The Trump administration is proposing massive funding cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for the upcoming federal budget.
According to Oceana, this news comes just hours after terminating hundreds of NOAA employees. NOAA is an agency which manages US fisheries, monitors and forecasts weather, charts oceans, and protects coastal communities and infrastructure.
Some potential ocean-related consequences from cutting NOAA resources as presented by Oceana include:
- U.S. fisheries set the bar as some of the best managed, most abundant fisheries in the world, but without effective management, U.S. waters could become overfished, depleted, and empty;
- Increased imports of illegally sourced or mislabeled seafood into the United States will unfairly disadvantage U.S. fishers;
- Endangered or threatened marine wildlife like North Atlantic right whales and loggerhead sea turtles could go extinct;
- With a lack of information about severe weather events to convey timely and life-saving information, more lives and property could be lost in disasters; and more.
Beth Lowell, the Vice President for the United States at Oceana, stated that the proposed cuts to NOAA were ludicrous and that they would affect everyone, whether they lived on the coast or in the heartland. She explained that eliminating funding and staffing would not only cause chaos and confusion within NOAA but also undermine people and businesses across the country.
Protected animals like whales and sea turtles could go extinct with scientists no longer on duty. Congress must act to stop the dismantling of NOAA that would directly threaten the millions of Americans that depend on healthy oceans for their jobs, businesses, and seafood dinners
… said Beth Lowell.
