BLUE GLOBE Act

Bolstering Long-Term Understanding and Exploration of the Great Lakes, Oceans, Bays, and Estuaries Act or the BLUE GLOBE Act

This bill addresses data collection and monitoring of the Great Lakes, oceans, bays, estuaries, and coasts.

Specifically, the bill

• increases domestic and international coordination to enhance data management and monitoring of the Great Lakes, oceans, bays, estuaries, and coasts;
• creates the Interagency Ocean Exploration Committee to promote the exploration and improved understanding of the oceans;
• revises the Ocean Policy Committee to the Committee on Ocean Policy;
• establishes a technology innovation task force to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing;
• requires the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to develop a workforce development program, including to support undergraduate and graduate education in fields related to the advancement of the monitoring, collection, synthesis, and analysis of data regarding the Great Lakes, oceans, bays, estuaries, and coasts;
• requires NOAA to ensure that a goal of its cooperative institutes is to advance or apply emerging technologies;
• requires NOAA to establish opportunities to engage indigenous, subsistence, and fishing communities to better understand their needs;
• institutes an ocean innovation prize to catalyze the rapid development and deployment of data collection and monitoring technology;
• reauthorizes several NOAA programs, including the Ocean Exploration Program;
• directs relevant federal agencies to measure the value and impact of industries related to the Great Lakes, oceans, bays, estuaries, and coasts on the U.S. economy; and
• requires the National Academy of Sciences to assess the potential for an Advanced Research Projects Agency-Oceans.