HOC Bolstered By Biden's Budget
The Healthy Ocean Coalition is bolstered by President Biden’s Fiscal Year 2023 proposed budget investments in climate, conservation, and environmental justice. This proposed budget includes the single largest funding request to tackle the climate crisis and decrease energy prices in history – totaling nearly $50 billion across more than 36 agencies.
The President’s request alone for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the primary federal agency with responsibility for managing and protecting the ocean, our coasts, and Great Lakes, is $6.9 billion, an increase of $1.4 billion from the actual 2021 budget. Many of the requests in the NOAA budget represent important investments to advance ocean climate action, such as increasing responsibly-sited offshore wind, restoring habitats that store carbon, addressing climate impacts in marine protected areas, and improving NOAA’s ability to predict extreme weather.
“Advancing ocean climate action will benefit Americans around the country – from cornfields to coastal communities.”
— Sarah Winter Whelan, Executive Director Healthy Ocean Coalition
Highlights for the ocean and climate include:
$45 million to support NOAA’s role in deploying 30 GW of offshore wind energy by 2030;
$30 million increase in funding for marine sanctuaries and other marine protected areas (MPAs) to assess and address climate change impacts;
Support for the Administration’s America the Beautiful initiative
$92 million for expanded climate competitive research grants
$2.3 billion in the next generation of weather satellites
Advancing ocean climate action will benefit Americans around the country – from cornfields to coastal communities. It will also protect our ocean-based economies and help inform the States, Tribes, cities, and other entities making critical decisions related to extreme weather brought on by our rapidly changing climate.
For too long, the agencies that work for environmental justice and protect our health, lands, wildlife, air, water, oceans and climate have been grossly underfunded as our military budget continues to bloat. Amid global conflict, an escalating climate crisis, and the ongoing pandemic, it is more important than ever that these agencies get the funding they need as proposed in President Biden’s budget in order to keep our families and communities safe.
Congressional leadership must now prioritize President Biden’s budget and its investments in these critical agencies in order to deliver on the president’s vision and to ensure an equitable and livable future for all.