After 3 Years, Oceans Commission Report Out (Oceans Badly Screwed Up, btw)

[hatrack]

"The U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy delivered the final draft of its report to President Bush on Monday, but ocean advocates in Florida remained concerned that many important recommendations won't become policy or at least not soon enough. Bush has 90 days to respond to the report, though his response could as easily be silence as action.

A bloody Iraq war and security concerns at home have to some degree eclipsed recommendations from two blue ribbon ocean commissions and warnings from them should the United States fail to act to protect its waters.

That worries Frank Muller-Karger, a professor of biological oceanography and remote sensing at the University of South Florida. Muller-Karger was among the 16 ocean commissioners appointed by Bush to complete Monday's report. "The nation is completely focused on a narrow set of issues," Muller-Karger said. "The biggest, most advanced nation in the world looks like we can only deal with one thing at a time. We can't just focus on terrorism and security and leave everything else until we solve that."

Mandated by the Oceans Act of 2000, the commission spent more than three years listening to testimony, investigating and preparing its report on the state of America's oceans."

EDIT

http://www.naplesnews.com/npdn/news/article/0,2071,NPDN_14940_3197387,00.html

Would anyone like to place a bet on the odds that more studies will become necessary? After all, our knowledge of the oceans is wracked by scientific uncertainty, and we really need a better understanding of these ecosystems before we do anything that might blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah

[phantom power]

1. 100% odds that Bush will ignore this bureaucratic report

[donsu]

2. tick, tick, tick

it's already too late