Sam Farr: “I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Chair, I rise in general debate to talk about NOAA. But I first also want to…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. Madam Chair, I rise in general debate to talk about NOAA. But I first also want to echo everything that has been said about our great colleague from Virginia, Frank Wolf. Frank is one of the few Members of Congress who has visited my district. He actually went onto my property in Big Sur and ended up coming back and saying: Now I understand why you are so passionate about the oceans. It is an interesting committee that both Ranking Member Fattah and Chairman Wolf head because it is a committee that has all of the Department of Commerce; it has all of the Department of Justice; and it has the science programs, NASA, NSF, and the Office of Science and Technology. Essentially, the science of America is in your hands. And this bill has a lot of it in there. Particularly, I would like to talk about NOAA. NOAA is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And what has been happening is that, as we have gotten interested in the weather and as we have gotten interested in sort of the sky, we are putting a lot more money into it and sucking funds away from the oceans. And yet what is happening in the oceans is that they are dying; and if the ocean dies, planet Earth dies. So while there is money in this to look at the moons and oceans of other planets, we are going to do it at the peril of our own ocean. Our coastal economies support 81 percent of all U.S. employment in the United States, over 100 million jobs.…”