Bill Flores: “This amendment is a very simple amendment. It basically says that it prohibits the offshore agencies of the Interior…”

“This amendment is a very simple amendment. It basically says that it prohibits the offshore agencies of the Interior Department from imposing ocean zoning related to the Obama administration's continued attempts to establish the National Ocean Policy under Executive Order 13547 without congressional authorization. It also requires the administration to submit a report to Congress identifying expenditures for fiscal years 2011 through 2013 by the Bureau of Ocean Energy, the Ocean Energy Safety Service, and their predecessor agencies. Just as a little background, Executive Order 13547 was signed in 2010, and it requires that various bureaucracies essentially zone the ocean and the sources thereof. This essentially means that a drop of rain that falls on your house could be subject to this overreaching policy because that drop of rain will ultimately wind up in the ocean. There are concerns that have been raised recently that the National Ocean Policy may not only restrict ocean and inland activities, but it may also have a problem because it has not been given any specific appropriations by this Congress. We have had hearings on this in the Natural Resources Committee, and no agency has told us from which source they're getting the funding for this initiative. As you can see in chart 1, this light green area shows the area that's covered under ocean zoning. As you can see, that covers a lot more than the blue areas that represent the ocean.…”