President's Message

Congress: Maintain Balance With MMPA

In its first session, the 108th Congress made some important strides to rebalance our national security requirements with the important need to protect our environment. The members of Congress demonstrated great moral courage as they ignored special interest groups that favored the status quo: Interpretations of environmental laws that had curtailed the sea services’ opportunities for realistic training and delayed the deployment of vital defense technology.

That is indicative of the wisdom and leadership our nation needs to win the war on terror.

As the current session gets under way, Congress has an opportunity to build on that achievement. The Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) comes up for reauthorization early in the session. This vital law, passed by Congress in 1972 and amended several times since, protects marine mammals. Its principal purpose was to stop the inadvertent killing of hundreds of thousands of dolphins in the tuna nets of Pacific fishing fleets. We support the goals of the MMPA and the efforts of environmentalists to ensure that the world’s marine mammals continue to flourish.

In last year’s National Defense Authorization Act, Congress amended the MMPA because its vague wording of key provisions affecting military readiness activities left the law open to almost any interpretation. The “harassment” of marine mammals was defined as any act that had the “potential to disturb” behavior such as breathing, feeding or migration. Even environmentalists complained that this vague definition placed all involved in an impossible situation. William T. Holgrath, assistant administrator for fisheries of the National Marine Fisheries Service, told a congressional committee in May that, “the definition is overly broad and does not provide a clear enough threshold for what activities do or do not constitute harassment.”

This lack of clarity had a damaging effect on our military services, causing training exercises at night and in shallow waters to be canceled, or conducted under unrealistic conditions during the day or in deep water to ensure that marine mammals were not “harassed.”

Also, the deployment of a vital submarine detection system was delayed for years because special interest groups mistakenly claimed its sound emissions posed a risk to marine life. The Surveillance Towed-Array Sensor System, Low Frequency Active, or SURTASS LFA, is a centerpiece of the Navy’s quest to do better against quiet diesel-electric boats of the type deployed by potential adversaries such as North Korea and Iran. Improving that performance is a top Navy priority.

To be certain that the SURTASS LFA posed no risk to marine mammal populations, the Navy commissioned and funded a multiyear, $10 million independent research program conducted in part by senior scientists of Cornell University and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. The bottom line: With appropriate mitigation measures, SURTASS LFA could be employed with minimal risk of significant changes in marine mammal populations over time — a conclusion affirmed by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Nonetheless, special interest groups sought the court’s intervention. In October, the U.S. District Court in Northern California issued a permanent injunction restricting operations of the SURTASS LFA. The Justice Department has filed a notice of appeal.

Confident that the public will support the need for the LFA, and applaud the care and diligence that underpins its proposed operation, the Navy published the research findings and other pertinent information on a public web site: http://www.surtass-lfa-eis.com/. The remarkable story of the LFA and Navy efforts to protect mammals is there for all to see.

Thanks to Congress’ action last year, the MMPA definition of “harassment” now encompasses any act that “disturbs or is likely to disturb” a marine mammal’s behavior, such as feeding and migration, “to a point where such behavioral patterns are abandoned or significantly altered.”

These important gains were not included in H.R. 2693, a proposal to reauthorize the MMPA that was approved in November by the House Resources Committee and soon will be considered by the full House. This bill reverts to vague language similar to that in the original act.

Navy Leaguers can help maintain the new balance between the nation’s security and environmental needs by telling Congress of their strong views on this issue. A key element of this debate is the Navy’s overall record as an excellent steward of our environment. For example, the Navy spends more than $8 million annually on research related to the safety and welfare of marine mammals, and the Atlantic Fleet follows strict operational procedures to protect the North Atlantic right whale, other mammals, and sea turtles. Many Navy bases are renowned for their vigorous protection of endangered and depleted species. Typical is the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Kauai, Hawaii, that routinely conducts beach patrols and aerial surveillance to ensure the safety of the monk seal, the humpback whale, and the green sea turtle.

This reauthorization of MMPA comes as our recent experience in Iraq underscores the need for sustained combat training and continued deployment of advanced technology. The men and women of our sea services risk their lives each day to ensure that we win the war on terror. The new balance we have achieved between the nation’s security and environmental needs is vital to them, and to our country. This is not the time to tip the scales.

Sheila M. McNeill, National President