The New England Fisheries Management Council recently heard a report on the new National Ocean Council, which was created by President Barack Obama over the summer.
On July 19, Obama signed an executive order establishing a National Policy for the Stewardship of the Ocean, Coasts, and Great Lakes and creating the National Ocean Council. According to a press release from the Executive Office of the President’s Council on Environmental Quality in Washington, D.C., the policy is designed to strengthen ocean governance and coordination, establish guiding principles for ocean management, and adopt a flexible framework for effective coastal and marine spatial planning to address conservation, economic activity, user conflict, and sustainable use of the ocean, the coasts and the Great Lakes.
The National Ocean Council was set up to implement the national policy, the release said. The NOC will coordinate federal government agencies and will formally engage with state, tribal and local authorities.
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