http://www.nrdconline.org/campaign/nrdcaction_oceans_040109?qp_source=noa

Help Save Our Seas

Urge Congress to pass a Healthy Oceans Act to help keep our oceans safe for future beachgoers and seafood lovers.

Take action now!

http://www.nrdconline.org/campaign/nrdcaction_oceans_040109?qp_source=noa

Tell your representative to co-sponsor a national Healthy Oceans Act

Oceans are essential to our way of life, but below the surface they are threatened by global warming and habitat degradation. Tell your representative to co-sponsor Oceans-21, the Oceans Conservation, Education and National Strategy for the 21st Century Act.

http://www.nrdconline.org/campaign/nrdcaction_oceans_040109?qp_source=noa

We've known for years that our oceans are in trouble, struggling under the strain of oil drilling, pollution, overfishing, global warming and acidification. Like the Clean Air Act for our air, and the Clean Water Act for our water, we need a Healthy Oceans Act for our oceans.

"Oceans-21," the Oceans Conservation, Education and National Strategy for the 21st Century Act (H.R. 21), addresses the overarching problem with ocean policy in America -- while our ocean resources are facing myriad threats, we don't have the legislative tools to address these threats or their consequences. From our beach vacations, to our $117 billion per year oceans-supported economies, too many of our activities depend on healthy ocean ecosystems to allow this situation to continue.

Right now we have 140 different laws for managing our oceans, implemented by 20 federal agencies, but no overarching vision or national plan to revive or protect our seas. These laws are important, but each is targeted to an individual goal, resource or area -- such as maximizing fisheries yield, avoiding marine mammal mortality or protecting individual ocean sanctuaries -- and the implementation of one is largely disjointed from the next. For too long we have been trying to manage the details individually without a big picture.

A Healthy Oceans Act like Oceans-21 would fill this gap by establishing a national ocean vision, a way to implement it at the federal and regional levels, and the funding to do it. Our oceans are too important to let this problem continue. I urge you to co-sponsor Oceans-21 today and do all you can to ensure its passage.

http://www.nrdconline.org/campaign/nrdcaction_oceans_040109?qp_source=noa