Ocean Policy and the Trump Administration

• Date: 01 April 2017

4-2017 NEWS & ANALYSIS 47 ELR 10287

D I A L O G U E

Ocean Policy and the

Trump Administration

Summary

Each presidential election brings the possibility of

large-scale changes in environmental policy. President

Donald Trump has not explicitly laid out ocean poli-

cies for his new administration, but he has provided

some clues; these policies ultimately will be important

for the ecological and economic health of the United

States and the world. On December 9, 2016, ELI con-

vened a panel of experts to discuss some key ocean

issues that the Trump Administration will face. Below

we present a transcript of the discussion, which has

been edited for style, clarity, and space considerations.

David Roche (moderator) is a Sta Attorney at ELI.

Addie Haughey is A ssociate Director of Government

Relations at the Ocean Conservancy.

Mike LeVine is Pacic Senior Counsel for Oceana.

Pete Staufer is t he Environmental Director of the

Surfrider Foundation.

Xiao Recio-Blanco is Director of the Ocean Program

at ELI.

Laura Cant ral is a Partner at Meridian Institute.

David Roche: My name is David Roche, a st a attor-

ney with the Environmenta l Law Institute (EL I), and I’ ll

be your moderator today. is is the next installment in

our Ocean S eminar Ser ies, which is on Ocean Policy and

the Trump Administration. We’re on our 10th yea r of the

Ocean Seminar Series now, and we couldn’t have done

this work without the support of the Naomi and Nehe-

miah Cohen Foundation, which has funded and been

instrumenta l in designing and supporting the seminar

series for years.

ELI is a nonpartisa n institution. We do not take politi-

cal stands or advocate, we do research and education.

However, we let the research and education we do speak

for itself. We start from the underlying assumption that

environmental conservation is important. However, how

we get there is subject to debate and we only lay out the

facts. In this Ocean Seminar Series, we give experts a venue

to engage in a productive way, and we have ve great ones

on the line today. I’ll introduce each of them as they speak.

To build on the ocean theme, it helps to imagine the

U.S. federal government as a eet of ships. In this analogy,

the president sets the course, but he isn’t the pilot. He tells

agency heads what to do, who tell staers what to do. e

agency heads a re the ones steering. e ships are outtted

by the U.S. Congress, which as we’ve seen over the last few

years can be a rea lly big hurdle. e U.S. Supreme Court

is something like the Coast Guard in the seas. It is like the

Coast Guard for more reasons than it just being fun to

imagine Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a sailor’s cap. ey

can direct trac and they can change the course if they see

something wrong with it. And the American people are the

current, the wind. ey have massive power to aect how

the ships move even after the course has been set.

What can we expect from the Trump Administration?

It’s tough to know for sure, but there are some hints. But

today we aim to dig a lot deeper tha n tweets. Obviously,

tweets can be politics, but that might not necessarily be

policy. So, what we’re trying to do today is dig deeper.

As we set this up, we received some questions and I just

want to address those briey here.

First, what can a president really do on ocean policy?

And the answer is a whole lot, especially when branches of

government align and there are like-minded agency heads.

Second, maybe it would be best for ocean conserva-

tionists to “lay low” for four years? Well, while t he presi-

dent himself might not be involved in ever y decision, his

appointees will. So, maybe it’s not the best policy to expect

the details of ocean wonkhood to fall through the cracks, I

think that is probably unlikely.

And nally, isn’t it all just speculation at this point? Yes,

it denitely is, and I think we’re going to have some spec-

ulation today. But when things do start moving, they’re

going to be moving incredibly fast. Our hope is that by

starting a dialogue now, we’re ready to blow the wind and

direct the current in a way t hat pushes the ships in the

direction that’s best for what we care about, which here is

ocean and coastal issues.

And with t hat, all this intro talk is over, and I’m really

excited to introduce you to the panel today. Our rst panel-

ist is Addie Haughey from the Ocean Conser vancy, where

she’s the Associate Director for Government Relations.

Addie Haughey : David, thank you so much, and thanks

to ELI for oering this forum for folks to have these con-

versations. You talked a little bit about speculation, and I

do think it’s important to be careful how much we specu-

late. What I’d like to do today is keep the specu lation to

a minimum, but denitely oer some of the baseline facts

Copyright © 2017 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission from ELR®, http://www.eli.org, 1-800-433-5120.