Sam Farr: “I rise on this issue because I think oftentimes Members do not understand why a program like sea grant is so important…”

“I rise on this issue because I think oftentimes Members do not understand why a program like sea grant is so important to our Nation. We are a Nation surrounded by water. This whole globe is covered by water. Essentially the future of the survival of this planet is going to be dependent upon how societies treat the ocean. When we think about the meeting of land and water, which is the coastal zones of this country, that is the most fragile ecosystem there is on the planet because most of the people on this planet live in the coastal zone. So what happens is, if we do not understand what the significance is of using the ocean, dumping in the ocean, relying on the ocean, we are going to be victims of something we do not understand. We are already finding that as we find fisheries that are overfished, as we find global climate change, all of these factors are dependent upon a program that invests in collecting the best minds there are in the country to put some effort into studying the ocean. That is what the sea grant program is all about.”