July 2, 2018 — The federal agency that regulates what happens on, and in, the oceans is making some major policy changes, including some tweaks to its mission statement. That agency is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. WCAI’s Kathryn Eident talked with science correspondent and Living Lab Host Heather Goldstone to learn more.
Eident: Good morning, Heather. So, these changes were announced last week at a closed-door meeting, but some details have leaked, including new wording in NOAA’s mission statement. Can we talk about that?
Goldstone: Yes, so what happened was that there was a Department of Commerce vision-setting strategic meeting. And of course, NOAA is part of the Department of Commerce and the acting director of NOAA presented what could be NOAA’s contributions to that. The presentation that he made was leaked to the Union of Concerned Scientists and to certain media outlets, including us.
That new mission statement, if you will, was actually presented in the first part of the presentation as the ‘current’ mission statement, with what is still on the website, and what has been the mission statement as the ‘past mission’ statement. One of the changes that’s gotten a lot of attention this week is the fact that the word “climate” was dropped from the part of the mission statement that deals mostly with research. Perhaps the bigger change is actually in the end of the mission statement where that has said to, “conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources” and the new version of that says, “to protect lives and property, empower the economy, and support homeland and national security.”
So, it’s a pretty dramatic change in what the goals of the organization would be. The acting director has since issued a statement saying that this was not intended to exclude NOAA’s important climate and conservation efforts, which are “essential for protecting lives and the environment,” and that this should not be considered a final proposal– that it was just kind of throwing some ideas out there. But, it has definitely grabbed people’s attention.