We’ve just returned from Washington DC, where the first week of June is “Ocean Week” with the question “Will NOAA ever become independent of the Department of Commerce?”
First field report from Washington DC
Category: Public Policy
Report from Louisville ASA meeting
I spent the better part of last week at an Acoustical Society conference in Louisville, Kentucky. I am glad that the conference was interesting because as cities go, Louisville isn’t. (Having a museum of baseball bats as a major cultural…
Oiling up for the Long Game
Frustrated by the lack of subservience by many states, the oil administration is attempting to roll back our Constitutional rights on a number of fronts to advance their “American Energy Dominance” agenda. It has become abundantly clear that quite a…
Happy (and Hopeful) Earth Day
The suspense is killing me!
While there seems to be a lot of Regulatory Agency activities these days – with changing of directors, indictments of outgoing directors, and also indictments of incoming directors, there are also a lot of monumental actions pending, and have…
Things are heating up on the OCS
Representative Joe Cunningham (D-SC) and his Air Horn demo There are a lot of moving parts right now on the proposal to open up the US Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) to oil and gas leasing. The issue has been…
Keeping the fires lit under the Seismic Survey Proposal
We’re not really waiting for the smoke to settle on the Incidental Harassment Authorizations (IHAs) issued a week ago last Friday before sharing with you what to do next. We’re actually enjoying watching the continuing conflagration – for the simple…
Seismic Survey permits issued for the Mid and South Atlantic
PGS “Ramform Titan” Seismic Survey Vessel After eleven years of effectively blocking the geophysical (seismic) survey off the Mid-Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) the shoe has finally dropped. Last Friday morning the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued “Incidental…
An Honest Broker
When OCR was founded I was given some wise advice by sacred tree-monkey Julia Butterfly Hill. Hill had become a celebrity on account of her particular act of courage – which she attributed to her deciding what she wanted to…
Travel report – the Republic of Georgia
I’ve recently returned from the Republic of Georgia where I was invited to give an environmental “keynote” address to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) meeting at the bi-annual Georgian International Maritime Forum (GIMF), and take a chair in a panel…