UNOLS Council Response to the Preliminary Report of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy - Governors' Draft Instructions for providing public comment, now extended through June 4, 2004

At the March 2004 UNOLS Council Meeting it was determined that when the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy released their Preliminary Report to the Governors that the Council and Fleet Improvement Committee members should review the report and provide a response during the public comment period. The UNOLS Chair and Council also encouraged individual member institutions to provide feedback to their Governors and through the public comment process. The UNOLS Council also will provide input to CORE, TOS, and AGU for use in the preparation of their responses. The following is the text of the UNOLS Council public comment on the preliminary report:

May 13, 2004

Admiral James Watkins, Chair
US Commission on Ocean Policy

Dear Admiral Watkins:

From its position as one of the key structures within the academic ocean research infrastructure, the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) strongly supports the recommendations of the Commission. We applaud the efforts of the Commission in relating, in clear and compelling language, the wide range of ocean issues and problems facing our nation. In this brief note, we wish to emphasize particular components of your report that we feel have critical bearing on the future of US ocean research.

As your report so clearly states in Chapter 27, ocean research is critically dependent upon safe and dependable access to the sea - whether via surface vessels, manned submersibles, ROVs, or AUVs. These various platforms must be capable of conducting the science missions of the next decades, particularly the science that will develop from the new generation of ocean observing systems. The FOFC Academic Fleet Plan (2001) provided a coherent federal plan for renewal of the UNOLS fleet, without, however, a clear forecast of the demands that will be imposed by the Integrated Ocean Observing System and the Ocean Observing Initiative. The recent UNOLS report on infrastructure demands of ocean observing systems (http://www.unols.org/committees/fic/observatory/observrpt.pdf) revealed serious shortfalls in our future capabilities to deploy, service, and maintain these systems, particularly under the continuing (and sometimes competing) research needs of other NSF and ONR supported programs. These shortfalls, coupled with vessel retirements and the absence of identified funds to implement the FOFC plan, create the rather desperate situation you outline in Chapter 27 of the Preliminary Report.

The US academic research community therefore is facing a crisis of significant magnitude - our vessel infrastructure cannot sustain today's level of ocean science beyond 2009 - and cannot begin to accommodate the growth in demand on our infrastructure that will come with implementation of the components of the ocean observing systems. We in UNOLS strongly support your recommendation to Congress for modernization of critical infrastructure (Recommendation 27-4). We feel that the situation is critical enough to justify placing Recommendation 27-4 near the top of the prioritization list, as the absence of a capable research fleet and technical infrastructure will hinder many of the recommendations of the report.

We also strongly endorse your recommendation to Congress to double the federal ocean and coastal research budget (Recommendation 25-1). Without this budget growth, appropriately distributed across the relevant federal agencies and programs, we are unlikely to realize the critical infrastructure modernization outlined in Chapter 27. We recommend that 25-1 be placed at the top of the prioritization list for action by Congress.

Once again, thank you for your efforts on behalf of the ocean sciences community. You have compiled an eloquent and compelling document that provides a clear roadmap for the future. We in UNOLS will do all that we can to aid in the implementation of your recommendations.

Sincerely,Timothy J. Cowles
UNOLS Chair