Allison Winter, E&E reporter
Published: Thursday, June 28, 2012
Environmental advocates are focusing on the bottom line to promote marine protections on Capitol Hill. The Center for American Progress announced the “Blue Economy Initiative” yesterday in an effort to gather more data on the economic benefits of sustainable fisheries, renewable energy, coastal restoration, and tourism and recreation. “We Americans have a deep-seated love for the oceans, but we often lack the data to value them,” said Michael Conathan, director of the liberal center’s ocean program.
At a Washington, D.C., event kicking off the effort, Conathan said the program should help spread the word about the costs and benefits of marine protection. “It is easy for the American public to wrap their minds around employment activities from extractive industries, but it is harder to understand what is the value of a surfer or a kayaker or someone who enjoys a stroll on the beach,” he said. “These are free activities, but they don’t come without an economic benefit to their local
communities. That is what we’re really going to try to get at with this project.”
The center plans to produce a series of reports over the next year that will include analyses of fish stock assessments, Gulf Coast recovery efforts and investment opportunities for offshore wind.
Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, attended the launch and praised the project. She said the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico showed the economy’s dependence on the coast. “One of the things that became strikingly obvious during Deepwater Horizon was just how dependent the economies of the Gulf were on the
health of the Gulf itself, which was at risk,” Lubchenco said. “I think that is one of the lessons. We can talk about numbers until we are blue in the face, but here is a striking example of how interconnected the coasts are and how the economy is connected to a healthy ocean and coastal area.”
NOAA estimates that the U.S. ocean economy contributed $153.1 billion to the gross domestic product in 2009. The effort comes as the Obama administration tries to get support for its National Ocean Policy and regional marine plans that would help designate areas for the development of renewable energy, shipping and fishing.
“We have made the mistake in the past of thinking about things sector by sector. … One of the major new innovations of this administration has been to acknowledge that we need more integration across those sectors and we need to be paying attention to healthy oceans and, to use a military term, ‘de-conflict,'” Lubchenco said.
Introduced in the summer of 2010, the National Ocean Policy would create a National Ocean Council and would support efforts at regional marine planning. The effort won broad support from conservation groups but has received push-back from congressional Republicans who see it creating a new federal bureaucracy. “It has been embraced by some places and is completely freaking out
others,” Lubchenco said.
Special thanks to Richard Charter