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Our oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes are places of wonder and beauty, and they are also economic engines that provide valuable jobs, food, recreation, energy resources, and tourism. However, these essential resources are currently managed by more than 140 different, and often conflicting, laws which can lead to poor management and even worse problems. In order to overcome the enormous challenges faced by our oceans and Great Lakes – including pollution, habitat loss, overfishing and climate change – we need one unifying national policy that will protect, maintain, and restore the health of our ocean ecosystems.
On June 12 the President created a 23-member Ocean Policy Task Force to develop a first ever national ocean policy. The Task Force has planned at least five listening sessions around the nation to gather public input. But time is short! The President needs to hear from you on the need for a strong comprehensive national policy that protects, maintains and restores our oceans, coasts and Great Lakes. The tentative schedule for listening sessions includes:
How You Can Help: Speak up for a strong national policy to protect our oceans, coasts and Great Lakes!
Plan to come to a hearing! -- Send in a comment letter! -- Post to
your favorite blogs!
Urge President Obama to issue an Executive Order that establishes a comprehensive national policy that protects, maintains, and restores our oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes. We need a national policy that ends overfishing and restores wildlife populations, protects key ocean wildlife habitat areas, cleans up our waterways and reduces the impacts of climate change.
Please contact
Sean Cosgrove (scosgrove@clf.org)
or
Megan Mackey (megan_mackey@speakeasy.net)
for more information.
For more information and updates on public hearings:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ceq/initiatives/oceans/