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President proposes new home for NOAA Move from Commerce Department to Interior is part of broader plan Obama offers to improve government efficiency, reduce redundancy Wesley Loy For Petroleum News
President Barack Obama on Jan. 13 proposed moving the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration out of the Commerce Department and into the Interior Department.
It’s one prong of a reorganization plan meant to make the government more efficient and helpful to business with less duplication, Obama said.
Another prong of the plan would consolidate the Small Business Administration, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corp., the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, and the Commerce Department’s “core business and trade functions.”
To carry out the proposed reorganization, Obama called on Congress “to reinstate the authority that past presidents have had to streamline and reform the Executive Branch.”
Hickel and NOAA’s home Formed in 1970, NOAA is an agency of considerable importance to the oil and gas industry, particularly with respect to offshore operations.
In addressing government duplication and the confusion it can cause, Obama said his favorite example is how “the Interior Department is in charge of salmon in fresh water, but the Commerce Department handles them in saltwater.”
Obama continued: “If you’re wondering what the genesis of this was, apparently, it had something to do with President Nixon being unhappy with his Interior secretary for criticizing him about the Vietnam War. And so he decided not to put NOAA in what would have been a more sensible place.”
That Interior secretary was Wally Hickel, the former Alaska governor.
Chilly reactions U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, was reserved toward Obama’s reorganization proposal.
“Now more than ever, any proposal to move towards a smaller government needs to be welcomed for review. However, there are a lot of details still vague in the President’s restructuring plans — and I question whether the President himself should be responsible for such an overhaul rather than Congress,” Murkowski said in a press release.
“But the President did ask an important question: What’s the justification for artificially splitting the management of our lands, waters, and natural resources between two agencies?” Murkowski said. “Over and over again, we have seen delays and other problems resulting from bureaucratic inefficiencies. The President said today he believes the reasoning lies in a Nixon-era political move designed to punish Alaska, rather than sound policy. So I look forward to fully reviewing his proposal to move NOAA to Interior as part of an effort to cut the size of government while also reducing jurisdictional disputes that frequently cause costly delays to Alaskan industry.”
Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, questioned moving NOAA to Interior.
“Housing NOAA within a department whose focus on the oceans is almost entirely extractive (permitting offshore oil drilling and exploration, for example) could erode the capability and mute the voices of the government’s chief oceans experts,” Beinecke wrote in a Jan. 15 blog posting.
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