“To reauthorize the Chesapeake Bay Office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and for other purposes.”
No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section states the sense of Congress that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Chesapeake Bay Office should be the primary representative of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
This section revises the Chesapeake Bay Office within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (i.e., coordinates NOAA's science, research, monitoring, data collection, regulatory, and management activities to support restoration of the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem under the Chesapeake Bay Agreement). (1) In subsection (a), it streamlines the Office's establishment by removing the formal definition of the Office and prior Director appointment procedures (i.e., consultation with the Chesapeake Executive Council); specifies that the Director must have Chesapeake Bay research or resource management experience and be responsible for Office administration and section implementation; and strikes Director authority to appoint additional personnel. (2) In subsection (b), it replaces references to the Secretary of Commerce with the NOAA Administrator; expands coordination functions to include representing NOAA programs and activities for the Chesapeake Bay Program relating to the Chesapeake Bay watershed in support of NOAA's coastal resource stewardship mission (striking prior references to Chesapeake Bay Regional Sea Grant Programs and National Estuarine Research Reserve System units); adds coastal hazards and climate change, education, and integrated ecosystem assessments to the list of coordinated activities; shifts certain coordination from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Chesapeake Executive Council; strikes paragraphs (5) and (7), redesignates paragraph (6) as (5), and adds new paragraph (6) authorizing functions necessary to support paragraph (3) programs. (3) It strikes prior subsections (c) through (e); and adds new subsection (c) directing the Administrator, through the Director, to implement program activities supporting the Chesapeake Executive Council, including peer-reviewed projects with scientific merit; consultation to align with Chesapeake Bay Agreement priorities; collaboration on an integrated coastal observations system (coordinating monitoring of tidal Bay water quality impacts on living marine resources, deploying technologies, analyzing data for resource management, and producing products for users; plus specific support for the Chesapeake Bay Interpretive Buoy System to aid the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail, provide real-time data, interpret for education, and integrate into regional observing networks); and a Chesapeake Bay Watershed Education and Training Program to expand prior NOAA education efforts, enhance K-12 understanding of Bay living resources, provide internships, meet Watershed Agreement goals, and award grants.