President-elect Obama and his team of advisors have shown an unprecedented level of interest in carefully considering the complexities and competing interests that must be balanced--the interests of conservation, fishing, energy, and recreation--to effectively manage and protect our vast, depleted oceans.  In the last two weeks, Obama's transition team has held four different meetings with a wide variety of scientists, organizations, industry specialists, and academics to listen to the many expert opinions on key topics of ocean management, including:

• Ocean conservation, science, research, and education;
• Ocean management and climate change;
• Fisheries management; and
• Ocean renewable energy.

Melissa Waage represented NRDC at a meeting with Mr. Obama's key advisors yesterday to deliver and discuss a set of shared principles on Ocean Renewable Energy.  These principles offer an important starting point to:

• advance wave, tidal, and current power to produce clean renewable energy;
• help transition away from the very sources of greenhouse gas emissions that are threatening to destroy our ocean ecosystems through global warming; and
• to simultaneously protect the ocean from the ecological impacts of the renewable energy projects themselves.

The principles were developed over the last year through a series of meetings, led by the Environmental Defense Fund, with a diverse array of groups including conservation organizations, utilities, renewable energy industry, and academics.  We are hopeful that President-elect Obama and his team know that ocean renewable energy development needs to be paired with ocean protection and governed as part of an integrated and comprehensive approach to ocean management.

Mr. Obama has demonstrated his knowledge and thoughtfulness on ocean issues in interviews with a number of magazines, compiled in the Pacific Council News.  He stated:

"Oceans are crucial to the earth's ecosystem and to all Americans because they drive global weather patterns, feed our people and are a major source of employment for fisheries and recreation. As president, I will commit my administration to develop the kind of strong, integrated, well-managed program of ocean stewardship that is essential to sustain a healthy marine environment."

 The President-elect also explicitly acknowledged the link between ocean health and climate change:

"Global climate change could have catastrophic effects on ocean ecologies. Protection of the oceans is one of the many reasons I have developed an ambitious plan to reduce U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases 80 percent below 1990 by 2050. We need to enhance our understanding of the effect of climate change on oceans and the effect of acidification on marine life through expanded research programs at NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). I will propel the U.S. into a leadership position in marine stewardship and climate change research."