Rescuing our oceans.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Ever watched one of those slick theater trailers, and later been disappointed to find the actual movie lacking in such basics as, oh, say, a plot?

That's how conservation groups must feel after seeing the Bush administration's response last week to the recommendations of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, a task force made up of 16 presidential appointees who spent nearly three years studying the nation's coastlines and oceans.

The administration's response was strewn with lofty rhetoric about the need to save America's deteriorating seas and the establishment of a White House advisory committee to coordinate the nation's ocean policies. But it was disappointingly lacking in substance and funding. It amounts to little more than a modest restructuring of an inadequate status quo.

The commission made 250 recommendations to Congress. Surprisingly bold and broad in scope, the findings called for revised policies in a 4.4 million square miles of ocean off the nation's coasts. They included replacing the current overlapping, ineffective patchwork of 15 regulatory agencies with a new National Ocean Council that would coordinate a network of regional councils.

Other key recommendations included the establishment of a trust fund to provide $3 billion annually for ocean and coastline management, a doubling of the government's current paltry $650 million annual investment in ocean research, revamping the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the creation of a $1.7 billion ocean observation system.

Bush's response was to form a new federal committee on oceanic policy that will be headed by James L. Connaughton, currently chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. While that sounds promising, it appears the committee's primary job will be to study the commission's reforms.

If this has a familiar ring, it's because Bush has used the same strategy on other critical environmental issues such as global warming. Confronted with well-researched, detailed recommendations that call for major changes and strong government action, the president's favorite dodge has been to order yet more time-consuming study.

Most glaringly absent from Bush's response was any explanation of how the government plans to pay for new oceanic initiatives - another familiar administration theme. The commission recommended the creation of a trust fund that would be fed by royalties from offshore oil and gas exploration, but the president has not agreed to the concept.

Meanwhile, the administration continues its efforts to expand the use of fishing quotas that could allow the industry to remove even more fish from our already-overfished oceans. Expanding existing quotas sounds like a sound idea, especially given the commission's finding that overfishing has severely depleted the world's fish stocks. But quotas must be accompanied by standards ensuring responsible government management of fisheries. Unless that authority is made clear, the administration's approach could, for example, allow quota holders to sue the government, based on violations of property rights, for quota reductions.

If there was a positive aspect of the administration's response, it was Connaughton's indication that the newly established federal oceans panel will push for formal ratification of the Law of the Seas, an international treaty governing navigation, fishing and other oceanic issues. This worthwhile global treaty has been awaiting Senate ratification for more than two decades, while it has been ratified by 145 other nations. The main reason has been the suspicion by far-right conservatives that the treaty would weaken U.S. sovereignty, a bogus fear that deserves to be filed away with reports of U.N. troops preparing to establish a New World Order.

Bush has an opportunity to establish himself as a champion of the oceans - a move that could put him in the same league with another Republican, Teddy Roosevelt, who did the same for this nation's forests and wildlands. The first major federal assessment of the oceans in decades provided Bush with a road map to a legacy of ocean protection. But so far, the president has shown no interest in following it.