potential.
The successes to date, which are based upon a very limited investigation of both deep-sea organisms and
marine microorganisms, suggest a high potential for continued discovery of new drugs.
These diseases risk extinction

Dr. Casadevall, Albert Einstein College of Medicine Microbiology and Infectious
Diseases professor, 12
[Arturo, MD and Ph.D from New York University, Sep 2012, Microbial Biotechnology, The Future of
Biological Warfare, 5(5): 584587, Wiley, accessed 7-10-14, AFB]
In considering the importance of biological warfare as a subject for concern it is worthwhile to review the
known existential threats. At this time this writer can identify at three major existential threats to
humanity: (i) largescale thermonuclear war followed by a nuclear winter, (ii) a planet killing asteroid
impact and (iii) infectious disease. To this trio might be added climate change making the planet
uninhabitable. Of the three existential threats the first is deduced from the inferred cataclysmic effects of
nuclear war. For the second there is geological evidence for the association of asteroid impacts with
massive extinction (Alvarez, 1987). As to an existential threat from microbes recent decades have
provided unequivocal evidence for the ability of certain pathogens to cause the extinction of entire
species. Although infectious disease has traditionally not been associated with extinction this view
has changed by the finding that a single chytrid fungus was responsible for the extinction of
numerous amphibian species (Daszak et al., 1999; Mendelson et al., 2006). Previously, the view that
infectious diseases were not a cause of extinction was predicated on the notion that many pathogens
required their hosts and that some proportion of the host population was naturally resistant.
However, that calculation does not apply to microbes that are acquired directly from the
environment and have no need for a host, such as the majority of fungal pathogens. For those types of
hostmicrobe interactions it is possible for the pathogen to kill off every last member of a species
without harm to itself, since it would return to its natural habitat upon killing its last host. Hence,
from the viewpoint of existential threats environmental microbes could potentially pose a much
greater threat to humanity than the known pathogenic microbes, which number somewhere near
1500 species (Cleaveland et al., 2001; Taylor et al., 2001), especially if some of these species acquired the
capacity for pathogenicity as a consequence of natural evolution or bioengineering.
Plan
Draft
The United States federal government should increase sustained, coordinated, and prioritized exploration
of the Earths oceans through an endowed Ocean Science and Exploration Agency.
Contention 2 Solvency
An Ocean NASA would galvanize US ocean exploration, bolstering science and
leadership
We are at a time for renewed commitment to ocean exploration and science. As stated by the Joint
Ocean Commission, Ocean programs continue to be chronically underfunded, highlighting the
need for a dedicated ocean investment fund. Captain Don Walsh, one of three men to visit the
deepest part of the ocean, recently stated it best: What we need is an Ocean NASA.
We borrow and modify John F. Kennedys famous speech at Rice University on the decision to go to
the moon:
In short, our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations
to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them
for the good of all men, and to become the worlds leading ocean-faring nationWe set sail because
there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for
the progress of all people.
There is much to be gained from creating NASA-style Ocean Science and Exploration Agency
(OSEA). Every dollar we commit to science returns $2.21 in goods and services. Meeting the
scientific, technological, logistical, and administrative demands of scientific exploration creates jobs
and requires substantial personnel beyond just scientists and engineers. The materials purchased
for this cause support even further employment. As with NASA, meeting these scientific and
engineering challenges will disseminate ideas, knowledge, applications, and technology to rest of
society. This knowledge gained from basic research will form the backbone for applied research and
economic gain later. And much like NASA has, OSEA will inspire the next generation of scientist
and engineers, instilling in the young a renewed appreciation for the oceans of which we are all
stewards: our oceans. It will provide a positive focus for society in a time where hope is often lacking
and faith in science is low. OSEA will be the positive message that renews interest in our oceans and
their conservation.
Patchwork approach wont solve mission focus and sustainable funding key only
OSEA solves
Although parts of OSEA are realized in other government and private organizations, they do not
meet the full mission nor can such a distributed structure be expected to meet the challenges of this
pivotal moment. For example, NOAA fills a much-needed role but its mission is largely applied.
NOAAs mission statement is Science, Service, and Stewardship. To understand and predict changes
in climate, weather, oceans, and coasts, To share that knowledge and information with others, and
To conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resource. Contrast that to NASAs
simple mission, to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics
research.
In an agency with a chiefly applied mission, those programs that are purely exploratory must
eventually invent an applied focus or face the axe. For example, even under NURP, exploration
often focused on corals and fish of considerable economic and conservation importance rather than
those species of greatest novelty or knowledge deficit. The current situation at NOAA also
highlights how less applied scientific programs are likely to be lost. Monterey Bay Aquarium
Research Institute also provides another model that comes close to OSEA but is heavily reliant on private
funding that can often be significantly reduced during recessions as endowments shrink. Moreover, a
private foundation is unlikely to meet the full financial burden to support the full mission of an
OSEA or provide a resource to the ocean science community as whole. This is not meant to criticize
either NOAA or MBARI, indeed both supported our own research and have made immense
contributions to ocean science and exploration, but neither do they fully realize our vision for
OSEA.
As John F. Kennedy stated, We must be bold. It is time for a great national effort of the United
States of America, time for us to renew our commitment to uncovering the mysteries of the blue
planet we live on. We need a NASA-style Ocean Science and Exploration Agency (OSEA). to explore
and research the greatest depths of oceans with a community of scientists, engineers, and citizens.
Exploration key to solve laundry list of impacts spurs all other sections of oceanic
science and is self-reflexive, facilitating sustainable ocean policymaking
Schubel, Aquarium of the Pacific president and CEO, and McKinnie, NOAA's
Office of Ocean Exploration and Research senior advisor, 13
[Jerry, David, Accelerating Ocean Exploration, included in Ocean Exploration 2020 forum, National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration & Aquarium of the Pacific, September 2013, The Report of
Ocean Exploration 2020: A National Forum,
http://www.aquariumofpacific.org/downloads/oe2020report.pdf, p. 9-10, 6/28/14, GNL]
Weve only explored five to ten percent of the World Ocean just imagine what wed find if we
could explore even more of Earths final frontier.
We have an unprecedented opportunity to increase the pace and efficiency of exploring the
unknown ocean in all of its dimensions in space and time. The past 20 years have seen a dramatic
increase in attempts by the U.S. government, academic institutions, private industry and entrepreneurs,
and others to explore unknown ocean areas and phenomena. The results of these expeditions establish a
foundation that inspires others to follow: to build on the discoveries and apply the knowledge
gained to address some of the most pressing challenges we face as a nation and an interconnected
world, in addition to the ultimate challengeour human survival.
Ocean Exploration: An Opportunity and A Necessity
A strong commitment to ocean exploration and research is an opportunity, an urgent necessity, and
an issue of national security.
Every ocean exploration expedition yields new data and information, often new species, and
sometimes entirely new ecosystems. Scientists from different disciplines, resource managers, and
the public working together, unfettered by preconceived notions or constrained by narrowly defined
hypotheses, are empowered by the exploratory process.
Exploration:
demands integration of observations, concepts, thoughts, and ideas.
leads to discovery of new resourcesfood, medicines, minerals, and new sources of energy.
leads to new connections among diverse observations that allow us to quickly provide information
critical for establishing or refining marine policy, as well as making important decisions concerning
the conservation and sustained use of marine resources.
is a critical early phase of research. It guides research to areas and topics of promise and helps
generate and refine research hypotheses, thus increasing the return on the nations investment in
research. As we saw with the discovery of hydrothermal vents and chemosynthetic communities in the
1970s, exploration sometimes requires us to rethink long-held and well-established scientific paradigms,
exposing our ignorance and dramatically expanding our knowledge as a result.
pushes technology development. As we seek to explore new depths, in new time horizons, and
understand new details of the ocean, new technologies and tools are developed, from sensors to
telecommunications.
inspires and moves us as humans to action, forever changing our perspectives and daily lives, and
leaves us with a legacy of knowledge and renewed passion to ensure humanitys survival on the
ocean planetEarth.
We depend on the ocean more now than ever beforeas a nation and as a global community. As
new technologies and new partnerships allow us to explore and exploit more of the ocean, more
quickly, and at a higher resolution and rate than could even be imagined a decade ago, the
pressures and impacts on the ocean systems and resources on which we depend also increase.
Nations around the world understand the political and economic importance of exploring the ocean,
whether in the Arctic or in the South China Sea. Ocean Exploration 2020 is a timely reminder of what
we can achieve if we seize our opportunities to actand the consequences if we do not.
Inherency
Existing Programs Fail

Existing ocean exploration programs are insufficient lack of funding and
focus
Committee on Exploration of the Seas, National Research Council, 3
[Committee on Exploration of the Seas Ocean Studies Board Division on Earth and Life Studies, 2003,
Exploration of the Seas: Voyage into the Unknown, The National Research Council of the National
Academies, http://explore.noaa.gov/sites/OER/Documents/national-research-council-voyage.pdf, p. 136137, accessed 6/29/14, GNL]
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations (NOAA) Office of Ocean Exploration,
which was established in 2000, does not have the wherewithal to undertake the interdisciplinary,
global ocean exploration program proposed in this report. Significantly higher allocations are
needed to support a more comprehensive program. More money is needed to increase the
programs scope, its flexibility, and researchers access to equipment all of which will serve to
increase its chances for success.
The budget for NOAAs Office of Ocean Exploration is indicative of current limitations on U.S.
ocean exploration. Initially funded at $4 million in 2001, during ensuing years the program has been
funded for $13.2 million and $14.2 million annually. The budget for fiscal year 2004 is in the same range
although at the time of publication Congressional support is uncertain. This initial effort has been
worthwhile, and it serves as a basis for evaluating what can be accomplished. The effort has been
partially proposal driven and partially driven by agency mission, without significant thematic
direction or input from the scientific community. That aside, some regional workshops have been held
to engage more members of the scientific community in the offices efforts.
Fiscal limitations have constrained NOAAs ability to carry out a comprehensive exploration
program. Critical elements, such as the following, have been compromised by a lack of money:
Postcruise science is not funded. Not all discoveries are made during an actual offshore effort, and
some discoveries could be missed if specialized onshore tests cannot be performed. Few significant
discoveries have been announced or exploited. Data management is not funded, so the oceanographic
research community has little access to information.
Only limited technology development is funded. New sensors, for example, to investigate novel sites
or measure unsampled properties of the ocean, are not being developed.
Ship costs are usually leveraged with other planned programs. The resulting ad hoc efforts do not
allow complete freedom to explore a particular site or to venture out of relatively well-studied areas to
explore the entire worlds oceans.
Project planning is often for the short term because of the nature of government budgeting and
within-agency appropriations.
International cooperative efforts are not supported.
The scientific community does not see the program as a significant resource of funding for
sustained exploration programs. The NOAA effort is not large enough to generate significant
discoveries in the ocean sciences nor is it likely to advance the new technologies that could initiate
commercial opportunities. Despite its small budget; however, the NOAA program has demonstrated that
there is substantial interest from the U.S. ocean research community. The NOAA exploration program
has received many proposals that it was unable to fund.
Focus
Applied science focus undermining exploration now
The Ghost of Ocean Science Past

85% of Americans express concerns about stagnant research funding and 77% feel we are losing
our edge in science. So how did we get here? Part of the answer lies in how ocean science and
exploration fit into the US federal science funding scene. Ocean science is funded by numerous
agencies, with few having ocean science and exploration as a clear directive. Contrast to this to how
the US traditionally dealt with exploration of space. NASA was recognised early on as the vehicle by
which the US would establish and maintain international space supremacy, but the oceans have
always had to compete with other missions.
We faced a weak economy and in tough economic times we rightly looked for areas to adjust our
budgets. Budget cuts lead to tough either/or situations: do we fund A or B? Pragmatically we choose
what appeared to be most practical and yield most benefit. Often this meant we prioritized applied
science because it was perceived to benefit our lives sooner and more directly and, quite frankly, was
easier to justify politically the expenditures involved.
In addition to historical issues of infrastructure and current economic woes, we lacked an
understanding of the importance of basic research and ocean exploration to science, society, and
often to applied research. As example, NOAA shifted funding away from NURP and basic science
and exploration but greatly increased funding to research on applied climate change research.
Increased funding for climate change research is a necessity as we face this very real and immediate
threat to our environment and economy. Yet, did this choice, and others like it, need to come at the
reduction of our countrys capability to conduct basic ocean exploration and science and which
climate change work relies upon?
Just a few short decades ago, the U.S. was a pioneer of deep water exploration. We are the country
that in 1960 funded and sent two men to the deepest part of the worlds ocean in the Trieste. Five
years later, we developed, built, and pioneered a new class of submersible capable of reaching some
of the most remote parts of the oceans to nimbly explore and conduct deep-water science. Our
countrys continued commitment to the DSV Alvin is a bright spot in our history and has served as model
for other countries submersible programs. The Alvin allowed us to be the first to discover
hydrothermal vents and methane seeps, explore the Mid-Atlantic ridge, and countless other
scientific firsts. Our rich history with space exploration is dotted with firsts and it revolutionized
our views of the world and universe around us; so has our rich history of ocean exploration. But
where NASA produced a steady stream of occupied space research vehicles, Alvin remains the only
deep-capable research submersible in the service in the United States.
NOAA shifting away from exploration focus

We faced a weak economy and in tough economic times we rightly looked for areas to adjust our
budgets. Budget cuts lead to tough either/or situations: do we fund A or B? Pragmatically we choose what
appeared to be most practical and yield most benefit. Often this meant we prioritized applied
science because it was perceived to benefit our lives sooner and more directly and, quite frankly,
was easier to justify politically the expenditures involved. In addition to historical issues of infrastructure and current
economic woes, we lacked an understanding of the importance of basic research and ocean exploration to science, society, and often to applied
research. As example, NOAA shifted
funding away from NURP and basic science and exploration but
greatly increased funding to research on applied climate change research. Increased funding for
climate change research is a necessity as we face this very real and immediate threat to our environment and economy. Yet, did
this choice, and others like it, need to come at the reduction of our countrys capability to conduct basic
ocean exploration and science and which climate change work relies upon?
US ocean agencies do not focus on ocean exploration

85% of Americans express concerns about stagnant research funding and 77% feel we are losing
our edge in science. So how did we get here? Part of the answer lies in how ocean science and
exploration fit into the US federal science funding scene. Ocean science is funded by numerous
agencies, with few having ocean science and exploration as a clear directive. Contrast to this to how
the US traditionally dealt with exploration of space. NASA was recognised early on as the vehicle by
which the US would establish and maintain international space supremacy, but the oceans have always
had to compete with other missions. What lies below? We faced a weak economy and in tough economic
times we rightly looked for areas to adjust our budgets. Budget cuts lead to tough either/or situations: do
we fund A or B? Pragmatically we choose what appeared to be most practical and yield most benefit.
Often this meant we prioritized applied science because it was perceived to benefit our lives sooner and
more directly and, quite frankly, was easier to justify politically the expenditures involved. In addition to
historical issues of infrastructure and current economic woes, we lacked an understanding of the
importance of basic research and ocean exploration to science, society, and often to applied research. As
example, NOAA shifted funding away from NURP and basic science and exploration but greatly
increased funding to research on applied climate change research. Increased funding for climate change
research is a necessity as we face this very real and immediate threat to our environment and economy.
Yet, did this choice, and others like it, need to come at the reduction of our countrys capability to conduct
basic ocean exploration and science and which climate change work relies upon? Just a few short
decades ago, the U.S. was a pioneer of deep water exploration. We are the country that in 1960 funded
and sent two men to the deepest part of the worlds ocean in the Trieste. Five years later, we developed,
built, and pioneered a new class of submersible capable of reaching some of the most remote parts of the
oceans to nimbly explore and conduct deep-water science. Our countrys continued commitment to the
DSV Alvin is a bright spot in our history and has served as model for other countries submersible
programs. The Alvin allowed us to be the first to discover hydrothermal vents and methane seeps,
explore the Mid-Atlantic ridge, and countless other scientific firsts. Our rich history with space
exploration is dotted with firsts and it revolutionized our views of the world and universe around us; so
has our rich history of ocean exploration. But where NASA produced a steady stream of occupied
space research vehicles, Alvin remains the only deep-capable research submersible in the service in
the United States.
Funding
Exploration programs are being cut
http://deepseanews.com/2012/10/we-need-an-ocean-nasa-now-pt-3/, accessed 6-24-14, CK]
eventually invent an applied focus or face the axe. For example, even under NURP, exploration often
focused on corals and fish of considerable economic and conservation importance rather than those
species of greatest novelty or knowledge deficit. The current situation at NOAA also highlights how
less applied scientific programs are likely to be lost. Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
also provides another model that comes close to OSEA but is heavily reliant on private funding that
can often be significantly reduced during recessions as endowments shrink. Moreover, a private
foundation is unlikely to meet the full financial burden to support the full mission of an OSEA or
provide a resource to the ocean science community as whole. This is not meant to criticize either
NOAA or MBARI, indeed both supported our own research and have made immense contributions
to ocean science and exploration, but neither do they fully realize our vision for OSEA.
Funding for oceanic exploration is low now exploration sectors of agencies

are being cut and funding is being diverted
In general, science in the U.S. is poorly funded; while the total number of dollars spent here is large,
we only rank 6th in world in the proportion of gross domestic product invested into research. The
outlook for ocean science is even bleaker. In many cases, funding of marine science and exploration,
especially for the deep sea, are at historical lows. In others, funding remains stagnant, despite rising
costs of equipment and personnel. The Joint Ocean Commission Initiative, a committee comprised
of leading ocean scientists, policy makers, and former U.S. secretaries and congressmen, gave the grade
of D- to funding of ocean science in the U.S. Recently the Obama Administration proposed to cut the
National Undersea Research Program (NURP) within NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, a move supported by the Senate. In NOAAs own words, NOAA determined that NURP
was a lower-priority function within its portfolio of research activities. Yet, NURP is one of the main
suppliers of funding and equipment for ocean exploration, including both submersibles at the
Hawaiian Underwater Research Laboratory and the underwater habitat Aquarius. This cut has come
despite an overall request for a 3.1% increase in funding for NOAA. Cutting NURP saves a meager
$4,000,000 or 1/10 of NOAAs budget and 1,675 times less than we spend on the Afghan war in just one
month. One of the main reasons NOAA argues for cutting funding of NURP is that other avenues
of Federal funding for such activities might be pursued. However, other avenues are fading as
well. Some funding for ocean exploration is still available through NOAAs Ocean Exploration
Program. However, the Office of Ocean Exploration, the division that contains NURP, took the
second biggest cut of all programs (-16.5%) and is down 33% since 2009. Likewise, U.S. Naval
funding for basic research has also diminished. The other main source of funding for deep-sea
science in the U.S. is the National Science Foundation which primarily supports biological research
through the Biological Oceanography Program. Funding for science within this program remains
stagnant, funding larger but fewer grants. This trend most likely reflects the ever increasing costs of
personnel, equipment, and consumables which only larger projects can support. Indeed, compared to
rising fuel costs, a necessity for oceanographic vessels, NSF funds do not stretch as far as even a decade
ago. Shrinking funds and high fuel costs have also taken their toll on The University-National
Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) which operates the U.S. public research fleet. Over the
last decade, only 80% of available ship days were supported through funding. Over the last two years the
gap has increasingly widened, and over the last ten years operations costs increased steadily at 5%
annually. With an estimated shortfall of $12 million, the only solution is to reduce the U.S. research
fleet size. Currently this is expected to be a total of 6 vessels that are near retirement, but there is no
plan of replacing these lost ships. The situation in the U.S. contrasts greatly with other countries.
The budget for the Japanese Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC)
continues to increase, although much less so in recent years. The 2007 operating budget for the smaller
JAMSTEC was $527 million, over $100 million dollars more than the 2013 proposed NOAA budget.
Likewise, China is increasing funding to ocean science over the next five years and has recently
succeeded in building a new deep-sea research and exploration submersible, the Jiaolong. The only
deep submersible still operating in the US is the DSV Alvin, originally built in 1968.
Funding key multiple reasons insufficient funding undermines exploration

National Research Council 3
(Committee on Exploration of the Seas; the operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences,
Exploration of the Seas: Voyage into the Unknown, http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10844 ,
pp. 31-32, accessed 6/25/14, BCG)
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations (NOAA) Office of Ocean Exploration, which
was established in 2000, does not have the wherewithal to undertake the interdisciplinary, global
ocean exploration program proposed in this report. Significantly higher allocations are needed to
support a more comprehensive program. More money is needed to increase the programs scope, its
flexibility, and researchers access to equipment all of which will serve to increase its chances for
success. The budget for NOAAs Office of Ocean Exploration is indicative of current limitations on
U.S. ocean exploration. Initially funded at $4 million in 2001, during ensuing years the program has
been funded for $13.2 million and $14.2 million annually. The budget for fiscal year 2004 is in the same
range although at the time of publication Congressional support is uncertain. This initial effort has been
worthwhile, and it serves as a basis for evaluating what can be accomplished. The effort has been partially
proposal driven and partially driven by agency mission, without significant thematic direction or input
from the scientific community. That aside, some regional workshops have been held to engage more
members of the scientific community in the offices efforts. Fiscal limitations have constrained
NOAAs ability to carry out a comprehensive exploration program. Critical elements, such as the
following, have been compromised by a lack of money:
Postcruise science is not funded. Not all discoveries are made during an actual offshore effort, and
some discoveries could be missed if specialized onshore tests cannot be performed. Few significant
discoveries have been announced or exploited.
Data management is not funded, so the oceanographic research community has little access to
information.
Only limited technology development is funded. New sensors, for example, to investigate novel sites
or measure unsampled properties of the ocean, are not being developed.
Ship costs are usually leveraged with other planned programs. The resulting ad hoc efforts do not
allow complete freedom to explore a particular site or to venture out of relatively well-studied areas to
explore the entire worlds oceans.
Project planning is often for the short term because of the nature of government budgeting and
within-agency appropriations.
International cooperative efforts are not supported.
The scientific community does not see the program as a significant resource of funding for
sustained exploration programs.
The NOAA effort is not large enough to generate significant discoveries in the ocean sciences nor is
it likely to advance the new technologies that could initiate commercial opportunities. Despite its
small budget; however, the NOAA program has demonstrated that there is substantial interest from
the U.S. ocean research community. The NOAA exploration program has received many proposals that
it was unable to fund.
Funding and philosophy shift gutted staffed exploration of the ocean

Dokoupil, NBC News senior writer, 13
[Tony, 1/14/13, Newsweek, The Last Dive? Funding for Human expeditions in the Ocean May
Have Run Aground, http://www.newsweek.com/last-dive-funding-human-expeditions-ocean-mayhave-run-aground-63201, accessed 6/29/14, BCG)
Last spring James Cameron became a modern newsreel hero, diving the Mariana Trench, the
Earths deepest point, and seeming to signal a new golden age of discovery. Virgin Oceanics Sir
Richard Branson and Sylvia Earle herself, with money from Google chairman, Eric Schmidt, were each
developing their own deep-diving machines. And this (quite collegial) race to the bottom was heralded
as the ocean version of NASAs hand-off to private rocket-makers. On with the era of civil inquiry! On
with individual enterprise! Or as Cameron tweeted from the ocean floor, in a message Twitter declared
one of 2012s best moments of just plain awesomeness: Hitting bottom never felt so good.
But a year later, something far from a golden age has emerged. When the public looked away,
piloted exploration stopped. Schmidt stopped funding Earle. Bransons effort stalled indefinitely. Even
Cameron ran out of time and money, completing just eight first phase dives around Australia and Papua
New Guinea. Today he says his history-making machine is in his engineering shop in Santa Barbara,
Calif., ready to dive and available to the science community, but stowed like a moldy wet suit. The
hoped-for second phase of his work has no committed funding.
At the same time, government support for ocean exploration has sunk to unprecedented lows. The
Pisces subsonce part of an arsenal of public ships, submarines, and laboratories that gave
American scientists unmatched access to the deepwere defunded the same month Cameron touched
bottom. As of today, none of those subs is operational, the last extended-stay underwater laboratory
was shuttered, and at least 40 percent of the academic fleet is scheduled for retirement in the next
decade.
Its a record dry spell, the result of budget cuts but also a shift in philosophy, a definitive break in
the decades-old debate over whether its even necessary to send people into extreme spaces, when
machines are cheaper, safer, and harder working. The body is a pain, says Robert Ballard, the marine
geologist who discovered the Titanic, striking a common note about the problems with manned travel. It
has to go to the bathroom. It has to be comfortable. But the spirit is indestructible. It can move at the
speed of light.
For two decades, hes been arguing the virtues of telepresence technology: remotely controlled subs and
rovers, pumping video to an unlimited number of researchers worldwide. This year he seems to have
finally closed the conversation. While the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA)
pulled money from manned exploration, Ballards telepresence efforts comprise the only federal
program dedicated to systematic exploration of the planets largely unknown ocean, according to
NOAAs Office of Ocean Exploration and Research.
Its a paradigm shift, says Ballard, at the University of Rhode Island, a move into the next great era
of exploration. He promises to provide digital access of more of the Earth than was visited by all
previous generations combinedand still be home in time for cocktails.
Lack of Funding Forces Privatization

Lack of funding will force increasing reliance on privatization
Bidwell, US News and World Report, 13
[Allie, 9/25/13, US News and World Report, Scientists Release First Plan for National Ocean
Exploration Program, http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/09/25/scientists-release-firstplan-for-national-ocean-exploration-program, 6/25/14, GNL]
More than three-quarters of what lies beneath the surface of the ocean is unknown, even to trained
scientists and researchers. Taking steps toward discovering what resources and information the seas
hold, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Aquarium of the Pacific
released on Wednesday a report that details plans to create the nation's first ocean exploration
program by the year 2020.

The report stems from a national convening of more than 100 federal agencies, nongovernmental
organizations, nonprofit organizations and private companies to discuss what components should
make up a national ocean exploration program and what will be needed to create it.
"This is the first time the explorers themselves came together and said, 'this is the kind of program
we want and this is what it's going to take,'" says Jerry Schubel, president and CEO of the
Aquarium of the Pacific, located in Long Beach, Calif. "That's very important, particularly when
you put it in the context that the world ocean is the largest single component of Earth's living
infrastructure ... and less than 10 percent of it has ever been explored."
In order to create a comprehensive exploration program, Schubel says it will become increasingly
important that federal and state agencies form partnerships with other organizations, as it is
unlikely that government funding for ocean exploration will increase in the next few years.
Additionally, Schubel says there was a consensus among those explorers and stakeholders who
gathered in July that participating organizations need to take advantage of technologies that are
available and place a greater emphasis on public engagement and citizen exploration utilizing the
data that naturalists and nonscientists collect on their own.
"In coastal areas at least, given some of these new low-cost robots that are available, they could
actually produce data that would help us understand the nation's coastal environment," Schubel
says.
Streamlining
Now key time for streamlining ocean competition growing
Eilperin, Washington Post, 9
[Juliet, May 4, 2009, The Washington Post, Finding Space for All in Our Crowded Seas
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/03/AR2009050301930.html, accessed 625-14, CK]
The ocean is getting crowded: Fishermen are competing with offshore wind projects, oil rigs along
with sand miners, recreational boaters, liquefied gas tankers and fish farmers. So a growing
number of groups -- including policymakers, academics, activists and industry officials -- now say
it's time to divvy up space in the sea.
"We've got competition for space in the ocean, just like we have competition for space on land," said
Andrew Rosenberg, a natural resources and environment professor at the University of New
Hampshire who has advised Massachusetts on the issue. "How are you going to manage it? Is it the
people with the most power win? Is it whoever got there first? Is it a free-for-all?"
To resolve these conflicts, a handful of states -- including Massachusetts, California and Rhode
Island -- have begun essentially zoning the ocean, drawing up rules and procedures to determine
which activities can take place and where. The federal government is considering adopting a similar
approach, though any coherent effort would involve sorting out the role of 20 agencies that
administer roughly 140 ocean-related laws.
"It's really an idea whose time has come, and it's one of my top priorities," said Jane Lubchenco,
who chairs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "By focusing on different
sectors, nobody is paying attention to the whole -- in particular, the health of the system."
But conducting what experts call "marine spatial planning" presents scientific and political
challenges, since so little of the ocean has been mapped in detail, and so many interest groups want
to use it. The federal government has mapped only 20 percent of the "exclusive economic zone" that
stretches from the U.S. coast out 200 nautical miles, and that's just its geophysical bottom, not the
habitats and species that exist at varying levels.
Exploration
Exploration not keeping pace with need now is key to catch up before we fall
too far behind
McNutt, Ocean Exploration 2020 Executive Chair and Science editor-in-chief, 13
[Marcia, Accelerating Ocean Exploration, included in Ocean Exploration 2020 forum, National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration & Aquarium of the Pacific, September 2013, The
Report of Ocean Exploration 2020: A National Forum,
http://www.aquariumofpacific.org/downloads/oe2020report.pdf, p. 5, 6/25/14, GNL]
Last month, a distinguished group of ocean researchers and explorers convened in Long Beach,
California, at the Aquarium of the Pacific to assess progress and future prospects in ocean
exploration. Thirteen years ago, U.S. President Clinton challenged a similar group to provide a blueprint
for ocean exploration and discovery. Since then, the fundamental rationale has not changed: to collect
high-quality data on the physics, chemistry biology, and geology of the oceans that can be used to
answer known questions as well as those we do not yet know enough to pose, to develop new
instruments and systems to explore the ocean in new dimensions, and to engage a new generation of
youth in science and technology. Recently, however, exploration has taken on a more urgent
imperative: to record the substantial changes occurring in largely undocumented regions of the
ocean. With half of the ocean more than 10 kilometers from the nearest depth surrounding, ecosystem
function in the deep sea still a mystery an no first-order baseline for many globally important ocean
processes, the current pace of exploration is woefully inadequate to address this daunting task,
especially as the planet responds to changes in climate. To meet this challenge, future ocean
exploration must depart dramatically from the classical ship-based expeditions of the past devoted
to mapping and sampling.
The US is lacking exploration now

Hayward, Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy senior fellow, 11
[Steven F., April 2011, Pacific Research Institute, 2011 Almanac of Environmental Trends,
http://www.pacificresearch.org/docLib/20110419_almanac2011.pdf, accessed 6/29/14 CK]
Despite our burgeoning datasets and increasingly sophisticated monitoring capabilities (such as
earth-observation satellites), large gaps remain in our data and our understanding of many key
environmental issues. Many specific uncertainties are presented in the analysis of indicators and datasets
throughout this Almanac, but here are the top five environmental areas where our knowledge and
understanding are inadequate:
1. The oceans-especially the deep oceans. The United States spends vastly more on space research
than on ocean research, even though surprising discoveries from the deep oceans continue to roll in
whenever we look closely. NASAs 2010 budget is $18.3 billion, while the 2010 budget of NOAA, the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is $4.7 billion. Part of this difference occurs
because satellites cost much more than ocean-exploration equipment, but part of it is due to the
neglect of our own unexplored frontier.
2. Biodiversity. No one doubts that species extinction-along with its main drivers, such as habitat
fragmentation-is occurring on a scale larger than some natural or background rate of extinction.
Scientists are making rapid progress in cataloguing species, but large uncertainties remain about
how biodiversity works on the ground, and even how to define ecosystems.
3. Arctic conditions. Everyone knows about retreating ice sheets and melting tundra, but it is not clear
that these changes are the result of human-caused global warming. Several peer-reviewed studies have
identified long-wave changes in upper-air wind patterns, deep ocean currents, and minor pollutants such
as black carbon as likely factors in the observed changes. Underneath the ice cap is another realm of
mystery, made more important by the likelihood of large mineral resources (especially oil and gas)
that several nations are now rushing to claim and exploit.
4. Chemical exposure. We use thousands of synthetic chemicals in our daily lives, but many compounds
have never been thoroughly tested or examined for potential harm to humans or ecosystems. And even for
chemicals tested and monitored, there are large ranges of uncertainty about what level of exposure might
be harmful. However, we do have a good understanding of basic chemical families that are hazardous.
Meanwhile, chemical anxiety-chemophobia-is often whipped up by activist groups.
5. Invasive species. Non-native species introduced through human trade or migration are considered
a priori to be ecologically harmful. This assumption requires more thought. Science writer Ronald
Bailey points to evidence that many non-native or exotic species appear to have increased overall
biodiversity in the areas where they were introduced (http://reason.org/ news/show/invasion-invasivespecies). Some species, such as the zebra mussels that have proliferated in the Great Lakes, are
obviously pests, but the blanket condemnation of invasive species should be reconsidered.
Infrastructure
Current ocean exploration infrastructure is not up to date
National Research Council 09
(Operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences, An Ocean Infrastructure Strategy for U.S. Ocean
Research in 2030, http://dels.nas.edu/resources/static-assets/osb/miscellaneous/Biennial-Report-20092010.pdf, p. 30, accessed 6/30/14, BCG)
The nations research infrastructure forms the backbone of scientific enterprise and is essential for
the application of scientific knowledge to societal needs. However, significant components of the U.S.
ocean infrastructure are aged or obsolete, and in some areas, the capacity is insufficient to meet the
needs of the ocean community. There has been concern that the growing technology gap in facilities
will lead to the decline of the nations leadership in marine technology development. This could
result in increasing reliance on foreign facilities, potentially reducing the access of domestic researchers
to new technology and observational data.
Research Fleet
Current programs in exploration will stall future research projects
National Research Council, 9
[Operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences, Science at Sea: Meeting Future Oceanographic
Goals with a Robust Academic Research Fleet, pp. 73-74, http://nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12775,
accessed 6/29/14, BCG)
Due to insufficient funds to support research on increasingly expensive ships, the number of ship
days requested is rapidly outpacing operational days. Crew and fuel costs are likely to continue as
significant factors in total operational fleet costs. The push for more efficient ship scheduling may
lead to longer lead times for research projects and reductions in the ability of the future fleet to
accommodate late-breaking scientific and funding opportunities. Present trends in science and technology
indicate further growth in major research programs requiring significant ship resources. The increasing
cost of ship time and economies of scale may lead to greater use of Global class UNOLS vessels,
which are capable of simultaneously carrying out multiple science operations. Complex programs are
less likely to require multiple legs, lowering operational costs, if put on the largest ships of the fleet. The
reliance on Ocean class vessels in the current fleet renewal strategy probably will not lead to a
future fleet with reduced operational costs, but may lead to a fleet with fewer capabilities.
Current research fleets are not adequate

(Operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences, Science at Sea: Meeting Future Oceanographic
Goals with a Robust Academic Research Fleet, http://nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12775, pg. 7,
The academic research fleet provides U.S. and international users with access to the oceanfrom
the nearshore coastal zones to deep, remote regions far from land. Research vessels provide
oceanographers with opportunities to study issues of increasing societal relevance, including the
oceans role in climate, natural hazards, economic resources, human health, and ecosystem
sustainability. A highly capable fleet of ships also provides a platform for innovative basic research in
chemical, biological, and physical oceanography; marine geology and geophysics; atmospheric science;
and emerging interdisciplinary areas. Reports from the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy (USCOP) and
the Joint Subcommittee on Ocean Science and Technology (JSOST) have recognized the academic fleet
as an essential component of ocean research infrastructure (U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, 2004;
Joint Subcommittee on Ocean Science and Technology, 2007). At the same time, there is community
concern that the fleet is in dire need of both modernization and recapitalization (i.e., U.S.
Commission on Ocean Policy, 2004; Malakoff, 2008; UNOLS Fleet Improvement Committee, 2009).
Current vessels being built are not cost efficient or effective

pg. accessed 6/29/14, BCG)
The ship replacement and retirement plan outlined in the 2009 UNOLS Fleet Improvement Plan will
reduce the academic research fleet by nearly 40 percent by 2025 (Figure 5-4; UNOLS Fleet
Improvement Committee, 2009). The projected retirement of three Global class ships reduces overall ship
sizes and could produce overall fleet economies. However, Global class vessels are presently the most
heavily subscribed. Chapters 2 and 3 conclude that there will be increased demand for the large
research vessels with their deck loading, berthing, and sea state capacities. The new and planned
Ocean class ships are significantly less capable than the Global class in terms of deck loads and
berthing. Accommodating heavy deck loads and large science parties on Ocean class vessels would
require scheduling extra legs, leading to more time in port and a greater number of ship days per research
mission. In addition, the current Ocean class ship, Kilo Moana, has a day rate that is comparable to
the Global class (Figure 5-5). Thus, if day rates for the planned Ocean class vessels are similar to
Kilo Moana, total operating costs for 2025 will not decrease. Furthermore, with the planned addition
of Ocean class vessels, there will be fewer vessels able to support the widest-ranging, most resource
intensive marine science research programs of the future and the decrease in overall fleet size will
create greater difficulty in scheduling multiship operations.
UNOLS fleet relies on state and private funds

The U.S. academic research fleet is managed through the University- National Oceanographic
Laboratory System (UNOLS; Box 1-1), a consortium that unites research institutions, federal
agencies, and state and private interests. Although the academic fleet has existed since before World
War II (history provided in Appendix A), the UNOLS management structure was not established until
1971, based on a recommendation of the Stratton Commission report Our Nation and the Sea
(Commission on Marine Science, 1969; Byrne and Dinsmore, 2000; Bash, 2001). From 18 original
operating institutions (Byrne and Dinsmore, 2000), by 2009 membership had grown to 61 institutions
representing 26 states and Panama, Puerto Rico, and Bermuda (Appendix B). UNOLS coordinates the
schedules of 22 vessels berthed in 13 states and Bermuda.
UNOLS assists federal and states agencies in performing their seagoing responsibilities. The
National Science Foundation (NSF), Office of Naval Research (ONR), National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Minerals Management Service
(MMS), and U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) support the UNOLS consortium through a cooperative agreement.
Other agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and Department of Energy (DOE)
support ship time on UNOLS vessels (Annette DeSilva, personal communication, 2009). State funds and
private resources are also used to support the academic fleet.
Solvency
OSEA Solves Science

OSEA solves commitment to basic research and exploration would create
sustainable basis for future science capacity
What Does an OSEA look like? At the core OSEA would need a mission dedicated to basic research
and exploration of the >;90% of the worlds oceans that remain unexplored. High risk with the
potential for high impact would be the norm. Pioneering knows no other way to achieve those truly novel
and impactful gains.
To achieve these goals, OSEA would need substantial infrastructure and fleet including
international and regional class research vessels, a submersible, remotely operated vehicles, and
autonomous underwater vehicles. Funding would need to be secure on decadal cycles to insure both
the longevity and permanence of this mission but allow for oversight to ensure OSEA was meeting
its mission and financial responsibilities. An ocean exploration center would be staffed with a vibrant
community of researchers, engineers, and administrators, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students,
and visiting experts with a strong interacting and supportive community working toward uncovering
the mysteries of the oceans. Research would be funded internally from a broad OSEA budget, not
externally, freeing scientists and engineers to actually do science and engineering as opposed to the
only current option, which is writing grants to other agencies with a less than 10% chance of
funding.
OSEA would also be a resource both for the research community and the public by being dedicated
to open science, i.e. making scientific research, data and dissemination accessible to all levels of an
inquiring society, amateur or professional. Publications, data, software, and engineering would be
freely available and open to all. All internal processes would be transparent.
The mission of OSEA in the spirit of open science would be equally dedicated to public outreach. For too
long have science and society been disconnected. OSEA would involve the public as the ultimate
funders of our work. A novel and cutting edge education and outreach group would develop a
strategic plan to involve children and adults in the mission. There would be multiple opportunities
for anyone to be involved including the public. Citizen scientists would be essential components,
allowing adults to take a residence and contribute to OSEA and become life long ambassadors long
after their residence.
OSEA Key AT Other Agencies/Private

Patchwork approach wont solve mission focus and sustainable funding key only
OSEA solves
Although parts of OSEA are realized in other government and private organizations, they do not
meet the full mission nor can such a distributed structure be expected to meet the challenges of this
pivotal moment. For example, NOAA fills a much-needed role but its mission is largely applied.
NOAAs mission statement is Science, Service, and Stewardship. To understand and predict changes
in climate, weather, oceans, and coasts, To share that knowledge and information with others, and
To conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resource. Contrast that to NASAs
simple mission, to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics
research.
eventually invent an applied focus or face the axe. For example, even under NURP, exploration
often focused on corals and fish of considerable economic and conservation importance rather than
those species of greatest novelty or knowledge deficit. The current situation at NOAA also
highlights how less applied scientific programs are likely to be lost. Monterey Bay Aquarium
Research Institute also provides another model that comes close to OSEA but is heavily reliant on private
funding that can often be significantly reduced during recessions as endowments shrink. Moreover, a
private foundation is unlikely to meet the full financial burden to support the full mission of an
OSEA or provide a resource to the ocean science community as whole. This is not meant to criticize
either NOAA or MBARI, indeed both supported our own research and have made immense
contributions to ocean science and exploration, but neither do they fully realize our vision for
OSEA.
As John F. Kennedy stated, We must be bold. It is time for a great national effort of the United
States of America, time for us to renew our commitment to uncovering the mysteries of the blue
planet we live on. We need a NASA-style Ocean Science and Exploration Agency (OSEA). to explore
and research the greatest depths of oceans with a community of scientists, engineers, and citizens.
Commitment Key
Sustained commitment key understanding the ocean key to climate, food,
energy, and commerce security
US Commission on Ocean Policy, 4
[quoted in Ocean Exploration 2020 forum, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration &
Aquarium of the Pacific, September 2013, The Report of Ocean Exploration 2020: A National
Forum, http://www.aquariumofpacific.org/downloads/oe2020report.pdf, p. vi, 6/25/14, GNL]
Given the importance of the ocean in human history and in regulating climate change, guaranteeing
food security, providing energy resources, and enabling worldwide commerce, it is astounding that
we still know so little about it. This is due primarily to the lack of a long-term, large-scale national
commitment to ocean exploration. The ocean and its depths need to be systematically explored to
serve the interests of the nation and humankind.
Prioritization Solvency
A national programmatic prioritization approach is key to lead a new
exploration program
Ocean Exploration 2020 forum, 13
[National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration & Aquarium of the Pacific, September 2013,
The Report of Ocean Exploration 2020: A National Forum,
These characteristics of a national program of ocean exploration imply a network of universities,
nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, and government agencies working together in
pursuit of shared goals. Federaland in particular, NOAAleadership is essential to help design
and maintain what might be called an architecture for collaboration that convenes national and
international ocean exploration stakeholders regularly to review and set priorities, to match
potential expedition partners, to facilitate sharing of assets, and to help test and evaluate new
technologies. The program should facilitate the review and analysis of new and historical data and
the synthesis and transformation of data into a variety of informational products. In this leadership
role, NOAA would promote public engagement, and guide and strengthen the national ocean exploration
enterprise.
A conventional federal government approach wont work. In describing characteristics of the
national ocean exploration program in 2020, participants used words including: nimble, flexible,
creative, innovative, and responsive. A program with these qualities just might ignite the ocean
exploration movement envisioned by the participants in the first gathering of the community of ocean
explorers.
Coordination Solvency
Comprehensive and coordinated approach is key to effective ocean
exploration
http://www.aquariumofpacific.org/downloads/oe2020report.pdf, p. 1-4, 6/25/14, GNL]
The forum examined the future of ocean exploration through the lens of a coordinated federal
effort involving multiple agencies led by NOAA in collaboration with the private sector. It is a vision that
captures many of the nations ocean exploration activities, but not all. Some will be excluded because of
national security, others because of constraints by funders. The proposed framework for Ocean
Exploration 2020 captures more of the nations existing ocean exploration enterprise than ever before and
offers ways of expanding and enhancing it.
This report is a record of Ocean Exploration 2020. Ocean Exploration 2020 participants described
ocean exploration as a great opportunity, an urgent necessity, and an issue of national security.
They agreed that a national program in 2020 should include the following attributes.
OCEAN EXPLORATION PRIORITIES
In 2020, clear priorities are identified by the exploration community and revisited on a regular basis.
Having a clear, focused set of ocean exploration priorities is a critical element in developing and
sustaining a national program of ocean exploration. No group is better qualified to identify these
priorities than the community of ocean explorers. The community identified the polar regions,
particularly the Arctic; ocean acidification; and the water column (noting that exploration extends
from the sub-seafloor to the surface) as important exploration priorities. The Indo-Pacific and Central
Pacific regions are also important for further exploration. Participants agreed that a clear mission
statement for national ocean exploration is critical as is a process to engage ocean exploration
stakeholders on a recurrent basis in determining priorities.
PARTNERSHIPS
In 2020, there is an extensive and dynamic network of partnerships that link public agencies, private
sector organizations, and academic institutions.
There was near unanimity that in 2020 and beyond, most dedicated ocean exploration expeditions and
programs will be partnershipspublic and private, national and international. NOAA has been
assigned a leadership role in developing and sustaining a national program of ocean exploration under the
Ocean Exploration Act of 2009, one that promotes collaboration with other federal ocean and undersea
research and exploration programs.
PLATFORMS
In 2020, a greater number of ships, submersibles, and other platforms are dedicated to ocean exploration.
There is a critical need for new ships and other platforms. The need for autonomous underwater
vehicles and remotely operated vehicles is greater than for human occupied vehicles. A national
program requires a mix of dedicated and shared ocean exploration assets. Participants agreed that
ocean exploration should take advantage of all sources of available and relevant data. For example,
cabled observatories, recoverable observatories, the various ocean observation networks, and
satellites are all important in a national program of ocean exploration .
TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT
By 2020, private sector investments in exploration technology development specifically for the dedicated
national program of exploration exceed the federal investment, but federal partners play a key role in
testing and refining new technologies.
Forum participants agreed that a top priority for a national ocean exploration program of
distinction is the development of mechanisms to fund emerging and creatively disruptive
technologies to enhance and expand exploration capabilities. In addition to the significant federal
government investment in ocean exploration technology developmentwhether by the U.S. Navy,
NASA, NOAA, or other civilian agenciesmany felt strongly that increased investment would come
from the private sector to achieve the kind of program they envisioned. Participants also felt that national
program partners should continue to play a key role in testing and refining these technologies as
well as working to adapt existing and proven technologies for exploration.
CITIZEN SCIENCE
In 2020, citizen scientists play an increasingly important role in ocean exploration.
There was a consensus among Forum participants that citizen explorers will play an increasing role in
ocean exploration by 2020. These citizen explorers may follow and contribute to national expeditions
online, analyze data from past expeditions and submit their work to national and international data bases,
or they may use their own tools, such as small, inexpensive remotely operated vehicles equipped with
cameras or measuring devices to collect data that are then quality controlled and included in national
databases. Opportunities for citizen explorers to participate in shipboard experiences should also be
expanded.
DATA SHARING
In 2020, all data obtained through publicly funded, dedicated civilian ocean exploration projects are
available quickly and widely at little or no additional cost to the user.
There was a strong consensus among Ocean Exploration 2020 participants that all data, including
images and access to samples resulting from publicly supported, dedicated civilian exploration
expeditions, be made widely available at little or no additional cost in real time or as soon as appropriate
quality assurances have been completed. Ocean exploration data should reside within established data
repositories and their existence be made widely known.
PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT In 2020, ocean explorers are part of a coordinated communication network
and have the tools they need to engage the public.
Participants were in strong agreement that we need to enhance and expand existing efforts and find
new ways to communicate with the public about ocean exploration. We can provide better interaction
between scientists and the public during expeditions, especially increasing the use of telepresence for
active engagement.
Ocean Exploration 2020 participants also agreed that a shared strategy is needed to communicate
effectively and engage with the public about ocean exploration. Many ocean exploration scientists need
more experience and better resources, tools, and partnerships to implement this communication strategy
and to build public support for the national program.
Toward a National Program of Ocean Exploration
Ocean Exploration 2020 participants agreed that there is a critical need for effective coordination
among the federal agencies in all aspects of ocean exploration and research. Likely federal budget
ocean exploration allocations for these agencies are too small for independent approaches.
The community noted that a national program must be flexible, responsive, and inclusive, and called
for NOAA to act as a coordinator and facilitator of all exploration activities. The program must have the
means to grow partnerships of all kinds to seize the opportunityand respond to the urgent need to
understand the global ocean.
Finally, Ocean Exploration 2020 participants noted the value of this National Forum and the need for
regular opportunities for the community of ocean explorers to come together. Maintaining the
momentum from Ocean Exploration 2020 is critical, and NOAA and its partners need to take
advantage of all opportunities to capture the energy and maintain the commitment of the ocean
exploration community.
Focus and coordination program key to capacity-building partnerships

As we move ahead in setting national priorities, we need a clear national mission statement that has
been vetted widely and endorsed by the extended community of ocean explorers. This mission
statement should be revisited every few years and revised as appropriate to reflect changing
national priorities, new areas of promising potential for discovery, and new funding opportunities.
Such a mission statement should also acknowledge that exploration includes the concept of serendipitous
discovery: exciting, unexpected results from mission-driven or hypothesis-testing data collection
activities.
A national mission statement would provide a focus to bring greater coherency among discrete
exploration activities and would offer opportunities for greater coordination and collaboration
among federal agencies and between the public and private sectors .
Endowment Solvency
Endowment solves sustainable funding
Migliaccio, Vermont Supreme Court Legal Extern, 14
[Emily, Vermont Law JD, 2014, THE NATIONAL OCEAN POLICY: CAN IT REDUCE MARINE
POLLUTION AND STREAMLINE OUR OCEAN BUREAUCRACY? Issue 3, Volume:15,
http://vjel.vermontlaw.edu/publications/national-ocean-policy-can-reduce-marine-pollution-streamlineocean-bureaucracy/, Pages 654-655, accessed 6/26/14, CK]
Unfortunately, the area that received the lowest grade out of the four here listedand one that is
probably most needed for the implementation of the NOPis funding. The JOC gave this category
a D- because ocean programs are chronically underfunded.175 In order to implement the NOP
to the fullest extent possible under existing authorities and as directed by the 2010 Executive Order,
the government must allocate resources to the NOC. The Presidents Fiscal Year 2011 Budget
Request contains additional funding to advance priority activities identified in the Final
Recommendations of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force. 176 However, some legislators are
skeptical about the Obama Administrations plan to begin implementing the NOP. 177 Mostly
hailing from the Republican party, the opposition fears that the money to support the Policy will be
siphoned from other important programs, and argue that the White House fails to garner
Congressional authorization.178 Also, Republicans are concerned that the Implementation Plan is a plan
for the government to zone the ocean, establishing areas for specific uses while precluding other
activities (such as oil drilling).179
The JOC suggests a very respectable solution to the lack of funding: establish an ocean investment
trust fund to provide the financial support for national, regional, state, and local programs working
to understand and manage our ocean and coastal resources. 180 The JOC also recommends that an
integrated ocean and coastal budget be established to make it easier to track support for and
analyze the progress of programs situated across the federal government that are closely related,
and in some cases overlapping and duplicative.181 As mentioned above, a bill for a National
Endowment for the Oceans is presently before Congress, but the likelihood of that passing is
unknown at this point.
Endowment is funded through revenues in industries

Ocean Conservatory 10
[Ocean Conservatory, 2010, Climate Action Network, The National Endowment for the Oceans:
Investing in monitoring, researching, protecting, and restoring our ocean
http://www.usclimatenetwork.org/resource-database/the-national-endowment-for-the-oceans-fact-sheet
accessed 6/27/14, CK]
Given the environmental and economic importance of marine and coastal ecosystems, we should be
investing more in monitoring, researching, protecting, and restoring the vitality of these systems.
We should be facilitating their ability to adapt to long-term change and their resilience so that they
can better recover when disasters happen, whether man-made or natural. The National Endowment
for the Oceans Act would ensure that some of the revenue that comes from the extraction and use of
ocean resources is invested back into understanding and conserving our ocean.
Endowment grants are key to solve laundry list

Niell, World Ocean Observatory Director, 11
[Peter, 7/07/11, Huff Post Green, National Endowment for the Ocean, Coasts, and Great Lakes
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-neill/national-endowment-for-th_b_891257.html, accessed 6/27/14
CK]
The proposed legislation would create a funding process based on interest from the Oil Spill
Liability Trust Fund, 12.5 percent of revenues from offshore energy development (to include oil,
gas, and renewable energy), and 10 percent of civil penalties for regulatory violations on the
Continental Shelf. Overhead is capped at 3%. The Endowment would be overseen by the Secretary
of Commerce, more specifically by a seven person Council comprising additional representatives of
other Federal agencies with over-lapping authority. Panels of experts and community representatives
would advise.
Here is some specific language from the Act. Its purposes "are to protect, conserve, re-store, and
understand the oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes of the United States, ensuring present and future
generations will benefit from the full range of ecological, economic, educational, social, cultural,
nutritional, and recreational opportunities and services these resources are capable of providing."
"Activities harming ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes ecosystems jeopardize the economies and social
structure of communities dependent on resources from such ecosystems."
"The coastal regions of the United States have high biological productivity and contribute
approximately 50 percent of the gross domestic product of the United States. The oceans, coasts,
and Great Lakes are susceptible to change as a direct and indirect result of human activities, which
can inhibit ecosystem integrity and productivity, biodiversity, environmental quality, national
security, economic competitiveness, availability of energy, resistance to natural hazards, and
transportation safety and efficiency."
"A variety of human activities have caused dramatic declines in the health and productivity of
ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes ecosystems of the United States, including chemical, nutrient,
thermal, and biological pollution, including the introduction of invasive species, and the
introduction of marine debris; unwise land use and coastal development; loss and degradation of
habitat, including upstream freshwater habitat for anadromous, diadromous, and migratory fish species;
overfishing and by-catch of non-target marine species; and global climate change and ocean
acidification."
These are strong, perhaps unexpected statements, grounded in reality, indicative of insightful
legislative purpose, based on research and best practice.
The legislation would establish a grants program to fund projects to restore habitat, manage
fisheries, plan for sustainable coastal development, acquire coastal properties for preservation, and
relocate critical coastal infrastructure. Applicants could include states, regional associations, nongovernmental organizations, and research organizations. To be eligible, states would be required to
provide an approved five-year coastal management plan and, in some cases, match Federal grant funds
dollar for dollar.
This is a welcome step forward, and is the logical and practical follow-up to the nation's new
National Ocean Policy that was established by President Obama earlier this year. Now, of course,
comes the hard part, as the Act enters the troubled waters of the legislative process -- review by
sub-committees, full committees, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and then the so-called
reconciling, trading, compromising and diluting by opposing interests in what passes for
governance these days. Think of this initiative as one of those alewives or salmon that return home to
inland places to spawn, avoiding all the dangers of the open ocean, surviving the hunters, the pollutants,
and the dams. Let's hope this one makes it; we need this initiative badly if we are ever to deal successfully
with the once and future ocean.
Stable funding key to addressing current problems

http://vjel.vermontlaw.edu/publications/national-ocean-policy-can-reduce-marine-pollution-streamlineocean-bureaucracy/, Pages 643-644, 6/26/14, CK]
The draft Plan was open for public comment until March 28, 2012;114 and on April 16, 2013, the NOC
released the Final Plan.115 The Final Plan is a relatively short document organized into five sections(1)
The Ocean Economy, (2) Safety and Security, (3) Coastal and Ocean Resilience, (4) Local Choices, and
(5) Science and Information.116 The first three sections describe how the NOP will positively impact
Americas ocean economy, security, and ocean and coastal resilience. The fourth section describes the
need for more localized efforts at addressing ocean and coastal priorities, given that priorities vary across
all regions within the United States.117 The last section addresses the need for partners and
stakeholders to make a scientific, technological, and educational commitment to addressing ocean
and coastal priorities.118 In the Plan, the NOC recognizes that completion of the actions is
dependent upon the availability of funds and resources.119 The Plan is meant to be flexible:
[The] Plan is intended to be a living document. It is designed to be adaptive to new information or
changing conditions, and will be updated periodically as progress is made, lessons are learned, new
activities are planned, and as the Nation continually strives to improve the stewardship of the ocean,
coasts, and Great Lakes for the benefit of current and future generations.120
Now, with the Implementation Plan complete, the United States is in the final stage121actual
implementation of the NOP.
Endowment Eligibility Criteria

National Endowment grants solve for the ocean three reasons
Ocean Conservatory 10
[Ocean Conservatory, 2010, Climate Action Network, The National Endowment for the Oceans:
Investing in monitoring, researching, protecting, and restoring our ocean
http://www.usclimatenetwork.org/resource-database/the-national-endowment-for-the-oceans-fact-sheet
The National Endowment for the Oceans provides funding for grants to conserve, restore, and
better understand ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes resources. Three grant programs will be
overseen by the Secretary of Commerce:
1. Formula grants that would go to coastal and Great Lakes States and territories with an
approved Coastal Zone Management Plan and affected tribes. To be eligible, a State or tribe must
submit a five-year plan, with opportunity for public input and comment, detailing goals and projects and
activities for which the funding will be used.
2. Grants to regional planning bodies are intended to help implement Regional Strategic Plans,
including baseline ecological and socio-economic assessments. These grants will also support the
development and implementation of plans to improve ecosystem health and economic sustainability.
3. National competitive grants would be available through the Ocean Resources and Assistance
Grant Program. State, local, regional and affected Indian tribal entities; non-profit organizations; and
academic institutions would be eligible to apply for these grants. A National Endowment for the Oceans
Council consisting of seven members from federal agencies with relevant expertise would be
established to review grant applications and provide funding recommendations to the Secretary.
Eligible Uses Include: restoration of wetlands, coral reefs, sea grass beds, and watersheds
research, monitoring, observation, and modeling of ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes systems
adaptation to the impacts of climate change and mitigation of coastal hazards, including
infrastructure protection research and monitoring of ocean acidification and other climate change
impacts to oceans, coasts, and the Great Lakes conservation of marine and near-shore areas
through land acquisition and management conservation of sensitive marine, coastal, and Great
Lakes species and their habitat baseline data collection, ecosystem assessments, and mapping for
use in planning for sustainable ocean uses and protecting ecosystem health planning to reduce
conflicts, facilitate compatible uses, and preserve ecosystem services
AT US Cant Legally Explore

US can legally explore and mine the ocean
Groves, Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom Senior Research Fellow, 12
[Steven, 12/4/2012, The Heritage Foundation, The U.S. Can Mine the Deep Seabed Without Joining the
U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/12/the-us-canmine-the-deep-seabed-without-joining-the-un-convention-on-the-law-of-the-sea, accessed 6/29/14 CK]
No legal barriers prohibit U.S. access, exploration, or exploitation of the resources of the deep
seabed. Deep seabed mining is a high seas freedom that all nations may engage in regardless of
their membership or non-membership in UNCLOS or any other treaty. Like other high seas
freedoms, the right to engage in deep seabed mining is inherent to all sovereign nations under
customary international law. Rather, it is the convention that attempts to restrict access to the deep
seabed and infringe on the intrinsic rights of the United States and other nations that have chosen to
remain non-parties.
High seas freedoms are not conditional on membership in a treaty. Neither the United States nor
any other nation need be party to UNCLOS to exercise them. While the convention addressed and
codified various high seas freedoms, enjoyment of those freedoms is not conditional on membership.
Rather, high seas freedomsincluding freedom of navigation and overflight, freedom of fishing,
freedom to lay submarine cables, and freedom to engage in marine scientific researchare enjoyed
and exercised regularly by the United States and other UNCLOS non-parties based on their status as
sovereign and independent nations.
Aesthetics Solvency
Oceans have aesthetic qualities that spur exploration
Over a decade ago, one of us (CM) made his first submersible dive off of Rum Cay in the Bahamas. At
the surface the temperature was a warm 91F and at the bottom 2,300 feet down the temperature was near
freezing. Despite my large size, I dont remember feeling cramped inside the soda can-sized sub at any
moment. The entire time I pressed my face against a 6-inch porthole, my cheek against the cool glass,
and focused my eyes on the few feet of illuminated sea floor around me and the miles of black
beyond. Here in the great depths of oceans I got my first look at the giant isopod, a roly-poly the
size of a large shoe. This beast and the surrounding abyss instantly captured my imagination,
launching me on a journey of ocean science and exploration to unravel the riddles of life in the
deep.
A thousand miles away, off the coast of Yucatan Mexico, the other of us (AD) experienced equal
wonder at the discovery of the largest aggregation ever recorded of the largest of fish in the world,
the whale shark. These spotted behemoths gather annually in the hundreds off the coast of Cancun,
one of the worlds most popular tourist destinations, and yet this spectacular biological was
unknown to science until 2006. Swimming among them, I reverted to a childish state of wonder,
marveling at their size, power and grace, and boggling that they have probably been feeding in
these waters since dinosaurs, not tourists, inhabited the Yucatan.
Arctic
Exploration key to Arctic, Arctic key to addressing climate change
[National Research Council Committee on Exploration of the Seas, *The National Research Council was
organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and
technology with the Academys purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government,
2003, The National Academies, Exploration of the Seas: Interim Report, This free PDF was
downloaded from: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10630.html,page 10-12Accessed 6/30/14 CK]
The Southern Ocean is the least explored of the worlds ocean. There are few observations during
the austral winter and, even during the austral summer, there are regions beneath the floating ice
shelves that remain inaccessible to ships. Highly specialized, but mostly unsampled, biota occupy
the extreme habitats under the ice. The Southern Ocean is highly productive biologically,
containing large stocks of living resources that require understanding for effective protection and
management (Figure 4).
The waters under the floating ice are extremely cold and dense, contributing to the formation of the
Antarctic Bottom Water with special physical and chemical properties. Deep water formation is one of
the most important oceanographic processes on Earth, and a driving mechanism that initiates deepreaching convection and global-scale thermohaline circulation. The Southern Ocean is one of the
regions this process is known to occur. Vast areas of the Southern Ocean seafloor remain unmapped, yet it
contains records of the disintegration of the Gondwana supercontinent and the opening of the Drake
Passage. Many believe the latter to be one of the key events leading to the present global climate.
Many important aspects of the Southern Ocean have not been properly explored because of the
lack of suitable technology. An ocean exploration program could foster the development of a new
generation of specialized AUVs and other types of probes that can be lowered through holes drilled
through hundreds of meters of ice.
The Arctic Ocean is flanked by broad continental margins likely to contain new living and non-living
resources. Because of its ice cover, remoteness, and harsh weather, it has been the target of numerous
heroic, and in earlier times often tragic, visits by explorers. This region remains a high priority for
exploration because of its influence on the habitability of northern North America and Eurasia.
The tectonic history of the western Arctic Ocean is basically unknown. The ultra-slow spreading of the
Arctic midocean ridges gives rise to spectacular topographic relief and a complex crustal
architecture. Volcanic activity is markedly reduced, with the result that major portions of the ridge are
composed of rocks from the mantle. Virtually nothing is known about this mechanism of building
new crust in this extreme environment. The present isolation of the Arctic Ocean and its separation
from all other ridge systems also raises fundamental questions about the evolution and ecology of Arctic
vent fauna. Hydrographic barriers and geologic features enclosing the Arctic Ocean spreading centers
pose a significant barrier to dispersal of vent species. The recent recovery of a few specimens of vent
fauna while dredging along the Gakkel Ridge in the Arctic Ocean confirms the existence of vent
ecosystems in this region. Indeed, these isolated ecosystems may hold keys to the evolution of life at
hydrothermal vents (Figure 5).
The Arctic sea ice cover existed millions of years ago. Properties of the warm Arctic Ocean prior to the
sea ice cover are unknown and can only be resolved by applying new technology to sample the history of
oceanic sediments beneath the ice. These sediments may illustrate past examples of a scenario that
could develop again due to global warming.
Exploration of the polar oceans will be most effectively undertaken through a large, multi-platform
ocean exploration program. Expense and logistical support necessitate strong international
collaboration, for which there is growing support. Because our current understanding of the polar
oceans is fragmented and spatially limited they are a strong candidate for program initiation.
Arctic prioritization key need data for effective Arctic stewardship

McNutt, Ocean Exploration 2020 Executive Chair and editor-in-chief of Science, 13
[Marcia, Accelerating Ocean Exploration, included in Ocean Exploration 2020 forum, National
Should any region of the ocean receive priority? Although the southern oceans are still largely
unexplored, and coral reef hot spots for biodiversity are gravely imperiled by ocean warming and
acidification, there was much support by Long Beach participants for prioritizing the Arctic, a
region likely to experience some of the most extreme climate change impacts. An ice-free ocean could
affect weather patterns, sea conditions, and ecosystem dynamics and invite increases in shipping,
tourism, energy extraction, and mining. Good decisions by Arctic nations on Arctic stewardship,
emergency preparedness, economic development, and climate change adaptation will need to be
informed by good science. Exploration of this frontier needs to happen now to provide a useful
informational baseline for future decisions.
Arctic rapidly changing effective stewardship key to ecosystems, communication,

shipping, mapping, security
6/26/14, CK]
The Arctic is rapidly changing. One of the most dramatic changes is the decrease in sea ice, which is
likely to increase vessel traffic in the U.S. Arctic. Commercial vessels may capitalize on more
expeditious routes, cruise ships and recreational vessels are expected to bring more tourists to the region,
fishing grounds are shifting, and oil and gas companies are moving forward with exploration activities
and obtaining leases to drill into the Arctic seabed. This brings a need for improvements to our Arctic
communication systems and environmental response management capabilities; our ability to
observe and forecast sea ice; and the accuracy of maps and charts of the region. Our maritime
safety and security in the Arctic hinge upon these actions.
Enhance communication systems in the Arctic to improve our capability to prevent and respond to
maritime incidents and environmental impacts. Federal agencies will improve Arctic communication
systems by advancing both technical capabilities and partnerships. Agencies will strengthen existing
communication systems to allow vessels, aircraft, and shore stations to effectively communicate with
each other and to receive information such as real- time weather and sea ice forecasts that will
significantly decrease the risk of loss of life at sea or damage to property or the marine
environment. Agencies will partner with each other, Native communities, industry, and other
countries as appropriate to identify user needs and existing capabilities prior to building new
communication systems.
Improve Arctic environmental incident prevention and response to ensure coordinated agency action,
minimize the likelihood of disasters, and expedite response activities. Increased Arctic vessel traffic
brings increased risks of collisions, groundings, and other serious marine incidents that can lead to
loss of life and property and damage the marine environment. A coordinated and prepared all-hazards
response-management system will mitigate the impacts of marine-pollution events on fragile Arctic
communities and ecosystems. To improve responses, Federal agencies will conduct joint spill-response
workshops and exercises, develop and implement response coordination and decision-support tools
like the Arctic Environmental Response Management Application, and improve spill prevention,
containment, and response infrastructure, plans, and technology for use in ice-covered waters.
Improve Arctic sea ice forecasting to support safety at sea. Sea ice forecasting is one of the most
urgent and timely issues in the Arctic region. To ensure the best tactical and long-term ice forecasts are
available for safe operations and planning, Federal agencies will work together to better quantify the
rates of sea ice melt and regrowth, understand shifting patterns of distribution of ice, develop better
maps of the ice edge, expand participation in the sea ice observation program, and coordinate with
international partners to enable better model-based forecasting over larger areas. Improved
observations will contribute to improved forecasts, which will better inform Arctic maritime safety and
security activities.
Improve Arctic mapping and charting for safe navigation and more accurate positioning.
Advancements in hydrographic charting will enhance the safety of navigation in the Arctic region by
reducing the risk of damaging maritime incidents. Federal agencies will update nautical charts and
establish priorities, in concert with Native communities and stakeholders, for shoreline and
hydrographic surveying activities. Further, mapping gravity data over the State of Alaska will help
correct meters-level errors in Arctic positioning. Such efforts will support U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast
Guard operations and help ensure the safety and security of all mariners in the Arctic.
MISSING NEED STEWARDSHIP KEY TO CONFIDENCE BUILDING

MEASURES
Confidence building measures in the Arctic are a prerequisite to stability and

relations
Huebert, University of Calgary political science professor, 10
(Rob, The Newly Emerging Arctic Security Environment, Prepared for the Canadian Defence &
Foreign Affairs Institute, March 2010, http://www.cdfai.org/PDF/The%20Newly%20Emerging%20Arctic
%20Security%20Environment.pdf, accessed 7/1/14, GNL)
Yet it is hard to conceptualise what that conflict would look like. From a rational perspective, any
conflict over resources would not provide the winner with meaningful gains. A conflict over
resources or boundaries in the region would undoubtedly result in huge environmental damage to
the region. Such a conflict would never be profitable to any side from a rational perspective. It is
highly unlikely that any side would attempt to pursue such a policy as an aggressor. Here is the real
problem: because each of the Arctic states is in the process of rearming just in case, they are all
contributing to the growing strategic value of the region. As this value grows, each state will attach
a greater value to their own national interests in the region. In this way, an arms race may be
beginning. And once the weapons systems are in place, states can behave in strange ways.
Denmarks escalation of the Hans Island issue is a prime example. The island has little value to either
Canada or Denmark. The ongoing exchange of alcohol prior to 2002 seemed the best way that both sides
could pretend that they cared, but really did not. Only when the Danes obtained a new military capability
did the issue suddenly escalate. If this can happen for an insignificant issue between allies, what are the
risks for issues that are of significant importance? In order to avoid this potential outcome, the Arctic
states need to act on their stated intention to cooperate. Discussions need to be held to ensure that
these new capabilities do not ignite an arms race in the region or led to deterioration in the
relationships that already exist. The Arctic Council the main multilateral body for the Arctic has a
prohibition on discussing issues related to security. Now is the time to eliminate such restrictions. The
Arctic states need to have an open and frank discussion. Measures for building confidence and
cooperation must be established.
Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (UAVs)
AUVs Solve Exploration

Autonomous vehicles are most effective ocean floor scanning tech
Makinen, LA Times, 14
[Julie, 4/15/2014, Los Angeles Times, Plane search goes underwater; The hunt for debris from missing
Malaysia Airlines jet now relies on a submarine scanning the seabed., Part A Page 4, Lexis, Accessed
6/29/14 CK]
Investigators looking for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 have put away their towed pinger locator and
are about to call off searches for surface debris. Now, it's all up to a little yellow robotic submarine
to find the missing Boeing 777 in an area bigger than the city of Los Angeles.
Technicians aboard the Australian ship Ocean Shield on Monday afternoon deployed the Bluefin-21
underwater autonomous vehicle in the Indian Ocean, sending it almost three miles down to the
seabed and using its side-scanning sonar arrays to look for wreckage from the plane.
"It is time to go underwater," retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, who is coordinating the search
from Perth, Australia, said in announcing the new phase of operations.
Unless the robot sub gets lucky, the process could take a while: The U.S. Navy, which lent the Bluefin21 to the search team, said mapping the area where the plane most likely disappeared could take six
weeks to two months.
The 16-foot, 1,650-pound sub moves at a walking pace and will be searching an area of about 600
square miles. Houston said the first day's work was set to cover about 15 square miles, but the
vehicle automatically returned to the surface after just six hours because it exceeded its maximum
operating depth of 2.8 miles. Searchers planned to send it back out Tuesday.
"The whole key on these searches is you have to be methodical and persistent, and they can take quite a
bit of time," said David Kelly, president and chief executive of Bluefin Robotics, the Quincy, Mass.,
company that makes the vessel.
The Bluefin-21 -- which costs $4 million to $6 million, depending on options -- typically operates on
a 24-hour cycle. It takes two hours each way to get to the seafloor and back and can search for 16
hours. Once it surfaces, it requires four hours to download the data gathered and prepare the machine for
its next dive.
While it's combing through the pitch-black waters, hovering about 150 feet above the seabed as it
scans a half-mile-wide swath, the Bluefin-21 uses sonar to gather data that will yield a highresolution, 3-D map of the seafloor.
If something noteworthy is detected, Kelly said, the sonar can be swapped out for high-definition
cameras. When the cameras are being used, the sub hovers just 15 feet off the seafloor and takes a
series of overlapping pictures that provide a composite image.
The depth at which the Bluefin-21 will work -- 2.8 miles -- is hard even for oceanographers to
fathom: That's as deep as Mt. Whitney is tall. Horizontally, it's equal to the distance traveled driving
along Wilshire Boulevard from Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills to the La Brea Tar Pits.
Kelly said the Bluefin-21 recently was tested at that depth in Hawaiian waters because Phoenix
International, the company that owns and operates it on behalf of the Navy, was checking "upgraded
capabilities."
AUVs are have diverse set of functions- now is key time to deploy
McNutt, Ocean Exploration 2020 executive chair, 13
[Marcia, 8/30/2013, SCIENCE, Accelerating Ocean Exploration Page 5,
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/oceanexploration2020/oe2020_report.pdf, accessed 6/29/14 CK]
As a first step, future exploration should make better use of autonomous platforms that are
equipped with a broader array of in situ sensors, for lower-cost data gathering. Fortunately, new,
more nimble, and easily deployed platforms are available, ranging from $200 kits for build-yourown remotely operated vehicles to long-range autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVS), solarpowered autonomous platforms, autonomous boats, AUVs that operate cooperatively in swarming
behavior through the use of artificial intelligence, and gliders that can cross entire oceans. New in
situ chemical and biological sensors allow the probing of ocean processes in real time in ways not
possible if samples are processed later in laboratories.
Exploration also would greatly benefit from improvements in telepresence. For expeditions that
require ships (very distant from shore and requiring the return of complex samples), experts on
shore can now join through satellite links, enlarging the pool of talent available to comment on
the importance of discoveries as they happen and to participate in real-time decisions that affect
expedition planning. This type of communication can enrich the critical human interactions that guide
the discovery process on such expeditions.
Words such as crowd sourcing, crowd funded, and citizen scientist are nowhere to be found in the
Presidents Ocean Exploration Panel report of 2000, but at the Long Beach meeting, intense excitement
revolved around growing public engagement in many aspects of ocean exploration through
mechanisms that did not exist 13 years ago. However, there is not yet a body of experience on how to
take advantage of this new paradigm on the scale of a problem as large as ocean exploration. For
example, what tasks are most suitable for citizen scientists, and how can they be trained efficiently? Can
the quality control of their work be automated? Can crowd-sources tasks be scheduled to avoid
duplication and gaps?
Should any region of the ocean receive priority? Although the southern oceans are still largely
unexplored, and coral reef hot spots for biodiversity are gravely imperiled by ocean warming and
acidification, there was much support by Long Beach participants for prioritizing the Arctic, a region
likely to experience some of the most extreme climate change impacts. An ice-free ocean could affect
weather patterns, sea conditions, and ecosystem dynamics and invite increases in shipping, tourism,
energy extraction, and mining. Good decisions by Arctic nations on Arctic stewardship, emergency
preparedness, economic development, and climate change adaptation will need to be informed by
good science. Exploration of this frontier needs to happen now to provide a useful informational
baseline for future decisions.
AUVs Solve Biofouling

AUV tech solves biofouling
FIT 11*.
[Florida Institute of Technology, *2011 last date referenced, Florida Tech "Large Scale Seawater Facility
for Development of Hullbug."<https://www.fit.edu/research/portal/project/75/large-scale-seawaterfacility-for-development-of-hullbug>. Accessed 7/1/14 CK]
In a recent study by Schultz et al (2011) the economic impact of biofouling on the Arleigh Burkeclass destroyer DDG-51 was analyzed and estimated to cost the entire DDG-51 class $56M/year
(direct cost of distillate fuel marine $104.16/barrel). Present practice for the control of biofouling on
most U.S. Navy ships is to apply copper ablative antifouling paint and perform underwater cleaning
when fouling reaches a critical level as defined by Chapter 081 of the Navy Ship Technical Manual.
This approach is reactive and results in hull conditions that are both rough and fouled. An
alternative and new strategy proposed by ONR is to use a proactive grooming schedule when the
ship is in port. The approach is to design fully autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV), HullBUG
(Hull Bioinspired Underwater Grooming), which will gently clean the hull of biofilms and immature
fouling organisms at a frequency required to keep the surface free of fouling. This will maintain the
hull in a smooth and fouling-free condition. Research funded by the Office of Naval Research (N
N000141010919) has demonstrated the feasibility of such a method (Tribou and Swain 2010) and also
led to the development of a prototype AUV to implement the method (SeaRobotics).
Biofouling Hurts Biodiversity

Biofouling kills biodiversity Hawaii proves
Fox-Strohecker, Maui Invasive Species Committee Public Relations and Education
Specialist, 13
[Lissa, 1/13/2013, Maui Invasive Species Committee, Traveling by boat? Swab those hulls and
propellers to stop invasive stowaways. http://mauiinvasive.org/2013/01/18/traveling-by-boat-swabthose-hulls-and-propellors-to-stop-invasive-stowaways/, accessed 7/1/14 CK]
Each year over ships make over 1000 trips to Hawaii. Container ships and barges, fishing boats,
cruise ships, and sailboats, aircraft carriers and military ships come bearing cargo for Hawaii or stop over
on their way across the Pacific. Any of these boats could carry tiny stowaways from distant places,
and that has resource managers concerned. Even an interisland boating trip could translate into
trouble for your local reef. The majority of Hawaiis aquatic invasive species came in via ballast
water and hull-fouling, explains Sonia Gorgula, the state coordinator recently hired by the
Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources aquatic division to address the problem.
Ballast water is taken by ships at sea or in port to maintain stability, and can contain organisms or
larvae that may be harmful when released into a new environment, oftentimes thousands of miles
from where they originated. Hull-fouling, or bio-fouling refers to the plants and animals that grow
on any aquatic vessel, be it ship or yacht, dingy or dock. When these living organisms reach new
waters, they can cause problems. Of the two types of marine contamination, Gorgula says biofouling is
the bigger worry in Hawaii. One species introduced this way is snowflake coral, a fast-growing
soft-coral from the Caribbean. Since arriving in Hawaiian waterways, it has devoured the
zooplankton that supports the marine food web and destroyed numerous black coral colonies.
Hypnea, the rank invasive algae that washes up on Maui beaches, spread between the Islands
attached to the underbelly of a fishing or sailboat. Hypnea is not only stinky and expensive to deal
with on the beach, it outcompetes native limu. Biofouling happens on any type of vessel, ocean or
freshwater, that remains in port or dock long enough for organisms to become attached. Broadly
speaking its mussels, algae, barnacles, says Gorgula. When you start to see an assemblage
become quite dense, you can even find crabs. Boats function as floating reefs, transporting these
aquatic aliens to Hawaii, where they may or may not find a home. Some species arrive and
establish, then fail. Yet many species become invasive here that were not thought to be invasive until
they get here, says Gorgula. Often theres not enough information to predict what will become
invasive. One way to approach the situation is to treat all biofouling as harmful and focus on
preventionkeeping boats with Hawaii on their itinerary free of small stowaways. Biofouling is a
drag, literally. Barnacles colonize the hull of a ship and reduce fuel efficiency as well as pose a risk
of becoming invasive. Most commercial ships have incentives to keep hulls relatively free of growth;
biofouling creates drag that reduces fuel economy. But other hidden niche areas underneath the
boatpropellers and intake pipes used to pull in water for cooling the engine and fire-fighting
often house alien species. Cleaning the hull is part of regular boat maintenance; focusing on niche areas
will help prevent the spread of hitchhikers. Certain paints are designed specifically to discourage fouling,
and hidden spots can be painted as well as hulls, simple steps that feed into regular maintenance.
Biofouling Hurts Readiness

Biofouling hampers naval readiness and increases fuel consumption- AUVs Solve
McElvany, a program officer in environmental quality in the Navys physical science
division, No Date
[Stephen PHD, No Discernable Date, Office of Naval Research. United States Department of the Navy,
Robotic Hull Bio-Mimetic Underwater Grooming http://www.onr.navy.mil/Media-Center/FactSheets/Robotic-Hull-Bio-mimetic-Underwater-Grooming.aspx, accessed 7/1/14 CK]
The Robotic Hull Bio-Mimetic Underwater Grooming system, or Hull BUG, is an autonomous
underwater hull grooming robot specifically designed to prevent the accumulation of marine
fouling. How Does It Work? The current developmental model of the Hull BUG uses four wheels and a
negative pressure alternative device assembly for attachment to the hull. A suite of onboard sensors will
provide obstacle avoidance, path planning and navigation capabilities that include detection of fouled and
groomed surfaces. What Will It Accomplish? By reducing marine fouling on ship hulls, the Hull BUG
will help ensure peak ship performance, reduce fuel consumption associated with increased drag
from accumulated biofouling and decrease the U.S. Navys carbon footprint. Risk of hull invasive
species transfer may also be reduced.
High-performance naval warships and submarines rely on critical design factors such as top speed,
acceleration and hydroacoustic stealth to achieve their mission. Biofouling of ship hulls, primarily
caused by the buildup of marine crustaceans such as barnacles, adds weight, roughness and
increases drag, reducing a vessels fuel efficiency especially for Navy ships as they move throughout
the world's oceans. The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock, estimates that vessel speed is
reduced by up to 10 percent from biofouling, which can require up to a 40 percent increase in fuel
consumption to counter the added drag. In fact, colonized barnacles and biofilms settled on the hull
of a Navy ship translates into roughly 500 million dollars annually in extra fuel and maintenance
costs. ONR is developing the robotic Hull BUG to prevent or suppress the growth of advanced
biofouling. Hull BUG is an autonomous vehicle designed to groom and maintain the hull surfaces of
ships. In some ways its mission is similar to a robotic home floor cleaner, lawn mower or some advanced
pool cleaners in that it is designed to be tether free, autonomous and run on a battery for a significant
duration of its mission. Once developed it is expected that the Hull BUG platform could also provide
other capabilities such as hull inspection or force protection.
Climate
Now Key
Now key to solve warming
Mejia, Employment Services Manager at the South Bay Workforce Investment
Board, 9
[Robert T., 1/14/2009, Green Technology, Whats Old is New, http://www.greentechnology.org/green_technology_magazine/images/What'sOldisNew.pdf, page 1, accessed 6/29/14 CK]
Global warming, its immediate effects on the planet, and its long-term effects on the life-supporting
systems upon which all of Earths inhabitants depend, is creating a sense of urgency, and momentum
to take action around the world. U.S. leadership and involvement will largely determine whether
responses by the world community will be effective in defeating the greatest threat mankind has
ever faced. Collectively, we must move to more intelligent forms of design, production,
consumption, and disposal that provide value and equity for all people while preserving the sanctity
of the environment and the Earths ability to renew itself to sustain future generations.
A transformation of economic systems is underway that will fundamentally change the way we treat
our planet and all it has to offer. At the core of this transformation is a shift to the use of clean and
renewable energies that, in their development and use, will create and sustain millions of new
economic opportunities for businesses and workers worldwide.
Victory will require new energy systems, environmental technologies, and ways of thinking buttressed by
profound and unswerving investments in all aspects of the workforce. Such investments should begin
immediately and be guided by sound economic and labor market intelligence to assure that
innovation and opportunity meet to provide all workers a place in the new economy.
Around the country, public institutions are eager to launch new efforts to prepare and develop a workforce
with the knowledge, skills and abilities to fuel essential economic transformation. What has given these
institutions pause, however, is a lack of clarity in the definition, purpose and location of green jobs
caused, in part, by anachronistic methods of describing economic activity and labor market conditions.
Therefore, changes must occur in the way we approach occupations and business activities in order to
appropriately characterize and evaluate environmentally sustainable functions, activities, and
outputs that are both well intentioned and measurable. Until such changes occur, there are interim
measures the federal workforce investment system can take to implement what has become a
national imperative against global warming: creation of a green workforce fully engaged in the useful
and environmentally sustainable transformation of space, energy, effort, information, ideas, and
knowledge, resulting in value.
To this end, the following strategies are recommended for what Americas federal workforce investment
system can do now to develop green jobs for a sustainable future.
Conflict Impact
Climate change exacerbates instability, risking conflict
Conathan & Polefka, Center for American Progress Ocean Policy Director &
Research Associate, 13
[Michael Conathan and Shiva Polefka , 3/29/2013, Center for American Progress, Top 5 Ocean Priorities
for the New Secretary of State, http://americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2013/03/29/58266/top-5ocean-priorities-for-the-new-secretary-of-state/, accessed 6/30/14 CK]
On the same day as Secretary Kerrys speech, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
published a new report predicting a link in the rise in atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration
with a marked rise in the frequency of Hurricane Katrina-magnitude storms, underscoring a point
the secretary made in his remarks: Climate change and our oceans represent an issue of both
national security and economic security.
In referencing the national security implications of climate change, Secretary Kerry is picking up where
Secretary Panetta left off. In a 2012 speech hosted by the Environmental Defense Fund, the former
Secretary of Defense said, rising sea levels, severe droughts, the melting of the polar caps, the more
frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and
disaster relief. Sustained shifts in weather patterns have already been linked to global instability,
as noted in multiple articles that explore the connection between drought-driven increases in food
prices and the unrest that led to the Arab Spring rebellions.
A wide variety of researchers have detailed the looming security threats of climate change, including
the Quadrennial Defense Review, which called it an accelerant of instability or conflict; a 2012
report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence reflecting looming crises as a result of
water issues, including shortages, water quality, or floods; and the work of our colleagues at the
Center for American Progress, whose report Climate Change, Migration, and Conflict in North
Africa probes potential water- and climate-related tensions in an already precarious region.
Cultivating a deeper understanding of the link between climate change and political instability will
bolster the case for domestic and international policymakers to get serious about taking action to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and start dealing with global climate change.
Ocean Exploration Key to Climate

Insufficient funding undermines exploration bolstering exploration key to
progress on climate and environmental stewardship
(Committee on Exploration of the Seas; the operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences,
Exploration of the Seas: Voyage into the Unknown, http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10844 ,
pp. 31-32, accessed 6/25/14, BCG)
Finding: The oceans play a critical role in the maintenance of the ecosystems of the Earth.
Resources contained in the oceans currently supply much of the worlds food and fuel supply, and
maintain global climate patterns. The oceans harbor as yet undiscovered organisms new searches for
life continue to discover previously unknown organisms. Only a portion of the potential of the oceans
has been tapped.
Recommendation: As was true when the International Decade of Ocean Exploration (1971-1980) was
proposed and supported, ocean exploration remains a necessary endeavor to identify and fully
describe the resources the oceans contain and uncover processes with far ranging implications for
the study of Earth as a whole. The pace at which we discover living and nonliving resources and
improve our understanding of how the oceans respond to chemical, biological, and physical changes must
increase.
INTERDISCIPLINARY EXPLORATION IS NEEDED
Every time a scientist happens upon some completely unexpected discovery in the ocean, it is
a reminder of how little is known about this environment that is so critically important to the
sustainability of the planet.
We now recognize that different facets of the oceansmall-scale geological, biological, and
genetic diversity; chemical, geophysical, and physical oceanographic propertiesinteract in complex
ways, and our understanding of the ocean requires examination as a whole system. It is difficult to
predict what discoveries are still to come, but it is clear that ocean exploration will improve the
accuracy of our predictions of global climate change, produce new products that will benefit
humanity, inform policy choices, and allow better stewardship of the oceans and the planet. To reach
this potential, ocean research should encourage collaboration between researchers from varied disciplines.
Finding: Currently ocean science funding in the United States is predominantly awarded to
research in specific disciplines, such as biological, physical or chemical oceanography. Proposals for
interdisciplinary work are hampered by a funding bureaucracy that is also discipline-based. Ocean
exploration is an integrative activity that will encourage and support interdisciplinary efforts that
seek to discover new contributions to the marine sciences.
Exploration increases understanding of thermohaline circulation key to

understanding emissions
downloaded from: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10630.html,page 13-14,Accessed 6/30/14 CK]
The ocean and the atmosphere store heat derived from the sun and redistribute that heat from the
Equator toward the poles. The oceans mass may slow the transitions from one climate regime to
another, as the slow overturning of the deep-ocean limits heat absorption and release at the ocean
surface. On the other hand, there is also evidence that a reduction in surface salinity due to melting
polar ice in the North Atlantic Ocean could increase the speed of climatic transitions. Suppression
of the flow of cold, salty, dense surface water into the deep ocean (the North Atlantic Deep Water
[NADW] formation) could alter the global-scale thermohaline circulation, resulting in less intense
surface currents and less poleward transport of heat.
The formation of NADW has other effects on global climate as well because it carries greenhouse
gases to the deep ocean, out of contact with the atmosphere for hundreds of years. Finally,
extraction of fresh water from the ocean via evaporation, which produces the high salinity of the
NADW, provides water for the global hydrological cycle. A better understanding of the global
climate system requires a much more sophisticated understanding of the thermohaline circulation,
its vulnerability to change, and the processes that govern water mass formation rates (National Research
Council, 1994, 2001).
Retrospective exploration of deep ocean water temperatures over time may provide new insights to
trends in global climate. Surface water temperature can be measured with limited accuracy but high
resolution, from space. New systems like the Array for Real-Time Geostrophic Oceanography can
measure the temperature of the ocean to depths of 1,000 m with an average of 300 km resolution.
Ocean thermometry using acoustic methods can resolve deep water temperature at basin scales. Our
relatively limited knowledge of the deep oceanic realm makes it another strong candidate for an
ocean exploration program to aid our understanding of the forces that shaped climate changes in
the past and may shape them in the future.
Ocean research is key to monitor anthropogenic CO2

pg. 19, accessed 6/29/14, BCG)
Physical oceanography has been transformed by the numerous autonomous sampling devices
currently available (e.g., moorings, drifters, floats, autonomous underwater vehicles [AUVs], gliders),
which increased sampling in the upper ocean to a rate and density unparalleled by ships. Research vessels
are still needed to measure large-scale changes in ocean heat and freshwater fluxes, deep ocean
variability below 2000 meters, and the anthropogenic inventory of CO2 (Garzoli et al., 2009). Many
climatically important carbon and related transient tracer parameters cannot be measured from
autonomous devices with present-day technology, and few floats, gliders, and AUVs are able to operate
to the full depth of the water column. While some of these instruments will operate to greater ocean
depths in the future, there will continue to be parts of the deep ocean that cannot be reached without shipbased equipment. High-quality, ship-based observations will also continue to be essential for
calibration of water column measurements made from autonomous devices.
The deep ocean accounts for more than half of the total natural oceanic carbon inventory. As
anthropogenic carbon begins to invade the deep oceans in nonhomogeneous ways, it will continue to
be critical to monitor changes in deep ocean carbon content. For example, observations of transient
tracers (Willey et al., 2004), particularly in the high latitudes, strongly suggest that ventilation by
atmospheric gases is more rapid than previously estimated. In addition, observations of biogeochemical
parameters show greater-than-expected variations at depth, which suggest that natural and/or climateinduced change is having a greater effect on deep waters than was previously assumed.
Further exploration of the ocean can help better understand climate change
Ocean and Climate Change Institution, No Date
[Ocean and Climate Change Institute, No Date, part of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute,
Understanding the Role of the Ocean in Global Climate Change, http://www.whoi.edu/main/occi,
accessed 6/30/14, GNL]
Unlike the weather we experience every day, Earths climate changes relatively slowly, varying from
year to year and over centuries and millennia. Among the slow responders to climate forcing, the
ocean plays a major role in the longer-term changes in the climate system and changing patterns of
ocean circulation set up much of the regional variability in climate observed on land. It plays an
important role as a sink for the heat building up in earths systems, it acts as an important sink for
the increasing CO2 resulting from fossil fuel burning and is responding to warming and glacier
melting with a slow, inexorable rise in sea level .
The inherent complexity of Earths changing climateoccurring over short and long time frames and
affecting various regions of the globe differentlypresents a formidable challenge to any scientific
endeavor, be it an observational program, a research analysis, or a modeling effort. The large regional
variability in earths climate requires us to study the ocean on a global scale and using multiple
approaches. The long-term effects of the ocean on climate are also difficult to examine because
historical records of climate are short (about 150 years) and records of ocean circulation are even
shorter (about 50 years). While strong trends, such as those associated with global warming, can be seen
in the modern record, the record is too short to decipher the important changes in climate and their causes
that occur over multiple decades or longer.
In order to better understand the role of the oceans in climate, the Ocean and Climate Change
Institute (OCCI) identifies the climatic effects of changing ocean circulation; develops oceanmonitoring networks to better understand and forecast climate changes; examines past records of
climate from the geological record to expand understanding of ocean behavior; studies ocean-ice
dynamics that may trigger climate shifts and accelerate sea level rise; and evaluates the oceans
response to the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and in the oceans. Working in three
main thematic areasthe ocean in the climate system, the hydrological cycle, and carbon dioxide and the
climatewe are dedicated to understanding the oceans role in climate by devoting resources to
interdiscplinary research teams, educating the next generation of ocean and climate researchers, and
communicating the importance of ocean research to a variety of climate stakeholders including the
government, corporations and the public.
Sequestration Key to Solve Climate

Carbon sequestration key climate change management
Hruska, Freelancer for ExtremeTech, 14
[Joel, 6/26/14, Extreme Tech,Carbon neutrality has failed now our only way out of global warming is
to go carbon negative, http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/185336-carbon-neutrality-has-failed-nowour-only-way-out-of-global-warming-is-to-go-carbon-negative, accessed 6/29/14, BCG)
With our mostly failed attempt to keep climate change below 2 Celisus, the new critical question is
how governments might hold the increase to as low a level as possible. Despite improvements, no one
seriously expects renewable energy to be ramped up in time to prevent climate change far in excess of 2C
the only way to avoid this limit would be to convert to nuclear or renewable power at a
breakneck pace across the entire planet for the next few decades.. Its not going to happen. So what
can we do?
It turns out, we might be able to do rather a lot. Whenever the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) issues its reports, a great deal of energy gets expended arguing about the reality of climate
change. Some of the IPCCs more interesting ideas go undiscussed as a result, including the long-term
potential for CCS carbon capture and storage. According to the IPCC, CCS systems are absolutely
vital to minimizing the long-term impact of greenhouse gas emissions. [Read: Nuclear power is our
only hope, or, the greatest environmentalist hypocrisy of all time.]
Going carbon negative
Many companies today tout various technologies they claim allow them to be carbon neutral, but
the only way to hold climate change below 2C in the long term is to actually go carbon negative.
This can be achieved through the use of bio-energy with carbon capture and storage, or BECCS for
short. The idea is straightforward as of last year, approximately 10% of total planetary energy was
provided by biomass. Plants absorb CO2 as they grow, but the process of turning biomass into fuel
typically releases that energy back into the atmosphere. What the IPCC proposes is using the biomass
for energy, then using some of the energy generated to sequester the carbon underground in either old
oil and gas deposits or in porous rock (known as saline formations) across the US.
Estimates of how much carbon could be stored in saline formations vary widely; the characteristics of
the rock strata and its ability to store CO2 over the long-term are barely known until recently,
such rock held little interest for the oil and gas companies that have conducted most US geological
research and therefore only a little information is available. The IPCC believes that carbon
sequestration is vital to limiting the impact of CO2 buildup if we fail to do so, we could see spiking
values well in excess of 600 ppm (currently we stand a little over 400 ppm).
The long-term goal is to sequester up to two gigatons of carbon per year by 2050, though scientists at
Stanford have estimated that as much as 10 gigatons of carbon could be sequestered through this method
by that point. Carbon sequestration in geological formations isnt the only option, but its one of the
few ideas thats both achievable and reasonably well understood at this point. There are a few
technologies being developed that might help us with carbon sequestration, but really there just hasnt
been much research into it yet.
NOTE: this card later talks about how ocean sequestration is unviable but it is talking about putting carbon dioxide in the depths
of the ocean, not under the sea bed
Diseases
Exploration Solves Medicine Development

Exploration needed for deep sea medicine
Morelle, BBC Science correspondent, 14
(Rebecca, 5/8/14, BBC news, Ocean medicine hunt: A Wild West beneath the waves?,
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27295159, accessed 7/1/14, BCG)
The oceans cover more than two thirds of Earth's surface, yet we've only dipped our toes in the water
when it comes to our understanding of this vast expanse - just 5% has so far been explored.
And it's this untapped potential that is sparking a medical gold rush.
Investment in this area is growing steadily. In the next phase of the European Union's research budget,
145m euros is heading for the seas.
Dr John Day, a marine scientist from Sams, says much of what is "findable" on land has already been
found.
But he adds: "Historically (the ocean) isn't a place that people have looked, so they haven't exploited
it.
"In addition there's a whole raft of new technologies allowing one to screen more methodically and more
scientifically and produce more useful data that can point you towards a final product.
"And of course a political will - we're looking to how can we exploit other parts of the planet to produce
new industries and technologies."
But a lack of clarity over legislation could prove a setback for this burgeoning area of research.
Within 200 nautical miles of a country's coastline is the Economic Exclusion Zone (EEZ). In these
territorial waters, there are clearly defined laws about how the sea can be exploited.
And if a country has signed up to the Nagoya Protocol, an update to the UN's Convention on Biological
Diversity, they have an additional responsibility to ensure that any exploitation in their waters is fair and
sustainable.
But beyond that boundary are the high seas: the stretch of international ocean that nobody owns. And this
area is governed by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
This regulates activities such as mineral exploitation, but it doesn't cover so-called ocean bioprospecting.
Dr Day explains: "In open waters, this is a very grey and murky area as far as I'm concerned.
"At present, as far as I'm aware, there are very few laws that would cover exploitation of that material.
"The Law of the Sea focuses on what is on the ocean floor or beneath it, and it also specifies non-mobile
organisms - and there doesn't seem to be definitive legislation with regards to what is in the water
column."
This is a concern, because this Wild West of the seas is home to an extraordinary range of creatures and
plants.
Simply to survive, they have to adapt to extremes of temperature, pressure and darkness - and it's this
hardiness that makes them so attractive to scientists.
The worry is that, without regulation, fragile habitats could be damaged beyond repair.
Deep Sea Resources Solve

Deep sea bacteria can fight diseases
Standen, KQED Reporter, 09
(Amy, 3/23/09, , radio journalist who has also reported for NPR and Environment Report, QUEST: The
Science of Sustainability Medicine from the Ocean Floor,
http://d43fweuh3sg51.cloudfront.net/media/alfresco/u/pr/KQED/QUEST%20Radio%20Medicine
%20from%20the%20Ocean%20Floor_b63e3342-7d12-4b3c-b45476c089a6d256/Radio3_24_MedicinefromOceanFloor.pdf, accessed 7/1/14, BCG)
The ocean, which covers approximately 74 percent of Earths surface, is a natural resource that
continues to give human society resources that affect our economy, health and happiness. Ocean travel
and exploration, dating back to prehistoric times, has mainly been conducted on its surface, leaving much
of the bottom of the world's oceans unexplored and unmapped.
Today scientists are mining ocean floor sediments for potential medicines for disease like cholera,
tuberculosis and malaria. By collecting samples from the ocean floor, scientists find hundreds of
bacteria they can test in the lab. Bacteria are single-celled microorganisms found in every habitat on
Earth. They are found in abundance in the ocean floor and are vital in recycling nutrients, producing
chemicals, and contributing to the overall health of the ocean. Bacteria cause many diseases; however,
certain bacteria produce distinct chemicals that have the potential help fight diseases.
Deep sea organisms may eliminate diseases

Kay, Boston Globe, 1
(Sharon, 8/7/01, Reporter for The Boston Globe, The Boston Globe, Scientists Seek New Medicine
From the Ocean, http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/08/0807_wireseamed1.html, accessed
6/30/14, BCG)
Once regarded as either dinner or a research novelty, creatures of the sea are getting increased respect
among scientists looking for the medicines and therapies of the future.
From the ancient horseshoe crab, whose blood provides a common test for bacterial contamination, to the
lowly sea urchin, which played a key role in test-tube fertilization of embryos, marine life is starting to
take its place alongside more established lab animals, such as the mouse, in medical and basic
biological research.
"I believe marine organisms can be used to eliminate disease and human suffering," said William
Speck, a pediatrician who is now director of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole. "We now
have the technology to visit the deep ocean floor, and, because of DNA technology, to more deeply
understand life and ourselves."
Economy/Resources
Exploration Solves Economy/Jobs

Implementation of plan solves jobs and economy
Sutley & Holdren, National Ocean Council co-chairs, 13
PLAN, pg. 7, http://www.oceanchampions.org/pdfs/national_ocean_policy_implementation_plan.pdf,
Ocean industries are a major employer. In 2010, U.S. commercial ports supported more than 13
million jobs. Similarly, in 2011, commercial fisheries supported 1.2 million jobs and $5.3 billion in
commercial fish landings, and marine recreational fisheries supported 455,000 jobs.l5 As of March
2012, energy and minerals production from offshore areas accounted for about $1 21 billion in
economic contributions to the U.S economy and supported about 734,500 American jobs. Offshore
wind energy has the potential to directly support 20.7jobs for every megawatt-hour generated.
Installing 54 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity in U.S. waters would create more than 43,000
permanent operations and maintenance jobs." There is significant potential along the Nation's
shorelines to create a large number of coastal restoration jobs that recover degraded habitats and
restore the fisheries and recreational opportunities they provide. For every million dollars invested,
coastal restoration creates between 17 and 30 new jobs for coastal regions-regions that provide key
habitat for more than 70 percent of the commercial and recreational fish catch. Marine
aquaculture in the U.S. has a farm-gate value of $320 million and supports up to 35,000 jobs.2
Supporting the growth of sustainable marine aquaculture through the National Shellfish Initiative and
building on existing efforts such as the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council's Aquaculture Plan
has the potential to provide additional jobs.
The following actions by Federal agencies will help maintain existing jobs and promote job growth
in coastal and marine-related sectors by improving regulatory efficiency, reversing environmental
impacts that hinder economic opportunity, and providing information that supports actions to
maximize the economic value of our natural resources. The goal of these actions is to enhance both
immediate and Iong-term potentials for job creation.
Increase efficiencies in decision-making by improving permitting processes and coordinating
agency participation in planning and approval processes. A key goal of the Policy is to improve
efficiency across Federal agencies, including permitting, planning, and approval processes to save
time and money for ocean-based industries and decision makers at all levels of government while
protecting health, safety, and the environment. Interagency work already in progress includes more
efficient permitting of shellfish aquaculture activities, which will help produce additional domestic
seafood and jobs and provide a template for similar action to support other marine commercial sectors.
Through pilot projects developed in collaboration with relevant stakeholders, Federal agencies will
identify opportunities to streamline processes and reduce duplicative efforts while ensuring
appropriate environmental and other required safeguards.
Provide jobs and economic value by protecting and restoring coastal wetlands, coral reefs, and
other natural systems. Restoration activities provide direct economic opportunities, and healthy
natural systems support jobs in industries such as tourism, recreation, and commercial fishing.
Agencies will coordinate to protect, restore, and enhance wetlands, coral reefs, and other highpriority ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes habitats. Agencies will also work through the already
established a National Shellfish Initiative with commercial and restoration aquaculture communities to
identify ways to both responsibly maximize the commercial value of shellfish aquaculture and achieve
environmental benefits such as nutrient filtration and fish habitat.
Prevent lost employment opportunities and economic losses associated with environmental
degradation. Hypoxia and harmful algal blooms have significant adverse economic, public healthrelated, and ecological consequences. Invasive species are a major challenge that results in
economic losses to local communities and industries, costing the Nation more than $120 billion
annually. Federal agencies will take steps to prevent and reverse widespread economic impacts
caused by hypoxia, harmful algal blooms, invasive species, and other threats to healthy systems.
They will take action to strengthen the monitoring, science, data access, modeling, and forecasting of
hypoxia and harmful algal blooms to provide decision makers with the necessary information to
minimize and mitigate harmful impacts on coastal economies. Federal agencies will take actions to
improve our ability to detect and reduce invasive species in coastal and ocean habitats to protect
commercial and recreational fish stocks, help sustain the jobs and industries that depend upon
healthy coastal aquatic ecosystems, and save millions of dollars in lost revenue and avoided
infrastructure damage.
Exploration Solves Resources

Ocean exploration bolsters the economy and national security by reducing
resource dependence
Conducting more data collection and exploration quests is also beneficial from an economic
standpoint because explorers have the potential to identify new resources, both renewable and
nonrenewable. Having access to those materials, such as oils and minerals, and being less dependent
on other nations, Schubel says, could help improve national security.
Each time explorers embark on a mission to a new part of the ocean, they bring back more detailed
information by mapping the sea floor and providing high-resolution images of what exists, says
David McKinnie, a senior advisor for NOAA's Office of Ocean Exploration and Research and a coauthor of the report. On almost every expedition, he says, the scientists discover new species. In a
trip to Indonesia in 2010, for example, McKinnie says researchers discovered more than 50 new
species of coral.
[Note Schubel = Jerry Schubel, president and CEO of the Aquarium of the Pacific]
Understanding of the oceans is key to managing resources and solving crises

exploration solves
Academies, http://explore.noaa.gov/sites/OER/Documents/national-research-council-voyage.pdf, pg. 2631, accessed 6/29/14, GNL]
The ocean supports uswhether we live in land-locked or coastal communitiesin myriad ways.
Living resources provide food, and exploration of marine biological and chemical diversity has led
to the discovery of drugs to treat cancer and infections. Oil and natural gas extracted from the oceans
have already been used to meet much of the energy needs of our societies. With the application of new
technology to locate, extract, and exploit potential ocean resources, such as methane hydrates,
renewable ocean energy, and seafloor minerals, the value of the oceans to society will continue to
expand.
Improved understanding of the oceans is necessary to better manage our living marine resources.
The oceans provide a very large portion of Earths food supply (Figure 2.1; Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations, 1998). The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations estimated capture fisheries (primarily marine) produced 83 million metric tons of fish in
2001. Approximately 16 kg (or 36 pounds) of fish per person on Earth were either captured or produced
in that year. Appropriate fisheries management depends a great deal on knowledge of fish stocks,
distribution, and life histories. Additional information about ocean circulation patterns, chemistry,
seafloor terrain and fish distributions, for instance, should assist attempts to improve fisheries
management.
Marine organisms also supply a host of unique compounds for medical uses. The ancient horseshoe
crab (Limulus polyphemus) supplies blood used in common toxin-screening tests, and its eyes
continue to provide researchers with a model of how vision works. The nerve cells of the longfinned
squid (Loligo pealei) include giant axons that are used by neurobiologists as an analogue to
understand mammalian neurobiology. These cells are approximately 100 times the diameter of a
mammal axon, allowing experimentation and analysis that would otherwise be exceedingly difficult or
impossible. Discodermolide, a compound extracted from marine sponges, has been shown to stop the
growth of cancer cells in laboratory tests. The discovery of microorganisms within deep ocean
sediments that could inhibit cancer cell growth has opened a door to the search for new compounds
for use in medicine (Figure 2.2) (Mincer et al., 2002; Feling et al., 2003). These examples are among
the hundreds of uses for marine organisms and compounds. Vast numbers of organisms remain to be
discovered, and they will yield additional important benefits for humankind. Responsible
exploitation of the genetic diversity of life in the ocean, including new and existing fisheries,
requires a thorough understanding of those resources and their variability over time.
As the human population expands, so will the need for energy and mineral resources. In 2002, the
coastal zones of the United States provided 25 percent of the countrys natural gas production and
30 percent of the U.S. oil production (Minerals Management Service, 2003). The Minerals
Management Service estimates the majority of undiscovered gas and oil is in coastal areas albeit in
deeper and deeper water on the continental slope.
The oceans sustain a large portion of Earths biodiversity in complex food webs; microbial life;
extreme, deep habitats including within the seafloor, and hydrothermal vents; and dynamic coastal
environments. Indeed, the midwater environment of oceans harbor an ecosystem whose biomass is larger
than that of the terrestrial biota. The complex biological systems both rely on and support the global
cycling of carbon and nutrients, and they are estimated to sustain half of all carbon-based life on
this planet (Figure 2.3; Field et al., 1998).
Appreciation for the role of the oceans in global climate patterns and change continues to grow
(Sutton and Allen, 1997; Rahmstorf, 2002). The oceans regulate climate by absorbing solar energy
and redistributing it via global circulation patterns resulting in identifiable systems of climate and
weather. Our knowledge of interannual climate variations has improved to the point that scientists are
now be able to forecast El Nio climate disturbances months in advance (Chen, 2001).
With all of the benefits the oceans provide come potentially harmful sometimes disastrous
hazards to human health. Tsunamis, for example, are legendary in their power to devastate coastal
communities (e.g., Satake et al., 1995). In the United States, a single hurricane can cause billions of
dollars of damage (Figure 2.4; Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2003), and coastal erosion
threatens to destroy 25 percent of dwellings within 150 m of the coast (Heinz Center, 2002). Major
earthquake faults offshore coastal states in the western United States are among the most
potentially hazardous in the world given the concentrations in population and economic
productivity. Although more difficult to estimate in monetary terms, water pollution and marine habitat
degradation decrease the aesthetic value and the biotic richness of our coastal waters. Habitat
degradation also threatens human health: viruses, bacteria, and infectious diseases that can be
transmitted to human populations contaminate coastal waters (National Research Council, 1999).
Finding: The oceans play a critical role in the maintenance of the ecosystems of the Earth.
Resources contained in the oceans currently supply much of the worlds food and fuel supply, and
maintain global climate patterns. The oceans harbor as yet undiscovered organisms new searches for
life continue to discover previously unknown organisms. Only a portion of the potential of the oceans
has been tapped.
Recommendation: As was true when the International Decade of Ocean Exploration (1971-1980) was
proposed and supported, ocean exploration remains a necessary endeavor to identify and fully
describe the resources the oceans contain and uncover processes with far-ranging implications for
the study of Earth as a whole. The pace at which we discover living and nonliving resources and
improve our understanding of how the oceans respond to chemical, biological, and physical changes
must increase.
Resources Key to the Economy

Ocean resources are key to the economy
[Emily, JD Doctor of Law, 2014, THE NATIONAL OCEAN POLICY: CAN IT REDUCE MARINE
POLLUTION AND STREAMLINE OUR OCEAN BUREAUCRACY? Issue 3, Volume:15, Page 630,
http://vjel.vermontlaw.edu/publications/national-ocean-policy-can-reduce-marine-pollution-streamlineocean-bureaucracy/, accessed 6/26/14, CK]
The United States is similarly dependent on ocean resources. According to the recent State of the
Coast report issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), coastal
watershed counties contribute roughly $8.3 trillion to the United States gross domestic product
(GDP), which translates to about 58% of GDP in 2010.8 In 2010, the coastal watershed counties
of the United States supported a total of 66 million jobs9 through which the employees received
collectively about $3.4 trillion in wages. As Sarah Chasis, senior attorney and Director of the Natural
Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Ocean Initiative, observed: [p]rotecting our oceans isnt only
about saving fish or whales or dolphins. Its about keeping our economy strong for decades to
come. 10 Our economic dependence on ocean resources, particularly in Americas capitalistic society,
is surely a reason why Americans as a whole can benefit from making ocean conservation a priority.
Exploration Solves Rare Earth Metals

Investment in ocean exploration key to rare Earth metals mining
Conathan, Center for American Progress Ocean Policy director, 13
[Michael, 6/20/2013, Center for American Progress, Space Exploration Dollars Dwarf Ocean Spending,
http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/06/20/space-exploration-dollars-dwarf-ocean-spending/,
accessed 6/29/14 CK]
This imbalance in pop culture is illustrative of what plays out in real life. We rejoiced along with the
NASA mission-control room when the Mars rover landed on the red planet late last year. One
particularly exuberant scientist, known as Mohawk Guy for his audacious hairdo, became a minor
celebrity and even fielded his share of spontaneous marriage proposals. But when Cameron bottomed
out in the Challenger Deep more than 36,000 feet below the surface of the sea, it was met with
resounding indifference from all but the dorkiest of ocean nerds such as myself.
Part of this incongruity comes from access. No matter where we live, we can go outside on a clear
night, look up into the sky, and wonder about whats out there. Were presented with a spectacular vista
of stars, planets, meteorites, and even the occasional comet or aurora. We have all been wishing on stars
since we were children. Only the lucky few can gaze out at the ocean from their doorstep, and even
those who do cannot see all that lies beneath the waves.
As a result, the facts about ocean exploration are pretty bleak. Humans have laid eyes on less than 5
percent of the ocean, and we have better maps of the surface of Mars than we do of Americas
exclusive economic zonethe undersea territory reaching out 200 miles from our shores.
Sure, space is sexy. But the oceans are too. To those intrigued by the quest for alien life, consider this:
Scientists estimate that we still have not discovered 91 percent of the species that live in our oceans.
And some of them look pretty outlandish. Go ahead and Google the deepsea hatchetfish, frill shark, or
Bathynomus giganteus.
In a time of shrinking budgets and increased scrutiny on the return for our investments, we should
be taking a long, hard look at how we are prioritizing our exploration dollars. If the goal of
government spending is to spur growth in the private sector, entrepreneurs are far more likely to
find inspiration down in the depths of the ocean than up in the heavens. The ocean already provides
us with about half the oxygen we breathe, our single largest source of protein, a wealth of mineral
resources, key ingredients for pharmaceuticals, and marine biotechnology.
Of course space exportation does have benefits beyond the cool factor of putting people on the moon
and astronaut-bards playing David Bowie covers in space. Inventions created to facilitate space travel
have become ubiquitous in our livescell-phone cameras, scratch-resistant lenses, and water-filtration
systems, just to name a fewand research conducted in outer space has led to breakthroughs here on
earth in the technological and medical fields. Yet despite far-fetched plans to mine asteroids for rare
metals, the only tangible goods brought back from space to date remain a few piles of moon rocks.
The deep seabed is a much more likely source of so-called rare-earth metals than distant asteroids.
Earlier this year the United Nations published its first plan for management of mineral resources
beneath the high seas that are outside the jurisdiction of any individual country. The United States
has not been able to participate in negotiations around this policy because we are not among the 185
nations that have ratified the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which governs such activity.
With or without the United States on board, the potential for economic development in the most
remote places on the planet is vast and about to leap to the next level. Earlier this year Japan
announced that it has discovered a massive supply of rare earth both within its exclusive economic
zone and in international waters. This follows reports in 2011 that China sent at least one exploratory
mission to the seabed beneath international waters in the Pacific Ocean. There is a real opportunity for
our nation to lead in this area, but we must invest and join the rest of the world in creating the
governance structure for these activities.
China Rare Earth Internal Link

China currently has monopoly in rare earth metals industry- threatens future tech
development
Brennan, Institute for Security and Development Policy resource security editor and
project coordinator of research, 13
[Elliot, 1/10/2013, Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relation, The Next Oil?: Rare Earth
Metals, http://www.gatewayhouse.in/the-next-oil-rare-earth-metals/, accessed 7/1/2014 CK]
Rare earth metals (REM) are increasingly becoming a critical strategic resource. The 17 elements
can be found in most high-tech gadgets, from advanced military technology to mobile phones.
China currently holds claim to over 90 percent of the worlds production. As global demand
increases, Beijings export reductions in recent years have forced high-tech firms to relocate to
China and forced other governments to pour money into their exploration and production. An
emergent India is among those concerned about Chinas control of rare earths. In the past 12 months,
the geopolitics of rare earths has become evident. REMs are becoming a strategic resource over
which the two emerging giants are competing in Asia. Indeed, one might say rare earths are fast becoming
the next oil.
The name, rare earth metal, is a misnomer. The metals are, in fact, far more abundant than many
precious minerals. Yet their dispersion means they are rarely found in economically viable
quantities. The similarity of chemical properties of the 17 REMs, demonstrated by their close proximity
on the periodic table, makes them very difficult to separate. Their extraction is capital- and skillintensive. End uses for REMs are varied but recent figures cited by the U.S. Geological Survey
noted that in the U.S. the end use was predominantly for battery alloys, ceramics and magnets,
sectors that are continuing to grow to cater for high-tech industry. The extent to which REMs are
used in defense technology is such that without their production modern warfarefighter jets,
drones, and most computer-controlled equipmentwould have to undertake a lengthy process of
redevelopment. A sovereign monopoly of such a resource is therefore a serious concern for any
nation.
Exploration
Exploration Good Laundry List

Ocean exploration is key to advances necessary to address climate, resources,
disease, energy, conservation and ocean collapse
Cousteau, EarthEcho International Co-Founder, 12
[Philippe, also a special reporter for CNN, EarthEcho International is a non-profit organization that
empowers youth to become involved with environmental causes, 3/13/2012, CNN Light Years, Why
exploring the ocean is mankind's next giant leap http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/13/whyexploring-the-ocean-is-mankinds-next-giant-leap/, accessed 6/28/14 CK]
You may think Im doing my grandfather Jacques Yves-Cousteau and my father Philippe a disservice
when I say weve only dipped our toes in the water when it comes to ocean exploration. After all, my
grandfather co-invented the modern SCUBA system and "The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau "
introduced generations to the wonders of the ocean. In the decades since, weve only explored about 10
percent of the ocean - an essential resource and complex environment that literally supports life as
we know it, life on earth.
We now have a golden opportunity and a pressing need to recapture that pioneering spirit. A new
era of ocean exploration can yield discoveries that will help inform everything from critical medical
advances to sustainable forms of energy. Consider that AZT, an early treatment for HIV, is derived
from a Caribbean reef sponge, or that a great deal of energy - from offshore wind, to OTEC (ocean
thermal energy conservation), to wind and wave energy - is yet untapped in our oceans. Like
unopened presents under the tree, the ocean is a treasure trove of knowledge. In addition, such
discoveries will have a tremendous impact on economic growth by creating jobs as well as
technologies and goods.
In addition to new discoveries, we also have the opportunity to course correct when it comes to
stewardship of our oceans. Research and exploration can go hand in glove with resource
management and conservation.
Over the last several decades, as the United States has been exploring space, weve exploited and
polluted our oceans at an alarming rate without dedicating the needed time or resources to truly
understand the critical role they play in the future of the planet. It is not trite to say that the oceans
are the life support system of this planet, providing us with up to 70 percent of our oxygen, as well
as a primary source of protein for billions of people, not to mention the regulation of our climate.
Despite this life-giving role, the world has fished, mined and trafficked the ocean's resources to a
point where we are actually seeing dramatic changes that is seriously impacting today's generations.
And that impact will continue as the world's population approaches 7 billion people, adding strain
to the worlds resources unlike any humanity has ever had to face before.
In the long term, destroying our ocean resources is bad business with devastating consequences for
the global economy, and the health and sustainability of all creatures - including humans. Marine
spatial planning, marine sanctuaries, species conservation, sustainable fishing strategies, and more
must be a part of any ocean exploration and conservation program to provide hope of restoring
health to our oceans.
While there is still much to learn and discover through space exploration, we also need to pay attention
to our unexplored world here on earth. Our next big leap into the unknown can be every bit as exciting
and bold as our pioneering work in space. It possesses the same "wow" factor: alien worlds, dazzling
technological feats and the mystery of the unknown. The United States has the scientific muscle, the
diplomatic know-how and the entrepreneurial spirit to lead the world in exploring and protecting
our ocean frontier.
Exploration solves knowledge knowledge key internal link to solving current

problems
downloaded from: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10630.html,page 20, Accessed 6/30/14 CK]
The global ocean is teeming with undiscovered species and resources in vast underexplored areas. Yet
even as our dependence on healthy, functioning marine ecosystems grows, our knowledge about the
ocean and its role in keeping Earths systems in balance remains constrained. Given the importance
of the global ocean in guaranteeing food security, providing resources, enabling worldwide
commerce, and reminding us of our history, it is shocking that we still know so little about the ocean
and the life it supports.
While steady progress in understanding of the ocean has been made possible by traditional hypothesisdriven research, a new program of exploration will permit us to make quantum leaps in new
discoveries. A well-organized, adequately funded program in ocean exploration will allow us to
plumb the depths of Earths last frontier and provide the foundation for better understanding, and
better stewardship, of Earths ocean.
AT No Exploration Advantages
A new program of exploration is guaranteed to yield multiple benefits
Academies, http://explore.noaa.gov/sites/OER/Documents/national-research-council-voyage.pdf, pg 1,
In the summer of 1803, Thomas Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on a journey to
establish an American presence in a land of unqualified natural resources and riches. It is fitting that, on
the 200th anniversary of that expedition, the United States, together with international partners,
should embark on another journey of exploration in a vastly more extensive region of remarkable
potential for discovery. Although the oceans cover more than 70 percent of our planets surface, much of
the ocean has been investigated in only a cursory sense, and many areas have not been investigated at all.
During this journey, there is little doubt that discoveries will be made:
A spectrum of marine natural products will have profound pharmaceutical potential.
Vast new mineral and energy resources will be uncovered.
The physical factors responsible for changes in climate will be identified.
New ecosystems will alter our view of the origin of life.
Artifacts will provide new information about the history of civilization.
Surprising new species and organisms will be found.
In response to a request from the U.S. Congress to examine the feasibility and value of an ocean
exploration program, the Ocean Studies Board of the National Research Council established the
Committee on Exploration of the Seas (Box ES.1), whose findings are reported in this document. In
addition to a public meeting, the committee convened an International Global Ocean Exploration
Workshop in May 2002 to seek advice from the international community and discuss the possibilities for,
and interest in, a global ocean exploration program.
Exploration Key to Science

Exploration is a fundamental component of basic science
Colwell, former National Science Foundation Director, 1
[Dr. Rita, 7/12/01, Professor Emerita and Distinguished University Professor and Elected
Member National Academy of Sciences, NSF and Congress Testimony, Testimony before the
House Committees on Resources and Science,
http://www.nsf.gov/about/congress/107/rrc_ocean71201.jsp, accessed 6-26-14, GNL]
Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to testify today on ocean
exploration and ocean observations, activities in which the National Science Foundation plays an
important role. These are areas in which many agencies, as well as the academic community and private
sector, have a substantial interest and it is a pleasure to be here with Admiral Lautenbacher, Admiral
Cohen, and Mr. Gudes.
For generations, the search for knowledge and understanding of the oceans has captivated the
human imagination. It will continue to do so for generations to come. But it is quite clear that our
generation has a tremendous opportunity, and a keen responsibility, to fuel discovery in this realm.
Technological and computational advances, as well as fundamental breakthroughs in understanding, are
transforming the ocean sciences. At the same time, we are becoming increasingly aware of the
economic, public health, and environmental significance of our oceans. Ocean exploration and the
potential implementation of an integrated ocean observing system are two areas that can advance
discovery.
NSF funds basic research and education in ocean sciences, and the facilities and instruments
necessary to gain access to the oceans, from the surface to deep in the seafloor and from pole to
pole. Exploration is a fundamental component of basic research. It is where science begins - with
general ideas or broad hypotheses that seek to characterize new areas and processes in the ocean.
The resulting knowledge provides a framework for further inquiry through subsequent, more specific
investigations.
Last fall, the President's Panel on Ocean Exploration, convened by the previous administration and
chaired by Dr. Marcia McNutt, produced a report highlighting the fact that oceans remain largely
unexplored and calling for establishment of an ocean exploration program. The report identifies
many areas offering high potential for scientific advances. NSF is currently active in and seeks to
expand activities associated with relatively unexplored areas and aspects of the oceans,
incorporating both educational and data management and dissemination components, as well as
technology development.
Exploration key to spur scientific innovation

Goldstone, MIT ocean science Ph.D., 14
[Heather, 4/28/14, WCAI, How Live Stream Video Is Catalyzing Ocean Research,
http://capeandislands.org/post/how-live-stream-video-catalyzing-ocean-research, accessed 6/29/14, GNL]
We're often taught that a hypothesis is the first step in the scientific method. In actuality, what
comes first is an observation - a rare commodity for ocean scientists.
The NOAA ship Okeanos Explorer is nicknamed America's Ship for Ocean Exploration. Not science.
Exploration.
What's the difference? Science is about testing ideas - hypotheses - through experimentation.
Exploration is simply observing the world around us, although in the deep sea it's far from simple.
It's technically challenging and it's expensive.
That's why it's estimated only 5 percent of the world's ocean has been seen by human eyes. And since
observations are the necessary starting material for developing good, interesting questions to
investigate scientifically, that's a problem for ocean scientists.
Enter the NOAA ship Okeanos Explorer. This ship is dedicated to deep sea exploration, and it's
pioneering a new technique, known as telepresence. The ship broadcasts deep sea video from a remotely
operated vehicle to the internet in near real-time - a 10 second delay for the public (you can check it out
here), but just a 2-5 second delay for scientists participating in an expedition. Those scientists also have
the ability to talk to each other and back to the ship, enabling them to work in collaboration to
identify what's being seen and make decisions about how to proceed.
Scientists involved with the Okeanos Explorer say it's exciting and worthwhile work that's
accelerating education of young scientists and catalyzing new ocean research.
Exploration Key to Earth Science

Deep water exploration is key to understanding of the Earth and its processes
Deep Ocean Exploration Institute, No Date
[Deep Ocean Exploration Institute, No Date, part of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Unlocking
Planetary Processes On and Within the Seafloor, http://www.whoi.edu/main/doei, accessed 6/30/14,
GNL]
Through research themes focused on deep ocean technology, dynamic processes at the seafloor and
the role of the deep Earth and ocean in elemental cycles the Deep Ocean Exploration Institute
(DOEI) seeks to understand how Earth works by promoting interdisciplinary investigations of
planetary processes occurring in the deep ocean and within the planets interior.
Many keys to unlocking Earth processes can be found deep under the ocean, on and within the
seafloor that covers two-thirds of our planets surface. The goals of the Deep Ocean Exploration
Institute are to investigate these key planetary processes . They include understanding the flow of
both magma and water within the planet; the nature and evolution of biological communities in the
deep ocean and Earths crust; and the characteristics of planetary processes that shape Earth. We
also support the development of undersea technology and the establishment of seafloor observatories in
various settings.
Coordinated Exploration Solves Science

New ocean exploration programs key to maintaining scientific advancements and
effective ocean policy
Academies, http://explore.noaa.gov/sites/OER/Documents/national-research-council-voyage.pdf, pg 3941, accessed 6/29/14, GNL]
Systematic, or coordinated, ocean exploration is not a current practice within the United States. New
discoveries about the oceans are often the result of serendipitous circumstances, for instance, the
inadvertent discovery of entirely new ecosystems at hydrothermal vents. Exciting discoveries about
the oceans occur frequently, but the rate could be greatly enhanced by pursuing new research topics
in new regions of the oceans.
A limited national ocean exploration effort has recently begun and is operated through the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Since 2001, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administrations Office of Ocean Exploration has sought to explore and better understand our oceans.
The office supports expeditions, exploration projects, and a number of related field campaigns for the
purpose of discovery and documentation of ocean voyages (National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, 2003a). It is the committees sense that this fledgling national effort is too limited in
scope. The education and outreach efforts are laudable, and the office has made the important step
of committing 10 percent of their budget to those activities. However, uncertainty in the annual
budgeting process makes long-term planning difficult, and the funding levels to date hover at $14
million. As no future vision for the program has yet been released it is difficult for this committee to
determine whether this young program can be adapted to fill the role outlined in this report, but the
program has not capitalized on much of the scientific expertise in the United States and relies on
heavily leveraging funds and assets against other oceanographic research programs.
Currently the pursuit of ocean data is largely an independent, researcherdriven effort with only
scattered attempts at public education. As a largely publicly-funded endeavor, oceanographers have a
responsibility to communicate their findings clearly not only to the funding agencies, but to the broader
public. Large numbers of people live near oceans and many depend on it for their sustenance or
livelihood, but few understand the complexity of the ocean ecosystem or its importance to society.
Although efforts to educate the public in both formal and informal settings are increasing through
programs such as the National Science Foundations Centers for Ocean Science Education Excellence
program, outreach and education in the marine sciences is largely uncoordinated. Few members of
the public appreciate the role the oceans play in our lives, and the relationship between the oceans,
atmosphere, and land. Good public policy demands that the public engage in the excitement of
ocean research, exploit public interest through education about the wealth and limitations of the
ocean, and promote citizen and decision-makers understanding about ocean issues and policy.
Chapter 7 discusses some of the outreach and education possibilities in more detail.
Finding: Oceans provide food, energy and mineral resources, products capable of treating human
disease, and affect climate and global responses to changes in climate. A new large-scale program
devoted to ocean exploration is necessary to:
coordinate efforts in ocean discovery and capitalize on the wide array of available data;
provide new resources and facilities for access by researchers;
establish support for and promote interdisciplinary approaches to ocean investigations;
develop outreach and public education tools to increase public awareness and understanding of
the oceans;
discover the living and nonliving resources of the oceans; and
provide a multidisciplinary archive of ocean data to serve as a source of basic data upon which to
develop hypotheses for further investigation.
Recommendation: A coordinated, broadly-based ocean exploration effort that meets the highest
standards of scientific excellence should be aggressively pursued. An ocean exploration program
should be initiated and exhibit the following characteristics, which can also be used to gauge its ultimate
success:
The program should be global and multidisciplinary.
The program must receive international support.
The program should consider all three spatial dimensions as well as time.
The program should seek to discover new living and nonliving resources in the ocean.
The program should include developments of new tools, probes, sensors, and systems for
multidisciplinary ocean exploration.
The program should reach out to increase literacy pertaining to ocean science and management issues
for learners of all ages to maximize the impact for research, commercial, regulatory, and educational
benefits.
The program should standardize sampling, data management, and dissemination.
Leadership
Modelling Add-on
US agency model key to effective international collaboration on exploration
Academies, http://explore.noaa.gov/sites/OER/Documents/national-research-council-voyage.pdf, pg 6-7,
The involvement of many nations in ocean exploration efforts would expand an ocean exploration
programs usefulness by broadening the base of human, mechanical, and financial resources
available. In fact, international collaboration is necessary to support a truly global ocean
exploration program. And the interests of individual nations must be served to promote such
participationsomething not readily achievable by a largescale, internationally coordinated effort.
The informal consensus of the workshop attendees was that a one-program-serves-all effort would be
neither effective nor efficient. An international program could be best served by developing
individual national ocean exploration programs to suit the needs of the countries involved. National
priorities would be set and then partners sought for individual programs. Such bilateral and
multilateral agreements have worked extremely well for ocean science programs such as the Ocean
Drilling Program (ODP) and should serve well for ocean exploration.
Although many nations would likely be interested in participating in limited ocean exploration
programs, relatively few have the resources necessary to provide significant financial support to a
program. A U.S. national model should offer the example for other nations, and it should work to
incorporate people from other nations to generate interest more broadly. The development of similar
national programs elsewhere should be encouraged and anticipated. By developing distinct exploration
programs for international cooperation to seek discoveries of specific resources or investigate
regional features, the burden of international policy and agreements could be greatly reduced.
Recommendation: Given the considerations presented, it is prudent to begin an exploration effort with
a model for a U.S. national program that will encourage collaboration and capacity building and
that would be likely to lead to the development of similar programs in other countries. Once other
national programs are established, consortia of nations can voluntarily collaborate on program
plans and pool resources using multilateral international agreements to undertake regional
exploration or to pursue themes of shared interest.
Prioritization and coordination key to effective international collaboration

issues critical to global survival
Academies, http://explore.noaa.gov/sites/OER/Documents/national-research-council-voyage.pdf, pg 2-6,

Exciting discoveries are made in the ocean sciences every year. From the identification of
ecosystems that thrive without sunlight to the new pathways for photosynthesis recently identified in
marine microbes, discoveries in our oceans continue to revolutionize and refine our theories of the
origins of life here and the possibilities for life elsewhere in the universe . However, such discoveries
are largely serendipitous. In the United States, ocean sciences rely on relatively few large, carefully
managed assets ships, submersibles, and laboratory facilities. Research funding is relatively more
available for projects that will revisit earlier sites and discoveries and for improving current
understanding than it is to support truly exploratory oceanography. A new program to provide
opportunities for investigating new regions and that draws on research from a variety of disciplines,
would speed discovery and application of new information.
A coordinated, international ocean exploration effort is not unprecedented the International
Decade of Ocean Exploration (IDOE), 1971-1980, was established by the Marine Sciences Act of
1966 and motivated both by anticipated discoveries of useful and important marine resources and by
scientific curiosity. Questions about the health of the worlds oceans led scientists to argue for systematic
baseline surveys that were not possible from randomly spaced observations. The IDOE program
recognized that exploration of the ocean required a sustained global effort with international
participation, and justification for the program included issues of clear international interest. More
information was necessary to describe the ability of the oceans to provide food for an expanding
world population, to protect the United States and other nations from maritime threats to world
order, to assuage the deterioration of water quality and waterfronts in coastal cities, to support
expanded ocean shipping, and to locate new supplies of seabed oil, gas, and minerals. The objective
of IDOE was to achieve more comprehensive knowledge of ocean characteristics and their changes and
more profound understanding of oceanic processes for the purpose of effective utilization of the ocean
and its resources (National Academy of Sciences,1969). More specifically, it was expected that the
program would help increase the yield from ocean resources, improve predictions of and responses
to natural phenomena, and protect or improve the quality of the marine environment. IDOE was a
great successit provided observational databases on the physics, geochemistry, paleoceanography,
biology, and geophysics of the ocean that fueled hypothesis-driven research for decades.
Recommendation: As was true when IDOE was proposed and supported, ocean exploration remains
a necessary endeavor to identify and fully describe the resources the oceans contain. The pace at
which we discover living and nonliving resources and improve our understanding of how the oceans
respond to chemical, biological, and physical changes must increase.
Every time a scientist happens upon some completely unexpected discovery in the ocean, it is a reminder
of how little is known about this environment that is so critically important to the sustainability of the
planet. We now recognize that different facets of the oceansmall-scale geological, biological, and
genetic diversity; chemical, geophysical, and physical oceanographic propertiesinteract in complex
ways, and our understanding of the ocean requires its examination as a whole system. The oceans
play a critical role in the maintenance of the ecosystems of the Earth.
Resources contained in the oceans currently supply a substantial portion of the worlds food and
fuel supply, and maintain global climate patterns. The oceans harbor as yet undiscovered organisms
new searches for life continue to discover previously unknown organisms. Only a portion of the potential
of the oceans has been tapped.
It is difficult to predict what discoveries are still to come, but it is clear that ocean exploration will
improve the accuracy of our predictions of global climate change, produce new products that will
benefit humanity, inform policy choices, and allow better stewardship of the oceans and the planet
as a whole. To reach this potential, ocean research should encourage cooperation between
researchers from varied disciplines.
Finding: Currently ocean science funding in the United States is predominantly awarded to research in
specific disciplines, such as biological, physical or chemical oceanography. Proposals for
interdisciplinary work are hampered by a funding bureaucracy that is also discipline-based. Ocean
exploration is an integrative activity that will encourage and support interdisciplinary efforts that
seek to discover new contributions to the marine sciences.
The very nature of scientific investigation leads oceanographers to seek out information to verify
hypotheses and confirm earlier findings. The infrastructure and support needed for oceanographic work is
expensive, limited, and highly scheduled to ensure efficiency in the pursuit of knowledge about the
oceans. Much of the oceanographic research currently conducted re-investigates previously visited
locations, limiting access to new regions and restricting long-term data collection. As a result, vast
portions of the oceans have not been systematically examined for geochemical or biological
characteristics. This is particularly true of the oceans in the southern hemisphere. Ground-breaking
discoveries, such as hydrothermal vents, fueled intensive investigations of those regions, but they did not
lead to investigations of new regions. As is being shown by an Australian- New Zealand expedition to
seamounts and abyssal plains, systematic biological exploration in even a small portion of the ocean can
provide a rich collection of new organisms. The one month journey collected more than 100 previously
unidentified fish species and up to 300 new species of invertebrates (National Oceans Office, 2003). A
very recent example of such an exploratory effort by the United States has been initiated by the
Department of Energy. Although the Sargasso Sea is thought to exhibit limited biodiversity and a simple
ecosystem (Holden, 2003), it is anticipated that determining the genomic structures of all organisms
within the ecosystem may reveal new pathways of carbon sequestration and hydrogen generation
(Whitfield, 2003).
Recommendation: Oceanographic research should encourage scientifically-rigorous, systematic
investigations of new sites in the oceans. Exploration through time should be included in oceanographic
research.
Oceans provide food, energy and mineral resources, products capable of treating human disease,
and affect climate and global responses to changes in climate. A new large-scale program devoted to
ocean exploration is necessary to:
coordinate efforts in ocean discovery and capitalize on the wide array of available data;
provide new resources and facilities for access by researchers ;
establish support for and promote interdisciplinary approaches to ocean investigations;
develop outreach and public education tools to increase public awareness and understanding of
the oceans;
discover the living and nonliving resources of the oceans; and
provide a multidisciplinary archive of ocean data to serve as a source of basic data upon which to
develop hypotheses for further investigation.
Recommendation: A coordinated, broadly-based ocean exploration effort that meets the highest
standards of scientific excellence should be aggressively pursued. An ocean exploration program
should be initiated and contain the following characteristics, or goals, which can also be used to gauge its
ultimate success:
The program should be global and multidisciplinary.
The program must receive international support.
The program should consider all three spatial dimensions as well as time.
The program should seek to discover new living and nonliving resources in the ocean.
The program should include development of new tools, probes, sensors, and systems for
multidisciplinary ocean exploration.
The program should reach out to improve literacy pertaining to ocean science and management issues
for learners of all ages to maximize the impact for research, commercial, regulatory, and educational
benefits.
The program should standardize sampling, data management, and dissemination.
Recommendation: To achieve the recommended goals, early efforts in ocean exploration should be
selected using the following criteria:
Research is conducted in areas of international interest. Particularly salient are themes that are
amenable to international cooperation and those suggested by International Global Ocean
Exploration
Workshop participants.
Questions advance the current state of knowledge.
Characteristics of the habitat, region, or discipline suggest a potential for bold, new discoveries.
The results have a potential to benefit humanity.
Recommendation: Several promising areas were identified as having broad international interest
and are recommended as potential initial exploration themes:
marine biodiversity;
the Arctic Ocean;
the Southern Ocean and Antarctic ice shelves;
deep water and its influence on climate change;
exploring the ocean through time; and
marine archaeology.
US Environmental Leadership Decline

US has lost its leadership on international environmental problems
Knox, Wake International Law professor, 12
[John H., 1-20-12, Center for Progressive Reform, Reclaiming Global Environmental Leadership,
http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=FB9153F2-ABFE-3CF28053EAF1ED929DB8, accessed 7-10-14, AFB]
For more than a century, the United States took the lead in organizing responses to international
environmental problems. The long list of environmental agreements spearheaded by the United States
extends from early treaties with Canada and Mexico on boundary waters and migratory birds to global
agreements restricting trade in endangered species and protecting against ozone depletion. In the last two
decades, however, U.S. environmental leadership has faltered. The best-known example is the lack
of an effective response to climate change, underscored by the U.S. decision not to join the Kyoto
Protocol. But the attention climate change receives should not obscure the fact that the United States has
also failed to join a large and growing number of treaties directed at other environmental threats,
including marine pollution, the loss of biological diversity, persistent organic pollutants, and trade
in toxic substances.
Science & Tech Leadership Brink

The US is at risk of losing its science and tech edge
Akst, Scientist news editor, 12
(Jef, masters degree from Indiana University and news editor at The Scientist, 3-14-12, The Scientist,
Slipping from the Top? http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/31845/title/Slippingfrom-the-Top-/, accessed 7-10-14, AFB]
The United States is still a global leader in science and technology research, but the country must act
now to avoid losing its edge. This was the overall consensus among two panels of experts, which
included National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, assembled today (March 14) by
Research! America, a nonprofit public education and advocacy alliance.
I do think America continues to be a place where boldness and innovation and creativity are
encouraged, Collins said. But there are warning signs, he added, such as the facts that the country
is now ranked 6th in the world with regard to the proportion of its gross domestic product that is
invested in research and development and that young high school students score relatively poorly in
math and science compared to teens in other nations. If efforts are not taken to reverse these trends,
Collins warned, we might see America lose their commitment to supporting research at the level
that it will take to maintain that competitiveness.
Research! America today released the results of a national poll that suggests the American voting public
is skeptical about the countrys future in scientific research. More than half (58 percent) of those
polled do not believe the United States will be a world leader in science and technology in 2020, and 85
percent said they were worried about decreases in federal funding for research. The findings reveal
deep concerns among likely voters about our ability to maintain world-class status, said Mary Woolley,
president and CEO of Research! Americasomething that the vast majority (91 percent) of those polled
said was important, especially as other countries are increasingly investing in science.
Now Key Maritime Power

US exploration key to maintaining power as a maritime power plan
prerequisite to private sector engagement
Gaffney, US Commission on Ocean policy member, 13
[Paul, First Principles for a Maritime Nation, included in Ocean Exploration 2020 forum, National
http://www.aquariumofpacific.org/downloads/oe2020report.pdf, p. 22-23 , 6/28/14, GNL]
The U.S. Ex Ex, a creation of Congress (PL 24-24), a voyage of discovery 175 years ago, was a
deliberate step by a tentative nation with an eye on becoming a world power. A six Navy ship flotilla,
manned by 346 military and civilian scientists was charged by government to explore the vast Pacific, top
to bottom. Called The U.S. Exploring Expedition, it sought to discover the natural characteristics of
the great Pacific, extend U.S. presence by connecting to new peoples and collect data useful to U.S.
seaborne commerce and naval operations.
Fast forward to 21st century America, no longer a tentative nation, now the greatest maritime
nation in world history. Its place in the middle of the great ocean system enables prosperous trade
and a unique security situation.
Yet, that ocean system is still largely unexplored. A world power unavoidably dependent on the
ocean still does not understand the oceans full range of opportunities and dangers.
A world maritime powerThe World Power, The United Statescannot afford to be surprised by
the very natural features that characterize her as a maritime nation.
Exploration projects in the high Arctic have found unexpected (previously undiscovered) ocean
bottom variability and changes in water temperature structure. Now that is important to defense,
especially safe U.S. submarine operations. It also gives a hint about past climate fluctuations so we
can get a better idea of the oceans and Arctics role in climate excursions. Arctic exploration
discoveries will also help America argue for rights to minerals off its northern coast.
There are a few, scattered ocean exploration efforts within our nation. Federal agencies do make new
discoveries incidental to their separate missions. And, privately funded citizen explorers are getting
excited about the ocean. While this collection of small efforts survives, each for its own purpose, the
Congress expected more. The nation needs more to ensure maritime strength.
A broad, coordinated national program envisioned by Congress in PL 111-11 could help prioritize
cross-agency oceanographic campaigns, strain from mission and research-driven expeditions and
private excursions those bits of information that are of new-discovery-quality and guarantee that it
will be archived within government and shared with an increasingly excited group of American
citizen explorers.
It is governments role to set the nations priorities, create and maintain the information backbone,
and carry out comprehensively over the long term a program to understand the opportunity and
dangers in an ocean system in whose middle America sits. Only after it has demonstrated this
commitment to leadership can it fully leverage investments from the private sector.
Plan Solves Model/Coop

Centralized and coordinated ocean exploration boosts international cooperation;
serves as a global model for solutions to ocean crises
Pages, American Chemical Society editor & Kearney, Ocean Drive editor, 4
[Patrice, & Bill, Winter/Spring, In Focus Magazine, Exploration of the Deep Blue Sea: Unveiling the
Oceans Mysteries, vol. 4, no. 1, http://www.infocusmagazine.org/4.1/env_ocean.html, accessed 7-11-14,
AFB]
The oceans cover nearly three-quarters of the Earth's surface, regulate our weather and climate, and
sustain a large portion of the planet's biodiversity, yet we know very little about them. In fact, most of
this underwater realm remains unexplored.
Three recent reports from the National Research Council propose a significantly expanded international
infrastructure for ocean exploration and research to close this knowledge gap and unlock the many secrets
of the sea.
Already a world leader in ocean research, the United States should lead a new exploration endeavor
by example. "Given the limited resources in many other countries, it would be prudent to begin with
a U.S. exploration program that would include foreign representatives and serve as a model for
other countries," said John Orcutt, the committee chair for one of the reports and deputy director, Scripps
Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego. "Once programs are established
elsewhere, groups of nations could then collaborate on research and pool their resources under
international agreements."
Using new and existing facilities, technologies, and vehicles, proposed efforts to understand the oceans
would follow two different approaches. One component dedicated to exploration would utilize ships,
submersibles, and satellites in new ways to uncover the ocean's biodiversity, such as the ecosystems
associated with deep-sea hydrothermal vents, coral reefs, and volcanic, underwater mountains.
A second component -- a network of ocean "observatories" composed of moored buoys and a system of
telecommunication cables and nodes on the seafloor -- would complement the existing fleet of
research ships and satellites. The buoys would provide information on weather and climate as well as
ocean biology, and the cables would be used to transmit information from sensors on fixed nodes about
volcanic and tectonic activity of the seafloor, earthquakes, and life on or below the seafloor.
Also, a fleet of new manned and unmanned deep-diving vehicles would round out this research
infrastructure.
Education and outreach should be an integral part of new ocean science efforts by bringing
discoveries to the public, informing government officials, and fostering collaborations between educators
and the program's scientists, the reports say.
These activities will expand previous international programs. For example, the observatory network
will build on current attempts to understand the weather, climate, and seafloor, such as the Hawaii-2
Observatory -- which consists of marine telephone cables running between Oahu and Hawaii and the
California coast -- and the Tropical Atmosphere Ocean Array, which contains about 70 moorings in the
Pacific and was key to predicting interannual climate events such as El Nio.
Coop Solves Science Diplomacy

These partnerships boost US science diplomacy and build coalitions to preserve
global stability
Rep. Carnahan, 12
[Russ Carnahan, D-MO, Missouris Third Congressional District from 2005-2013 and serves on the
House Committees on Foreign Affairs, Transportation and Infrastructure, and Veterans Affairs. 8-2-12,
Science & Diplomacy, Science Diplomacy and Congress, AAAS center for scientific diplomacy,
http://www.sciencediplomacy.org/perspective/2012/science-diplomacy-and-congress, accessed 7-11-14,
AFB]
As a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and a former member of the House Committee
on Science, I believe that the coordination of international science and technology (S&T) diplomacy
is paramount to U.S. interests. The United States has the potential to build more positive
relationships with other countries through science. Our country can better advance U.S. national
security and economic interests by helping build technological capacities in other nations and working
with international partners to solve global challenges. This is why I have worked in a bipartisan
manner to lead the introduction of four bills at the intersection of science and diplomacy: the International
Science and Technology Cooperation Act; the Global Conservation Act; the Global Science Program for
Security, Competitiveness, and Diplomacy Act; and the Startup Act 2.0. International challenges are
just that: global in their scope and in their solutions. The United States cannot solve multifaceted,
multinational problems in scientific or diplomatic isolation. Forging networks with scientists and
institutions abroad helps the United States and its partners find technical solutions to key global
challenges. In an era where international skepticism about U.S. foreign policy abounds, civil society
including scientists and engineersplays a critical role in reinforcing U.S. foreign policy priorities
via engagement with its counterparts
Science Diplomacy Laundry List Impacts

Science diplomacy is necessary to solve multiple scenarios for extinction
Dr. Sackett, Chief Scientist for Australia, 10
[Penny, former Chief Scientist for Australia, former Program Director at the NSF, PhD in theoretical
physics, the Director of the Australian National University (ANU) Research School of Astronomy and
Astrophysics, 8/10, Forum for European-Australian- Science and Technology Cooperation, FEAST and
the case for science diplomacy, http://content.yudu.com/Library/A1p10y/FEAST/resources/134.htm, p.
132-3, accessed 7-10-14, AFB]
Imagine for a moment that the globe is inhabited by a single individual who roams free across outback
plains, through rainforests, across pure white beaches living off the resources available. Picture the
immensity of the world surrounding this one person and ask yourself, what possible impact could this
single person have on the planet?
Now turn your attention to todays reality. Almost 7 billion people inhabit the planet and this number
increases at an average of a little over one per cent per year. Thats about 2 more mouths to feed every
second.
Do these 7 billion people have an impact on the planet? Yes. An irreversible impact? Probably. Taken
together this huge number of people has managed to change the face of the Earth and threaten the
very systems that support them. We are now embarked on a trajectory that, if unchecked, will
certainly have detrimental impacts on our way of life and to natural ecosystems. Some of these are
irreversible, including the extinction of many species.
But returning to that single individual, surely two things are true. A single person could not have caused
all of this, nor can a single person solve all the associated problems.
The message here is that the human-induced global problems that confront us cannot be solved by any
one individual, group, agency or nation. It will take a large collective effort to change the course that
we are on; nothing less will suffice.
Our planet is facing several mammoth challenges: to its atmosphere, to its resources, to its inhabitants.
Wicked problems such as climate change, over-population, disease, and food, water and energy
security require concerted efforts and worldwide collaboration to find and implement effective, ethical
and sustainable solutions. These are no longer solely scientific and technical matters. Solutions must be
viable in the larger context of the global economy, global unrest and global inequality. Common
understandings and commitment to action are required between individuals, within communities and
across international networks.
Science can play a special role in international relations. Its participants share a common language
that transcends mother tongue and borders. For centuries scientists have corresponded and
collaborated on international scales in order to arrive at a better and common understanding of the
natural and human world.
Values integral to science such as transparency, vigorous inquiry and informed debate also support
effective international relation practices. Furthermore, given the long-established global trade of
scientific information and results, many important international links are already in place at a scientific
level. These links can lead to coalition-building, trust and cooperation on sensitive scientific issues
which, when supported at a political level, can provide a soft politics route to other policy dialogues.
That is, if nations are already working together on global science issues, they may be more likely to be
open to collaboration on other global issues such as trade and security.
Science diplomacy ensures capacity-building for diffuses global conflicts

Espy, Science in the News editor, 13
[Nicole, PhD student in Biological Sciences of Public Health at Harvard University, 2-18-13, Science in
the News, Science and Diplomacy, http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2013/science-and-diplomacy/,
accessed 7-10-14, AFB]
The daily endeavors of a scientist may seem very distinct from those of a political diplomat. The public
may imagine that scientific progress is driven by the work of scientists working methodically and in
isolation in laboratories around the world. In contrast, the idea of a political diplomat likely conjures a
different image one that involves groups of politicians forming alliances and guiding negotiations
between multiple organizations and nations. But, science is a similarly collaborative effort that often
requires coordination between different groups to improve available tools and advance knowledge.
Science and diplomacy can even benefit one another. Science can provide the data and frameworks
necessary to initiate and inform diplomatic talks while at the same time, diplomacy can create
opportunities that improve the way we do science.
Science as a topic of Diplomacy
Science is at the heart of many international diplomatic discussions. For example, nuclear research
has been a hot topic in international politics for the past 60 years. Nuclear research has enabled us to
harness the power of nuclear fission for nuclear energy, but it has also resulted in the creation of nuclear
arms that have led to a great deal of destruction. To ensure nuclear research continues in a safe and
responsible manner, nations have worked together to develop a system of oversight and accountability.
These diplomatic efforts have resulted in the establishment of the International Atomic Energy Agency,
whose early slogan was Atoms for Peace. This agency provides technical guidelines and assistance to
countries for safe use of tools and techniques involving nuclear and radioactive materials. It also attempts
to make public the development of nuclear arms programs in countries around the world so that other
world leaders can take appropriate action. The International Atomic Energy Agency is a model for how
scientists and policy makers can share information and work toward shared interests.
Climate change is another major driver of international diplomatic negotiations. The impact of climate
change on peoples lives is largely unpredictable and non-uniform across different regions. In response,
national leaders similarly vary in their willingness to consent to international agreements concerning
means to cut green house gas emissions. While the scientific consensus is that greenhouse-gas emissions
are a major cause of global warming, the debate surrounding climate change at the global diplomatic level
concerns the methods that should be employed to slow global warming and which countries should carry
the brunt of the socioeconomic responsibility.
The Kyoto Protocol, written in 1997, was an international agreement that required participating countries
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The greatest responsibility for these reductions fell on developed
countries, like the United States and those in Europe, who emitted much of the greenhouse gas during the
19th and 20th centuries. However, in 2001, the United States withdrew its support of the Protocol, in
objection to the quality of the Protocols goals, recognizing that rapidly industrializing countries like
China and India now emit more greenhouse gases from fossil fuels than high-income countries.
Meanwhile, low-income countries, including many island nations soon to be overcome by rising sea
levels, want immediate action that will stop climate change and help these countries adapt to future
changes. Last November, the United Nations held the Doha Climate Change conference, one of a series of
conferences held to devise an internationally supported plan of action to reduce greenhouse-gas
emissions. The result was not a consensus on the means and measurements of reducing emissions per
country. Instead, the Kyoto Protocol was extended through 2020 and participating countries discussed the
right of island nations to be compensated for adaptation costs. Since all 196 countries in the world are a
part of this conversation, climate change negotiations are difficult but imperative in the face of the
impending effects of climate change.
Ultimately, science can help provide the data models forecasting future climate changes, predicted
outcomes of different strategies that help frame climate change discussions, but decisions on what
policy to pursue will require frank and democratic deliberations that balance the needs and interests of all
stakeholders.
Diplomacy to improve science
Sometimes diplomacy is used to make new scientific tools available and to facilitate intellectual
exchange. After the Second World War, European scientists in the field of nuclear physics imagined an
organization that would increase collaboration across Europe and coordinate cost sharing for the building
and maintenance of the facilities this research required. This idea resulted in the formation of the
European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN. The political negotiations to manage the shared
operating costs and the use of CERN facilities, like the Large Hadron Collider, by over half of the worlds
physicists from many different nations and academic institutions are now carried out within the CERN
framework to manage the shared operating costs and the use of the facilities, like the Large Hadron
Collider, by over half of the worlds physicists. This use of diplomacy has enabled many important
discoveries, including the most recent discovery of the Higgs Boson. Other organizations that are the
result of global collaboration include ITER, former known as the International Thermonuclear
Experimental Reactor, for the development of nuclear fusion for energy production, the Square Kilometre
Array for the design of the worlds largest radio telescope, and the International Space Station for space
exploration. All of the above organizations have helped scientists overcome technical (and financial)
challenges in their respective fields that they would not have surmounted on their own.
Science to improve Diplomacy
Beyond the contentious subjects of nuclear proliferation and climate change, science can be a tool to
improve diplomatic relations between conflicting nations. The former Dean of the Kennedy School of
Government at Harvard University Dr. Joseph Nye, Jr., noted that soft power, such as international
cultural and intellectual collaborations between international groups, helps maintain a positive
global attitude between participating nations and can result in favorable political alliances.
Scientific collaborations are a powerful example of soft power, since science is internationally
respected as an impartial endeavor.
Science diplomacy key to relations necessary to solve global crises

Hormats, Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy & the
Environment, 12
[Robert D., 3-9-12, Science Diplomacy, Science Diplomacy and Twenty-First Century Statecraft,
AAAS, http://www.sciencediplomacy.org/perspective/2012/science-diplomacy-and-twenty-first-centurystatecraft, accessed 7-10-14, AFB]
Science diplomacy is a central component of Americas twenty-first century statecraft agenda. The
United States must increasingly recognize the vital role science and technology can play in
addressing major challenges, such as making our economy more competitive, tackling global health
issues, and dealing with climate change. American leadership in global technological advances and
scientific research, and the dynamism of our companies and universities in these areas, is a major
source of our economic, foreign policy, and national security strength. Additionally, it is a hallmark of
the success of the American system. While some seek to delegitimize scientific ideas, we believe the
United States should celebrate science and see itas was the case since the time of Benjamin Franklin
as an opportunity to advance the prosperity, health, and overall wellbeing of Americans and the
global community.
Innovation policy is part of our science diplomacy engagement. More than ever before, modern
economies are rooted in science and technology. It is estimated that Americas knowledge-based
industries represent 40 percent of our economic growth and 60 percent of our exports. Sustaining a
vibrant knowledge-based economy, as well as a strong commitment to educational excellence and
advanced research, provides an opportunity for our citizens to prosper and enjoy upward mobility.
America attracts people from all over the worldscientists, engineers, inventors, and entrepreneurs
who want the opportunity to participate in, and contribute to, our innovation economy.
At the same time, our bilateral and multilateral dialogues support science, technology, and
innovation abroad by promoting improved education; research and development funding; good
governance and transparent regulatory policies; markets that are open and competitive; and
policies that allow researchers and companies to succeed, and, if they fail, to have the opportunity
to try again. We advocate for governments to embrace and enforce an intellectual property system that
allows innovators to reap the benefits of their ideas and also rewards their risk taking. Abraham Lincoln
himself held a patent on an invention, a device for preventing ships from being grounded on shoals. He
said in his Second Lecture on Discoveries and Inventions in 1859 that patents added the fuel of
interest to the fire of genius, in the discovery and production of new and useful things.
The practice of science is increasingly expanding from individuals to groups, from single disciplines
to interdisciplinary, and from a national to an international scope. The Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development reported that from 1985 to 2007, the number of scientific articles
published by a single author decreased by 45 percent. During that same period, the number of scientific
articles published with domestic co-authorship increased by 136 percent, and those with international coauthorship increased by 409 percent. The same trend holds for patents. Science collaboration is exciting
because it takes advantage of expertise that exists around the country and around the globe.
American researchers, innovators, and institutions, as well as their foreign counterparts, benefit through
these international collaborations. Governments that restrict the flow of scientific expertise and data will
find themselves isolated, cut off from the global networks that drive scientific and economic innovation.
While the scientific partnerships that the United States builds with other nations, and international
ties among universities and research labs, are a means to address shared challenges, they also
contribute to broadening and strengthening our diplomatic relationships. Scientific partnerships
are based on disciplines and values that transcend politics, languages, borders, and cultures.
Processes that define the scientific communitysuch as merit review, critical thinking, diversity of
thought, and transparencyare fundamental values from which the global community can reap benefits.
History provides many examples of how scientific cooperation can bolster diplomatic ties and
cultural exchange. American scientists collaborated with Russian and Chinese counterparts for
decades, even as other aspects of our relationship proved more challenging. Similarly, the science and
technology behind the agricultural Green Revolution of the 1960s and 70s was the product of
American, Mexican, and Indian researchers working toward a common goal. Today, the United States has
formal science and technology agreements with over fifty countries. We are committed to finding new
ways to work with other countries in science and technology, to conduct mutually beneficial joint
research activities, and to advance the interests of the U.S. science and technology community.
Twenty-first century statecraft also requires that we build greater people-to-people relationships. Science
and technology cooperation makes that possible. For example, through the Science Envoy program,
announced by President Obama in 2009 in Cairo, Egypt, eminent U.S. scientists have met with
counterparts throughout Asia, Africa, and the Middle East to build relationships and identify opportunities
for sustained cooperation. With over half of the worlds population under the age of thirty, we are
developing new ways to inspire the next generation of science and technology leaders. Over the past five
years, the Department of States International Fulbright Science & Technology Award has brought more
than two hundred exceptional students from seventy-three different countries to the United States to
pursue graduate studies. Through the Global Innovation through Science and Technology Initiative, the
United States recently invited young innovators from North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia to post
YouTube videos describing solutions to problems they face at home. The top submissions will receive
financial support, business mentorship, and networking opportunities.
Advancing the rights of women and girls is a central focus of U.S. foreign policy and science diplomacy.
As we work to empower women and girls worldwide, we must ensure that they have access to science
education and are able to participate and contribute fully during every stage of their lives. Recently, we
partnered with Google, Intel, Microsoft, and many other high-tech businesses to launch TechWomen, a
program that brings promising women leaders from the Middle East to Silicon Valley to meet industry
thought-leaders, share knowledge and experiences, and bolster cultural understanding.
Science diplomacy is not new. It is, however, broader, deeper, and more visible than ever before and
its importance will continue to grow. The Department of States first Quadrennial Diplomacy and
Development Review highlights that science, engineering, technology, and innovation are the engines
of modern society and a dominant force in globalization and international economic development.
These interrelated issues are priorities for the United States and, increasingly, the world.
Science Diplomacy Solves Conflict

Science diplomacy key to bolstering relations and foster economic and democratic
growth
Dr. Colglazier, Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of State, 13
[E. William, From 1994 to 2011, Dr. Colglazier served as Executive Officer of the National Academy of
Sciences (NAS) and the National Research Council (NRC). , 8-20-13, Remarks on Science and
Diplomacy in the 21st Century, http://www.state.gov/e/stas/2013/213741.htm, accessed 7-10-14, AFB]
Science diplomacy helps other countries to become more capable in science and technology. One
might worry that this creates more capable competitors, but I believe that it is in the interest of
technologically advanced societies like in the U.S. and Europe to encourage more knowledge-based
societies worldwide that rely upon science. The only way to stay in the forefront of the scientific and
technological revolution, which is where I want the U.S. to be, is to run faster and to work with the best
scientists and engineers wherever they reside in the world. That is why I support more global scientific
engagement by the U.S. with leading scientists and engineers around the world. The approach that I
favor was captured well in the title of an article in the October 2012 issue of Scientific American: A
measure of the creativity of a nation is how well it works with those beyond its borders.
I believe that the world has a special opportunity in this decade since so many countries are focusing
on improving their capabilities in science and technology and are willing to make fundamental
changes in investments and policies so they can build more innovative societies. If we can minimize
wars and conflicts with skillful diplomacy, the potential is there for more rapid economic growth,
faster expansion of the middle class, and increased democratic governance in many countries as
well as increased trade between countries. This is an optimistic scenario. A range of future scenarios,
including some that are quite pessimistic, are laid out in the fascinating report Global Trends 2030,
published by the U.S. National Intelligence Council in 2012.(8) I believe that we can make the hopeful
scenario a reality. Science diplomacy is one of our most important tools in achieving the desired
outcome.
Science diplomacy can prevent conflict and diffuse existing tensions

Wallin, 10
USC Annenberg School Center on Public Diplomacy, 10
[
2-4-10, Science Diplomacy and the Prevention of Conflict, Proceedings of the USC Center on Public
Diplomacy Conference February 4-5, 2010,
http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/sites/uscpublicdiplomacy.org/files/useruploads/u22281/Science
%20Diplomacy%20Proceedings.pdf, p. 17-8, accessed 7-10-14, AFB]
Ernest J. Wilson III, Dean, USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism
In his introductory remarks, Dean Ernest Wilson pointed out that although science diplomacy can be
utilized to prevent conflict, it tends to be neglected as an important aspect of diplomacy. Science
diplomacy takes place at the intersection of events and trends, and so it doesnt neatly fit into
traditional analytic categories, nor does it fit into the standard and familiar organizational silos.
Proposing three areas of analysis for science diplomacy, Wilson outlined the concepts of Context, Curves,
and Caution. Contextually, science and technologys ability to play a larger role in the foreign policy
of states is an area that requires careful scrutiny. This field is becoming more pertinent, as can be seen
from recent conflicts between Google, Inc. and the Peoples Republic of China over Internet access. This
example highlights technology companies attempts to gain political influence that they believe is
commensurate with their economic weight, demonstrating the possible emergence of a new political
context where science and technology (S&T) may be augmenting companies audiences and
constituencies.
To demonstrate the concept of Curves, Wilson brought up the previous nights question about the
disaggregation of science. As with science, conflict can be subdivided into different categories, many of
which require different tools to achieve lasting and successful resolution. Conflict cannot be modeled
as a steady state, but rather as a bell-shaped curve. On the left side, conflict is either non-existent or in a
pre-conflict state. Accelerators act to raise the level of conflict to a peak or plateau, and on the right
side of the curve, conflict declines. It is subsequently important to understand at which points on the
curve science and technology can intervene. On the left side, S&T can help prevent conflict, whereas
at the peak it can help reduce it. On the right side, the question remains of how exactly S&T can help
sustain the reduction in conflict.
Science Leadership Impact

The race for scientific leadership is on innovative science is vital to solving global
impacts
Dr. Colglazier, Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of State, 13
[E. William, From 1994 to 2011, Dr. Colglazier served as Executive Officer of the National Academy of
Sciences (NAS) and the National Research Council (NRC). , 8-20-13, Remarks on Science and
Diplomacy in the 21st Century, http://www.state.gov/e/stas/2013/213741.htm, accessed 7-10-14, AFB]
In 2010 the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development released a
strategic blueprint to chart the course of the next four years. In this first Quadrennial Diplomacy and
Development Review, it was stated:
Science, engineering, technology, and innovation are the engines of modern society and a dominant
force in globalization and international economic development.
The significance of this observation has been emphasized repeatedly to me over the past two years in
conversations with representatives of many countries about science and technology. I have been struck
by the fact that nearly every country has put at the very top of its agenda the role of science and
technology for supporting innovation and economic development. This observation has been true for
countries at every level of development not only for countries like Germany, Japan, China, India,
Brazil, South Korea, and Singapore, but also for countries like Mexico, Colombia, Chile, South Africa,
Indonesia, Czech Republic, Malaysia, and Vietnam. They are all seeking insights regarding the right
policies and investments to help their societies to become more innovative and competitive to ensure a
more prosperous future for their citizens.
Why does nearly every country now have a laser-like focus on improving its capabilities in
science, technology, and innovation in order to be more competitive in this globalized,
interconnected world? My guess is that most countries see two trends clearly: (1) science and
technology have a major impact on the economic success of leading companies and countries and
(2) the scientific and technological revolution has been accelerating. If countries do not become
more capable in science and technology, they will be left behind. The upside is great if they can
capitalize on the transformative potential of new and emerging technologies. As one example, the
information and communication technology (ICT) revolution has shown the potential for developing
countries to use new technologies to leapfrog over the development paths taken by developed countries,
such as with mobile phones in Africa.
Countries also recognize that almost every issue with which they are confronted on the national,
regional, and global level has an important scientific and technological component. This is true
whether the issue concerns health, environment, national security, homeland security, energy,
communication, food, water, climate change, disaster preparedness, or education. Countries know they
have smart, creative, entrepreneurial people. They believe their people can compete, even from a distance,
if the right investments are made and the right policies are implemented. And they know that to become
more capable in science and technology and to create innovation and knowledge-based societies, they
must collaborate with the world leaders in science and technology.
New and emerging technologies have also affected the trajectory of fundamental science and
engineering research by creating new capabilities for exploring and understanding the natural world.
We are only at the beginning of exploiting the potential of these new capabilities. This is another reason
for the acceleration of the scientific and technological revolution, progressing at such an incredibly rapid
pace that it is hard to imagine, much less predict, what new transformative possibilities will emerge
within a decade. Scientists are not much better at predicting the future than anyone else. I am very
envious of young people who will see amazing developments in their lifetimes. As renowned computer
scientist Alan Kay said, The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
Exploration Key to Ocean Leadership

Ocean exploration key to US leadership
McNutt, Presidents Panel on Ocean Exploration chair, 2K*
[Marcia, *last date referenced was 2000, PRESIDENTS PANEL ON OCEAN EXPLORATION,
Executive Summary, http://explore.noaa.gov/sites/OER/Documents/about-oer/programreview/presidents-panel-on-ocean-exploration-report.pdf, page 2, accessed 6/29/14 CK]
The Panel notes that the United States currently does not support a program in ocean exploration,
despite our inadequate understanding of the ocean and the living and nonliving resources it contains, and
its undeniable importance to the health of the planet and the wealth of our nation. Furthermore, in a
number of areas, the U.S. has fallen behind other nations in our capabilities for undertaking ocean
exploration. American leadership in ocean exploration can be achieved through the following
recommendations.
The U.S. government should establish an Ocean Exploration Program for an initial period of 10
years, with new funding at the level of $75M / year, excluding capitalization costs. The program should
include: Interdisciplinary voyages of discovery within high-priority areas, including the U.S.
Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and the continental margin, the Arctic, and poorly known areas of
the southern oceans and inland seas. The U.S. inventory of the living and nonliving resources in the
ocean should be second to none, particularly within our own EEZ and continental margins. Platform,
communication, navigation and instrument development efforts, including the capitalization of
major new assets for ocean exploration, in order to equip our explorers with the very best in marine
research technology. Data management and dissemination, so that discoveries can have
maximum impact for research, commercial, regulatory, and educational benefit. Educational
outreach, in both formal and informal settings, to improve the science competency of Americas
schoolchildren and to realize the full potential of a citizenry aware and informed of ocean issues.
Exploration Key to Maritime Power

US exploration key to maintaining power as a maritime power plan prerequisite to
private sector engagement
Gaffney, US Commission on Ocean policy member, 13
[Paul, First Principles for a Maritime Nation, included in Ocean Exploration 2020 forum, National
http://www.aquariumofpacific.org/downloads/oe2020report.pdf, p. 22-23 , 6/28/14, GNL]
The U.S. Ex Ex, a creation of Congress (PL 24-24), a voyage of discovery 175 years ago, was a
deliberate step by a tentative nation with an eye on becoming a world power. A six Navy ship flotilla,
manned by 346 military and civilian scientists was charged by government to explore the vast Pacific, top
to bottom. Called The U.S. Exploring Expedition, it sought to discover the natural characteristics
of the great Pacific, extend U.S. presence by connecting to new peoples and collect data useful to
U.S. seaborne commerce and naval operations.
Fast forward to 21st century America, no longer a tentative nation, now the greatest maritime
nation in world history. Its place in the middle of the great ocean system enables prosperous trade
and a unique security situation.
Yet, that ocean system is still largely unexplored. A world power unavoidably dependent on the
ocean still does not understand the oceans full range of opportunities and dangers.
A world maritime powerThe World Power, The United Statescannot afford to be surprised by
the very natural features that characterize her as a maritime nation.
Exploration projects in the high Arctic have found unexpected (previously undiscovered) ocean
bottom variability and changes in water temperature structure. Now that is important to defense,
especially safe U.S. submarine operations. It also gives a hint about past climate fluctuations so we
can get a better idea of the oceans and Arctics role in climate excursions. Arctic exploration
discoveries will also help America argue for rights to minerals off its northern coast.
There are a few, scattered ocean exploration efforts within our nation. Federal agencies do make new
discoveries incidental to their separate missions. And, privately funded citizen explorers are getting
excited about the ocean. While this collection of small efforts survives, each for its own purpose, the
Congress expected more. The nation needs more to ensure maritime strength.
A broad, coordinated national program envisioned by Congress in PL 111-11 could help prioritize
cross-agency oceanographic campaigns, strain from mission and research-driven expeditions and
private excursions those bits of information that are of new-discovery-quality and guarantee that it
will be archived within government and shared with an increasingly excited group of American
citizen explorers.
It is governments role to set the nations priorities, create and maintain the information backbone,
and carry out comprehensively over the long term a program to understand the opportunity and
dangers in an ocean system in whose middle America sits. Only after it has demonstrated this
commitment to leadership can it fully leverage investments from the private sector.
Marine Archaeology
Exploration Solves Marine Archaeology

Exploration facilitates marine archaeology
downloaded from: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10630.html,pages 12-13. Accessed 6/30/14 CK]
One cannot imagine a history of our globe without watercraft. From the primitive floats or rafts that
carried the first people to Australia 50,000 years ago to the giant oil tankers and aircraft carriers of today,
boats and ships have allowed the discovery, colonization, supply, and defense of entire continents. The
study of the history of ships is therefore important in itself. But just as important, virtually
everything ever made by humans, from tiny obsidian blades and bits of jewelry to the huge marble
elements of entire temples and churches, has been transported at one time or another over water.
Thus, the exploration of shipwrecks of all periods will write definitive histories of weapons, tools and
other utensils, glass, ceramics, games, sculpture, weights and measures, metallurgy, and, especially
in later times, instruments and machines of all types (Figure 6). Equally important, shipwrecks can
teach us about economic history. Marine archaeology can also uncover inundated coastal habitation
sites that teach us about our early ancestors. Exploration of the Earths blue museum will rewrite
whole chapters in history and could reveal the most startling archaeological discoveries of the 21st
century.
Government role key to creating exploration framework

Selkirk, Current Archaeology Founder, 97*
[Andrew, *1997 is last referenced date, Adam Smith.org, Who owns the past?,
http://www.adamsmith.org/sites/default/files/images/uploads/publications/who-owns-the-past.pdf,
accessed 7/1/2014 CK]
Nautical archaeology is the one aspect of archaeology where legislation is probably desirable.
However the current proposals largely ignore the amateurs, and will therefore be very expensive to
the government: this is a case where fresh thinking is needed.
Nautical archaeology is something comparatively new. It depends on the invention of the aqua-lung,
which only took place after the war, and thus in many ways nautical archaeology is in the position where
land archaeology was a century ago.
At present, the main legislation regarding historic wrecks is the Merchant Shipping Act of 1894, which
is disastrous. This lays down what might be called the principle of "Finders Keepers" whoever
finds a wreck and can tear a bit off it and take it to the Receiver of Wrecks, and the finder is then
awarded the whole wreck. There could be no worse law from the archaeological point of view the
law positively encourages and rewards looters. The situation was substantially improved by the first
archaeological legislation, the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973. This established a system of designating
historic wrecks similar to the listing of historic buildings or the scheduling of ancient monuments.
Basically this is the right principle. The Joint Nautical Archaeology Policy Committee is now pressing for
better protection of archaeological sites underwater. However their proposals apparently involve
squeezing out the established underwater 'hobby-divers', many of whom are only too keen to investigate
the sea-bed, and to replace them by professional archaeologists, at the taxpayer's expense. The British
Sub Aqua Club, which is the main co-ordinating body for amateur underwater divers, has some
35,000 members in its constituent bodies, and these form a ready made workforce for under-water
archaeology.
Impact
Knowledge of the past is shaping our cultural values
Ostermann, Cold War International History Project Director, 14
[Christian F., 6/27/2014, The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Call for Papers: TransAtlantic Dialogues on Cultural Heritage - Heritage, Tourism and Traditions,
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/call-for-papers-trans-atlantic-dialogues-cultural-heritage-heritagetourism-and-traditions, accessed 7/1/2014 CK]
Trans-Atlantic dialogues on cultural heritage began as early as the voyages of Leif Ericson and
Christopher Columbus and continue through the present day. Each side of the Atlantic offers its
own geographical and historical specificities expressed and projected through material and
immaterial heritage. However, in geopolitical terms and through everyday mobilities, people,
objects and ideas flow backward and forward across the ocean, each shaping the heritage of the
other, for better or worse, and each shaping the meanings and values that heritage conveys. Where,
and in what ways are these trans-Atlantic heritages connected? Where, and in what ways are they not?
What can we learn by reflecting on how the different societies and cultures on each side of the
Atlantic Ocean produce, consume, mediate, filter, absorb, resist, and experience the heritage of the
other?
Overfishing
Solvency Ocean Health Prioritization

Prioritizing ocean health builds capacity to prevent overfishing
Conathan, American Progress Ocean Policy Director, 13
[Michael, November 19, 2013, Center For American Progress, Establish the National Endowment for the
Oceans, http://americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2013/11/19/79615/establish-the-nationalendowment-for-the-oceans/, accessed 6/27/14 CK]
The National Endowment for the Oceans, introduced by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), would also
give states more of a say in how they prioritize the ocean issues they consider to be most critical, but
thats about where the similarities between it and the National Ocean Policy end. The endowment would
create a congressionally authorized fund dedicated to ocean health. Roughly two-thirds of its annual
disbursement would go directly to coastal states in proportion to the length of their shorelines and
size of their coastal populations, while a second, national-scale grant program with similar goals
would be administered by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
In the past, despite its potential benefits to their industry, some fishermen have been slow to warm up to
the National Ocean Policy. For starters, they felt their voices were not adequately represented during the
early stages of the policys development, and that initial snub has proven difficult for the industry to
forget. While their concerns were not without merit, the Obama administration and the National Ocean
Council have taken great pains to address them.
Regardless of how fishermen feel about the National Ocean Policy, they would be wise to embrace the
effort to establish the National Endowment for the Oceans. There is a general consensus that the biggest
problem facing Americas fishing industry is a lack of funding for science and monitoring, a
shortfall that directly affects fishermens bottom lines. The law requires regulators to set fishermens
catch limits based on the best science available. Better data means more certainty to assessments. In
turn, that would allow fishery managers to set catch limits that more accurately reflect the true
health of fish populations. This would then either give fishermen more fish to catch in the short term
or increase the likelihood that todays restrictions will lead to healthier fish populations and higher
future quotas.
A robust, well-funded National Endowment for the Oceans would give states the option to invest in
additional or supplemental assessments for fisheries that drive their economies. It would also allow
the quasi-governmental regional fishery management councils, which develop and recommend fishery
management plans to government regulators, to apply for money to serve their most pressing research
needs without having to fight for their inclusion in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration budget.
In a legislative climate where virtually every potential achievement is stonewalled by partisan bickering,
ocean industries and advocates suddenly find themselves with a rare opportunity to lead Congress
to a positive decision. The establishment of the National Endowment for the Oceans is a longoverdue nod to the economic potential of our nations oceans and coasts.
Solving Overfishing Key to Ocean Biodiversity

Preventing overfishing key to solve ocean biodiversity
Mitchell, Insight Magazine senior writer, 14
[Julie, 2014, Ocean under threat, Insight Magazine, Issue 1, Page 4 CK]
Destructive fishing But the rich biodiversity that is only just being discovered is in danger from
destructive fishing methods, pollution and climate change. The GOC report warns: Illegal fishing
vessels are an increasing threat to the security of nations and a commonplace scene of human rights
abuses. Combating illegal fishing would improve prospects for nature, for the ecosystem services that
we need, and for responsible businesses. It could also ensure that the benefits from the exploitation of
ocean resources can be sustainably managed and equitably shared.
The combined impact of destructive fishing, pollution, climate change and other factors were recently
analysed by leading marine scientists with the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO)
and International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Among the main findings were: that overfishing is depleting economically important species and
altering marine food webs; climate change and ocean acidification are seriously damaging coral
reefs and other ecosystems; and climate change and pollution are increasing the number of dead
zones. It was also clear that these threats are greater in combination than they are individually.
The IPSO/IUCN report suggests a raft of measures, including banning bottom trawling and other
destructive fishing practices and ending illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. It also
advocates community-run fisheries, setting international climate targets and reforming governance
of the high seas.
This report and its findings are being considered by the GOC as it develops its own recommendations. To
this end the commissioners have been closely examining the legal framework and management rules
governing the high seas.
Although there are separate organisations for managing industries such as fishing, shipping and
seabed mining, no one has overall responsibility for protecting nature and there is no clear legal
mechanism for establishing protected areas. This is in sharp contrast to the efforts made to protect the
land environment.
In July last year the GOC recommended that, in the interests of national security, safety at sea and
effective fisheries regulation, all high seas vessels should be required to carry International
Maritime Organization (IMO) numbers and tracking equipment.
[Note: GOC= Global Ocean Commission]
Overfishing Impacts
Overfishing leads to ecosystem collapse
Bascompte & Melin, Integrative Ecology Group Seville Spain, and Sala, Center for
Marine Biodiversity and Conservation, Scripps Institution of Oceanography,
University of California at San Diego, 5
[Jordi, Carlos J., Enric, Communicated by Robert T. Paine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA,
February 25, 2005 Published 3/31/2005, PNAS Online, Interaction strength combinations and the
overfishing of a marine food web, http://www.pnas.org/content/102/15/5443.full, accessed 6/30/2014
CK]
The stability of ecological communities largely depends on the strength of interactions between
predators and their prey. Here we show that these interaction strengths are structured nonrandomly
in a large Caribbean marine food web. Specifically, the cooccurrence of strong interactions on two
consecutive levels of food chains occurs less frequently than expected by chance. Even when they
occur, these strongly interacting chains are accompanied by strong omnivory more often than expected by
chance. By using a food web model, we show that these interaction strength combinations reduce
the likelihood of trophic cascades after the overfishing of top predators. However, fishing selectively
removes predators that are overrepresented in strongly interacting chains. Hence, the potential for
strong community-wide effects remains a threat.
Overfishing is reaching the tipping point, and destroys ecosystems

Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science, 12
[Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Science, March 11, 2012, DUJS Online, The Threats of
Overfishing: Consequences at the Commercial Level http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/winter-2012/the-threatsof-overfishing-consequences-at-the-commercial-level#.U7Ja2PldWrx, accessed 6/30/2014 CK]
According to marine ecologists, overfishing is the greatest threat to ocean ecosystems today (1).
Overfishing occurs because fish are captured at a faster rate than they can reproduce (2). Advanced
fishing technology and an increased demand for fish have led to overfishing, causing several marine
species to become extinct or endangered as a result (3, 4). In the long-term, overfishing can have a
devastating impact on ocean communities as it destabilizes the food chain and destroys the natural
habitats of many aquatic species (2).
In the past, fishing was more sustainable because fishermen could not access every location and because
they had a limited capacity for fish aboard their vessels. Today, however, small trawlers and fishing
boats have been replaced by giant factory ships that can capture and process extremely large
amounts of prey at a given time (2). These ships use sonar instruments and global positioning systems
(GPS) to rapidly locate large schools of fish (1). Fishing lines are deployed with thousands of large
hooks that can reach areas up to 120 kilometers deep. The trawling vessels and machines can even
reach depths of 170 kilometers and can store an extraordinarily large volume of fish. Each year,
these huge trawling ships comb an area twice the size of the United States. They use massive nets 50
meters wide with the capacity to pull the weight of a medium-sized plane (2). They also have several
plants for processing and packing fish, large freezing systems, fishmeal processing plants, and
powerful engines that can carry this enormous fishing gear around the ocean. Because these ships
have all the equipment necessary to freeze and tin fish, they only need to return to their base once they are
full. Even when the ships are filled, however, the fish are often transferred to refrigerated vessels in the
middle of the ocean and are processed for consumption later (4). As such, industrial fishing has
expanded considerably and fishermen can now explore new shores and deeper waters to keep up
with the increased demand for seafood. In fact, it has been reported by the United Nations Food and
Agricultural Organization (FAO) that over 70 percent of the worlds fisheries are either fully
exploited, over exploited or significantly depleted (5). The annual total global catch of fish is 124
million metric tons, which is equivalent in weight to 378 Empire State Buildings (2).
Ocean Collapse/Biodiversity
Now Key
Must invest in ocean exploration now to stop ocean collapse
Terdiman, CNET News Senior Writer, 10
[Daniel, 4/15/10, CNET, Oceans Salvation may lie in exploration, http://www.cnet.com/news/oceanssalvation-may-lie-in-exploration/, accessed 6/29/14, BCG)
Indeed, the fact that humans haven't returned to the bottom of the Mariana Trench highlights a
disturbing fact: while we have spent billions putting men on the moon and building space stations,
we have, by comparison at least, neglected the most significant environments on Earth, our oceans.
And that has, to some experts, forced our hand. Either we turn things around and make the future of
ocean exploration a very high priority, they say, or we face some sobering realities.
"To paraphrase [author] Tom Wolfe, we had the right stuff, but [went in] the wrong direction," Walsh
said. "In the oceanographic community globally, not just in the United States, we have really failed to
make the necessary investments to learn about the world's oceans, which cover 70 percent of our
planet."
'Far behind the curve'
If there's anyone who has gravitas in the field of ocean exploration, it's National Geographic Society
explorer-in-residence Sylvia Earle. A longtime ocean explorer, author, lecturer, and former chief
scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Earle was awarded the 2009
TED Prize for her work and created Mission Blue, which aims to "heal and protect the Earth's oceans
through the creation and management of essential marine protected areas."
"We're far behind the curve from where we need to be," Earle told CNET. "People look at the surface, and
they think that's the ocean, and because they can't see what's going on below, they think everything's just
fine. But those of us with decades of exploration [experience know that] the ocean is in trouble, and
therefore so are we."
That's because, she said, it's the world's oceans that drive climate and weather and which generate
most of our oxygen. Indeed, she said, fully one-fifth of the planet's oxygen comes from a single
marine-based, blue-green bacterium: the prochlorococcus. Yet, before our eyes, she said, the marine
ecosystems are dying out or struggling from a wide variety of factors including over-fishing,
pollution, changes in chemistry, and more.
So why have we, as a people, spent so little energy exploring the seas, even though 50 years ago, it was
considered a great national triumph to have conquered the Mariana Trench?
Earle recalled a lunch she once had with Clare Boothe Luce, the famous playwright and former U.S.
ambassador to Italy and congresswoman. "[Boothe] was musing about the disparity [between space and
ocean exploration] and she looked up at the puffy clouds, and she said, 'You know, heaven is up there.
And you know what's down there.'"
Deep-sea technology
Today, there are not nearly enough ships, sonars, or submarines of any kind to do ocean exploration
justice, said Stephen Hammond, the chief scientist for NOAA's office of ocean exploration and
research. But at least some things are moving in the right direction, he added.
The urgent goal, Hammond said, is to make a dent in the 90 percent of the world's oceans that humans
know nothing about. And that's where NOAA is putting its money where its mouth is: by taking a former
Department of Defense acoustic surveillance vessel that it acquired in 2005 and retrofitting it as a worldclass "global range ship of discovery."
[Note Walsh = Navy Lt. Don Walsh]
Exploration Key to Ocean Ecosystems

Expanding exploration key to safeguard ocean resources and biodiversity
downloaded from: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10630.html,pages 8-10, Accessed 6/30/14 CK]
Only a fraction of the worlds marine species have been discovered and even fewer have been
scientifically identified and named (Winston, 1992; World Resources Institute, 2001). New species are
discovered on virtually every expedition that seeks to uncover them, including corals, fishes, plants,
and even microorganisms like Archaea, which represent an entirely new domain of life (Norse, 1993).
If little is known about the overall biodiversity in the ocean, even less is known about the
abundance of organisms, their ecological roles, how food webs are structured, and how vast areas of
the ocean are connected through biological interactions. Since we now know that even remote areas of
the ocean contain detectable levels of human contaminants (Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of
Marine Environmental Protection, 2001), we can surmise, but not yet quantify, the extent to which
humans directly and indirectly affect marine ecosystem health and productivity. Ultimately, better
understanding of marine systems and our impacts on those systems will enable us to more wisely
utilize the vast resources the ocean has to offer, and help us safeguard the wondrous web of life the
ocean supports.
A few particularly exciting areas for exploration into marine biodiversity include the following:
The microbial ocean. Although we know that thousands of organisms may live in a single drop of
seawater, the vast majority of these organisms cannot be cultured in the lab. New genetic tools are
allowing researchers to unlock the secrets of their identities, taxonomy, spatial diversity, and role in
the ecosystem using their genetic code.
The oceans extreme environments. The ocean floor harbors some of Earths most extreme
environments, with crushingly high pressures, temperatures from below freezing to almost boiling,
and surprising chemical compositions. Up until a quarter of a century ago, the deep sea was viewed as a
hostile environment with a limited supply of food descending from surface waters and low biomass. The
discovery in 1977 of luxuriant ecosystems associated with deep-sea hydrothermal vents dramatically
altered this view. These ecosystems exist in the deep sea and are not dependent on organic matter sinking
from the sunlit surface ocean. Rather, the micro-organisms at the base of this ecosystem support it
through extracting energy from chemicals in the high-temperature fluids at the vents. Equally sensational
discoveries may be waiting in other unusual ocean environments including other planets and moons.
The subsurface biosphere. In 1991, scientists working on the mid-ocean ridge in the eastern Pacific
witnessed a snow blizzard of microbes and microbial debris being spewed out of the seafloor (Haymon
et al., 1993). The material rose more than 100 feet above the ocean bottom and settled into a thin, white
layer on the seafloor. Microbes have also been detected in cores recovered by the Ocean Drilling
Program (ODP) down to depths of several hundred meters, and have been demonstrated to play an
important role in crustal alteration.
Coral reefs (Figure 3). Although coral reefs are spectacularly rich in species, complex in their
functioning, and high in recreational, fisheries, and socio-economic values, no comprehensive global
map of the reefs exists. Coral reef biologists and conservationists often must rely on naval charts
and centuries-old ship logs to guess where reefs lie. Corals have been identified in cold water
regions, such as the northeast Atlantic, exemplifying how little is known of their distribution,
condition, or relative health. Many of the worlds coral reefs lie within the territorial waters of nations
struggling to maintain environmental quality in the face of economic pressures. An international coral
reef exploration program is needed to locate, understand, and protect these fragile ecosystems.
Seamounts. These underwater mountains are another rich and functionally important marine
ecosystem ripe for discovery. While the major seamounts are known from topographic mapping, many
small but ecologically critical seamounts remain unknown. A recent survey of fish aggregation and
spawning areas of the western Pacific has revealed an extensive array of seamounts in that portion
of the world ocean, providing a good foundation for future efforts to choose sites for marine
protected areas that will serve to maintain fisheries production and safeguard biodiversity.
Continental shelves. The organisms that live within the sediments on continental shelves, especially
temperate banks and intertidal areas, include numbers of species rivaling those of insects found in
tropical forests. These sediment-dwelling organisms are thought to play an important role in
linking the seafloor ecosystem with the water column above, and ultimately in supporting the
marine food web. Unfortunately, the seafloor in many of these coastal areas has been degraded or
destroyed through uncontrolled trawling, dredging (National Research Council, 2002), and coastal
construction. Ocean exploration can take scientists to areas that are still relatively pristine to
discover how these systems function and better understand the effects of human intervention.
Exploration is key to preservation framework helps find effective ways to protect

biodiversity
Exploitation of the genetic diversity of ocean life and long-term management of commercial
fisheries will require a thorough knowledge and cataloging of resources. To date, just a fraction of the
worlds marine species have been scientifically named or taxonomically identified (Winston, 1992; World
Resources Institute, 2001). New species, including corals, fishes, and plants, are discovered on
virtually every expedition that seeks to uncover them. Even microorganisms, such as Archaea, a
primitive form of life, have been discovered by happenstance in places where conditions of temperature
and pressure are so extreme, no life would be expected (National Research Council, 1995). The recent
realization of the abundance and distribution of deep, cold-water corals (Box 3.1, Figure 3.1) is
another example. Ocean exploration offers the opportunity to make such discoveries in a
coordinated and systematic way.
If little is known about the biodiversity in the oceans, even less is known about the abundance of
organisms, their ecological functions, how food webs are structured, and how vast areas of the
oceans are interconnected through biological interactions. A reliable, well-organized, and accessible
inventory of existing and newly discovered marine species will promote scientific and public
understanding of marine ecosystems. The Census of Marine Life is an exciting program of
international research for assessing and explaining the diversity, distribution, and abundance of
marine organisms throughout the worlds oceans (Consortium for Oceanographic Research and
Education, 2002). Collaborative projects involving more than 60 institutions from 15 countries began the
Census of Marine Life in 2000 with funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the National
Oceanographic Partnership Program member agencies. The Ocean Biogeographic Information System,
the information component of the Census of Marine Life, will be a critical component of an integrated
ocean observing system. Currently managed as a federation of database sources, the Ocean Biogeographic
Information System is expected to develop into a globally distributed network of species-based,
geographically referenced databases that will be available to a variety of users, including ecosystem
managers, fisheries organizations, and coral-reef-monitoring programs.
Because even remote areas of the ocean contain detectable amounts of contaminants (Group of Experts on
the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection, 2001), the extent to which humans directly
and indirectly affect marine ecosystem health and productivity can be observed, if not yet quantified.
Ultimately, a better understanding of marine systems and the effects of human activities on them
will enable wiser stewardship of the oceans vast resources. The marine biodiversity theme area
highlights the interdisciplinary nature of the proposed ocean exploration program, the proposal
and funding selection process, and the utility of such a program. A few particularly exciting areas
for exploration of marine biodiversity include microbial life within the ocean, extreme
environments such as hydrothermal vents, the subseafloor biosphere, coral reefs, seamounts, and
continental shelves.
Lack of exploration compromises understanding of ocean ecosystems

Schectman, Wall Street Journal Risk & Compliance Journal, 13
(Joel, Risk & Compliance Journal Reporter, 7/19/13, Wall Street Journal Risk and Compliance Journal blog,
Government and Tech Companies Plan Exploration of Oceans,
http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2013/07/19/government-and-tech-companies-plan-exploration-of-oceans/, accessed
6/25/14, BCG)
The complexity of ocean systems, with their interplay of tidal forces, animal species, and underwater
geography, has frustrated previous efforts at understanding the ecology below 75% of the worlds
surface.
The sciences involved in ocean exploration have been stove-piped, with researchers specializing in
the migration of whales or ocean currents and not working together towards an interconnected
understanding of the system, said Larry Mayer, a University of New Hampshire oceanographer, who is
participating in the planning session.
For example, scientists were unable to fully understand the effect of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon
spill on the Gulfs sea creatures, Mr. Mayer said. Were not yet at the point where we have this
overall view of the complete ecosystem model for a system as complex as Gulf of Mexico, said Mr.
Mayer, who sat on a National Academy of Sciences committee that advised government on the issue.
What we have are little models of subcomponents. But we dont have comprehensive models of how
the ecosystems interact particularly in the deep sea.
Advances in data tools, which allow scientists to layer maps with thousands of separate information
sources, now make that three-dimensional understanding possible, Mr. Mayer said. We are just now
at the point where where we can use these tools to look at the system in its entirety, Mr. Mayer said.
Expanding exploration key to understanding ocean ecosystems

Helvarg, Blue Frontier executive director, 14
(David, executive director of Blue Frontier; a marine conservation and policy group, 4/1/14, Mysteries
of the deep; No wonder Flight 370 can't be found: We know so little about the ocean, Lexis, accessed
6/25/14, BCG)
Jet aircraft are large, but not compared with the ocean. The weeks-long search for some physical sign of
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is not something we should wonder at, considering the frontier nature
of our blue planet.
The 29% of our planet that is land is inhabited by more than 7 billion people, at least a few of whom
would have reported a crash or hijacked aircraft. By contrast, the ocean that covers 71% of the Earth's
surface and 97% of its living habitat rarely has more than a few million people on or about its
surface. These include commercial mariners, fishermen, cruise ship passengers, sailors aboard the world's
military fleets, offshore oil and gas workers, research scientists and the odd sea gypsy.
One reason we've not colonized the ocean, as science-fiction writers (and at least one senator, the late
Claiborne Pell, of Rhode Island) once imagined, is that the ocean is a far rougher and more difficult
wilderness than any encountered by terrestrial explorers, or even astronauts traveling in the consistent
vacuum of space, with its occasional meteorites and space junk to avoid.
The sea pummels us with an unbreathable and corrosive liquid medium; altered visual and acoustic
characteristics; changing temperatures, depths and pressures; upwellings; tides; currents; gyres; obscuring
marine layers; sudden storms and giant rouge waves; and life forms than can sting, poison or bite.
Even accounting for more than 70 years of classified military hydrographic surveys, we've still
mapped less than 10% of the ocean with the resolution we've used to map all of the moon, Mars or
even several moons of Jupiter.
Obviously, our ability to search for a missing aircraft at sea has come a long way since Amelia Earhart
disappeared while trying to cross the Pacific in 1937. But the patched-together satellite data and
electronic-signals processing that has led Flight 370 searchers to an area 1,100 miles west of Perth,
Australia, is no more than a crisis-mode, jury-rigged effort at ocean observation. Consider this: If you're a
drug smuggler and you enter U.S. coastal waters in a speedboat at night, and then go dead in the water
during the day, with a blue tarp thrown over your vessel, odds are that you'll successfully deliver your
contraband.
Our investment in ocean exploration, monitoring and law enforcement efforts is at a 20-year low in
the United States and not much better elsewhere. Our chances of quickly finding the missing
Malaysian flight would have been improved if we had invested more money and effort on our
planet's last great commons, with observational tools such as in-situ labs and wired benthic
observatories, remote and autonomous underwater vehicles and gliders, forward-looking infrared cameras
and multi-beam shipboard, airborne (and space-deployed) scanning systems, and other smart but woefully
underfunded sea technologies.
The fact remains that while hundreds of people have gone into space, only three humans have
ventured to the lowest point on our planet seven miles down in the Mariana Trench, and the latest of
these -- filmmaker explorer engineer James Cameron -- had to self-fund his 2012 mission.
Meanwhile, when it comes to exploring the cosmos, NASA -- even in its diminished state -outspends NOAA's ocean exploration program roughly 1,000 to 1. Yet when we get to Mars, the first
thing we seek as proof of life is water. Meanwhile, we have a whole water planet that remains a challenge
we've once again discovered to be far greater than we thought.
Whatever the final resolution of the Flight 370 tragedy, that challenge is bound to become greater as
our food and coastal security, marine transportation systems, even our basic ecosystem processes
such as the oxygen generated by ocean plankton, are increasingly stressed through overfishing,
pollution, loss of coastal habitat and ocean impacts from climate change.
Investing in the exploration and understanding of our planet's largest habitat should be a given.
Perhaps that will be a lesson learned from our latest human disaster. Unfortunately, while the sea is still
vast, our ability to act wisely in our own interests is often limited.
Coordinated Policy Solvency

Coordinated ocean policy ensures optimal framework for preserving ocean
ecosystems
Sutley and Holdren, National Ocean Council co-chairs, 13
[Nancy H. Chair: Council on Environmental Quality, John P: Director, Office of Science and Technology
PLAN, http://www.oceanchampions.org/pdfs/national_ocean_policy_implementation_plan.pdf, pages
15-16 accessed 6/26/14, CK]
Through National Ocean Policy actions, thousands of acres of wetlands and priority habitat will be
protected, restored, or enhanced. Our Nation's coral reefs will be improved by better coordinating
existing authorities and implementing projects to prevent or mitigate harmful impacts. Actions to
support partnerships and efforts to locate, monitor, control, and eradicate invasive species will
protect native aquatic populations and their habitats. Collaborative watershed restoration efforts are
important to the overall success of coastal and marine habitat conservation. Restoration efforts in the Gulf
Coast, Mississippi River Basin, and Great Lakes, and for Pacific Northwest salmon are excellent
examples of collaborative, voluntary upland watershed conservation and restoration.
Reduce coastal wetland loss. Federal agencies will work together and in cooperation with States and
tribes to identify the underlying causes of wetland loss in coastal watersheds, and opportunities to
more effectively protect and restore the important functions and values they provide. Agencies will
conduct pilot studies to identify the most common underlying factors responsible for coastal
wetland loss and the most successful tools for addressing it. These actions will complement ongoing
State, local, and tribal government projects seeking to protect and restore coastal wetland
ecosystems such as the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council and the South Florida Ecosystem
Restoration Task Force.
Protect, conserve and restore coastal and ocean habitats. Agencies will coordinate to use and provide
scientifically sound, ecosystem-based approaches to achieving healthy coastal and ocean habitats.
For example, working through the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force, agencies will coordinate to address key
threats to coral reef ecosystems, including impacts from land-based sources of pollution, climate change,
ocean acidification, planned activities (authorized activities), and unplanned activities (such as vessel
groundings and spills).
Locate, control, prevent, and eradicate invasive species populations. Federal agencies will improve our
ability to prevent and reduce impacts from invasive species, focusing on early detection and
response, to protect ecologically, commercially, recreationally, and culturally, important marine
species and their habitats.
Improve and preserve our Nation's coastal and estuarine water quality to provide clean water for healthier
waterways, communities, and ecosystems. Through more effective use of voluntary programs,
partnerships, and pilot projects, agencies will work to reduce excessive nutrients, sediments, and
other pollutants. Agencies will also help protect, conserve, and maintain high-quality coastal waters
by identifying priority areas for water quality monitoring and assessment and providing financial
assistance to private landowners seeking to apply voluntary conservation practices. Other actions
will reduce the impacts of hypoxia and harmful algal blooms faced by many coastal and inland States.
Coral Reef Impact

Coral reefs key to biodiversity and the economy
Academies, http://explore.noaa.gov/sites/OER/Documents/national-research-council-voyage.pdf, pg. 50,
Coral reefs are among the most productive, diverse, and economically important ecosystems on the
planet. Although they cover only 0.2 percent of ocean area, they provide habitat for one-third of
marine fishes. The systems provide ecological servicesincluding shoreline protection and habitat
that support an estimated one million different species. Economically, healthy coral reefs are
essential to sustainable fisheries and income from tourism (e.g., Cesar, 2000). Tourism at coral reef
sites contributes about $1.6 billion annually to Floridas economy alone, and globally coral reefs are
especially critical to the economic well-being of developing nations, providing fisheries resources
and social and cultural benefits. The declining health of coral reef ecosystems (Figure 3.4) has been
widely reported for tropical oceans around the worldlikely the result of overfishing,
eutrophication, and pollution from land runoff; increased disease susceptibility; and harvesting of
corals for international trade (World Resources Institute, 1998; National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, 2002a). Global warming has been suggested as the largest long-term threat to coral reefs,
as evidenced by the bleaching of vast tracts of coral coinciding with ocean warming during El Nio
events. Although much is understood regionally about the declining health of coral reefs, it is clear that
there is much to be investigated and learned.
Ocean Collapse Impact

Ocean collapse threatens human survival
Sielen, International Environmental Policy Senior Fellow, 13
(Alan, November-December 2013, non-resident Senior Fellow for International Environmental Policy,
The Devolution of the Seas The Consequences of Oceanic Destruction,
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/140164/alan-b-sielen/the-devolution-of-the-seas, accessed 6/28/14,
BCG)
Of all the threats looming over the planet today, one of the most alarming is the seemingly
inexorable descent of the worlds oceans into ecological perdition. Over the last several decades,
human activities have so altered the basic chemistry of the seas that they are now experiencing
evolution in reverse: a return to the barren primeval waters of hundreds of millions of years ago.
A visitor to the oceans at the dawn of time would have found an underwater world that was mostly
lifeless. Eventually, around 3.5 billion years ago, basic organisms began to emerge from the primordial
ooze. This microbial soup of algae and bacteria needed little oxygen to survive. Worms, jellyfish, and
toxic fireweed ruled the deep. In time, these simple organisms began to evolve into higher life forms,
resulting in the wondrously rich diversity of fish, corals, whales, and other sea life one associates
with the oceans today.
Yet that sea life is now in peril. Over the last 50 years -- a mere blink in geologic time -- humanity
has come perilously close to reversing the almost miraculous biological abundance of the deep.
Pollution, overfishing, the destruction of habitats, and climate change are emptying the oceans and
enabling the lowest forms of life to regain their dominance. The oceanographer Jeremy Jackson calls it
the rise of slime: the transformation of once complex oceanic ecosystems featuring intricate food
webs with large animals into simplistic systems dominated by microbes, jellyfish, and disease. In effect,
humans are eliminating the lions and tigers of the seas to make room for the cockroaches and rats.
The prospect of vanishing whales, polar bears, bluefin tuna, sea turtles, and wild coasts should be
worrying enough on its own. But the disruption of entire ecosystems threatens our very survival,
since it is the healthy functioning of these diverse systems that sustains life on earth. Destruction on
this level will cost humans dearly in terms of food, jobs, health, and quality of life. It also violates the
unspoken promise passed from one generation to the next of a better future.
Loss of ocean biodiversity leads to extinction

Black, Global Ocean Commission Communications Director, 11
[Richard, 6/20/11, Director of Comms with Global Ocean Commission, BBC News,Worlds oceans in
shocking decline, http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-13796479, accessed 6/28/14, BCG)
In a new report, they warn that ocean life is "at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine
species unprecedented in human history".
They conclude that issues such as over-fishing, pollution and climate change are acting together in
ways that have not previously been recognised.
The impacts, they say, are already affecting humanity.
The panel was convened by the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO), and brought
together experts from different disciplines, including coral reef ecologists, toxicologists, and fisheries
scientists.
Its report will be formally released later this week.
"The findings are shocking," said Alex Rogers, IPSO's scientific director and professor of conservation
biology at Oxford University.
"As we considered the cumulative effect of what humankind does to the oceans, the implications
became far worse than we had individually realised.
"We've sat in one forum and spoken to each other about what we're seeing, and we've ended up with a
picture showing that almost right across the board we're seeing changes that are happening faster than
we'd thought, or in ways that we didn't expect to see for hundreds of years."
These "accelerated" changes include melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, sea level
rise, and release of methane trapped in the sea bed.
Fast changes
"The rate of change is vastly exceeding what we were expecting even a couple of years ago," said Ove
Hoegh-Guldberg, a coral specialist from the University of Queensland in Australia.
"So if you look at almost everything, whether it's fisheries in temperate zones or coral reefs or Arctic sea
ice, all of this is undergoing changes, but at a much faster rate than we had thought."
But more worrying than this, the team noted, are the ways in which different issues act
synergistically to increase threats to marine life.
Some pollutants, for example, stick to the surfaces of tiny plastic particles that are now found in the
ocean bed.
This increases the amounts of these pollutants that are consumed by bottom-feeding fish.
Plastic particles also assist the transport of algae from place to place, increasing the occurrence of toxic
algal blooms - which are also caused by the influx of nutrient-rich pollution from agricultural land.
In a wider sense, ocean acidification, warming, local pollution and overfishing are acting together to
increase the threat to coral reefs - so much so that three-quarters of the world's reefs are at risk of
severe decline.
Carbon deposits
Life on Earth has gone through five "mass extinction events" caused by events such as asteroid
impacts; and it is often said that humanity's combined impact is causing a sixth such event.
The IPSO report concludes that it is too early to say definitively.
But the trends are such that it is likely to happen, they say - and far faster than any of the previous five.
"What we're seeing at the moment is unprecedented in the fossil record - the environmental changes
are much more rapid," Professor Rogers told BBC News.
"We've still got most of the world's biodiversity, but the actual rate of extinction is much higher
[than in past events] - and what we face is certainly a globally significant extinction event."
The report also notes that previous mass extinction events have been associated with trends being
observed now - disturbances of the carbon cycle, and acidification and hypoxia (depletion of oxygen)
of seawater.
Levels of CO2 being absorbed by the oceans are already far greater than during the great extinction
of marine species 55 million years ago (during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum), it concludes.
Ecosystem changes result in ocean warming, acidification, and deoxygenation

three independent extinction scenarios
Butler, co-author of Too Many People? Population, Immigration, and the
Environmental Crisis, 13
[Simon,11/14/2013, Climate and Capitalism, Oceans on the brink of ecological collapse,
http://climateandcapitalism.com/2013/10/14/oceans-brink-ecological-collapse/, accessed 7/1/2014 CK]
The ocean is by far the Earths largest carbon sink and has absorbed most of the excess carbon
pollution put into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels. The State of the Ocean 2013 report
warned that this is making decisive changes to the ocean itself, causing a deadly trio of impacts
acidification, ocean warming and deoxygenation (a fall in ocean oxygen levels).
The report said: Most, if not all, of the Earths five past mass extinction events have involved at
least one of these three main symptoms of global carbon perturbations [or disruptions], all of which
are present in the ocean today.
Fossil records indicate five mass extinction events have taken place in the Earths history. The biggest of
these the end Permian mass extinction wiped out as much as 95% of marine life about 250 million
years ago. Another, far better known mass extinction event wiped out the dinosaurs about 66 million years
ago and is thought to have been caused by a huge meteor strike.
A further big species extinction took place 55 million years ago. Known as the Paleocene/Eocene thermal
maximum (PETM), it was a period of rapid global warming associated with a huge release of greenhouse
gases. Todays rate of carbon release, said the State of the Ocean 2013, is at least 10 times faster than
that which preceded the [PETM].[1]
Ocean acidification is a sign that the increase in CO2 is surpassing the oceans capacity to absorb it.
The more acid the ocean becomes, the bigger threat it poses to marine life especially sea creatures
that form their skeletons or shells from calcium carbonate such as crustaceans, molluscs, corals and
plankton.
The report predicts extremely serious consequences for ocean life if the release of CO2 does not
fall, including the extinction of some species and decline in biodiversity overall.
Acidification is taking place fastest at higher latitudes, but overall the report says geological records
indicate that the current acidification is unparalleled in at least the last 300 million years.
Ocean warming is the second element in the deadly trio. Average ocean temperatures have risen by
0.6C in the past 100 years. As the ocean gets warmer still, it will help trigger critical climate
tipping points that will warm the entire planet even faster, hurtling it far beyond the climate in
which todays life has evolved. Ocean warming will accelerate the death spiral of polar sea ice and
risks the increased venting of the greenhouse gas methane from the Arctic seabed, the report says.
Ongoing ocean warming will also wreak havoc on marine life. The report projects the loss of 60%
of present biodiversity of exploited marine life and invertebrates, including numerous local
extinctions. Each decade, fish are expected to migrate between 30 kilometres to 130 kilometres towards
the poles, and live 3.5 metres deeper underwater, leading to a 40% fall in fish catch potential in tropical
regions.
The report says: All these changes will have massive economic and food security consequences, not
least for the fishing industry and those who depend on it.
The combined effects of acidification and ocean warming will also seal the fate of the worlds coral
reefs, leading to their terminal and rapid decline by 2050. Australias Great Barrier Reef and
Caribbean Sea reefs will likely shift from coral domination to algal domination. The report says the
global target to limit the average temperature rise to 2C, which was adopted at the Copenhagen UN
climate conference in 2009, is not sufficient for coral reefs to survive. Lower targets should be urgently
pursued.
Deoxygenation the third component of the deadly trio is related to ocean warming and to high
levels of nutrient run-off into the ocean from sewerage and agriculture. The report says overall
ocean oxygen levels, which have declined consistently for the past five decades, could fall by 1% to
7% by 2100. But this figure does not indicate the big rise in the number of low oxygen dead zones,
which has doubled every decade since the 1960s.
Whereas acidification most impacts upon smaller marine life, deoxygenation hits larger animals,
such as Marlin and Tuna, hardest.
The report cautions that the combined impact of this deadly trio will have cascading consequences for
marine biology, including altered food webs dynamics and the expansion of pathogens [causing
disease]. It also warns that it adds to other big problems affecting the ocean, such as chemical
pollution and overfishing (up to 70% of the worlds fish stock is overfished).
Survival relies on ocean biodiversity

Fautin, et al., University of Kansas Ecology & Evolutionary Biology professor, 10
(Daphne Fautin, Penelope Dalton, Lewis S. Incze, Jo-Ann C. Leong, Clarence Pautzke, Andrew
Rosenberg, Paul Sandifer, George Sedberry, John W. Tunnell Jr., Isabella Abbott10, Russell E. Brainard,
Melissa Brodeur, Lucius G. Eldredge, Michael Feldman, Fabio Moretzsohn, Peter S. Vroom, Michelle
Wainstein, Nicholas Wolff, 8/1/2010, PLoS ONE, An Overview of Marine Biodiversity in United States
Waters, http://proxy.foley.gonzaga.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=a9h&AN=56576449&site=ehost-live, accessed 6/27/14, BCG)
Meetings organized by the Census U.S. National Committee for members of academic, government,
and not-for-profit organizations have addressed topics concerned with how biodiversity can be
assessed. A major premise of Census activities in the U.S., that maintaining biodiversity is a worthy
goal, accepts the assertion [3] that the survival and well-being of humans depend on intact, fully
functioning ecosystems. Further, conservation of biodiversity for its own intrinsic value, above and
beyond consideration of human needs, should be a significant and recognized goal of global society
[4].
In the marine environment and elsewhere, a growing body of evidence relates the maintenance of
healthy, natural biodiversity to provision of a broad spectrum of ecosystem services, including those
that humans rely upon and value, such as food, medicines, recreation, climate modulation, and
protection from extreme weather [2,3]. However, at a global scale, 60% of ecosystem services are
degraded [3]. Along U.S. coasts, loss or impairment of biodiversity correlates with degraded ecosystem
services important to humans [5]. Specifically, there are impacts to tourism, loss of aesthetic and other
cultural attributes, lowered property values, and increased health risks to humans and animals from
harmful algal blooms and their toxins, infectious disease organisms, and chemical contaminants [6,7].
Efforts to develop national marine spatial planning as a component of national ocean policy will be
an important advance in the efforts to conserve marine biodiversity [8].
Biodiversity Impact
Loss of biodiversity risks extinction by disease
Platt, freelance environmental writer, 10
(John, 12/7/10, Freelance writer specializing in environmental issues, Scientific American, Humans are
more at risk from diseases as biodiversity disappears, http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinctioncountdown/2010/12/07/humans-are-more-at-risk-from-diseases-as-biodiversity-disappears/, accessed
7/1/10, BCG)
Well, according to new research published December 2 in Nature, the answer is yeshealthy
biodiversity is essential to human health. As species disappear, infectious diseases rise in humans
and throughout the animal kingdom, so extinctions directly affect our health and chances for
survival as a species. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)
"Biodiversity loss tends to increase pathogen transmission across a wide range of infectious disease
systems," the studys first author, Bard College ecologist Felicia Keesing, said in a prepared statement.
These pathogens can include viruses, bacteria and fungi. And humans are not the only ones at risk: all
manner of other animal and plant species could be affected.
The rise in diseases and other pathogens seems to occur when so-called "buffer" species disappear.
Co-author Richard Ostfeld of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies points to the growing number of
cases of Lyme disease in humans as an example of how this happens. Opossum populations in the U.S.
are down due to the fragmentation of their forest habitats. The marsupials make poor hosts for the
pathogen that causes Lyme disease; they can also better defend themselves from the black-legged ticks
that carry the affliction to humans than can white-footed mice, which, on the other hand, are thriving in
the altered habitatand along with them disease-carrying ticks. "The mice increase numbers of both the
black-legged tick vector and the pathogen that causes Lyme disease," Ostfeld said.
Ocean Acidification Impact

Ocean acidification collapses ecosystems, risking extinction
Senator Rockefeller, Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Chair, 10
[John D., IV, 4/22/2010, American Geosciences Institute, Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation
Committee Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard Subcommittee Hearing on the
Environmental and Economic Impacts of Ocean Acidification
http://www.agiweb.org/gap/legis111/wateroceans_hearings.html#apr22, 6/27/14, CK]
The Subcommittee Chairman Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Ranking Member Olympia Snowe (R-ME) felt
that ocean acidification was a real threatnot only to sea life, but to U.S. and global economies as
well. Snowe, who felt increased oceanic monitoring would be critical to assessing acidification
impacts, questioned the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administrations (NOAA) ability to
adequately implement and maintain monitoring programs.
Barbara Boxer (D-CA) shared that she and her staff conducted their own acidification experiment by
dropping chalk into drinking water and sparkling water. The chalk in the sparkling water started
to dissolve almost instantly! Boxer exclaimed. She explained, using the sparkling water as an
analogue for a more acidic ocean, acidic seawater increases stress on calcium carbonate bearing
organisms.
She used this moment as a platform to encourage passage of a comprehensive climate change bill,
emphasizing that success needed to be tripartisan between Democrat, Republican and Independent
members. Frank Lautenburg (D-NJ), who sponsored the Federal Ocean Acidification Research And
Monitoring (FOARAM) Act of 2009 (S.173) passed as part of the 2009 Public Lands Omnibus,
emphasized a large portion of the U.S. economy depended on the ocean as a natural resource. His
grandchildrens safety motivated him to protect the oceans and current legislative efforts were a good
start, but he questioned if it was really enough.
Sigourney Weaver is promoting awareness about ocean acidification a topic she was unaware of only a
few year ago. Although not an expert, she shared she was testifying as a concerned American and
earthling, referencing her extensive science-fiction film career. Nevertheless, she explained her love for
the ocean stemmed from her fathers insistence on living near open bodies of water. She feared for the
ocean, which despite its vastness was finite and vulnerable. She implored the senators to save it from our
own lack of vision.
Tom Ingram, a representative of the diving industry, discussed how the aesthetic of the oceans coral
reefs drove his industry. Acidification, he argued, not only threatened coral reef health but also an
estimated 340,000 U.S. jobs in the diving industry. Donny Waters, a commercial fisherman and past
president of the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders Alliance, gave an impassioned testimony that
even garnered applause. He described acidification as a ghost lurking in the shadows and his
anecdotes of the negative impacts were described through tears of frustration and concern.
Dr. James Barry of the Monterrey Bay Aquarium and Research Institution, in an effort to assuage
the bleak outlook, cautioned that how these frightening scientific predictions actually affect ecosystems
can vary greatly and that even science can be incorrect. He did argue that research clearly demonstrates
oceanic systems are under increasing stress from decreasing pH. He presented research showing
this could negatively impact organism growth and reproduction of calcium carbonate bearing
organisms, and ultimately energy flow through food webs. He correlated the high-stress times with
geologically punctuated mass extinctions.
Ocean Impact Magnifier

Ocean crisis outweighs on magnitude oceans are intrinsic to planetary survival
Mitchell, Insight Magazine senior writer, 14
[Julie, 2014, Insight Magazine, Ocean under threat, http://www.lr.org/en/news/articles/global-oceanthreat.aspx accessed 6/27/2014 CK]
The ocean crisis could make the financial crisis look like a peanut, and the time to act is now
before the crisis becomes acute. Underlining the importance of the sea to the planets survival, he
said: If you think of the earth as a clock, then the ocean is the mainspring that keeps it ticking
over.
The high seas account for two-thirds of the Earths 361 million square kilometres of ocean the
remaining third is controlled and managed by individual governments and extends up to 200
nautical miles from the shore yet, according to the GOCs Oceans Under Threat report: there is
little monitoring and little policing for this vast area of the planet. Most fundamentally, the high seas sit
under a legal system that has not evolved in response to modern practices, technologies or scientific
understanding.
Currently the ocean provides food for more than three billion people and the oxygen it produces
accounts for every second breath we take. But with the population set to grow from seven to nine
billion in the next few decades, and as scientists unlock more of its secrets, the oceans resources will
be in demand like never before.
The sea will become a major source of minerals and genetic materials. Other uses include electricity
generation and geo-engineering to increase absorption of carbon dioxide.
[NOTE *he reference (1st paragraph) is Paul Martin Global Ocean Commissioner and former Canadian
Prime Minister Paul Martin]
Ocean Policy
Plan Solves Effective Ocean Policy

Coordinated and prioritized ocean exploration strategy bolsters policymaking
capacity, ensure effective ocean decision-making
In addition, a growing population of ocean users is increasingly competing for ocean space both for
established uses such as fishing, shipping, military activities, and conventional energy development,
and for emerging uses such as renewable energy development and aquaculture. This competition
creates conflicts between users and presents new challenges for decision-makers. Inefficient
government decision-making can compound the problem, hampering economic opportunities and
impeding the entrepreneurial, problem-solving efforts of commercial and conservation interests alike.
At the same time, the Nation is encountering new opportunities to improve our understanding of the
ocean, how it works, and how we can expand our use of the ocean while maintaining its health and
resilience. Advances in research, science, and technology are necessary to help us better understand
how marine environments function, and how they influence and are influenced by human activities.
Application of this knowledge will inform locally-driven management practices and will improve
and maintain the health of the ocean, support employment and new economic opportunities,
enhance the Nation's safety and security, and help preserve the ocean as a valuable resource.
Recognizing these challenges and opportunities, and building on the recommendations of two bipartisan
commissions, President Obama established the National Policy for the Stewardship of the Ocean, Our
Coasts, and the Great Lakes by Executive Order 13547 on July 19, 2010.The National Ocean Policy
(Policy) highlights our responsibility to improve and maintain the health of the ocean, coasts, and
Great Lakes and recognizes the importance of working with States, tribes,2 and other partners to
tackle key challenges through common sense, science-based solutions. The Policy aims to ensure
that our valuable ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes resources will continue to provide a wealth of
benefits that support the Nation's well-being, safety, and prosperity.
Fundamentally, the National Ocean Policy coordinates, through establishment of the National Ocean
Council, the ocean-related activities of Federal agencies to achieve greater efficiency and
effectiveness, with a focus on reduced bureaucracy, improved coordination and integration, and
fiscal responsibility. The Policy does not create new regulations, supersede current regulations, or
modify any agency's established mission, jurisdiction, or authority. Rather, it helps coordinate the
implementation of existing regulations and authorities by all Federal agencies in the interest of
more efficient decision-making. The Policy does not redirect congressionally-appropriated funds, or
direct agencies to divert funds from existing programs. Instead, it improves interagency
collaboration and prioritization to help focus limited resources and use taxpayer dollars more
efficiently.
Exploration Solves Effective Ocean Policy

Exploration creates knowledge base for effective ocean policymaking
POLLUTION AND STREAMLINE OUR OCEAN BUREAUCRACY?
http://vjel.vermontlaw.edu/publications/national-ocean-policy-can-reduce-marine-pollution-streamlineocean-bureaucracy/, Issue 3, Volume: 15, Pages 653-654, accessed 6/26/14, CK]
Arguably one of the most important areas of the NOP is in the promotion and support for research
and education on marine issues. The JOC gave this category a C because although some progress
had been made, there had been funding and program cuts, as well as delayed implementation of
critical tools, weakened ocean science, research, and education. 170 One of the greatest
improvements in this area was the installation of the data portal, ocean.data.gov, which serves as a
clearinghouse for access to non-confidential federal ocean data and planning tools. 171 There have also
been strong regional efforts to coordinate on regional ocean and coastal research, observing, mapping,
and restoration priorities. 172
However, more is needed in terms of funding and support for further education. Investments in
research, science, and education on ocean and coastal issues are crucial, particularly in the context
of marine pollution, because it will produce a more informed citizenry; create better stewards of
ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes resources; and increase awareness of business opportunities related to
these resources. 173 With a greater knowledge base, people can participate in activities that address
the issues facing our oceans and coasts. Furthermore, an educational system that incorporates ocean
and coastal science is crucial to ensuring that the next generation of ocean scientists and engineers
are sufficiently trained to continue to lead an innovation-based global economy.174 Country-wide
education would also bring more awareness to the pervasive interconnectivity of land and marine
pollution, and hopefully illuminate the need for efforts across the nation, rather than just on the
coasts.
Ocean Policy Impact

Effective ocean policymaking key to sustainable ocean and the economy
This Plan responds to such challenges by focusing and coordinating action among Federal agencies
under their existing authorizations and budgets, and by providing the tools we need to ensure a
robust, sustainable ocean economy. It also promotes better science and information to support
economic growth, more efficient permitting and decision-making, and healthier and more resilient
marine eco-systems that will continue to support jobs, local economies, and a skilled and diverse
ocean workforce.
A healthy marine environment provides significant economic benefits. For example, millions of
Americans experience the ocean, coasts, and Great Lakes each year through recreational fishing and
boating, which is a major contributor to the national economy. In 2010, marine tourism and
recreation accounted for 70 percent of the jobs produced by the total ocean economy-1.9 million
American jobs in total. As such, maintaining healthy, productive waters and access to them for
recreation and other activities is critically important to sustaining the benefits that so many
Americans enjoy. The recreational fishing and boating communities directly contribute to and help fund
(through excise taxes and license sales) many marine conservation, State wildlife and fishery programs,
and other initiatives that provide further benefits through vehicles such as the Sport Fish Restoration and
Boating Trust Fund. These are just some examples of the value provided by healthy marine waters.
Coordination Key to Engagement

Effective coordination key to public engagement
The way an ocean exploration program is organizedboth nationally and internationallycan make
a difference in the effectiveness of public outreach and education efforts. By fostering
collaborations among scientists and educators, an exploration program can ensure that educators
are an integral part of the planning and conduct of the exploration activity, whether at sea or on land.
To be successful educators must learn the science necessary to effectively use the curricula, and scientists
must understand teachers needs. Those collaborations cannot be an afterthought; they must be fully
integrated throughout the process of ocean exploration. Informing government officials about
program plans and accomplishments is critical to any large, federally funded program, and it will be
important for all countries involved. This will require additional activities beyond those designed to reach
the general public.
Recommendation: Strong education and outreach programs with global applications should be
incorporated into any exploration program to bring new discoveries to the public , enfranchise the
global community in ocean exploration, and develop and foster collaborations among scientists and
educators in ocean exploration.
Ocean exploration provides rich content that easily captures the imagination of people of all ages.
Any ocean exploration effort should seek to:
bring new discoveries to the public in ways that infuse exploration into their daily lives and capture the
inherent human interest in the ocean;
enfranchise the global community in ocean exploration; and
develop and foster collaborations among scientists and educators in ocean exploration.
Strong education and outreach programs with global applications should be incorporated into the
exploration program. Capacity building not only to multiply the programs usefulness, but also to
develop and conduct international ocean explorationmust be integral to national and
international ocean exploration programs.
Successful cooperation between educators and scientists relies on educators learning the science
necessary to effectively use the curricula, and on scientists understanding teachers needs. Educatorscientist partnerships could be accomplished through professional organizations (examples in the United
States include the National Science Teachers Association, the National Marine Educators Association, and
the American Geophysical Union) or through other model programs, such as the Centers for Ocean
Science Education Excellence created through NSF, and the Bridge program (Virginia Institute of Marine
Science, 2003) of NOPP. Professional development opportunities that immerse teachers in the world of
scientific investigation can support the development of inquiry-based, standards-based educational

materials and products. Educators and students, where appropriate, and science writers, artists, journalists,
and others could participate in expeditions or shore-based activities, and postproject lesson plans could be
developed by scientists and educators from the data collected.
Finding: In a large scale, international ocean exploration program, capacity building can serve to enlist
additional countries in the efforts, increase the resources (e.g., trained personnel) available for
future work, and aid partner nations in good stewardship of our shared oceans.
Recommendation: National exploration programs should strengthen participation in international
exploration through exchange programs for scientists and educators from different countries and through
training programs for educators who are preparing to set up exploration- based programs in their own
countries. All materials and resources developed or collected through the ocean exploration program
should be archived to document the history of collaborations among scientists and educators involved in
ocean exploration.
STEM
STEM Uniqueness
Number of STEM workers in the US are low
Rosen, Change the Equation Chief Executive Officer, 13
(Linda, 9/11/13, The Huffington Post, The Truth Hurts: The STEM Crisis is Not a Myth,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-rosen/the-truth-hurts-the-stem-_b_3900575.html, accessed 6/28/14,
BCG)
Yet Charette does a fair bit of cherry picking himself while missing the big picture. He argues from
anecdotes and a handful of studies that support his point but leaves aside the mountain of data that
demonstrate a shortage. More important, he unwittingly points to one of the biggest causes of this
shortage: Demand for STEM skills has intensified across the entire economy.
Not just crying wolf
Charette limits his attention to the demand for people to fill jobs in traditional STEM fields like
technology or healthcare. But even in those fields, demand is strong and growing.
Rising demand for STEM workers is in fact nothing new. A sidebar to Charette's article quotes 80
years' worth of warnings that a looming STEM crisis will hobble U.S. economic growth. The clear
implication of the sidebar is that the education and business leaders who have been making these
warnings have been crying wolf since before the Second World War. But were their fears of a STEM
shortage really much ado about nothing?
Hardly. The National Science Foundation (NSF) reports that S&E workforce grew from some 182,000
to about 5.4 million people between 1950 and 2009, almost 15 times faster than the U.S. population
and nearly four times faster than the total U.S. workforce. Surely all those worried education and
business leaders were on to something. They foresaw a steep rise in demand for STEM talent as the
U.S. economy made the transition from an industrial economy to an economy focused more
squarely on technological innovation.
We can count ourselves lucky that the GI Bill, the national response to Sputnik, the race to put someone
on the moon, and a host of other seminal events helped fuel the growth of the STEM workforce to meet
this demand. Economists have argued that the technology those STEM workers helped create has
accounted for nearly half of the nation's economic growth in the second half of the twentieth
century.
Now is no time to rest on our laurels. While the rate of growth in STEM jobs may have slowed
through our two 21st-century recessions, it remains robust. NSF puts it at 20 percent between 2000
and 2010, a period during which the overall workforce experienced little growth.
And that robust growth will probably continue. Georgetown's Center on Education and the Workforce
predicts that the total number of STEM jobs will grow 26 percent between 2010 and 2020. The
Georgetown Center also projects that professional and technical jobs in healthcare, which it doesn't
include in its STEM numbers, will grow by 31 percent, far faster than the workforce as a whole. (Charette
criticizes a previous projection Georgetown released in 2011 for not foreseeing the depth and duration of
the recession, but he neglects to mention this more recent projection, which appeared in June of this year.)
It's nice to be in demand

Even in recent years of slower growth, it has been good to be a STEM worker. Yes, as Charette notes,
some STEM employees have been laid off or unable to find jobs, which is an important reminder that
nothing in life is a sure bet. But such anecdotes don't stack up against the bulk of the data, which tell a
dramatically different story:
A Change the Equation study found that, even in the sluggish years between 2009 and 2012, there
were nearly two STEM-focused job postings for every unemployed STEM professional.
During those same years, unemployment in STEM stood at just over 4 percent, well less than the 9.3
percent unemployment rates for non-STEM workers.
People in STEM jobs benefit from being in such high demand. Study after study confirms that
STEM professionals get paid more than non-STEM professionals -- often much more -- even when
you control for their education and other factors. Contrary to Charette's claim that STEM wages have
stagnated, reports from Georgetown, the Commerce Department, and the Information Technology
Innovation Foundation show that they have risen faster than non-STEM wages, even in recent years. That
is a sign that employers are feeling the pinch.
Exploration Key to Tech
Ocean exploration promotes tech development

A global ocean exploration program should promote and enhance the development of new
oceanographic technology. Major oceanographic programs are frequently users or enhancers of
existing technology, and in many instances they have contributed to the development of important
advances in technology (Table 6.3). ADCPs, Lagrangian drifters and floats, the autonomous Lagrangian
circulation explorer, and improved meteorological packages were developed in conjunction with WOCE
and the Tropical Ocean and Global Atmosphere program. The Coastal Ocean Processes program
developed in situ plankton pumps, inner-shelf mooring techniques, and instruments to measure gas
flux. A global ocean exploration program will no doubt stimulate new technologies, and resources
should be available for the development of new tools to support selected exploration voyages or
investigations.
Finding: An ocean exploration program will require technology and facilities selected to suit the
needs of specific program plans. Access to standard and new technology, including commercially
available equipment and technology that is not used for and by research institutions, is necessary
for an ocean exploration program to succeed.
Coordination Solves STEM

Coordinated strategy solves STEM builds workforce capacity
6/26/14, CK]
A diverse workforce with interdisciplinary skills and training is needed to maintain the Nation's
place as a world leader in ocean science and to ensure informed management and use of ocean, coastal,
and Great Lakes resources. Agencies will coordinate to build the science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics (STEM) and managerial workforce capacity needed to ensure that management of
and research on ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes ecosystems are of the highest quality possible.
Develop human capacity and the skilled workforce necessary to conduct ocean research and manage
ocean resources. Agencies will coordinate to ensure that educational programs include diverse
student groups and that a highly competent workforce is developed. Agency actions will result in
more students, particularly from underrepresented groups at the undergraduate and graduate level,
pursuing academic fields related to ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes science and management. This will
support the Nation's leadership in ocean research and development and the application of best
management practices. For example, agencies will use existing education and training resources to
provide scholarship, fellowship, and internship opportunities that leverage existing Federal investments in
ocean research, marine laboratories, and natural sciences to provide opportunities for education and
training. Agencies will also contribute to periodic ocean-focused academic competitions for middle
and high school students that have a positive impact on ocean-reIated career paths.
Exploration Solves STEM

Ocean exploration sparks interest in STEM fields
Beattie, Shedd Aquarium President and Schubel, Aquarium of the Pacific President,
13
[Ted A., Jerry R., 2013, Aquarium of the Pacific, Aquatic Forum, On the Importance of a National
Program of Ocean Exploration to Education,
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/oceanexploration2020/oe2020_report.pdf, page 32 accessed 6/29/14 CK]
In the current competitive global economy, the United States faces a distinct disadvantage. Only 16
percent of American high school seniors are proficient in mathematics and interested in STEM
careers. And among those who do pursue college degrees in STEM fields, only half choose to work
in a STEM-related career.
The benefits of STEM education are clear. By 2018, the U.S. anticipates more than 1.2 million job
openings in STEM-related occupations, including fields as diverse as science, medicine, software
development, and engineering. STEM workers, on average, earn 26 percent more than their nonSTEM counterparts, and experience lower unemployment rates than those in other fields. In
addition, healthy STEM industries are critical to maintaining a quality of life in the United States.
A national program of ocean and Great Lakes exploration provides myriad ways to capture public
imagination and curiosity to support sustained involvement and more intense exposure not only to
STEM topics, but also the humanities and arts. New less expensive tools, such as small ROVs, remote
sensing stations, and underwater cameras, enable everyone to participate in ocean and freshwater
exploration as citizen scientists. These types of public engagements around exploration, such as
through the NOAA kiosks stationed in Coastal Ecosystem Learning Centers, provide a glimpse into
the true nature of science: not merely as a bundle of textbook facts, but a dynamic enterprise of
investigation that is constantly changing as our understanding evolves.
The effectiveness of STEM-focused programs are evident; studies have shown not only that young
people enjoy inquiry-based STEM activities in and out of school settings, but also that sustained
involvement and more intense exposure to STEM topics increase youth interest and confidence in
their scientific abilities. By engaging the public with ocean and Great Lakes observation, we provide
people of all ages with opportunities to explore their natural aquatic environments, and to fall in
love with the magic and mystery of scientific exploration.
Increasing exploration bolsters STEM by inspiring new generation

Expanding the nation's ocean exploration program could lead to more jobs, he adds, and could also
serve as an opportunity to engage children and adults in careers in science, technology,
engineering and mathematics, or STEM.
"I think what we need to do as a nation is make STEM fields be seen by young people as exciting
career trajectories," Schubel says. "We need to reestablish the excitement of science and
engineering, and I think ocean exploration gives us a way to do that."
Schubel says science centers, museums and aquariums can serve as training grounds to give
children and adults the opportunity to learn more about the ocean and what opportunities exist in
STEM fields.
"One thing that we can contribute more than anything else is to let kids and families come to our
institutions and play, explore, make mistakes, and ask silly questions without being burdened
down by the kinds of standards that our formal K-12 and K-14 schools have to live up to,"
Schubel says.
[Note Schubel = Jerry Schubel, president and CEO of the Aquarium of the Pacific]
Exploration Solves Inspiration

Ocean exploration sparks STEM interest
downloaded from: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10630.html,page 19, Accessed 6/30/14 CK]
Ocean exploration provides rich images that capture the imagination of people of all ages (Figure 8).
Interdisciplinary voyages of discovery present natural examples of science that are both engaging
and relevant to our lives. It is only through collaborations between explorers and educators that the
full educational potential of ocean exploration can be realized. These collaborations cannot be an
after-thought, but must be fully integrated throughout the entire process of ocean exploration.
Mars example proves motivation is spurred by exploration- absent exploration

society implodes
Barker, Masters Degrees in Physics, Psychology and Mathematics, 4
[Donald, 12/13/2004, The Space Review, Mars: the only goal for humanity,
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/285/1, accessed 6/29/14 CK]
Lets focus on one of the most prominent and endearing reasons for choosing Mars as the primary
destination of our human space flight goals. That is, the inspiration of future generations. For years,
our public representatives and those pursuing office continuously tout the need to bolster
enrollment (and thereby interest) in engineering, math, and science, and therefore support any
programpublic or privatethat seems to promote education in these fields. The overarching cure
to the problem has been to throw money at it or establish policies that try to entice students and
teachers alike. These have been Band-Aid cures at best. Real education can only occur in light of
motivation, and that means motivating students as well as the teachers and even policymakers. A person
has to want to learn by seeing a personal benefit in their future or, to a lesser degree, some altruistic sense
of curiosity must be instilled. Once the problem of motivation has been addressed, then free market
economics will be poised to support the expanding needs of the educational system. When students
are motivated to learn, then a means of supplementing the cost either has been or will be found.
Again, this author points out that there is only one modern, human-directed goal that has the intrinsic
magnitude to provide the long-term impetus and inspiration for engendering this base level of
human motivation.
A historical analogy can further lend rational to this treatise in that the demise of advanced
societies and cultures can be compared through the examples of the Roman Empire and the
Chinese Ming Dynasty, where expansion and exploration over many years allowed the
imaginations, perceptions, and knowledge of the inhabitants to vastly expand, thereby further
bolstering their societies intrinsic strength and standard of living. The downfall, in this authors
opinion, began just after these societies breached a combined peak in their technological, economic,
territorial, and mental expansion: a point of cultural complacency that an organization or society
reaches when it has no further intrinsic want or external force driving the need to fulfill the basic
human motivation to explore. The United States now seems to be rapidly following suit, and has
displaced, if not lost, its pioneering and frontiersman ideology and mentality. Those base mindsets are the
ones that helped to make this country the great nation it is today. As a nation and species, we need to
assess our current path and decide whether or not we see the need to physically and mentally
expand the frontiers of humanity. The alternative is to just turn inward, to be crushed by the
ancient egotistical, cultural, and political forces that engender fear and preempt exploration and
expansion.
AT Agency CPs
AT Current Agency CP
Prioritization key current agencies incapable of coherent national program
Individual programs of ocean explorationwhether managed by NOAA, an academic institution,

or a not-for-profit organizationfocus on priorities that fit their own organizational goals. While
some organizational priorities may be national in scope, in aggregate, they fall short of defining a
coherent national program. A national program of ocean exploration must include a diversity of
voices in setting priorities, a diversity of approaches to exploration, a wide array of disciplines, and
involvement of many different stakeholders. The results of such a national program of ocean
exploration must be widely and readily available to all. Identifying the framework for this program
was a primary goal of Ocean Exploration 2020: A National Forum, held July 19-21, 2013, at the
Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California.
We recognized at the outset that the success of the first National Forum on Ocean Exploration would
determine whether there would be a second. Acting on advice and assistance from the Ocean Exploration
Advisory Working Group (OEAWG), we designed Ocean Exploration 2020 to be of manageable sizeno
more than 120 participantsand to focus on the United States. We wanted results and recommendations
that could lead to immediate action and help build a diverse community of ocean explorers and a demand
for a second National Forum of Ocean Exploration. This section describes our strategy for achieving these
results.
New agency key to effective framework for exploration

Academies, http://explore.noaa.gov/sites/OER/Documents/national-research-council-voyage.pdf, pg. 7-8,
There has been continued support for and success from oceanographic research in the United States, and a
large-scale international exploration program could rapidly accelerate our acquisition of knowledge
of the worlds oceans. The current ocean-research-funding framework does not favor such
exploratory proposals. Additional funding for exploration without a new framework for
management and investment is unlikely to result in establishment of a successful exploration
program. A new program, however, could provide the resources and establish the selection
processes needed to develop ocean exploration theme areas and pursue new research in biodiversity,
processes, and resources within the worlds oceans. The current effort of the Office of Ocean
Exploration at NOAA should not be expected to fill this role.
After weighing the issues involved in oversight and funding, perhaps the most appropriate placement for
an ocean exploration program is under the auspices of the interagency NOPP, provided that the problems
with routing funds to NOPP-sponsored projects is solved. This solution has the best chance of leading to
major involvement by NOAA, NSF, and other appropriate organizations such as the Office of Naval
Research. The committee is not prepared to support an ocean exploration program within NOAA
unless major shortcomings of NOAA as a lead agency can be effectively and demonstrably
overcome. A majority of the committee members felt that the structural problems limiting the
effectiveness of NOAAs current ocean exploration program are insurmountable. A minority of the
committee members felt that the problems could be corrected. If there is no change to the status quo for
NOPP or NOAA, the committee recommends that NSF be encouraged to take on an ocean exploration
program. Although a program within NSF would face the same difficulties of the existing NOAA program
in attracting other federal (and nonfederal) partners, NSF has proven successful at managing international
research programs as well as a highly-regarded ocean exploration program that remained true to its
founding vision.
Finding: After exhaustive deliberation, the committee found that an ocean exploration program could be
sponsored through NOPP, or through one of the two major supporters of civilian ocean research in the
nation: NOAA or NSF.
Recommendation: NOPP is the most appropriate placement for an ocean exploration program, provided
the program is revised to accept direct appropriations of federal funds. If those funding issues are not
resolved, NOAA (with consideration to the comments above) or NSF would be appropriate alternatives.
New Approach Solvency

New approaches are key to future exploration this includes technology and
thinkers
[Operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences, Oceanography in 2025: Proceedings of a
Workshop, http://dels.nas.edu/resources/static-assets/osb/miscellaneous/Biennial-Report-2009-2010.pdf,
pp. 29, accessed 6/30/14, BCG)
Advancing understanding of the ocean requires new approaches to exploration of the marine
environment; these approaches often entail high risk research and technological and conceptual
advances in allied and disparate disciplines. The future of oceanography will depend on the
contributions of creative thinkers who are well positioned to capitalize on new insights and forge
ahead into new, and often unforeseen, areas. Improved access to the coastal, littoral, and deep water
environments will depend on advances in infrastructure and technology, from advanced sensors to
satellites and unmanned vehicles. The development of innovative tools will facilitate novel experiments
and permit the study of processes across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales.
On January 8 and 9, 2009, the Ocean Studies Board hosted the Oceanography in 2025 workshop.
This workshop was designed to highlight challenges in understanding basic ocean processes and
provide opportunities for participants to brainstorm on new approaches for oceanographic
research. Scientists, engineers, and technologists were brought together to explore future directions in
oceanography, with an emphasis on physical processes. The focus centered on research and technology
needs, trends, and barriers that may impact the field of oceanography over the next 16 years, and
highlighted specific areas of interest: submesoscale processes, air-sea interactions, basic and applied
research, instrumentation and vehicles, ocean infrastructure, and education. To guide the white papers and
drive discussions, four questions were posed to participants: what research questions could be answered,
what will remain unanswered, what new technologies could be developed, and how will research be
conducted? This activity was funded by the Office of Naval Research.
Single Agency Key Coordination

Single agency coordination and clearinghouse role key to coordinating
effective exploration
The committee struggled with the difficulty of simultaneously satisfying goals 4 and 7 above. Consistent,
adequate funding for a large-scale program requires a strong advocate and leader to guide the
initiative through the federal budget process. This is a potential argument for housing exploration
within a single agency, but only if the agency considers the program a high priority. If the agency
does not have a vested interest in the success of the program, other efforts will be promoted instead,
almost surely resulting in the programs demise. Placing an exploration program within a single
agency, however, can dampen the interagency cooperation that is especially important in ocean research,
which unlike space research, is scattered among a number of agencies including NSF, Navy, and NOAA.
In recognition of the fact that many federal ocean science agencies bring capabilities and expertise
to the table, the U.S. Congress created the National Ocean Partnership Program (NOPP) (Box 5.1).
Single Agency Key Pollution

One single agency is key to solve marine pollution agency will mitigate corporate
pollution
http://vjel.vermontlaw.edu/publications/national-ocean-policy-can-reduce-marine-pollution-streamlineocean-bureaucracy/, Pages 655-6, accessed 6/26/14, CK]
The National Ocean Policy is still in its infancyindeed, the Final Implementation Plan was released in
April of 2013. The assessments conducted and the recommendations proposed thus far depend upon
coordination between all facets of government and across all regions of the United States. In the context
of marine pollution, the idea of coordination and collaboration is particularly important given the
transboundary and inter-connective nature of pollution. However, if after a few more years in
motion, the NOPs attempts to unitize and coordinate all the agencies and regional bodies fails or is
moving too slowly, the NOC may consider creating a break-off group whose priority is to
coordinate solely marine pollution. Due to the broad and expansive nature of the NOP, and because
its goals are so enormous and far-reaching, a single body that works to coordinate marine pollution
among the several states could be effective. This body would have experts in the land-use and
marine environment science and the ability to identify the greatest contributors to marine pollution.
This body could then identify the agencies, stakeholders, and industries that are linked to the
pollution, i.e. either contribute to the pollution or are involved in some facet of regulating the pollution.
The marine pollution body could have a stake in the Joint Initiatives proposed integrated ocean
and coastal budget, in order to allocate money for research in the sources and impacts of marine
pollution. Such a solution would help to coordinate regional and local policies on a more targeted
scale, making the goals more manageable and more specific than the broad and perhaps overencompassing NOP.
AT National Ocean Council CP

Absent action from other actor the National Ocean Council cannot solve agenda
POLLUTION AND STREAMLINE OUR OCEAN BUREAUCRACY? Issue 3, Volume:15, Pages 651652 CK]
Garnering robust national support and leadership is critical for the improvement of marine
pollution given the interconnectivity between landlocked regions, coastal regions, and the ocean.
Unfortunately, the JOC gave this category a C, noting that although the NOP laid good
groundwork, it lacked communication, stakeholder engagement, and tangible results. 162
Although the NOC successfully released strategic action plans and the draft Implementation Plan,
and organized the National Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning Workshop in June 2011, the
Councils work is far from complete.163
Comments submitted during various stages of NOP implementation reflect the disconnect between
stakeholders, notably industry stakeholders, and the NOC. For example, some raised concerns
about the effect of adopting a precautionary approach as suggested in one of the NOPs guiding
stewardship principles. The language of the relevant principle read: Decisions affecting the ocean, our
coasts, and the Great Lakes should be informed by and consistent with the best available science.
Decision-making will also be guided by a precautionary approach as reflected in the Rio
Declaration of 1992, which states in pertinent part, [w]here there are threats of serious or
irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing
cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation. 164
Many feared that this precautionary approach might mandate action or prohibit activities,
conceivably to the detriment of certain industries. However, the NOP Task Force clarified the
misconception by stating in part, precaution is a tool or approach . . . it is clear that the precautionary
approach does not mandate action or prohibit activities.165 In order to garner support from all
stakeholders, particularly in the current political environment, it is essential that the NOC
regularly involve all stakeholders during the actual implementation and future development of the
NOPs objectives and actions.
AT Non-USFG Counterplans
Federal Government Key to Tech

Experts agree federal involvement is key to develop the tech
By 2020, private sector investments in exploration technology development, specifically for the
dedicated national program of exploration, exceed the federal investment, but federal partners play
a key role in testing and refining new technologies.
Forum participants agreed that a top priority for a national ocean exploration program of
distinction is the development of mechanisms to fund emerging and creatively disruptive
technologies to enhance and expand exploration capabilities. In addition to significant federal
government investment in ocean exploration technology over timewhether by the U.S. Navy,
NASA, NOAA, or other civilian agencies involved in ocean explorationmany felt strongly that to
shorten the time from development to unrestricted adoption, more of the required investment
would come from the private sector.
These emerging technologies will likely include the next generations of ships; remotely operated vehicles;
autonomous underwater vehicles; telepresence capabilities; and new sensors. Most participants felt that
continuing to develop human occupied vehicles should be a much lower priority for a national
program than focusing on autonomous vehicles, sensors, observatories, and communications
systems.
Participants also felt that federal partners in the national program of exploration should play a key
role in testing and refining these technologies as well as working to adapt existing and proven
technologies for exploration.
Overall, some of the most important technologies to cultivate are those that collect physical and chemical
oceanographic data, biological data, and seafloor mapping data.
Federal Government Key to Partnerships

Federal role key to predictable commitment necessary to leverage
partnerships
In 2020, there is an extensive and dynamic network of partnerships that link public agencies, private
sector organizations, and academic institutions. Each individual and each institution brings experience,
expertise, and creativity to the table. Partnerships that bring together individuals and institutions that
span multiple interfaces among different sectors enhance the potential for significant new advances
in discovery, understanding, wisdom, and action. In a time of shrinking federal resources, if there
is to be an effective national program of exploration, it will be accomplished through partnerships.
There was a strong consensusnear unanimitythat in 2020 and beyond, most ocean exploration
expeditions and programs will be partnershipspublic and private, national and international.
NOAA has been assigned a leadership role in developing and sustaining a national program of ocean
exploration under the Ocean Exploration Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-11). The act mandated that NOAA
undertake this responsibility in collaboration with other federal agencies.
Ocean Exploration 2020 invitees felt that federal and academic programs should be more assertive in
seeking partnerships with ocean industries. It was, however, acknowledged that the necessity of
sharing data might pose a challenge for some industry partners as well as federal agencies with restricted
missions, like the Navys Office of Naval Research.
There was a strong feeling that the community of ocean explorers needs to be more inclusive and
more nimble, two sometimes conflicting qualities. Nimbleness will require more nongovernmental sources of support and a small, dedicated, dynamic decision-making group that
represents the interests of the ocean exploration community and that commands their trust.
A coherent, comprehensive national program of ocean exploration requires sustained core support
at some predictable level from the federal government and demonstrated coordination among the
federal agencies involved in ocean exploration, in order to leverage involvement of business,
industry, foundations, and NGOs. Timely and effective communication among partners is necessary
to build and sustain the expanded community of ocean explorers.
Federal leadership is key to effective architecture for collaboration

Aquarium of the Pacific and NOAA, 13
[Aquarium of the Pacific and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, September 2013,
Aquarium of the Pacific, Aquatic Forum, Ocean Exploration 2020: A National Forum,
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/oceanexploration2020/oe2020_report.pdf, page 39, accessed 6/29/14 CK]
These characteristics of a national program of ocean exploration imply a network of universities,
nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, and government agencies working together in
pursuit of shared goals. Federal-and in particular, NOAA-leadership is essential to help design and
maintain what might be called an architecture for collaboration that convenes national and
international ocean exploration stakeholders regularly to review and set priorities, to match
potential expedition partners, to facilitate sharing of assets, and to help test and evaluate new
technologies. The program should facilitate the review and analysis of new and historical data and
the synthesis and transformation of data into a variety of informational products. In this leadership
role, NOAA would promote public engagement, and guide and strengthen the national ocean exploration
enterprise.
A conventional federal government approach wont work. In describing characteristics of the national
ocean exploration program in 2020, participants used words including: nimble, flexible, creative,
innovative, and responsive. A program with these qualities just might ignite the ocean exploration
movement envisioned by the participants in the first gathering of the community of ocean explorers.
AT Private Actor Solves

Private and current actors cannot solve - funding and long term methodology
flawed
eventually invent an applied focus or face the axe. For example, even under NURP, exploration often
focused on corals and fish of considerable economic and conservation importance rather than those
species of greatest novelty or knowledge deficit. The current situation at NOAA also highlights how
less applied scientific programs are likely to be lost. Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
also provides another model that comes close to OSEA but is heavily reliant on private funding that
can often be significantly reduced during recessions as endowments shrink. Moreover, a private
foundation is unlikely to meet the full financial burden to support the full mission of an OSEA or
provide a resource to the ocean science community as whole. This is not meant to criticize either
NOAA or MBARI, indeed both supported our own research and have made immense contributions
to ocean science and exploration, but neither do they fully realize our vision for OSEA.
AT Disadvantages
Tradeoff Answer
Funding for ocean exploration can be reallocated from unnecessary space funding
Etzioni, George Washington University international relations professor, 12
(Amitai, professor of international relations and director of the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies at George
Washington University, CNN, Mars can wait. Oceans can't, http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/09/opinion/etzionispace-oceans/, accessed 6/27/14, BCG)
Actually, there are very good reasons to stop spending billions of dollars on manned space missions,
to explore space in ways that are safer and much less costly, and to grant much higher priority to other
scientific and engineering mega-projects, the oceans in particular.
The main costs of space exploration arise from the fact that we are set on sending humans, rather
than robots. The reasons such efforts drive up the costs include: A human needs a return ticket, while a
robot can go one way. Space vehicles for humans must be made safe, while we can risk a bunch of robots
without losing sleep. Robots are much easier to feed, experience little trouble when subject to prolonged
weightlessness, and are much easier to shield from radiation. And they can do most tasks humans can.
British astronomer royal Martin Rees writes, "I think that the practical case (for manned flights) gets
weaker and weaker with every advance in robotics and miniaturization. It's hard to see any particular
reason or purpose in going back to the moon or indeed sending people into space at all." Nobel Laureate
Steven Weinberg calls manned missions "an incredible waste of money" and argues that "for the cost of
putting a few people on a very limited set of locations on Mars we could have dozens of unmanned,
robotic missions roving all over Mars."
The main argument for using humans is a public relations one. As Neil deGrasse Tyson puts it in Foreign
Affairs, "China's latest space proclamations could conceivably produce another 'Sputnik moment' for the
United States, spurring the country into action after a relatively fallow period in its space efforts." Also,
astronauts are said to inspire our youth to become scientists and explorers. However, it is far from
established that we cannot achieve the same effects by making other R&D projects our main
priority.
Take the oceans, about which we know much less than the dark side of the moon. Ninety percent of the
ocean floor has not even been charted, and while we have been to the moon, the technology to
explore the ocean's floors is still being developed. For example, a permanent partially-submerged sea
exploration station, called the SeaOrbiter, is currently in development.
The oceans play a major role in controlling our climate. But we have not learned yet how to use
them to cool us off rather than contribute to our overheating. Ocean organisms are said to hold the
promise of cures for an array of diseases. An examination of the unique eyes of skate (ray fish) led to
advances in combating blindness, the horseshoe crab was crucial in developing a test for bacterial
contamination, and sea urchins helped in the development of test-tube fertilization.
AT Geopolitics
No international backlash
downloaded from: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10630.html,Accessed 6/30/14 CK]
It is useful to encourage broad information sharing about ocean exploration initiatives, whether
undertaken by the United States or by other nations. Such information sharing could include
information about ongoing exploration programs, potentially available resources (including ships
and scientists), proposals for exploration, and other pertinent information. The Committee
recommends that IOC assist in communicating to participating governments the importance of
cooperative ocean exploration efforts. The Committee also recommends that IOC consider convening an
annual conference on ocean exploration, seeking advice from SCOR, POGO, and other interested entities
as appropriate. Indeed, one option would be for IOC to co- sponsor the recommended annual Ocean
Exploration Conference with SCOR, The International Global Ocean Exploration Workshop held at
IOC headquarters in May 2002 demonstrated great international interest, as well as capabilities, in
ocean exploration. This interest was very broad and included both developed and developing
countries.

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Scenario 1 Ocean Collapse

Failure to restore economic power compromises US foreign policy, risking war

These diseases risk extinction

Existing Programs Fail

The Ghost of Ocean Science Past

NOAA shifting away from exploration focus

US ocean agencies do not focus on ocean exploration

Funding for oceanic exploration is low now exploration sectors of agencies

Funding key multiple reasons insufficient funding undermines exploration

Funding and philosophy shift gutted staffed exploration of the ocean

Lack of Funding Forces Privatization

program by the year 2020.

The US is lacking exploration now

Current research fleets are not adequate

Current vessels being built are not cost efficient or effective

UNOLS fleet relies on state and private funds

OSEA Solves Science

OSEA Key AT Other Agencies/Private

Focus and coordination program key to capacity-building partnerships

Endowment is funded through revenues in industries

Endowment grants are key to solve laundry list

Stable funding key to addressing current problems

Endowment Eligibility Criteria

AT US Cant Legally Explore

Arctic prioritization key need data for effective Arctic stewardship

Arctic rapidly changing effective stewardship key to ecosystems, communication,

MISSING NEED STEWARDSHIP KEY TO CONFIDENCE BUILDING

Confidence building measures in the Arctic are a prerequisite to stability and

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (UAVs)

AUVs Solve Exploration

AUVs Solve Biofouling

Biofouling Hurts Biodiversity

Biofouling Hurts Readiness

Ocean Exploration Key to Climate

Exploration increases understanding of thermohaline circulation key to

Ocean research is key to monitor anthropogenic CO2

Sequestration Key to Solve Climate

Exploration Solves Medicine Development

Deep Sea Resources Solve

Deep sea organisms may eliminate diseases

Exploration Solves Economy/Jobs

Exploration Solves Resources

Understanding of the oceans is key to managing resources and solving crises

Resources Key to the Economy

Exploration Solves Rare Earth Metals

China Rare Earth Internal Link

Exploration Good Laundry List

Exploration solves knowledge knowledge key internal link to solving current

Exploration Key to Science

Exploration key to spur scientific innovation

Exploration Key to Earth Science

Coordinated Exploration Solves Science

Prioritization and coordination key to effective international collaboration

Academies, http://explore.noaa.gov/sites/OER/Documents/national-research-council-voyage.pdf, pg 2-6,

US Environmental Leadership Decline

Science & Tech Leadership Brink

Now Key Maritime Power

Plan Solves Model/Coop

Coop Solves Science Diplomacy

Science Diplomacy Laundry List Impacts

Science diplomacy ensures capacity-building for diffuses global conflicts

Science diplomacy key to relations necessary to solve global crises

Science Diplomacy Solves Conflict