NOAA Leader Calls 3.4 Percent Budget Increase ‘Impressive’

By Kirk Moore, Asbury Park Press, N.J.

Feb. 7–Some critics say it’s like spitting in the ocean. But the leader of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the Bush administration’s 3.4 percent budget increase for climate, weather and oceans science and management is “impressive” in a time of war and other national priorities.

The NOAA budget proposal for 2008 has the first increase in years for the agency, including $123 million for new expenditures, said retired Navy Vice Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher, the agency administrator.

Just days after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its alarming report, Lautenbacher held a telephone news conference Monday to highlight next year’s funding plans, including more support for climate changes studies.

Most of the increase falls into three main areas:

–$25 million for sustainable use of the ocean, including support for new federal fisheries law reforms and a regulatory system for large-scale commercial fish farming.

–$60 million in new ocean science and research.

–$38 million for protection and restoration of marine and coastal areas, including $8 million for the newly created Northwest Hawaiian Islands national monument — the nation’s most ambitious marine reserve to date — and President Bush’s “ocean action plan.”

Bush offered his plan in response to the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy report, which called for a sharp increase in funding and attention to oceans issues from the executive branch and Congress. Last week, former Commission Chairman and retired Navy Adm. James Watkins said NOAA’s 3.4 percent budget increase won’t do much to help the agency catch up after years of no budget increases from lawmakers.

“I would never turn down anyone who would give us more money,” Lautenbacher said of critics’ calls for higher funding.

But “to have an increase like we have is impressive,” he added.

There’s $5 million proposed to study linkages between ocean currents and sudden climate change.

Scientists say the ocean’s deep currents are the heat-exchange mechanisms that most immediately affect climate conditions on the continent. Some think a disruption to the North Atlantic’s conveyor current, say by an accelerated melting of Greenland ice, would dramatically change conditions in Europe and the northeast United States.

The budget has $3 million to support a chain of 15 storm data buoys that were deployed in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico in 2006-2007 using emergency funds, Lautenbacher said.

In all of the $3.8 billion NOAA budget proposal, the biggest relative increases are 11.8 percent earmarked for the National Oceans Service, which operates buoy networks and oceanographic activities, and a 7.4 percent increase for the National Marine Fisheries Service, which regulates the fishing industry and supports fisheries research.

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