Tell your representative to co-sponsor a national Healthy Oceans Act
Oceans are essential to our way of life, but below the surface they are threatened by global warming and habitat degradation. Tell your representative to co-sponsor Oceans-21, the Oceans Conservation, Education and National Strategy for the 21st Century Act.
Right now we have 140 different laws for managing our oceans, implemented by 20 federal agencies, but no overarching vision or national plan to revive or protect our seas. These laws are important, but each is targeted to an individual goal, resource or area -- such as maximizing fisheries yield, avoiding marine mammal mortality or protecting individual ocean sanctuaries -- and the implementation of one is largely disjointed from the next. For too long we have been trying to manage the details individually without a big picture.
A Healthy Oceans Act like Oceans-21 would fill this gap by establishing a national ocean vision, a way to implement it at the federal and regional levels, and the funding to do it. Our oceans are too important to let this problem continue. I urge you to co-sponsor Oceans-21 today and do all you can to ensure its passage.