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SeaWeb Applauds Creation of National Ocean Policy

It is with great pleasure that I share news today of President Obama's decision to issue an Executive Order that creates our nation's first comprehensive national policy to govern our ocean, coasts and Great Lakes. This landmark effort seeks to provide a comprehensive structure for managing multiple uses in the ocean, ranging from oil and gas extraction and exploration to recreation and much more. For the first time in our more than 200 years as a maritime nation, we now have a comprehensive roadmap for handling all of the various activities we do in the ocean and the Great Lakes and along our coasts.

Prior to this new National Ocean Policy, the United States had a regulatory jumble of more than 140 different and often conflicting laws pertaining to ocean management, all of which were overseen by more than 20 separate agencies. What this new policy enables is well-thought-out interaction with the ocean, allowing us to protect sensitive ecosystems while still providing avenues for fishing, shipping and developing renewable energy in ways that minimize the impacts on the environment.

If the past 95 plus days in the Gulf of Mexico has taught us anything, it's that we truly need to be smarter about—and do a much better job of—protecting America's marine and aquatic ecosystems.

The work it took to get to this point was significant: The President's Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force developed this policy after more than a year of holding hearings, gathering public input and finding coordinated ways for ensuring the protection, maintenance and restoration of the U.S. ocean, coasts and Great Lakes. That work has paid off, however, and has given us the first holistic vision for multiple economic uses of and ecosystem services and benefits from the ocean.

The work is not done, however. In many ways, the hard work begins now with the charge of efficiently implementing the new policy. As time moves on, we will start to see the true benefits of the National Ocean Policy—a policy that is a great and sorely needed step in the right direction for the health of our ocean planet.

Please join me in celebrating a piece of really good news for our beloved ocean.

Read a copy of the report >>

Read the Executive Order >>

Archived Letters from the President

• May 2010: Responding to the Gulf Coast Oil Spill
• January 2010: A New Decade and a New Beginning for Our Blue Planet
• June 2009: World Ocean's Day: Be a Blue Tourist
• January 2008: A Rising Tide
• Fall 2007: Devastation from Oil Spills Reaches Far Beyond Shores