President Obama Announces Ocean Task Force

On June 12, 2009, President Obama announced the formation of an Oceans Task Force, comprised of heads of various federal agencies, to develop a national policy on oceans that “ensures the protection, maintenance, and restoration of the health of ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes ecosystems and resources, enhances the sustainability of ocean and coastal economies, preserves our maritime heritage, provides for adaptive management to enhance our understanding of and capacity to respond to climate change, and is coordinated with our national security and foreign policy interests.”

Additional information about the task force is available here.

Interestingly, the proposed policy endorses use of adaptive management, a strategy which OREC has long endorsed.  Funding for an adaptive management fund is included in the Senate version of the energy bill, described in further detail in the New York Times.

OREC Welcomes Two Summer Staffers

OREC is pleased to announce that we have two staffers on board for the summer - Alex Smith and Anthony Moliterno, who are students at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey and participants in the Washington Internship Institute Program.  We’ll be keeping our staffers busy with all of the Hill and regulatory matters that will be ongoing this summer.  However, if any OREC members are in need of assistance here in Washington where our staffers might be able to help out, please contact us.

In addition to these staffers, we are also supporting a student fellow through the Sea Grant Project under the supervision of Megan Higgins at Roger Williams University Law School’s Marine Affairs program.  Our research fellow is exploring the viability of using MOUs (memorandum of understanding) to coordinate and expedite the FERC or MMS regulatory process.  The final work product will be available in early September.

OREC Summary of MMS Regulatory Framework

As you know from our earlier post, the MMS regulations for leasing on the Outer Continental Shelf which issued back in April will take effect on June 22, 2009.  In anticipation of the regulation effective date, MMS is conducting a series of workshops to describe this new Regulatory Framework and to respond to questions.  For more information about the workshops, visit the MMS Press Release here.

Last week, MMS kicked off its workshop series with a program at Department of Interior in Washington D.C.   OREC’s two summer staffers, Alex Smith and Anthony Moliterno, attended the hearing and prepared this summary which has been uploaded.  The summary describes the key features of the proposed regulation and also reports on the questions raised by other meeting participants. You can also view the MMS Power Point presented at the workshops here.

IEA-OES Annual Report 2008 (Released 2009)

We’ve just uploaded the IES-OEA Annual Report for 2008.  It’s 108 pages and describes the IEA’s plans for ocean renewables for the coming year, as well as reports on the current state of various technologies.  Very comprehensive and useful resource.
You can also find this report on our Resources Page filed under Marine Energy Reports-International.

New OREC Blog Feature - Posts by Audio

We know how busy all of our OREC members and site visitors are so we’ve introduced a new feature that allows you to listen to our blog posts.  Just click on the “listen now” link at the top of each post as the OREC Blog and you’ll hear the audio of the post.  So now you can catch up on what’s new at OREC while working on other matters.  Please let us know whether you enjoy this feature.

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