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In 1969 we were still theorizing about the history of the ejirth and the ocean. We were 

 just beginning the Deep Sea Drilling Project (now Ocean Drilling Program-ODP) which 

 has been one of the most successful long-term scientific research efforts in the history of 

 man, a joint federal agency /tmiversity and US/intemational effort which has led to our 

 present understanding of the origin and development of the earth and oceans, ocean 

 circulation and climate change, the distribution of earthquakes and volcanoes, and a 

 myriad of other important scientific discoveries. Congress can take great pride in 

 maintaining this program for over 25 years which has been an important element in 

 establishing and maintaining US scientific leadership in oceanography. 



At about that time, we also had the Santa Barbara oil spill, a wake up call to the 

 potential impacts of humem activity on the oceans and our coastlines, the - 3,000,000 

 gallons spilled was less than a third spilled by the Exxon Valdez nearly 20 years later in 

 Alaska. 



Most of the world's populations, including that of the US lives on or near the coastline; 

 this is where many of the world's largest cities were built, primarily because of access to 

 the sea for transportation. At present 80% of all the world's conunerce is moved by 

 sea. But that adjacent coastal ocean has also provided a convenient place to dispose of 

 our wastes, which have grown in volume, and toxicity. 



The impacts of these coastal concentrations of people 2md the natural hazards which 

 threaten or impact these coastal environments have led to a partial redirection of our 

 oceanographic research to the coastal zone, but this will have to continue to an even 

 greater degree if we are going to continue to live in any reasonable way in this active 

 physical envirorunent. "fiie impacts of hurricanes on the increasing populated Atlantic 

 and Gulf Coast Barrier Islands; the potential impacts of large offshore earthquakes and 

 their associated tsunamis on the coastal areas of the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, and 

 Hawaii; the impacts of coastal storms on the densely populated beachfront and cliffside 

 dwellings in California; the loss of wetlimds and threats to conunercially important fish 

 and shellfish; the problems associated with maintaiiung adequate depths in our harbors 

 due to the increasing concerr\s and requirements regarding disposal of contaminated 

 dredge spoils; dealing with beach and shoreline losses and their impacts on tourism; 

 water quality concerns from the myriad of waste disposed of in the coastal zone, are 

 some of these area of concern for the coastal oceans. These affect us daily and will 

 continue to do so. We need to understand these threats and impacts so we can make 

 the right decisions for the future now. We carmot stop hurricanes so we better figure out 

 how to reduce our future losses rather than allow more people to move to low-lying 

 hurricane prone areas. 



The importance of the oceai\s to our future, the resource challenges and potential 

 economic opportunities the ocean provides, the quality of life and nahonal security 

 issues have been discussed and itemized by national leaders at the January 25 hearing. 



The questions before us now, and I mean us, are how do we collectively refocus our 

 ocean research agenda to meets these obvious needs, frame and then answer the 

 questions we agree arc the most important ones, work more efficiently, utilize existing 

 and new data more effectively, develop new techniques and instrumentation to better 

 monitor, measure and understand this complex ocean world, and share our nahon's 

 collechve facilities and expertise from govenunent, academia, and private industry to 

 make the whole greater than the sum of its parts. How do we maintain our global 

 leadership in the understanding, utilization and protection of the oceans? 



