NOAA Tradeoff DA
NOAA Tradeoff DA ........................................................................................................................... 1
1NC .......................................................................................................................................... 2
***UQ .......................................................................................................................................... 5
***Link ........................................................................................................................................ 8
Plan Trades off with Satellites ................................................................................................. 9
Ocean Exploration Link .......................................................................................................... 13
Link Booster – Aquaculture/Fisheries ................................................................................... 15
Zero-Sum ............................................................................................................................... 17
AT “Already Allocated” .......................................................................................................... 18
***Impact .................................................................................................................................. 19
Turns Case ............................................................................................................................. 20
Key to Forecasting ................................................................................................................. 21
Warming ................................................................................................................................ 23
Readiness ............................................................................................................................... 25
Readiness Impacts ................................................................................................................. 26
***Aff Answers...................................................................................................................... 29
UQ/IL ..................................................................................................................................... 30
No Impact .............................................................................................................................. 32
AT Readiness Impact ............................................................................................................. 33
1NC
2015 NOAA budget allots adequate funds for weather and climate satellites
Walker ‘14
[Molly, March 19, NOAA satellite spending to nominally increase under budget request,
http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/story/noaa-satellite-spending-nominally-increase-underbudget-request/2014-03-19]
Systems acquisition for major satellite programs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration would nominally increase under the president's fiscal 2015 budget proposal.¶
Several of the civil satellites, which are focused on collecting the planet's envirionmental data, have garnered attention from
Congress and industry as cost and schedule overruns
could result in a gap in reporting data because some
currently-orbiting satellites are approaching the end of their predicted lifespan.¶ "One of the
greatest challenges facing NOAA today is ensuring continuity of satellite operations to provide uninterrupted coverage of weather
forecasts and environmental measurements into the future," says the Commerce Department'sbudget proposal (.pdf) for NOAA.¶
The Geostationary Operational Environmental System-R Series satellite acquisition program – a partnership between NOAA and
NASA – will launch its first satellite in the second quarter of fiscal 2016, says the proposal. GOES-R satellites will carry improved
environmental observation instruments and NOAA budgets $980.838 million for systems acquisition in fiscal 2015. That's nominally
more than the $941.89 enacted in fiscal 2014.¶ To continue progress on Jason-3 , a satellite program operated with NOAA's
European partners to continue precise measurements of sea surface heights, NOAA requests $25.65 million for acquisition costs in
fiscal 2015, or nominally more than the $18.50 million enacted in fiscal 2014.¶ For
the Joint Polar Satellite System,
which delivers polar satellite weather observations, NOAA also requests a nominal increase
for systems acquisition - $916.26 million in fiscal 2015 versus the $820.85 enacted in fiscal
2014.¶ In all, the National Environmental Satellite Service would receive $2.078 billion under the request, a number nominally
larger than the current year's estimated funding, and would see no increase in personnel.
Spending trades off with weather satellites – makes forecasting impossible crushes the economy and destroys military readiness.
Conathan ‘11
[Michael, Director of Oceans Policy at American Progress.
, The GOP decides accurate weather forecasting and hurricane tracking are luxuries America
can’t afford¶ , ¶ http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/02/18/207538/gop-cuts-noaa-satelliteweather-forecasting-and-hurricane-tracking/]
In fact, NOAA has been making great strides in hurricane tracking . The average margin of error for predicting
landfall three days in advance was 125 miles in 2009″”half what it was 10 years prior. This data translates into a higher degree of
confidence among the public in NOAA’s forecasts, which means individuals will be more likely to obey an evacuation order. Further,
since evacuating each mile of shoreline costs approximately up to $1 million, greater
forecasting accuracy translates to substantial savings.¶ The United States needs these satellites if we’re to
continue providing the best weather and climate forecasts in the world. The implications of the loss of these data
far exceed the question of whether to pack the kids into snowsuits for the trip to school. The
concern here is ensuring ongoing operational efficiency and national security on a global scale.
In some cases it can literally become a question of life and death.¶ Consider the following numbers:¶ The $700 billion
maritime commerce industry moves more than 90 percent of all global trade, with arrival and
departure of quarter-mile long container ships timed to the minute to maximize revenue and
efficiency. Shipping companies rely on accurate forecasts to set their manifests and
itineraries.¶ Forecasting capabilities are particularly strained at high latitudes and shippers
have estimated that the loss of satellite monitoring capabilities could cost them more than
half a billion dollars per year in lost cargo and damage to vessels from unanticipated heavy
weather.¶ When a hurricane makes landfall, evacuations cost as much as $1 million per mile.
Over the past decade, NOAA has halved the average margin of error in its three-day forecasts from 250 miles to 125 miles, saving
up to $125 million per storm.¶ Commercial fishing is the most dangerous profession in the country with 111.8 deaths per
100,000 workers. A fisherman’s most valuable piece of safety equipment is his weather radio.¶ When disaster strikes at sea, polarorbiting satellites receive emergency distress beacons and relay positioning data to rescuers. This resulted in 295 lives savedin 2010
alone and the rescue of more than 6,500 fishermen, recreational boaters, and other maritime transportation workers since the
program began in 1982.¶ Farmers rely
on NOAA’s drought predictions to determine planting cycles.
Drought forecasts informed directly by satellite data have been valued at $6 billion to 8 billion
annually.¶ NOAA’s volcanic ash forecasting capabilities received international attention last spring during the eruption of the
Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallaj¶kull. The service saves airlines upwards of $200 million per year.¶ NOAA’s polar-orbiting
satellites are America’s only source of weather and climate data for vast areas of the globe,
including areas key to overseas military operations. Their data are integral to planning
deployments of troops and aircraft””certain high-atmosphere wind conditions, for example,
can prohibit mid-air refueling operations.¶ All of these uses will be compromised if the
Republicans succeed in defunding NOAA’s satellite program. At least an 18-month gap in coverage will be
unavoidable without adequate funding for new polar-orbiting satellites this year. More troubling, taking an acquisition program
offline and then restarting the process at a later date would lead to cost increases of as much as three to five times the amount the
government would have to spend for the same product today.¶ So here’s the choice: Spend $700 million this year for continuous
service or $2 billion to $3.5 billion at some point in the future for the same equipment and a guaranteed service interruption.¶
Environmental satellites are not optional equipment. This is not a debate about whether we should splurge on the sunroof or the
premium sound system or the seat warmers for our new car. Today’s environmental
satellites are at the end of
their projected life cycles. They will fail. When they do, we must have replacements ready or
risk billions of dollars in annual losses to major sectors of our economy and weakening our
national security.¶ That’s an ugly forecast. Tragically, it’s also 100 percent accurate.
Decline of readiness guarantees China, Russia, and North Korea lash out causing
escalation and global war
Olsen 14 (Wyatt; Military’s reduced readiness seen as emboldening China, Russia; May 20;
www.stripes.com/news/military-s-reduced-readiness-seen-as-emboldening-china-russia1.283925; kdf)
When the U.S. could be making a show of strength toward China and Russia as several Pacific
flashpoints heat up, it is instead mired in debates about military readiness, troop reductions and deep
budget cuts. The result could be a series of opportunistic “bites-of-an-apple” provocations that fall below the level that would trigger
a U.S. military response, eroding confidence in America's commitment to help current and possible allies, analysts say. INTERACTIVE
MAP | Flashpoints of conflict in the Pacific Earlier this month, China floated a mobile oil-drilling rig in Vietnam’s exclusive economic
zone, setting off a standoff of flotillas in which Hanoi claims two of its ships were rammed. Violent riots in Vietnam have left dozens
of ethnic Chinese injured or dead. Just to the west, China
recently began preparations for what the
Philippines described as a possible military airstrip on a reef in the Spratly Islands , which both
countries claim. Meanwhile, Russia has ratcheted up its presence in the Pacific — including long-range air
patrols off the coast of California and near the U.S. territory of Guam — to gather intelligence and display its military might. The
Japan Air Self Defense Force almost doubled its number of scrambles against Russian aircraft in the 12 months leading up to March
compared with the previous year. And
North Korea has intensified its rhetoric amid what appear to be
preparations for its fourth underground nuclear weapons test. The U.S. still maintains the
most formidable force in the Pacific. The Pacific Fleet consists of about 180 ships, which include five aircraft carrier
strike groups and almost 2,000 aircraft, according to U.S. Pacific Command. One aircraft carrier and about 65 ships are permanently
forward deployed in Japan. By comparison, as of last year China’s navy had only 52 frigates and 23 destroyers, many of them
antiquated, according to the Pentagon’s most recent assessment of China’s military. Russia’s Pacific Fleet consists of a missile
cruiser, five destroyers and a few dozen submarines, according to recent news reports. “The U.S. certainly retains an ability to
project an awful lot of air and sea power for more limited contingencies — and do so very quickly,” said Anthony Cordesman, a
defense expert at the bipartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. And even if U.S. forces did
become embroiled in Pacific confrontations such as those unfolding in Vietnam and the Philippines, they aren’t the kind of
interventions that demand huge follow-up forces, he said. Cordesman cautioned against equating these kinds of skirmishes with a
potential outbreak of hostilities on the Korean peninsula because the U.S. is prepared and willing to match escalation there, he said.
“You’re not going to go to general war over an [exclusive economic zone] or a reef somewhere in the Pacific,” he said. Still,
Cordesman admitted, irrational behavior and miscalculations by adversaries can quickly lead to escalation and “the need for putting
many more follow-on forces in the field over time.” Some experts say that flagging readiness — real or perceived — actually invites
escalation by weakening America’s “deterrent effect” as China and Russia continue beefing up their Pacific forces. In congressional
testimony, top-ranking military chiefs have already warned that readiness is deteriorating , partly
because of cuts from last year’s sequester at a time the military is struggling to refit and retrain after a decade of wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Gen.
Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of U.S. forces in South Korea, testified before a Senate
subcommittee in March that he was concerned about the readiness of “follow-on forces” that
would be required should the peninsula enter crisis. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. John Amos told the same
committee last fall that budget cuts leave “fewer forces, arriving less-trained, arriving later in the fight.” Reduced readiness cuts two
ways, said Todd Harrison, a defense expert with the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington,
D.C. “I
think this reduction in readiness that we’re looking at will reduce our confidence in the
ability of our military to intervene successfully if called upon,” he said. “That may weaken the
deterrent effect on potential adversaries, but it could also create a situation where we selfdeter.” Dakota Wood, a defense expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., said that America’s
current budget and readiness woes do not go unnoticed by China and Russia. “There’s this deterrent value in
being strongly forward, being strongly postured and having the perception that not only are your forces ready for action, but that
the government in the U.S. is willing to press that case if it comes to it. “When it comes to China, we are seeing increasing
aggressiveness in trying to push forward their territorial claims in the East and South China Seas. “China
is likely viewing
this as a window of opportunity to aggressively press its claims in these waters, and the U.S. is not
well postured to come to the assistance of friends and allies in the region.” Wood described this “pattern of conduct” as “taking
small bites of an apple,” which over time will consume it. “So each one of these little actions is below the threshold that would invite
a large-scale conventional military response,” he said. “But they’re willing and able to take these small bites because they know the
U.S., by this series of incidents, is unwilling to press the case.” Terrence K. Kelly director of the Strategy and Resources Program at
the RAND Corporation, said that individual skirmishes such as these might seem insignificant. But over time countries such as China
and Russia can achieve their goals by “nibbling away” with “subresponse-level” aggression, Kelly said. “It’s probably calculated to
slowly over time achieve an effect that won’t elicit a military response from the U.S. or its allies,” he said. Cordesman said, however,
that even a modest U.S. intervention could lead to unintended escalation. “The
problem is that the United States
responding — even if it solves one small, short-term problem — may lead to the other side responding in
ways that again produce a steady pattern of escalation,” Cordesman said. Judging by the testimony of the
Chiefs of Staff earlier month during a Senate hearing on the Pentagon's proposal to reduce compensation and benefits for troops,
the services aren’t hankering for a greater show of force in the Pacific. If Congress doesn't approve those compensation cuts, the Air
Force will consider cutting $8.1 billion from readiness, mondernization and infrastructure accounts over the next five years, Chief of
Staff Gen. Mark Welsh III told a Senate Committee. “We’ll take significant cuts to flying hours and weapons system sustainment
accounts, reduce precision munitions buys and lower funding for training ranges, digging our readiness hole even deeper,” Welsh
said.
***UQ
Squo funding geared toward satellites
Leone 6/12 (Dan, NASA reporter for Space News, “House and Senate Find Common Ground on NOAA Budget”, Space News,
Jun. 12, http://www.spacenews.com/article/civil-space/40883house-and-senate-find-common-ground-on-noaa-budget)
WASHINGTON — The U.S.
Senate Appropriations Committee on June 5 approved a budget bill that
would give the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration about $5.4 billion in 2015,
including some $2.1 billion for its major weather satellite programs — a small increase over 2014 that is
about even with the White House’s 2015 request and what House appropriators included in a competing bill approved in May.
Senate and House appropriators now seem to be more or less on the same page when it comes to the weather agency’s 2015
budget, even if they do not agree fully with the White House — or each other — on every detail. The Senate committee broke with
the House in directing NASA to take over full development responsibility for the Jason-3 ocean altimetry satellite and the Deep
Space Climate Observatory, stripping NOAA management of its role in the development process but keeping the weather agency in
charge of on-orbit operations. The House and Senate bills differ on funding levels for these two projects. Senate appropriators
included $25.6 million for Jason-3, a little less than the $25.7 million the White House wanted but $10 million more than the House
bill includes. The Deep Space Climate Observatory would get $24.8 million under the Senate bill — $4.8 million more than the House
approved and $3.5 million more than the White House requested. Senate appropriators, however, fell into step with House
appropriators in denying the $15 million the White House requested for the newly proposed Solar Irradiance Data and Rescue effort
— NOAA’s latest plan to find rides to space for scientific and search-and-rescue payloads once manifest for flight on a civil-military
polar-orbiting satellite weather satellite program canceled in 2010. Likewise, the
Senate committee joined the
House in recommending $6.8 million for NOAA to upgrade its ground systems to handle
forecast-supplementing GPS radio occultation data that will be beamed back by the
Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate satellites. These
satellites, jointly funded by the U.S. Air Force and the government of Taiwan, would launch in two tranches of six: the first in late
2015 and the second around 2018, according to the Boulder, Colorado-based University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, the
academic consortium leading the project. The Senate committee also wants NOAA to produce a report on GPS radio occultation
data, including a roadmap for building and launching the second half of the planned U.S.-Taiwan constellation, and “an analysis for
acquiring radio occultation weather data from private sector providers.” PlanetIQ of Bethesda, Maryland, says it can provide GPS
radio occultation data with its envisioned fleet of commercially operated satellites. Meanwhile, the Senate committee reiterated its
concerns about the potential gap in weather data from the polar orbit that might occur following the end of the Suomi NPP
satellite’s five-year primary mission in 2016, and the scheduled launch of its successor, the Joint Polar Satellite System-1 spacecraft,
in 2017. The Senate committee directed NOAA to provide a gap mitigation plan in the 2015 operating plan the agency would have to
submit to Congress 45 days after the bill is signed. Finally, Senate appropriators scolded NOAA for excluding the Commerce
Department’s inspector general from portions of the monthly Program Management Council meetings — internal meetings in which
the agency discusses its major weather satellite programs. The Senate’s bill report directs NOAA to ensure that the watchdog’s office
is represented at these meetings.
NOAA funding focused on weather satellites
Dayton Daily News 3/5 (Dayton Daily News Ohio, “Further Budget Highlights”, March 5)
Agriculture: The recently-enacted five-year farm bill made some cutbacks to farm subsidies that the Obama administration has
called for annually. But the administration would like that reform to go even further by scaling back crop insurance. Discretionary
spending: $22.2 billion. Percentage change from 2014: 7.9 percent decrease. Commerce: The
department budget
proposes spending $2 billion on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to
develop its next generation weather satellite systems, which helps NOAA forecast storms and
issue warnings on significant changes in weather conditions. Discretionary spending: $8.8 billion.
Percentage change from 2014: 6 percent increase. Energy: Obama again would increase spending for two priorities: clean energy
and national security. The budget proposal calls for $11.7 billion for nuclear security, a 4 percent increase over the current budget.
Much of that money, $8.3 billion, would go to maintain a nuclear deterrent in a joint program with the Defense Department.
Discretionary spending: $27.9 billon. Percentage change from 2014: 2.6 percent increase Homeland Security: Obama's proposed
homeland security budget would provide money to hire 2,000 new Customs and Border Protection officers to work at the country's
ports of entry. The budget also proposes another 2,000 officers whose positions would be funded by user fees. Lawmakers and
others have repeatedly complained to the Homeland Security Department that long waits at borders and airports hinders both
business and tourism and have repeatedly asked for more border officers. Discretionary spending: $38.2 billion. Percentage change
from 2014: 2.8 percent decrease NASA: NASA's budget would essentially remain about the same with a tiny decrease. But if the
Obama Administration gets its "opportunity" add-on budget, NASA would get an extra $885 million. That would make the space
agency's budget rise by 4.5 percent. Discretionary spending: $17.5 billion. Percentage change from 2014: 0.6 percent decrease.
Veterans Affairs: The bulk of the department's discretionary spending - $56 billion - would go toward veterans' medical care. Obama
seeks a 2.7 percent increase in medical spending as the number of patients treated at VA hospitals and outpatient clinics continues
to rise. VA health care enrollment is projected to reach 9.3 million in 2015. Discretionary spending: $65.3 billion. Percentage change
from 2014: 3 percent increase.
House budget set aside funds for the GOES-R Satellites
Morello 13 ( Lauren, reporter @ Climate Central, “House Votes to Increase Weather Satellite Funding”, Climate Central,
March 6th,http://www.climatecentral.org/news/house-votes-to-increase-weather-satellite-funding-15694)
The House of Representatives approved legislation Wednesday that would ease a budget shortfall that threatens to delay a key
weather satellite program. Lawmakers voted 267-151 to pass a spending bill that would keep the federal government operating
after the current
stopgap funding legislation expires on March 27. Although the bill would keep
funding flat at the 2012 level for most federal agencies and departments, it makes an
exception for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s geostationary weather
satellites. The satellites transmit data that is crucial for weather forecasts. The agency keeps a
pair of geostationary probes orbiting at fixed points above Earth. The orbiters beam down
data that is crucial for NOAA’s weather forecasts, including the agency’s ability to track
developing storms. The new spending bill would set aside $802 million for NOAA’s next
generation of geostationary probes, known as GOES-R — $186 million more than the program received in 2012.
That should be welcome news for NOAA, which has warned that budget shortfalls this year
could delay the launches of the first two GOES-R satellites, now scheduled for 2015 and 2017.
The agency says it needs $802 million in 2013 to begin purchasing and testing the equipment
that will launch the two probes into orbit and process the information they collect. But so far
during the current spending cycle, which began Oct. 1 and ends Sept. 29, it has not come close to receiving that amount. The
stopgap spending measure that took effect in October provided $616 million this year for GOES-R, and that money has been further
reduced by across-the-board spending cuts that began Friday. In a Feb. 8 letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman
Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), acting Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank said those cuts, known as “sequestration,” could delay the first
two GOES-R launches by 2-3 years. “This delay
would increase the risk of a gap in satellite coverage and
diminish the quality of weather forecasts and warnings,” said Blank, whose department oversees NOAA. The
new House legislation should improve that gloomy forecast, but there are a few catches. The legislation must be approved by the
Senate before it can become law. And there are indications that Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.)
intends to take a different approach to funding the federal government once the current continuing budget resolution expires later
this month. Mikulski is exploring plans to amend the House bill to include regular yearlong budgets for several agencies and
departments, including Commerce, Politico reported yesterday. And even if the funding laid out in the current version of the House
bill becomes law, a classic bit of Washington tap-dancing would reduce the amount agencies actually receive. That's because the
$1.043 trillion the bill budgets for federal operations is still subject to sequestration. That means funding throughout the bill would
be reduced by 5 percent percent before the first dollar is doled out. Under those rules, the $802 million the House bill sets aside for
NOAA’s GOES-R satellites shrinks to roughly $762 million. That's less than the amount that NOAA says is necessary to keep GOES-R
on track, but it's still more than Congress has approved for the program so far this year.
2014 Omnibus funding meets NOAA’s requests for satellite funding
Ferster 1/16 (Warren, Editor in Chief of Space News, “Omnibus Fully Funds Primary NOAA Satellites, Stiffs Free Flyer”, Space
News, Jan 16, http://www.spacenews.com/article/civil-space/39131omnibus-fully-funds-primary-noaa-satellites-stiffs-free-flyer)
Civilian weather satellite programs are fully funded in an omnibus spending measure for 2014
that also requires the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to submit to lawmakers a plan in the coming weeks for
ensuring long-term coverage. However, the Consolidated Appropriations Act for 2014 (H.R. 3547), which passed the House Jan. 15
and the Senate Jan. 16, does not fund an adjunct satellite intended to host instruments that cannot fit on NOAA’s primary polarorbiting platforms. U.S. President Barack Obama signed the legislation Jan. 17. NOAA
operates two primary satellite
systems, a geostationary-orbiting system for continental coverage and a polar-orbiting system
for global coverage. Budget difficulties and delays have led to concerns about gaps in coverage, primarily from polar orbit, as
age pushes the existing systems into retirement. The omnibus spending bill, which funds the entire federal
government for the remainder of fiscal year 2014, provides $955 million for the
Geostationary-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-R system under development by
Lockheed Martin Space Systems and now slated to begin launching in 2016. That sum is level with NOAA’s request.
NOAA’s Joint Polar Satellite System program is allotted $824 million in the bill, also per the
agency’s request. The first satellite in that system, being built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. and slated to launch in
early 2017, is nearly identical to the Ball-built Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite launched in late 2011. In a report
accompanying the legislation, the House and Senate appropriations committees cited an independent assessment that said NOAA is
making progress on the GOES-R and JPSS programs. But that assessment, along with others by the Commerce Department’s
inspector general and Government Accountability Office, identified program risks including the possibility of a gap in JPSS coverage.
“The Committees expect NOAA to present a strategy with the fiscal year 2015 budget that fully addresses both the short- and longterm challenges associated with the gap and fragility of the program,” the report accompanying the bill said. “Such a strategy shall
examine the proposed polar free flyer mission, which the agreement does not fund due to fiscal constraints. NOAA is expected to
focus on the weather mission and to better address the weather gap in its fiscal year 2015 budget.” The White House is expected to
submit its 2015 budget request in late February. The so-called Free Flyer-1 satellite is an adjunct mission intended to carry
instruments that cannot be accommodated on the primary polar-orbit system, including a solar-irradiance sensor and a search and
rescue payload. NOAA requested $62 million for the mission, with a launch tentatively scheduled for 2016. The bill gives NOAA
explicit permission to spend JPSS funds on procurement of additional instruments and spacecraft as necessary to ensure continuity
of coverage from polar-orbit. NOAA, through its partner agency NASA, has begun procuring sensors for a JPSS-2 mission but has yet
to select a manufacturer for the satellite platform.
Congress prioritizes weather in the status quos
Ball 4/1 (Jessica, GSA Science Policy Fellow, “House Passes Bill to Restore and Prioritize NOAA Weather”, The Geological Society
of America, April 1, 2014, http://www.geosociety.org/geopolicy/news/2014/04-prioritizeNOAA.htm)
On
Tuesday, 1 April, a much-revamped version of the “Weather Forecasting Improvement Act
of 2014” (HR. 2413) passed the House. The bill is intended to prioritize the forecasting and
timely prediction of “high impact weather events,” such as tornadoes and hurricanes, and
authorizes US$383 million for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
weather research & development over the next four years. In a document accompanying the bill, the House
Science, Space, and Technology Committee notes that NOAA has tracked a rise in weather events costing more than US$1 billion and that about
US$500 billion of the GDP is generated by weather-sensitive parts of the economy. The Weather Forecasting Improvement Act requires NOAA to
develop an R&D plan to “restore and maintain United States leadership in numerical weather prediction and forecasting,” with emphasis on highpowered computing that will enhance U.S. forecast modeling. Recently, the National Weather Service’s Global Forecast System model has fallen behind
European models in accuracy (for example, on the storm track of Hurricane Sandy). In the bill, NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research
(OAR) is directed to create an advisory committee to direct these efforts internally, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is
required to create an Interagency Committee for Advancing Weather Services to improve coordination of weather research and forecasting activities
across the government. Overall,
the bill would dedicate nearly US$400 million of NOAA’s budget to this
goal over the next four years, although it does not increase the overall authorization for NOAA
or OAR. For 2014, the bill authorizes US$65 million for weather labs and cooperative
institutes, US$18 million for weather and air chemistry research programs, and US$14 million
for technology transfer requirements (US$83 million total, with a provision that would
increase it to US$96 million if sequestration caps are lifted). For each fiscal year from 2015–
2017, the bill authorizes US$100 million (US$80 million for labs and US$20 million for tech
transfer). Originally, the bill contained language that would have made weather forecasting and prediction the most important priorities of NOAA
R&D. However, the language was amended in committee, and the bipartisan version that passed only deals with NOAA’s weather prediction functions
and doesn’t restrict other oceanic or atmospheric research. In a surprising move for a committee that is normally hostile to funding social science in
R&D investments, the bill contains specific provisions to incorporate more social science into weather forecasting with the goal of “improving the
understanding of how the public receives, interprets, and responds to warnings and forecasts.” Much
of NOAA’s funding currently
focuses on two satellite platforms related to weather forecasting (JPSS and GOES-R).
However, this bill also encourages collaboration and support from the non-federal weather
research community, including private groups and NGOs, and stipulates that not less than 30%
of funds authorized for R&D should be made available through competitive grants, contracts,
and cooperative agreements for the this purpose. It also contains plans for purchasing privately generated weather data
and conducting cost-benefit analysis on current satellite/observing systems and before approving new ones, perhaps a response to the fact that the
current satellite programs are behind schedule and might face reduced funding in the future. The bill will now be sent to the Senate for consideration.
***Link
Plan Trades off with Satellites
The NOAA budget is tighter than ever – funding for fisheries has been reduced new spending forces tradeoffs
Pekow ‘14
[Charles, May 17, House committee offers tight NOAA budget for 2015
, http://www.examiner.com/article/house-committee-offers-tight-noaa-budget-for-2015]
Federal help for fishermen may get reduced next year. The House Appropriations Committee approved a
Commerce, Justice, Science & Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2015 (H.R. 4660) that would slightly increase the National
Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) discretionary funds budget. But
the bill would keep it below what
And it would cut the budget for fishing and related
programs.¶ The Republican-dominated committee reported a bill that would give NOAA's
discretionary accounts $5.32512 billion, an increase of only $10.514 million, not enough to keep up
with inflation. The administration had requested an increase of $163.615 million.¶ The committee report became available
the Obama Administration had requested.
online on the congressional website on Saturday, May 17, 2014. The bill has been placed on the House Union Calendar so the House
can vote on it after it returns from recess. The Senate has not yet written a corresponding appropriations bill.¶ Of the
NOAA
budget, $3.22048 billion would go toward its coastal, fisheries, marine, weather, satellite and
related programs. The amount includes funding transferred from other funds and amounts to
$148.513 million less than what the administration asked for. The National Marine Fisheries Service would
get $790.2 million.
Adequate satellite funding is only possible through reductions in other NOAA
missions – the plan jacks the JPSS program.
Showstack ‘12
[Randy, March 6, Transactions American Geophysical Union, NOAA Budget Would Boost Satellite
Funding but Cut Some Key Areas, vol. 93, no. 10, Wiley]
The White House’s proposed fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
announced on 13 February, looks favorable at first glance. The administration’s request calls for $5.1 billion, an increase of $153
million (3.1%) above the FY 2012 estimated budget. However, the
increase for NOAA satellites is $163 million,
which means that other areas within the agency would be slated for decreased funding,
including programs within the National Ocean Service (NOS), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National
Weather Service (NWS), and some NOAA education programs.¶ The proposed overall budget for the
agency “reflects the overarching importance of weather satellites to public safety, to national security,
and to the economy,” NOAA director Jane Lubchenco said at a 16 February briefing, noting that difficult choices were
made regarding the budget . “Due to significant resources required for our weather satellites
and the economic conditions in the country, other parts of our budget have been reduced, in some cases
quite significantly,” she said. She added that the imperative to fund both the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS)
and geostationary satellites in FY 2013 “imposes serious constraints on the rest of NOAA’s budget.”¶ The
budget for the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) would increase 8.7% to $2.041 billion. This
includes full funding for the JPSS ($916.4 million, down from $924 million). In addition, funding for the Geostationary Operational
Environmental Satellite–R Series (GOES-R) would increase to $802 million, up from $615.6 million. Environmental satellite observing
systems would receive $123.2 million, up from $112.5 million. However, NOAA’s Climate Database Modernization Program to
preserve and enhance the availability of climate and environmental data would be terminated.¶ Cuts
Proposed for
NOAA’s “Wet” Side¶ The NOS budget of $478.1 million (down 2.4% from FY 2012) would include $149.6 million for
navigation services (trimmed from $148 million), $166.1 million for ocean resources conservation
and assessment (down from $163.3 million), and $142.8 mil - lion for ocean and coastal management
(a dip from $148.2 million). Lubchenco said the budget would maintain core mission functions, including funding for
navigation services and marine sanctuary and coastal zone management programs. She highlighted the $24.3-million request for
response and restoration capabilities, $29.5 million for the Integrated Ocean Observing System, and $11 million for NOAA
competitive research. However, she said targeted
losses would include the termination of navigation response
teams and the coastal and estuarine land conservation pro - gram and a funding cut for mapping and charting.¶ Compared
to FY 2012, NMFS funding would drop to $880.3 million (down 1.6%). Some areas would receive boosts, including funding for
fisheries research and management ($430.1 million, up $4 million) and for improving enforcement and observer programs ($110.3
million, up $4.9 million). However, programs on the short end would include Habitat Conservation and Restoration ($36 million,
down $11.3 million) and NOAA’s regional councils and fisheries com - missions ($27.3 million, down $5.1 million). Lubchenco said it
is unclear what the reduction will mean for the councils. The bud - get also calls for closing the James J. Howard Marine Sciences
Laboratory at Sandy Hook, N. J., a move strongly opposed by several members of the state’s congressional delegation.¶ The budget
“is troubling due to the continued underfunding of NOAA and its ocean program,” said Jeff Watters, senior manager of government
relations for the nonprofit Ocean Conservancy. “Adding to the burden of overall budget reductions,
NOAA is tasked with
paying for new, multibillion- dollar weather satellites, as well as managing our coasts and
fisheries. As costs of the weather- related program continue to rise, there are fewer resources
for NOAA’s core ocean programs. Americans shouldn’t have to choose between forecasting the weather and protecting
our ocean. We need both.Ӧ Matt Tinning, executive director of the nonprofit Marine Fish Conservation Network, applauded
targeted fisheries investments in NOAA’s FY 2013 budget proposal, including additional funding for fisheries science, surveys, stock
assessments, and monitoring. However, he said, “For
NOAA to be forced to reallocate funds from core ocean
and science programs to avoid crippling gaps in our nation’s satellite capacity is unsustainable ,
and we urge Congress and the White House to urgently seek a new approach to satellite funding.”
Increased funding for weather satellites now but they are still on the chopping
block – the plan trades off
Gerken ‘13
[James, March 12, NOAA Budget For Weather Satellites Increased In Senate Spending Proposal
, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/12/noaa-budget-weathersatellites_n_2863861.html]
Key weather and climate satellites would get a boost under a new Senate spending proposal.¶ The
$984 billion measure, which Senate Appropriations Committee leadersintroduced late Monday, would fund the federal government
from March 27 until Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year.¶ The
bill would increase the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) budget for satellite procurement to $1.814 billion, $ 117 million more
than the agency received last year. NOAA’s overall budget would rise to $5.1 billion, up from $4.9 billion last
year.¶ The Senate, which will begin debating the measure Tuesday, is expected to approve it.¶ The bill’s swift passage
could help allay fears that the pervasive pressure to reduce federal spending will hamper NOAA’s
efforts to develop its next generation of weather and climate satellites. In February, the agency warned
that automatic, across-the-board spending cuts that took effect this month could delay the launches of two geostationary weather
satellites by 2-3 years, diminishing the quality of NOAA’s weather forecasts and warnings.¶ The House has already responded to such
arguments. It passed its own spending billlast week that includes increased funding for NOAA’s geostationary satellite program,
known as GOES-R, in line with the more general increase for agency satellites included in the Senate package.¶
But that
doesn’t mean that lawmakers are happy about handing over the cash.¶ Senate
Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), a longtime NOAA champion on
Capitol Hill, has also been one of the harshest critics of the agency’s management of its satellite
programs. Last year, as chairwoman of the Senate spending subcommittee that oversees NOAA, she proposed moving the
agency’s satellite division to NASA, citing “fussbudgeting and mis-budgeting” — and a fear that NOAA’s
growing satellite bill would put the squeeze on the agency’s other weather, fisheries and
climate programs.¶ Those concerns linger, judging by the sometimes harsh language in the new Senate spending
package Mikulski authored with the Senate Appropriations Committee’s ranking Republican, Richard Shelby
of Alabama.¶ “The value of NOAA’s weather satellite programs cannot be overstated in terms of the data collected that is used to
develop daily weather forecasts and provide citizens with ample warning about severe weather,” the Senate plan says.
“Unfortunately, certain NOAA satellite acquisition programs, particularly
the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS),
remain mired in cost overruns, missed deadlines, dysfunctional oversight, and lack of transparency in
budgeting and planning.Ӧ The Mikulski-Shelby proposal would require the agency to submit reports to
Congress outlining its plans to limit cost increases and schedule delays for JPSS and NOAA’s next generation of geostationary
weather satellites, known as GOES-R, “to
ensure that these costs do not erode other important NOAA
missions.”
NOAA funding key to weather satellites – forecasting is impossible with budget
cuts
Morello ‘13
[Lauren, NOAA Head: Weather Forecasts at Risk Over Budget Cuts
, http://www.climatecentral.org/news/noaa-head-weather-forecasts-at-risk-over-budget-cuts15621]
“The
way it is structured, [sequestration] applies to every single line item” in NOAA’s budget ,
don’t have a lot of discretion to say this is
more important than that. Everything gets whacked.Ӧ And that could further delay the launch of
the nation’s next polar-orbiting environmental satellite, adding to the likelihood of a gap between
probes collecting data that powers the nation’s weather forecasts.¶ NOAA has warned for several years of
said Lubchenco, who will leave her post at NOAA next month. “We
a near-certain gap in data collected by the nation’s current polar-orbiting satellite, Suomi NPP, and its replacement, JPSS-1.¶ That’s
because Suomi, which launched in late 2011, was designed to operate for at least five years. But JPSS-1, won’t reach orbit until early
2017 — or later.¶ And that is setting up a potential gap in key weather data that could last anywhere from 17
to 53 months, the Government Accountability Office warned this week in its annual analysis of federal programs at “high risk” for
waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement, or those “needing broad-based transformation.”¶ It sounds wonky. But without
that
polar-orbiting satellite data, NOAA’s weather forecasts would become less reliable. The
agency has calculated that it would have underestimated the amount of snow that fell during the
“Snowmageddon” blizzard that hit the East Coast in 2010 by 10 inches. And its forecasts would have
placed the center of the storm 200 to 300 miles away from its actual epicenter.¶ And forecasters at
the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, who use data from U.S. polar-orbiting satellites, said that without that
information, their
weather model would not have accurately projected the path of Hurricane
Sandy.¶ With that in mind, Lubchenco said she’s concerned that the looming budget cuts could add to the gap in
satellite data that NOAA is already struggling with. Budget shortfalls in 2011 helped create
that gap, she said.¶ NOAA is “doing everything possible to not have further delays, which means in large part having really good
management and adequate funding,” Lubchenco said. “And the adequate funding is a very big challenge in
today’s fiscal climate.”
Budget cuts tradeoff with new satellite development
Morello ‘13
[Lauren, NOAA Head: Weather Forecasts at Risk Over Budget Cuts
, http://www.climatecentral.org/news/noaa-head-weather-forecasts-at-risk-over-budget-cuts15621]
Automatic budget
cuts set to take effect March 1 could add to the woes of the federal government’s
troubled weather satellite programs, jeopardizing future forecasts, a top official said Friday.¶ “It’s not
going to be pretty,” outgoing National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco said of the package of
across-the-board spending cuts known as “sequestration.”¶ “The sequester has the potential to wreak havoc
with so many different things, and satellites loom large within that,” she told reporters at the annual meeting of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science. “There’s just so much uncertainty. Nobody knows how long it might last,
and it’s very difficult to plan for that.”¶ The sequestration cuts, which will take effect unless Congress can overcome political gridlock
and approve a new spending deal, would chop 8.2 percent from the operating budgets of most federal agencies, including NOAA,
the White House Office of Management and Budget estimates.
There is a direct tradeoff between the affirmative and satellite funding.
Conathan and Polefka 3/6 (Michael, Director of Ocean Policy @ American Progress, Shiva,
Research associate, "The Top 5 Challenges Facing the New NOAA Administrator", Center for
American Progress, March 6 2014,
americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2014/03/06/80920/the-top-5-challenges-facing-thenew-noaa-administrator/)
It’s no surprise to anyone that federal agencies have felt the budget pinch in recent years.
NOAA is no exception, though its financial circumstance may not be as dire as some other agencies’—at least on the
surface. For 2013, NOAA’s topline spending level held relatively steady from fiscal year 2012 at about $4.9 billion. But the
distribution of its funding has created difficult circumstances for many of its traditional programs. In FY 2010, the last year Congress
passed an appropriations bill other than a continuing resolution, NOAA’s spending was set at about $4.7 billion, with $3.4 billion
going to its core functions of operations, research, and facility maintenance and $1.3 billion supporting procurement and acquisition
(in layman’s terms, this means “buying stuff”). More
than 90 percent of that acquisition budget—$1.2
billion—was spent on upgrading NOAA’s aging weather satellite systems. Fast forward to the 2013
spend plan, and the operations budget has declined to $3.1 billion, while the acquisitions
budget has actually increased to $1.8 billion—$1.7 billion of which funded the purchase and
construction of new satellite systems. While there’s no question that the government desperately needs to upgrade
its weather satellite systems, we can’t continue to take this funding away from core missions such as
fishery and marine protected species management, ocean observation and monitoring, and
pollution response. Modernizing the National Weather Service
Ocean Exploration Link
NOAA budget is tight – the plan forces a tradeoff with satellite development
Adams ‘14
[March 25, Alexandra, Oceans Advocate at National Resource Defense Council, A Blue Budget
Beyond Sequester: Taking care of our oceans,
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/aadams/a_blue_budget_beyond_sequester.html]
This past year was a tough year - from deep sequester cuts to a government shutdown. Our
oceans definitely felt the
budget crunch. After much excruciating negotiation, Congress finally passed a budget and now we are on
the road to what we hope will be a saner way to govern and plan.¶ The President has just released his
budget for Fiscal Year 2015. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) budget can mean the
difference between thriving oceans and coastal communities, or the decline in this invaluable public resource. This year’s budget
signals that we will invest in protecting that resource, but by no means provides all that will
be needed for the big job ahead. With half of Americans living in coastal areas, NOAA’s work means protecting our
citizens and our natural resources. Moreover, with a national ocean economy that is larger than the entire U.S. farm sector in terms
of jobs and economic output, keeping this economic powerhouse functioning matters to us all.¶ For
fiscal year 2015,
NOAA has proposed a budget of approximately $5.5 billion, an increase of 3.2% above the
2014 enacted funding levels, which took steps to mitigate the worst effects of sequestration but did not fund programs at
the levels to which they ultimately need to be supported. This is a very modest increase, given the enormity of the agency’s task.
Based on this request, there is every reason why Congress should fund the President’s Budget. Even the small increases this year
recognize the agency’s critical role in feeding our nation, protecting our coastal economies and preserving our precious ocean
NOAA has dual responsiblilities ranging from mapping the ocean floor to maintaining
orbiting satellites for weather forecasting. And if we want to see investments in protecting coastal economies and
resources.¶
ocean health, in addition to accurate weather data, we need to ensure that NOAA’s budget is able to support both its “wet”, ocean
side, as well as the “dry” weather forecasting activities. This means funding both effective ocean, coastal, and fisheries programs, in
addition to weather forecasts, warnings and satellites. The National Ocean Service (NOS), which helps us understand and protect our
oceans and coasts, will need investments to continue its work. In FY 2015, NOAA requests a small increase of $20.6 million for NOS
over the 2014 enacted levels.¶ With renewed commitment from both the Administration and communities around our nation to
prepare for the impacts of a changing climate, NOAA’s budget includes programs to help our nation adapt to these changes. Some of
our nation’s fishermen are on the front lines of climate impacts, as they watch more acidic waters decimate oyster harvests while
fish populations shift away from their classic geographic range. Because ocean acidification is changing the very chemistry of our
waters and threatening productive coastal economies, the President’s Budget has committed $15 million in funding for ocean
acidification research and monitoring. Just ask any shellfish farmer and you will hear that this investment is long overdue and will
help make the difference between abundant harvests and seasons without oysters to sell.¶ NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries
Service (NMFS) is tasked with managing our ocean’s fisheries. In years past we have seen our fish stocks crash, but thanks to
Congressional action in 1996 and 2006 on the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Management Act, stocks around the nation are now
rebounding. Implementing this highly successful Act requires funding to gather accurate data on the status of our fish stocks and
fishery managers to help implement programs. Funding these programs will help ensure our nations fisheries can continue to
support coastal economies while filling our dinner plates for years to come. This year, NOAA is requesting nearly flat funding for
NMFS compared to the FY14 enacted levels, as those provided funds for fisheries disaster assistance which are not reoccurring. ¶
Unfortunately, some
critical programs won’t get what they need this year. This year’s budget cuts
funding for Ocean Exploration and Research by $7 million. This funding has supported exploration by the
research vessel Okeanos of deep sea corals and other marine life in the submarine canyons and seamounts off the Mid-Atlantic and
New England coasts that fisheries managers and ocean conservation groups, including NRDC, are working to protect. Even though
funds are stretched, shortchanging exploration and research will lead to weaker protections for species and resources that are
already under stress.¶ While we often think about all of the cutting edge science and data NOAA provides us, we often forget that it
takes experts and assets to bring us those benefits. To address this, the budget includes an increase for NOAA’s corporate functions
and agency management. From
forecasting the days’ weather, to protecting our nation’s fish stocks
and helping vulnerable areas prepare for climate change, NOAA can only provide us these
services if it has the capacity and support it needs to fulfill its vital missions.
NOAA funds are tightening now – new spending trades off
Jensen ‘12
[Andrew, April 27, Congress takes another ax to NOAA budget
, http://peninsulaclarion.com/news/2012-04-27/congress-takes-another-ax-to-noaa-budget]
Frustrated senators from coastal states are wielding the power of the purse to rein in the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and refocus the agency's priorities on its core missions.¶
During recent appropriations subcommittee hearings April 17, Sen. Lisa Murkowski ensured no funds would be provided
in fiscal year 2013 for coastal marine spatial planning, a key component of President Barack Obama's National Ocean
Policy.¶ Murkowski also pushed for an additional $3 million for regional fishery management councils and secured $15 million for
the Pacific Salmon Treaty that was in line to be cut by NOAA's proposed budget (for $65 million total). ¶ On April 24, the full Senate
Appropriations Committee approved the Commerce Department budget with language inserted by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, into NOAA's budget that would transfer $119 million currently unrestricted funds and require they be
used for stock assessments, surveys and monitoring, cooperative research and fisheries grants.¶ The
$119 million is
derived from Saltonstall-Kennedy funds, which are levies collected on seafood imports by the Department of
Agriculture. Thirty percent of the import levies are transferred to NOAA annually, and without Kerry's language there are no
restrictions on how NOAA may use the funds.¶ In a Congress defined by fierce partisanship, no federal
agency has drawn as much fire from both parties as NOAA and its Administrator Jane Lubchenco.¶ Sen. Scott
Brown, R-Mass., has repeatedly demanded accountability for NOAA Office of Law Enforcement abuses uncovered by the Commerce
Department Inspector General that included the use of fishermen's fines to purchase a luxury boat that was only used for joyriding
around Puget Sound.¶ There is currently another Inspector General investigation under way into the regional fishery management
council rulemaking process that was requested last August by Massachusetts Reps. John Tierney and Barney Frank, both
Democrats.¶ In July 2010, both Frank and Tierney called for Lubchenco to step down, a remarkable statement for members of
Obama's party to make about one of his top appointments.¶ Frank introduced companion legislation to Kerry's in the House earlier
this year, where it should sail through in a body that has repeatedly stripped out tens of millions in budget requests for catch share
programs. Catch share programs are Lubchenco's favored policy for fisheries management and have been widely panned after
implementation in New England in 2010 resulted in massive consolidation of the groundfish catch onto the largest fishing vessels.¶
Another New England crisis this year with Gulf of Maine cod also drove Kerry's action after a two-year old stock assessment was
revised sharply downward and threatened to close down the fishery. Unlike many fisheries in Alaska such as pollock, crab and
halibut, there are not annual stock assessment surveys around the country.¶ Without a new stock assessment for Gulf of Maine cod,
the 2013 season will be in jeopardy.¶ "I applaud Senator Kerry for his leadership on this issue and for making sure that this funding is
used for its intended purpose - to help the fishing industry, not to cover NOAA's administrative overhead," Frank said in a statement.
"We are at a critical juncture at which we absolutely must provide more funding for cooperative fisheries science so we
can base management policies on sound data, and we should make good use of the world-class institutions in the Bay State which
have special expertise in this area."¶ Alaska's Sen. Mark Begich and Murkowski, as well as Rep. Don Young have also denounced the
National Ocean Policy as particularly misguided, not only for
diverting core funding in a time of tightening
budgets but for creating a massive new bureaucracy that threatens to overlap existing authorities for the regional fishery
management councils and local governments.¶ The first 92 pages of the draft policy released Jan. 12 call for more than 50 actions,
nine priorities, a new National Ocean Council, nine Regional Planning Bodies tasked with creating Coastal Marine Spatial Plans,
several interagency committees and taskforces, pilot projects, training in ecosystem-based management for federal employees, new
water quality standards and the incorporation of the policy into regulatory and permitting decisions.
Link Booster – Aquaculture/Fisheries
NOAA already spending on aquaculture – the plan would absorb costs the
private industry is currently absorbing – makes the process far more expensive.
Dawn ‘8
[Ralph, May, Managing director of GAO, Report to the Chairman, Committee on Natural
Resources, House of Representatives, http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08594.pdf]
While stakeholders generally identified these areas as priorities, a few stakeholders also emphasized that federal
funding
should focus on research that helps regulate the aquaculture industry or mitigate
environmental impacts. Research into how escaped aquaculture-raised fish might impact wild fish populations is an
example of this type of research. Other stakeholders, as well as the U.S. Ocean Commission study, suggested that federal research
should also assist aquaculture industry development. For instance, one stakeholder suggested that the
top issue for
government funding should be determining which species will be commercially viable for
offshore aquaculture. Similarly, the stakeholder noted that developing a species for aquaculture is
difficult for the private sector to do because it is very expensive and would take 10 to 30 years. ¶ NOAA
and USDA currently support research on marine aquaculture through, for example, competitive
grants. NOAA’s major competitive grant program for marine aquaculture is the National Marine Aquaculture Initiative, which
funded approximately $4.6 million in projects related to marine species during the 2006 grant cycle. NOAA also manages funding for
a number of offshore aquaculture-related projects, such as the open- ocean aquaculture demonstration project off the coast of New
Hampshire. Similarly, USDA’s Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service funds external aquaculture research
through such vehicles as competitive grant programs, land grant institutions, and regional aquaculture centers. In addition, USDA’s
Agricultural Research Service conducts research at its federal science centers and laboratories.¶ Several researchers, including some
whom we interviewed during our site visits, identified potential limitations of the current federal aquaculture research programs.
Specifically, they said that many of the
available competitive grants are funded over time periods that
are too short and at funding levels too low to accommodate certain types of research. For example,
researchers in Hawaii said that the development of healthy breeding fish to supply offshore aquaculture operations can require
years of intensive breeding efforts, but that it is difficult to obtain consistent research funding over this longer time period.¶ Both
USDA and NOAA
officials acknowledged that demonstration projects and other lengthy research projects may
be difficult to complete within current competitive grant time frames. However, they noted that
appropriations for their programs dictate the current length of these grants. USDA officials identified some programs that could be
used for long-term research, including competitive grants from the agency’s regional aquaculture centers or the agency’s
Agricultural Research Service internal research projects. The regional aquaculture centers set their own priorities and funding
allocations, which allows centers to focus on long- term offshore aquaculture research if they so choose. For instance, the regional
center in Hawaii has supported research that applies to offshore aquaculture, but none of the other centers currently support
research specifically related to offshore aquaculture. A USDA official also suggested that the Agricultural Research Service could
support long-term projects if such projects are identified as priorities in future 5-year plans for aquaculture research. The
Agricultural Research Service uses feedback from aquaculturists and regulatory agencies, among others, to identify priorities and
develop 5-year plans for aquaculture research. Agricultural Research Service officials indicated that the current 5-year plan directs¶
about one-third of the agency’s aquaculture funding to research related to marine species.¶ An
effective federal
regulatory framework for U.S. offshore aquaculture will be critical to facilitating the development of an
economically sustainable industry, while at the same time protecting the health of marine ecosystems. As the Congress
considers providing a cohesive legislative framework for regulating an offshore aquaculture
industry, we believe it will need to consider a number of important issues. A key first step in developing a U.S.
regulatory framework could be designating a lead federal agency that has the appropriate expertise and can effectively collaborate
and coordinate with other federal agencies. In addition, setting up clear legislative and regulatory guidance on where offshore
aquaculture facilities can be located and how they can be operated could help ensure that these facilities have the least amount of
impact on the ocean environment. Moreover, a regulatory framework could also include a process for reviewing the potential
environmental impacts of proposed offshore aquaculture facilities, monitoring the environmental impacts of these facilities once
they are operational, and quickly identifying and mitigating environmental problems when they occur. Inclusion of an adaptive
management approach by which the monitoring process can be modified over time could be useful not only to ensure that the
most effective approaches are being used to protect the environment but also to help reduce costs to the
industry. In addition, a transparent regulatory process that gives states and the public opportunities to comment on specific
offshore aquaculture projects could help allay some of the concerns about the potential environmental impacts of offshore
aquaculture. Finally, because the offshore aquaculture industry is in its infancy much remains unknown, and many technical
challenges remain, such as the best species to raise offshore and the most effective offshore aquaculture practices. In this context,
there may be a role for the federal government in funding the research needed to help answer these questions and facilitate the
development of an ecologically-sound offshore aquaculture industry.
Offshore aquaculture is comparatively more expensive than other options
Naylor ‘6
[Rosamond, Spring, Fellow at the Center for Environmental Science and Policy at Stanford,
Environmental Safeguards for Open-Ocean Aquaculture, http://issues.org/22-3/naylor/]
Open-ocean aquaculture encompasses a variety of species and infrastructure designs; in the United States, submersible cages are the model used for
offshore finfish production. These cages are anchored to the ocean floor but can be moved within the water column; they are tethered to buoys that
contain an equipment room and feeding mechanism; and they can be large enough to hold hundreds of thousands of fish in a single cage. Robotics are
often used for cage maintenance, inspection, cleaning, and monitoring. Submersible cages have the advantage of avoiding rough water at the surface
and reducing interference with navigation. A
major disadvantage of offshore operations is that they tend to be
expensive to install and operate. They require sturdier infrastructure than near-shore systems,
they are more difficult to access, and the labor costs are typically higher than for coastal systems.¶ The economic
requirements of open-ocean aquaculture suggest that firms are likely to target lucrative species for large-scale development or niche markets. In the
United States, moi is produced commercially far from shore in Hawaii state waters, and experiments are being conducted with halibut, haddock, cod,
flounder, amberjack, red drum, snapper, pompano, and cobia in other parts of the country. Tuna is another likely candidate for offshore development.
Altogether, about 500 tons of fish are currently produced each year in submersible cages in the United States, primarily within a few miles of shore.
The technology appears to have real promise, even though it is not yet economically viable for commercial use in
most locations, and it is not yet deployed widely in federal waters far from shore.
High energy costs drive up the research and production costs of offshore
aquaculture.
FAO ‘7
[Food and Agriculture Organization, April, Medium-term challenges and constraints for
aquaculture, http://www.thefishsite.com/articles/260/mediumterm-challenges-andconstraints-for-aquaculture#sthash.Xwb2qlNs.dpuf]
Even before the current global energy crisis, energy
costs represented an important share of the production
costs in many commercial aquaculture operations. With further intensification and the use of
more sophisticated technologies, it is likely that more energy will be needed, thereby exacerbating the
energy cost problem. As for land and water, aquaculture must compete with other activities for
energy. To alleviate this problem, researchers around the world are seeking low-cost energy sources. More efficient pumps have been suggested
as one of the options. Another is the use of recirculating systems. While recirculation requires energy, it does not need water pumped from lower levels
and so is energy-efficient. Wind-powered
pumps are being used on a limited scale in freshwater
aquaculture in many countries, but their capital cost is high. The inability to design a low-cost highvolume pump for saltwater shrimp farming has also restricted their use. Solar-powered pumps present the
same difficulties. In addition to seeking alternative sources, farmers are developing strategies and practices to reduce energy requirements. In certain
culture practices, energy costs for pumping could be minimized with the combined use of bioremediation and lowdischarge, or even zero-discharge,
techniques. However, more research on these techniques is required.
Zero-Sum
Federal budget allocations are zero-sum. Spending on one program directly
trades off with another.
English ‘13
[Chad, March 25, Director of Science Policy Outreach at COMPASS where he helps scientists find
the policy relevance in their work, and helps the policy crowd the find the science they need¶
Budget Trade-offs: A Zero-Sum Game¶ , http://compassblogs.org/blog/2013/03/25/what-to-dowhen-the-budget-becomes-a-zero-sum-game/]
Each Appropriations subcommittee works with their slice of the budget, called (opaquely) their 302(b)
sub-allocation. But here’s the important part: Once those sub-allocations are set, it’s a zero-sum game
within that subcommittee; a dollar to one program must mean a dollar less for other
programs. For scientists, the Commerce, Science, Justice and Related Agencies subcommittee is one of the big ones to
watch. It determines the budget for the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). But it also sets the budget for the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Commission on Civil Rights, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Marshal
Service, and others. Once that’s set, any
additional dollar that goes to NSF must come out of one of
these other agency’s budgets. (The Washington Post reported todaythat the continuing resolution process to keep the
government running the rest of this year is facing the same situation.)¶ This is how we get to the scenario David alluded to. Asking
a member of Congress to support funding for science is implicitly asking them to trade away
something else for that money, and those are neither simple nor easy decisions. Each thing that you might trade away
has a constituency that cares deeply or even depends upon it… and that member of Congress? It’s their job to represent that
constituency, too. While
the budget is the focus of discussion now, these concepts apply to any
issue that a policymaker faces.¶ When you talk to a member of Congress, make your case, give them the
context they need to make their decision, and respect – even acknowledge – the tradeoffs they face. You’ll be more
credible, you’ll be giving them more of what they need, and you’ll be on your way to becoming a trusted source of input.
AT “Already Allocated”
NOAA funds are tight and new initiatives will require diversion of current funds
– there is no allocated money.
Jensen ‘12
[Andrew, April 27, Congress takes another ax to NOAA budget
, http://peninsulaclarion.com/news/2012-04-27/congress-takes-another-ax-to-noaa-budget]
Congress refused to fund some $27 million in budget requests for NOAA in fiscal year 2012 to
implement the National Ocean Policy, but the administration released its draft implementation policy in January
anyway.¶ Begich told the Journal when the draft implementation plan was released that fund diversion was a "main
concern ."¶ "At a time Congress is reining in spending, I think the administration needs to
prioritize funding for existing services especially those which support jobs such as fishery stock assessments and the
like, and not new and contentious initiatives," he said.¶ Murkowski called the administration's implementation plan
"clear as mud" at an Appropriations Committee hearing April 19.¶ "It's expensive; there are no dedicated funds
for agencies to follow through with the commitments that have been identified in the draft
implementation plan," she said. "I have been told that the national ocean policy initiative is going to be
absorbed by these existing programs, but yet the agencies haven't been able to provide me with
any indication as to what work is actually going to be set aside as part of that trade-off, so it is as
clear as mud to me where the administration is really intending to take this."
***Impact
Turns Case
NOAA funding for infrastructure trades off with ocean management
Eilperin 6/17 (Juliet, reporter @ The Washington Post, " Obama Will Propose Expanding
Pacific Ocean Marine Sanctuary", The Tico Times, June 17,
http://www.ticotimes.net/2014/06/17/obama-will-propose-expanding-pacific-ocean-marinesanctuary)
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s chief, Kathryn Sullivan, said her agency has
focused on increasing the ability of coastal communities to cope with climate change and on
monitoring how the marine ecosystem is being transformed. “Data are critical to all of it,” she
said. George Cooper, a lobbyist for the recreational fishing industry, said NOAA has made strides but still overstates the economic
impact of the commercial fish industry by comparing the combined imported and domestic seafood trade to U.S. sport fishing.
Budget constraints and congressional opposition also remain obstacles for the administration.
During a panel last week for Capitol Hill Ocean Week, Rep. Sam Farr, D-Calif., said NOAA might have to consider
“changing its name to NAA” because of cuts to its “wet side.” William Ruckelshaus, a co-chair of the Joint
Ocean Commission Initiative, who served as the Environmental Protection Agency administrator under Presidents Richard M. Nixon
and Ronald Reagan, said the new flurry of activity on maritime issues could represent an important shift. “These kinds of issues only
get elevated if the president puts it high on his priority list,” he said.
DA turns case – weather satellites are key to protect ocean ecosystems
Davis ‘11
[June 2011, Gary, Director of satellite operations at the NOAA, History of the NOAA Satellite
Program, http://www.osd.noaa.gov/download/JRS012504-GD.pdf]
1. Introduction¶ The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) satellite program has stood watch over the
American public and partner nations for more than four decades developing and applying space based Earth remote sensing for
NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) forecasts. The NWS is responsible for weather warning services (the geostationary
satellites) and their global forecasts (the polar program). NOAA’s satellite operations grew out of the early space program and the
desire to study our Earth from a vantage point high in the sky. Over the past half century, NOAA's
satellites have
evolved from weather satellites to environmental satellites. Data is used for applications related to the
oceans, coastal regions, agriculture, detection of forest fires, detection of volcanic ash, monitoring the ozone hole over the South
Pole, and the space environment. As NOAA has evolved from weather only sensing to environmental sensing, it has aligned about
strategic themes. Current and future generations of satellites
support all of the NOAA’s strategic goals.¶ .
Protect restore and manage the use of coastal and ocean resources through an ecosystems
approach to management ¶ . Support society’s needs for weather and water information¶ . Understand climate variability
the Nation’s commerce with information
for safe, efficient, and environmentally sound transportation¶ Operating the country's
environmental satellite program, whose cloud images are seen daily on television weather forecasts, is one of
NOAA’s major responsibilities. Within NOAA, the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service
and change to enhance society’s ability to plan and respond¶ . Support
(NESDIS) office operates the satellites and manages the processing, distribution, and archival of the data. The NOAA satellite
constellation is made up of complimentary operational environmental satellites: the Geostationary Operational Environmental
Satellites (GOES) and Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites (POES). Both types of satellites are necessary for a
complete global weather network.¶ In addition, each day NOAA’s NESDIS processes and distributes more than 3.5 billion vital bits of
data and images to forecasters globally. The timeliness and quality of the combined polar and geostationary satellite data have been
greatly improved by enhanced computer installations, upgraded ground facilities, and data sharing agreements with military
weather services.
Key to Forecasting
NOAA infrastructure is key to predicting storms and other natural disasters
Kicza 13 (Mary E., Assistant Administrator National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Informaiton Service, “Dysfunction in
Management of Weather and Climate Stellites”, Subcommittee on Environment and Oversight Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, September 19, http://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/HHRG-113-SY21-WStateMKicza-20130919.pdf)
NOAA’s mission to provide science, service, and stewardship to the Nation is fundamentally
dependent on observations of our environment. These observations are the backbone of NOAA’s predictive
capabilities. NOAA must ensure operational weather, ocean, climate, and space weather data are
available seven days a week, 24 hours a day, to address our Nation’s critical needs for timely
and accurate forecasts and warnings of solar storms and severe weather, such as hurricanes,
flash floods, tsunamis, winter storms, and wildfires. Of the data actually assimilated into NOAA’s National
Weather Service (NWS) numerical weather prediction models that are used to produce the longer term weather forecasts three days
and beyond, over 95 percent comes from satellites, of which over 80 percent are from polar-orbiting satellites. These polar-orbiting
satellites include NOAA’s Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES), Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership
(Suomi NPP) satellite, and NASA Earth Observing Satellites (EOS) in the afternoon orbit, and the European Metop satellites which fly
in the mid-morning orbit. GOES satellites, along with Doppler Radar, assist operational weather forecasters with current and shortterm forecasting abilities (i.e., weather that is occurring now up to three days in the future) and severe weather warning forecasts.
Reductions in satellite coverage leads to a higher risk of weather catastrophe
Conathan 11 ( Michael, Director of Ocean Programs at American Progress, “NOAA Says Loss of
Environmental Satellite Funding could Halve Accuracy of Precipitation Forecasts”, March 24,
http://scienceprogress.org/2011/03/noaa-says-loss-of-environmental-satellite-funding-couldhalve-accuracy-of-precipitation-forecasts/)
The National Ocean and Atmospheric Association released new data yesterday showing
precisely how the loss of environmental monitoring satellites would affect our ability to
forecast extreme weather events, using the example of the “Snowmageddon” storm that dumped
massive precipitation from the Gulf of Mexico to New England on February 5-6, 2010. We here at CAP and Climate Progress
have been keeping close tabs on House Republicans’ efforts to make the country more vulnerable to extreme weather events. If
Congress refuses to fund new environmental monitoring satellites to replace aging spacecraft
that could fail at any time, it will undoubtedly expose Americans to increased risk from
storms, floods, blizzards, and hurricanes. Meanwhile, more and more science is emerging that strengthens the link
between unprecedented weather phenomena and human-caused global climate change. The GOP-controlled Congress took steps to
eliminate $700 million in funding for NOAA’s satellite program in its bill to fund the federal government for the remainder of the
fiscal year (until October 2011). Though that bill is still being negotiated, the three-week continuing resolution that keeps the
government open until April 8 also contained cuts to NOAA’s vital satellites. As I have written, making these short-sighted cuts now
will force taxpayers to spend three to five times as much to buy exactly the same equipment 18-months down the road—a delay
extremely likely to leave the nation without coverage since our current satellites are approaching the end of their projected service
lives. Failing to replace these vital sources of data is simply not an option. This is
because these satellites are critical
to our ability to predict and prepare for high-impact weather phenomena. Without the
satellite data, NOAA’s forecasts lose as much as 50 percent of their accuracy, underforecasting
snowfall in Washington, D.C. by almost foot, and rainfall in the Gulf by up to an inch. The
resulting failure to prepare for flash floods, roadside strandings, air traffic delays, and transit
interruptions could halt all commerce. Even worse, failing to maintain our satellite network,
according to NOAA, would reduce future flood preparedness time from days to mere hours,
putting human lives at risk. Does it snow where you live? Does it rain? The GOP wants you to wait a year and a half and
then pay five times as much to eventually get a reasonable estimate of how much wet stuff is going to fall from yonder cloud.
Apparently their intention is to boost the economy through sales of bottled water, batteries, and toilet paper so everyone is
prepared when the next big storm hits. Absent a substantial investment to maintain our environmental satellite network, it could
happen any time—without warning—so you better start shopping.
Satellites are key to minimizing impacts of storms
Conathan and Polefka 3/6 (Michael, Director of Ocean Policy @ American Progress, Shiva,
Research associate, "The Top 5 Challenges Facing the New NOAA Administrator", Center for
American Progress, March 6 2014,
americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2014/03/06/80920/the-top-5-challenges-facing-thenew-noaa-administrator/)
Of course, rebalancing the agency’s priorities doesn’t mean neglecting the critical upgrades and
maintenance of services in the National Weather Service and the National Environmental
Satellite, Data, and Information Service—the rather wordy name of NOAA’s office in charge of its space observation
operations. Extreme weather events are becoming increasingly frequent, destructive, and costly.
In 2011 and 2012 alone, extreme weather events caused $188 billion in damages that
disproportionally affected lower- and middle-income Americans. NOAA has made great strides in
hurricane prediction capabilities during the past two decades, particularly when it comes to predicting the path that the storms will
follow. In addition to saving lives, these investments have led to real cost reductions. For example, improved landfall forecasting
means smaller evacuation zones and evacuation costs roughly equal to $1 million per mile. Similar
improvements in
hurricane intensity forecasting and tornado predictions could pay similar dividends. In 2012 and
2013 alone, tornados killed 119 people in the South and Midwest, including two massive twisters that claimed 26 lives in Oklahoma
on May 19–20. We
property.
can and must continue to improve our capacity to save lives and safeguard
Warming
Observation capabilities are key to adapting to warming
Conathan and Polefka 3/6 (Michael, Director of Ocean Policy @ American Progress, Shiva,
Research associate, "The Top 5 Challenges Facing the New NOAA Administrator", Center for
American Progress, March 6 2014,
americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2014/03/06/80920/the-top-5-challenges-facing-thenew-noaa-administrator/)
Adapting to a changing ocean Mounting evidence, including data sent back to Earth by NOAA’s
satellites, shows that oceans absorb much of the heat trapped by the thickening layer of
carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. As oceans warm, currents shift from traditional pathways,
and already detectable effects of climate change include stronger hurricanes, fisheries shifting
to cooler waters, and accelerating sea-level rise. In addition to rapid warming, our ocean’s pH balance
is changing. Seawater today is acidifying at a rate faster than anything the planet has seen in
more than 300 million years. As James Barry of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute recently put it in a Seattle
Times article, “[T]his change we’re seeing is happening so fast it’s almost instantaneous. I think it might be so important that we see
large levels, high rates, of extinction.” Human-caused atmospheric carbon pollution driving the warming and acidification of the
ocean provides perhaps the preeminent example of the fundamental link between our planet’s sea and sky—an ecological reality
that motivated the Stratton Commission to call for NOAA’s creation in 1969. As
these changes accelerate with
increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and the economic, social, and geopolitical costs of
climate change continue to mount, the need for integrated scientific research and observation
will only increase as well. NOAA’s role is more vital than ever to help us understand and adapt to the new climate reality.
Weather satellites are key to air pollution studies and climate adaptation
Hotz ‘13
[Robert, June 21, For Weather Satellites, Forecast Is Cloudy; Failures of Aging Devices Threaten
to Leave Gap in Key
Data,”http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324049504578543331078279910?mobil
e=y]
"NOAA is having a real crisis with regard to the weather satellites ," said atmospheric scientist Dennis
Hartmann at the University of Washington in Seattle, who heads a National Research Council committee that monitors Earthobservation satellite programs.¶ Signals
from these highflying measuring devices provide the raw data
for forecasts, rainfall estimates and drought reports, land-use surveys and air-pollution
studies, seasonal wildfire forecasts and sea-ice updates, to name a few applications. Without the data, it is harder to
track threatening weather, build accurate climate models or monitor global pollution , experts said.¶
"We need all the data we can get—every bit and byte we can get down from space," said senior
system engineer Stacey Boland at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, who
is a member of the research council committee. "These older platforms—well past their warranty—are starting to falter."
NOAA satellites key to climate adaptation
Davis ‘11
[June 2011, Gary, Director of satellite operations at the NOAA, History of the NOAA Satellite
Program, http://www.osd.noaa.gov/download/JRS012504-GD.pdf]
JPSS will ensure continuity of crucial climate observations and weather data in the future. Data
and imagery obtained from the JPSS will increase timeliness and accuracy of public warnings and forecasts of climate and weather
events reducing the potential loss of human life and property damage. The
data collected by JPSS will contribute
to the unified and coherent long-term environmental observations and products that are
critical to climate modelers and decision makers concerned with advancing climate change
understanding, prediction, mitigation and adaptation strategies, policies, and science. JPSS, with its
global view, will play a vital role in continuing these climate data records for the US and the
international community.
Weather satellites key to understand climate change
Sutter ‘11
[John, August 4, NOAA: Weather satellites are in jeopardy,
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/08/24/noaa.weather.prediction/index.html?hpt=t
e_bn1]
The Washington Post reports that meteorologists and officials who coordinate disaster response support additional funding, too:¶
"Bill Hooke,
a senior fellow at the American Meteorological Society, compared what forecasters
would experience when a polar-orbiting satellite is lost to waking up after having a small
stroke," Andrew Freedman writes in the newspaper. "'The world that you're looking at wouldn't seem
quite right to you, and you wouldn't be able to function quite as well,' he said."¶ Scientific American
says the fact that these satellites are used to track climate change as well as weather could make the budget
request unpopular with legislators, some of whom see climate change as a sticky issue.¶ "The information those
satellites collect is also key to understanding climate change -- an unpopular topic on Capitol Hill -- but the
agency has downplayed that aspect as it presses lawmakers for more cash," that magazine writes.
Readiness
JPSS key to troop deployments
[July 3, Christine, Executive of the American Geophysical Union, The importance of the weather
satellite, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-importance-of-the-weathersatellite/2011/06/30/AGDTPuwH_story.html]
As Stephen Stromberg pointed out in his June 30 PostPartisan [“Don’t gut the Weather Service”], allowing
funding for the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) to fall victim to political debate
will negatively affect weather forecasting abilities.¶ What he did not mention were the far-reaching consequences
of such a scenario. The satellite’s data will continue to help military planners deploy troops;
emergency managers fight wildfires and respond to other disasters; and farmers to plan for optimum planting. He also did not
mention that this penny-wise, pound-foolish budgeting approach doesn’t just stop with JPSS funding. Results from cuts to science
funding could also limit our ability to assess water quality and mitigate the impacts of natural disasters.¶ We
need to reduce
the national debt, but it would be a mistake to do that by sacrificing programs that protect
public safety and national security and support global competitiveness.
Readiness Impacts
Lack of military readiness leads to great power wars that cause extinction
Feaver 3
Professor of Political Science at Duke, Peter D., Armed Services: Agency, Oversight, and CivilMilitary Relations, p.213
The civil-military problematique is so vexing because it involves balancing two vital and potentially conflicting societal
desiderata. On the one hand, the military must be strong enough to prevail in war. One purpose behind establishing the
military in the first place is the need, or perceived need, for military force, either to attack other groups or to ward off attacks
by others. Like an automobiles airbag, the military
primarily exists as a guard against disaster. It
should be always ready even if it is never used. Moreover, military strength should be sized
appropriately to meet the threats confronting the polity. It serves no purpose to
establish a protection force and then to vitiate it to the point where it can no longer
protect. Indeed, an inadequate military institution may be worse than none at all. It
could be a paper tiger inviting outside aggression strong enough in appearance to
threaten powerful enemies but not strong enough in fact to defend against their
predations. Alternatively, it could lull leaders into a false confidence, leading them to
rash behavior and then failing in the ultimate military contest.
Readiness is key to Hegemony
Spencer 00
Jack Spencer, Policy Analyst for Defense and National Security in the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom
Davis Institute for International Studies at The Heritage Foundation 9/15/00, Heritage
Foundation Reports
Military readiness is vital because declines in America's military readiness signal to the rest of the
world that the United States is not prepared to defend its interests. Therefore, potentially
hostile nations will be more likely to lash out against American allies and interests, inevitably
leading to U.S. involvement in combat. A high state of military readiness is more likely
to deter potentially hostile nations from acting aggressively in regions of vital national interest, thereby
preserving peace.
Decline in readiness forces U.S. isolationism
Spencer 1
Jack Spencer, Policy Analyst for Defense and National Security in the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom
Davis Institute for International Studies at The Heritage Foundation, 2001, Priorities for the
President http://www.heritage.org/mandate/priorities/chap10.html
Loss of Credibility. America's national security requirements dictate that the armed forces
be prepared to defeat groups of adversaries in any given war. America, as the sole remaining
superpower, has found itself with many enemies. Because attacking America or its interests alone would surely end in defeat
for a single nation, these enemies are likely to form alliances against the United States. Therefore, basing the strength of
America's armed forces on U.S. military superiority over any single nation makes little sense. The evidence indicates that the
U.S. armed forces are not ready to support America's national security requirements. Moreover, regarding the broader
capability to defeat groups of enemies, U.S. military readiness has been declining. The National Security Strategy, the
Administration's official statement of national security objectives, concludes that the United States "must have the capability
to deter and, if deterrence fails, defeat large-scale, cross-border aggression in two distant theaters in overlapping time
frames." According to some of the military's highest-ranking officials, however, the United States cannot now achieve this
goal. Former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jay Johnson says that, "from a Navy perspective, we never were sized for
two MTW's [major theater wars]. We are sized to do the daily business that we are asked to do as a forward presence
rotational force." General James Jones, Commandant of the Marine Corps, explains that "the Marine Corps is not, by its size,
a two MTW force." Air Force Chief of Staff General Michael Ryan says that "The Air Force...is not a two MTW force either.
Our lift force, many of our special assets--bombers, tankers, and airlift assets--are not enough for two MTWs." The U.S.
military's high commitment to operations other than warfare further diminishes its credibility. According to General Shelton,
Rapidly withdrawing from a commitment like Bosnia or Kosovo to support a major theater war would require a quick
decision by the National Command Authorities to allow time for units to withdraw, retrain, redeploy, and be used effectively.
This could mean the late arrival of some forces for MTW employment. The
inability of the U.S. military to
carry out its military endeavors would be devastating. It would tell America's allies
that the United States cannot fulfill its security commitments--news that will weaken
its alliances. The result is that normally reliable allies will be less eager to give America access to
already diminished forward basing areas. This makes the U.S. military, already dependent on those areas,
less effective, which further degrades overall military power. To make up the difference, the United States would have to
spend huge amounts of money. However, due to the political unpopularity of such increases, the United States will simply
have to field a much smaller military. Eventually, it will
be forced to isolate from the rest of the world
just so that it can protect its borders, never mind its interests in far off regions of the world.
Low military readiness causes rogue state lashout
Jack Spencer,, Research Fellow at Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies. “The
Facts About Military Readiness.” 9-15-2000.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2000/09/BG1394-The-Facts-About-MilitaryReadiness)
America's national security requirements dictate that the armed forces must be prepared to
defeat groups of adversaries in a given war. America, as the sole remaining superpower, has many enemies.
Because attacking America or its interests alone would surely end in defeat for a single nation, these enemies are likely to
form alliances. Therefore, basing readiness on American military superiority over any single nation
has little saliency. The evidence indicates that the U.S. armed forces are not ready to support
America's national security requirements. Moreover, regarding the broader capability to defeat
groups of enemies, military readiness has been declining. The National Security Strategy, the U.S. official
statement of national security objectives,3 concludes that the United States "must have the capability to deter and, if
deterrence fails, defeat large-scale, cross-border aggression in two distant theaters in overlapping time frames."4According
to some of the military's highest-ranking officials, however, the United States cannot achieve this goal. Commandant of the
Marine Corps General James Jones, former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jay Johnson, and Air Force Chief of Staff
General Michael Ryan have all expressed serious concerns about their respective services' ability to carry out a two major
theater war strategy.5 Recently retired Generals Anthony Zinni of the U.S. Marine Corps and George Joulwan of the U.S.
Army have even questioned America's ability to conduct one major theater war the size of the 1991 Gulf War.6 Military
readiness is vital because declines in America's military readiness signal to the rest of the world that the United States is not
prepared to defend its interests. Therefore, potentially hostile nations will be more likely to lash out against American allies
and interests, inevitably leading to U.S. involvement in combat. A high state of military readiness is more likely
to deter potentially hostile nations from acting aggressively in regions of vital national
interest, thereby preserving peace.
Flashpoints exist across the globe. Only U.S. military readiness prevents
escalation to full-blown war
Dennis Duggan, Assistant Director, National Sec.-Foreign Relations Commission, The American
Legion, FNS, April 17, 1997
Mr. Chairman, The American Legion is pleased to appear before this Subcommittee to express its concerns about FY 1998 defense
appropriations. The American Legion knows only too well what can happen when diplomacy and deterrence fail. As history has
demonstrated, it is important for the President and Congress to continue to uphold their constitutional responsibilities to provide for
The world is still a dangerous place.
There is unrest in the Middle East, in Bosnia and eastern Europe, and on the Korean peninsula. A
revitalized Red China is exercising its military and maritime prowess by reaching into the Pacific and to our very
shores and cities. Russia is still armed with at least 7,000 intercontinental missiles and opposes the concept of an
expanded NATO. The continuous proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the increase in
ethnic and nationalistic wars are prompting more U.S. contingency operations continue to demand attention.
the "common defense" of the American people in a highly uncertain world.
Additionally, the United States faces the challenges posed by international terrorism, fundamentalist religious movements and drug
cartels, none of which operate within the basic rules of international law. The American Legion has always adhered to the principle
that our
nation's armed forces must be well-manned and equipped, not to pursue war, but to preserve and
protect the hard-earned peace. The American Legion strongly believes the current military downsizing is based more on budget
targets and budget deficit reduction than on current and foreseeable threats to the national security well-being of the American
people and America's vital interests. Mr. Chairman, The American Legion is convinced that the United States is returning to the days
of the "hollow forces." Once Army divisions, Navy aircraft carrier battle groups, and Air Force fighter wings are cut from the force
structure, they cannot be rapidly reconstituted without the costly expenditures of time, money, and human lives. History
has
demonstrated that it has been safer to err on the side of preserving robust forces to protect
America's interests.
Readiness deters wars, creating a secure international order
Ike Skelton, U.S. Rep, Missouri, Congressional Record, 143 Cong Rec H 1897, *H1898, April 29,
1997
So to respond to my colleagues who ask, what is the enemy,'' I say, true; today we cannot define precisely what the enemy is or will
be. We can say, however, that we
will fail in our responsibility in this Congress if, once again, we allow the armed
forces to be unprepared for the enemies that may emerge. In fact, as I will argue today, a failure to
support a strong military in the present historical circumstances would be even more unfortunate and more
unforgivable than in the past for two reasons. First, today the United States is the only Nation able to
protect the peace. In the past we were fortunate that allies were able, often by the narrowest of margins, to hold the line
while we belatedly prepared for war. Bismarck once said: God protects fools, and the United States.'' Today, no one else is capable
either of preventing conflict from arising in the first place, or of responding decisively if a major threat to the peace does occur.
While I trust in God, I believe God has given us the tools we need to keep peace, and it is our task to use them wisely. Second, and
perhaps most importantly, if
we fail in our responsibility to maintain U.S. military power, the United
States, and, indeed, the world as a whole, may lose an unprecedented opportunity to construct an
era of relative peace that could last for many, many years. Today, our military strength is the foundation of a
relatively secure international order in which small conflicts, though endemic and inevitable, will not
decisively erode global stability. As such, our military strength is also a means of preventing the
growth of one or more new powers that could, in time, constitute a threat to peace and evolve into the enemy
we do not now foresee. Because of this, the very limited investment required to maintain our military strength, though
somewhat larger than we are making right now, is disproportionately small compared to the benefits we, and the rest of the world,
derive from it. My fellow Missourian, Harry S Truman, stated this clearly: We must be prepared to pay the price for peace, or
assuredly we will pay the price of war.'' These two premises, that the United States alone is able to protect the peace, and that
adequate, visible U.S. military power may prevent new enemies from arising in the future, are, it seems to me, the cornerstones of a
sound strategy for the years to come.
***Aff Answers
UQ/IL
Funds for aquaculture research already appropriated
Pekow ‘14
[Charles, May 17, House committee offers tight NOAA budget for 2015
, http://www.examiner.com/article/house-committee-offers-tight-noaa-budget-for-2015]
The committee report also asks NOAA to provide it with quarterly reports on its stock assessment efforts starting next winter. The
reports must describe NOAA's methods for determining stock assessments, the costs of each survey and how the agency
incorporates independent data. The committee also ordered NOAA to provide within 90 days of the enactment of the bill a report
on how it determines fishing quotas, especially when spikes occur in fishing. The emphasis would be on reported spikes in Atlantic
sea bass fishing in 2013.¶ The
bill also would earmark $12 million for cooperative fisheries research .
The committee asks NOAA for another report on how it spent its cooperative research funds
over the last two years and the uses of the research. The committee criticized NOAA for not
using the research fast enough in its stock assessments.
NOAA budget is already too short
Conathan ‘11
[Michael, Director of Oceans Policy at American Progress.
, The GOP decides accurate weather forecasting and hurricane tracking are luxuries America
can’t afford¶ , ¶ http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/02/18/207538/gop-cuts-noaa-satelliteweather-forecasting-and-hurricane-tracking/]
The House of Representatives is debating the Full Year Continuing Resolution Act (H.R. 1) to fund the federal government for the
remainder of fiscal year 2011. TheRepublican
leadership has proposed sweeping cuts to key programs
across theclimate change, clean energy, and environmental spectrum. They have also decided that accurate
weather forecasting and hurricane tracking are luxuries America can no longer afford. ¶ The
GOP’s bill would tear $1.2 billion (21 percent) out of the president’s proposed budget for the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. On the surface, cutting NOAA may seem like an obvious choice. The FY
2011 request for the agency included a 16 percent boost over 2010 levels that would have made
this year’s funding level of $5.5 billion the largest in NOAA’s history. ¶ Even this total funding
level, however, is woefully insufficient for an agency tasked with managing such fundamental resources as the
atmosphere that regulates ourclimate, the 4.3 million square miles of our oceanic exclusive economic zone, the ecological health of
coastal regions that are home to more than 50 percent of all Americans, response to environmental catastrophes including the
Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and fisheries that employ thousands of Americans and annually contributetens of billions of dollars to
the national economy.
NOAA received a massive funding increase specifically for satellites – they will
not be cut.
Ogburn ‘13
[Stephanie, July 19, Emerging NOAA spending bills focused on extreme weather
, http://www.eenews.net/stories/1059984676]
There's a big difference -- $700 million -- between how much money the Senate Appropriations
Committee wants to allocate for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and how much the
House Appropriations Committee is willing to spend.¶ But there's one big bipartisan element
that both House and Senate appropriators agree on, and that's the need for NOAA to spend a
big chunk of its budget on improving weather forecasting.¶ The Senate version of the bill, which passed
through full committee yesterday, allocates nearly $5.6 billion to NOAA. More than half of that is
focused on weather.¶ A total of $1.95 billion is allocated for weather satellites, which collect data
used in modeling severe weather and are useful for climate science. An additional $1.1 billion is for the National Weather Service.¶
On the House side, the numbers are strikingly similar: The Weather Service is slated to receive $940.7 million, and $1.8 billion is
allotted for NOAA's two big satellite programs.¶ The data those satellites collect are used in modeling extreme weather as well as for
climate science.¶ These numbers are above what was requested in the Obama administration's budget for the National Weather
Service,
signifying Congress' prioritization of that mission .
Satellite funding is inevitable, shielded from other cuts.
Leone ‘14
[April 28, Dan, Space News, http://www.spacenews.com/article/features/40378profile-marykicza-assistant-administrator-for-satellite-and-information]
Despite almost constant partisan strife in the U.S. Congress, lawmakers on both sides of the
aisle agree on this much: It’s worth knowing when to pack an umbrella. ¶ If they had any
inclination to waver on this shared principle, it evaporated in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.
Weather satellite data were instrumental in predicting the highly destructive storm’s track along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard in
October 2012, giving those in its path crucial time to prepare. ¶ Thus
NOAA’s two main weather satellite
development programs — the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-R and Joint Polar Satellite System
(JPSS) — were fully funded in the omnibus spending bill that passed in December and covers federal activities
Congress tried to shield these efforts from sequestration , the
across-the-board spending cuts that affected virtually all other federal activities beginning in March 2013.
for the remainder of 2014. What’s more,
No Impact
NOAA can still adequately function with lack of satellite data.
Kicza ‘13
[September 19, Mary, Administrator of National Environmental Satellite Data for NOAA,
HEARING TITLED DYSFUNCTION IN MANAGEMENT OF WEATHER AND CLIMATE SATELLITES
BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEES ON ENVIRONMENT AND OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE,
SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
http://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/HHRG-113SY21-WState-MKicza-20130919.pdf]
NOAA is implementing a
number of strategic actions designed to make its weather forecasting enterprise more robust in
the face of the possibility of a gap in polar-orbiting weather data. These activities seek to
make better use of existing data, take advantage of new data sources planned in the future,
improve operational high performance computing capacity, and improve the assimilation of
data into weather prediction models, including hurricane models. The goal is to minimize the
impact of a gap in coverage should it become a reality. While none of these activities, individually or
collectively, can totally replace a lack of JPSS data, they represent the positive actions NOAA can take to
mitigate the loss of these data . Should a data gap not occur, these investments will nonetheless
improve NOAA’s ability to use existing data, thus improving weather forecasts. These actions are being
taken in addition to the steps NOAA is taking to ensure that JPSS and GOES-R Series satellite development
continue as planned.
With funds provided by the Public Law 113-2, “Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013,”
Even fully funded satellites don’t solve data gap – other programs prevent
effective deployment,
Leone ‘14
[April 28, Dan, Space News, http://www.spacenews.com/article/features/40378profile-marykicza-assistant-administrator-for-satellite-and-information]
Thus NOAA’s
two main weather satellite development programs — the Geostationary Operational
Environmental Satellite (GOES)-R and Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) — were fully funded in the omnibus spending bill that
passed in December and covers federal activities for the remainder of 2014. What’s more, Congress tried to shield these efforts from
sequestration, the across-the-board spending cuts that affected virtually all other federal activities beginning in March 2013.¶
Nonetheless, the possibility of a gap in NOAA’s data-collection capabilities still looms , thanks
largely to the 2010 cancellation of a troubled polar-orbiting weather satellite program that
was intended to replace separate legacy systems operated by NOAA and the U.S. Air Force,
and delays to JPSS, the civilian program that emerged in its stead. ¶ Also facing uncertainty are
certain climate change sensors that are now NOAA’s responsibility but cannot fit on the first
JPSS platform. NOAA had planned to fly these sensors on a dedicated satellite dubbed Polar Free Flyer, but Congress chose not
to fund that program in 2014 and the agency is now looking at alternatives.
AT Readiness Impact
Decline will be peaceful and solves all their offense—only a risk of chain
ganging
MacDonald and Parent 11—Profs of Political Science @ Williams and Miami
Paul K. and Joseph M., Graceful Decline?, International Security, Spring 2k11, Volume 35,
Number 4, Muse
In short, the United States should be able to reduce its foreign policy commitments in East
Asia in the coming decades without inviting Chinese expansionism. Indeed, there is evidence that a
policy of retrenchment could reap potential benefits. The drawdown and repositioning
of U.S. troops in South Korea, for example, rather than fostering instability, has resulted in an
improvement in the occasionally strained relationship between Washington and
Seoul.97 U.S. moderation on Taiwan, rather than encouraging hard-liners in [End Page 42] Beijing, resulted in an
improvement in cross-strait relations and reassured U.S. allies that Washington would not inadvertently drag them into a
Sino-U.S. conflict.98 Moreover, Washington's support for the development of multilateral security institutions, rather than
harming bilateral alliances, could work to enhance U.S. prestige while embedding China within a more transparent regional
A policy of gradual retrenchment need not undermine the credibility of U.S.
alliance commitments or unleash destabilizing regional security dilemmas. Indeed, even if
Beijing harbored revisionist intent, it is unclear that China will have the force projection
capabilities necessary to take and hold additional territory.100 By incrementally shifting
burdens to regional allies and multilateral institutions, the United States can strengthen
the credibility of its core commitments while accommodating the interests of a rising
China. Not least among the benefits of retrenchment is that it helps alleviate an
unsustainable financial position. Immense forward deployments will only exacerbate
U.S. grand strategic problems and risk unnecessary clashes.101
order.99
Hegemony fails at resolving conflicts and decline is inevitable.
Maher 10—PhD candidate in Political Science @ Brown
Richard, Ph.D. candidate in the Political Science department at Brown University, The Paradox of
American Unipolarity: Why the United States Will Be Better Off in a Post-Unipolar World,
11/12/2010 Orbis, ScienceDirect
And yet, despite this material preeminence, the United States sees its political and strategic
influence diminishing around the world. It is involved in two costly and destructive wars , in Iraq
and Afghanistan, where success has been elusive and the end remains out of sight. China has adopted a new
assertiveness recently, on everything from U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, currency convertibility, and America's growing
debt (which China largely finances). Pakistan, one of America's closest strategic allies, is facing the threat of social
and political collapse. Russia is using its vast energy resources to reassert its dominance in what it
views as its historical sphere of influence. Negotiations with North Korea and Iran have gone nowhere in
dismantling their nuclear programs. Brazil's growing economic and political influence offer another
option for partnership and investment for countries in the Western Hemisphere. And relations
with Japan, following the election that brought the opposition Democratic Party into power, are at their frostiest
in decades. To many observers, it seems that America's vast power is not translating into America's
preferred outcomes. As the United States has come to learn, raw power does not automatically translate
into the realization of one's preferences, nor is it necessarily easy to maintain one's predominant
position in world politics. There are many costs that come with predominance – material, political, and reputational.
Vast imbalances of power create apprehension and anxiety in others, in one's friends just as much as in
one's rivals. In this view, it is not necessarily American predominance that produces unease but rather
American predominance. Predominance also makes one a tempting target, and a scapegoat for other
countries’ own problems and unrealized ambitions. Many a Third World autocrat has blamed his country's
economic and social woes on an ostensible U.S. conspiracy to keep the country fractured, underdeveloped, and subservient
to America's own interests. Predominant power likewise breeds envy, resentment, and alienation . How
is it possible for one country to be so rich and powerful when so many others are weak, divided, and poor? Legitimacy—the
perception that one's role and purpose is acceptable and one's power is used justly—is indispensable for maintaining power
and influence in world politics. As we witness the emergence (or re-emergence) of great powers in other
parts of the world, we realize that American predominance cannot last forever. It is inevitable
that the distribution of power and influence will become more balanced in the future, and that
the United States will necessarily see its relative power decline . While the United States naturally should
avoid hastening the end of this current period of American predominance, it should not look upon the next period of global
politics and international history with dread or foreboding. It certainly should not seek to maintain its predominance at any
cost, devoting unlimited ambition, resources, and prestige to the cause. In fact, contrary to what many have argued about
the importance of maintaining its predominance, America's position in the world—both at home and
internationally—could very well be strengthened once its era of preeminence is over.
It is,
therefore, necessary for the United States to start thinking about how best to position itself in
the “post-unipolar” world.
No correlation between hegemony and resolving conflicts.
Maher 10—PhD Candidate in Political Science @ Brown
Richard, Ph.D. candidate in the Political Science department at Brown University, The Paradox of
American Unipolarity: Why the United States Will Be Better Off in a Post-Unipolar World,
11/12/2010 Orbis, ScienceDirect
Primacy: The Ability to Influence Outcomes. The other way to think about power is the ability to realize one's own
preferences or preferred outcomes, or the ability to influence other actors—usually other states but not always—to do
what you want them to do. When we think of power this way, we realize that the United States’ vast resources alone often
are not sufficient to realize its preferred ends. There is no perfect correlation between the resources at
one's command and the ability to realize preferred outcomes. Perhaps no other period of world
politics in recent memory represents this discrepancy more acutely than today. U.S. capabilities
dwarf those of any other state. Politically, diplomatically, and economically the United States remains in a
preeminent position. While it hardly gets everything it wants, no other country can match U.S. influence in these realms. At
the same time, from Iran, to North Korea, Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan, not to mention Russia
and China, the United States is seemingly not getting its way on issues central to its interests.
More states are unafraid to challenge the United States (if only at the margins), ignore its
blandishments, or seek to decrease their reliance or dependence on American security
guarantees.