March 6, 2014 — Today, the Senate confirmed the appointment of Dr. Kathryn Sullivan to be the new administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She replaces Dr. Jane Lubchenco, who stepped down in February 2013. Sullivan’s background—a Ph.D. in geology, a career as an astronaut that included more than three weeks in space, and service as an oceanographer in the U.S. Naval Reserve—is ideally suited to the challenge of leading the agency responsible for the management of America’s oceans, fisheries, and the National Weather Service.
Yet despite her ample qualifications and obvious acumen, she may well look back and find that training for her space walk was easier than preparing to take the helm of NOAA. By any estimation, NOAA faces massive challenges, from the sequestration-worsened budget crunch crimping the entire federal government’s ability to carry out its congressional mandates, to the global climate crisis, to fishery management dilemmas threatening one of the nation’s oldest commercial industries.
In no particular order, here are five of the biggest issues facing the incoming NOAA administrator.
Enhancing fisheries’ profitability and sustainability
In 2006, Congress presented NOAA with a tremendous and non-negotiable challenge as part of the reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. It required the agency to effectively end overfishing in America by setting science-based annual catch limits in all domestic fisheries by 2011. Under Lubchenco’s direction, the agency achieved this ambitious goal. Nevertheless, serious challenges remain to ensure the future health of our fishing industry and the fish populations that sustain it.
While 32 fish stocks have been officially rebuilt since 2000, according to the most recent Status of Stocks report, 41 remain in an overfished state, meaning our best science suggests that their total population remains below the target level. Environmentalists, fishermen, and regulators are largely in agreement that the best way to alleviate these concerns is to improve the science used to establish these limits. But science doesn’t come cheap, so in the absence of a sudden budgetary windfall, Sullivan will have to find creative new ways to protect both the health of fish stocks and fishermen’s businesses.
One potential win-win solution is to allow a higher degree of co-management in fisheries, giving fishermen a larger role in data collection and increasing collaboration with scientists. This allows fishermen’s knowledge to enhance data collection and gives scientists the chance to explain the rigors of the scientific process to fishermen. The result is more time on the water for fishermen, and better relationships between two groups that have traditionally been at odds.
Read the full story at the Center for American Progress