Admiral Allen to testify on National Ocean Policy
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Written by: Christopher Lagan
For well over two centuries, the Coast Guard has worked to safeguard our Nation and its citizens, to secure our maritime borders, and to serve as a responsible steward of our oceans, our coasts, and the Great Lakes. – Admiral Thad Allen, Commandant, U.S. Coast Guard
The Coast Guard has a centuries-old tradition as America’s primary federal maritime law enforcement agency. Over the years, the missions have changed, but the Coast Guard’s roles have remained the same: maritime safety, security and stewardship. Tomorrow, Admiral Allen will discuss the merits of a National Ocean Policy and improved governance framework as he testifies before Congress as a member of the Obama Administration’s Ocean Policy Task Force. This initiative represents a significant opportunity to employ a “whole government” approach to manage the use and protection of our marine resources and maritime waterways with an emphasis on sustainability and predictability.
Guardians are no strangers to big picture approaches to the governance of our nation’s waterways. For nearly two decades, Guardians have participated in scenario-based strategy development exercises aimed at forecasting the threats and opportunities to the Coast Guard’s missions through the Evergreen Process and as recently as 2007 issued a Coast Guard Strategy for Maritime Safety, Security and Stewardship which called for a national policy to “address concerns ranging from increased use of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) to new uses in the Arctic.” More recently, Coast Guard cutters have assisted researchers at NOAA by deploying global drifter buoys to help us better understand our oceans while the polar icebreaker Healy has been involved in multiple initiatives to map and better understand the changing Arctic landscape.
Log on to Coast Guard Compass tomorrow morning for more on Admiral Allen’s appearance on Capitol Hill and check out the Commandant’s Twitter page to follow his testimony live.
For more information on the Coast Guard’s role in the Ocean Policy Task Force, please visit Admiral Allen’s blog posts on the establishment of the Task Force, the Task Force’s Arctic Awareness trip, marine spatial planning, and the Ocean Policy Task Force’s Interim Report.
Leave a Comment
We welcome your comments on postings at all Coast Guard sites/journals. These are sponsored by the U.S. Coast Guard to provide a forum to talk about our work providing maritime safety, security and stewardship for the American people to secure the homeland, save lives and property, protect the environment, and promote economic prosperity.
The information provided is for public information only and is not a distress communication channel. People in an emergency and in need of Coast Guard assistance should use VHF-FM Channel 16 (156.8 MHz), dial 911, or call their nearest Coast Guard unit.
All comments submitted are moderated. The Coast Guard retains the discretion to determine which comments it will post and which it will not. We expect all contributors to be respectful. We will not post comments that contain personal attacks of any kind; refer to Coast Guard or other employees by name; contain offensive terms that target specific ethnic or racial groups, or contain vulgar language. We will also not post comments that are spam, are clearly off topic, or that promote services or products.
The U.S. Coast Guard disclaims any liability for any loss or damage resulting from any comments posted on this page. This forum may not be used for the submission of any claim, demand, informal or formal complaint, or any other form of legal and/or administrative notice or process, or for the exhaustion of any legal and/or administrative remedy.
If you have specific questions regarding a U.S. Coast Guard program that involves details you do not wish to share publicly please contact the program point of contact listed at http://www.uscg.mil/global/mail/
The U.S. Coast Guard will not collect or retain Personally Identifiable Information unless you voluntarily provide it to us. To view the U.S. Coast Guard’s Privacy Policy, please visit: http://www.uscg.mil/global/disclaim.asp
Please note: Anonymous comments have been disabled for this journal. It is preferred that you use your real name when posting a comment. WE WILL POST THE NAME YOU ENTER WHEN YOU SUBMIT YOUR COMMENT. Also, you are welcome to use Open ID or other user technologies that may be available.
