Reflections of a Knauss Fellow: Thomas Street

After being at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for nearly six months, I am learning a great deal about how marine policy is made, coordinated, and implemented at the federal level. What has interested me the most are the sheer number of agencies that have some level of jurisdiction over or stake in oceans, coastal, and Great Lakes law and policy. NOAA is by the far the largest, but there is also the Navy, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the Department of State, the Department of Transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, and the Council on Environmental Quality. As part of the President’s Ocean Action Plan, these agencies coordinate their activities and policies through the Interagency Committee on Ocean Science and Research Management Integration, which in turn reports to the Committee on Oceans Policy (COP), composed of Cabinet-level representatives from across the federal government. The COP’s primary responsibility is to advise the President.

I work in the headquarters of the National Ocean Service (NOS), a component agency of NOAA. I principally serve as a legal and policy assistant to the Deputy Assistant Administrator (DAA) of the NOS. In this capacity, I assist the DAA with the large number of the issues he addresses on a daily basis. These are largely “big-picture” issues focused upon NOS policy and operations. Of particular interest to me, I have also begun to work on NOAA’s component of the White House Preserve America Initiative. Based upon Executive Order 13287, this initiative aims to foster federal and community efforts to protect, develop and better utilize the cultural resources that exist throughout the United States. In addition to continuing to manage and showcase its many cultural resources located in the waters off the United States (largely shipwrecks and submerged cultural resources), NOAA is working with other federal agencies and non-governmental organizations to examine how historic preservation policies can be improved across the federal government. As this is the subject of my Ph.D. dissertation, I have particularly enjoyed working on this project.

I also serve as a staff member on the NOAA Ocean Council (NOC), an intra-agency body that works to coordinate policy and oversee projects that concentrate on the “wet-side” of NOAA. The Assistant Administrators of both the NOS and the National Marine Fisheries Service co-chair this committee, which has representatives from all the line offices of NOAA with some interaction with oceanic or coastal issues. It has been fascinating to see policy formulation and coordination at work.

Finally, I have been involved with issues related to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument. According to the Presidential Proclamation, the Secretary of Commerce, through NOAA, and the Secretary of the Interior, through the Fish and Wildlife Service, will, in effect, have joint management responsibility for much of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. It has been very interesting to be involved with issues related to the world’s newest and largest marine protected area.

University of Mississippi