On behalf of the Ocean Policy Committee, Ocean Science and Technology Subcommittee, Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Council on Environmental Quality, NOAA recently announced that it is seeking comments by Thursday, March 12 on the development of a National Strategy for Mapping, Exploring, and Characterizing U.S. federal waters. NOAA notes that public feedback will inform the Ocean Policy Committee’s efforts to develop the strategy.
In November 2019, the President issued a Memorandum declaring it U.S. policy to “act boldly to safeguard our future prosperity, health, and national security through ocean mapping, exploration, and characterization” and to “support the conservation, management, and balanced used of America’s oceans by exploring, mapping, and characterizing the U.S. [Exclusive Economic Zone], including mapping the Arctic and Sub-Arctic shoreline and nearshore of Alaska,” including by supporting such activities in collaboration with non-U.S. government entities when appropriate.
Among other things, the Memorandum provided the Ocean Policy Committee with 6 months to develop a proposed strategy to map U.S. federal waters and identify, explore, and characterize priority areas within it.
The Ocean Policy Committee is specifically interested in feedback on the following:
- The most effective approach for mapping the remaining unmapped portions of U.S. federal waters and how areas should be prioritized for mapping;
- Tools, platforms, and technologies that could advance our capability to more efficiently and effectively map, explore, and characterize U.S. federal waters, and how to overcome any barriers to adoption for any such capabilities that already exist;
- The most effective approach for exploring and characterizing priority areas in U.S. federal waters;
- Selection criteria that should inform the determination of priority areas for exploration and characterization;
- How public-private partnerships can be utilized to effectively implement the Strategy;
- Federal programs that are best positioned to support public-private partnerships to advance ocean exploration, mapping, and characterization, and any needed changes to improve their effectiveness;
- How data generated by the Strategy should be managed so that it is most useful to public and private sectors; and
- Any additional information that the Ocean Policy Committee should consider
