Sponsors (7)
The bill clarifies statute and formally brings Tribes, coastal communities, and industry into advisory and consultation processes—improving local relevance and reducing legal ambiguity—while imposing additional consultation and administrative burdens without adding new funding, which could slow implementation and shift costs to agencies and local partners.
Indigenous Tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations are explicitly recognized and given formal roles on advisory bodies and in consultations, increasing Indigenous knowledge in policymaking and making federal programs more likely to serve tribal and underserved communities.
Coastal communities, tribal governments, and local officials gain formal avenues to provide input on ocean acidification research and monitoring, improving locally relevant adaptation planning and coastal resilience.
Statutory clarifications (definitions, cross‑references, punctuation, and clearer agency responsibilities) reduce legal ambiguity, helping NOAA and other federal agencies implement and coordinate ocean acidification programs more predictably.
Expanding consultation, stakeholder engagement, and revised statutory terms will increase NOAA and other agencies’ administrative workload and program costs, risking diversion of funds from other activities.
Tribes, local governments, and underserved stakeholders may bear unfunded participation costs (time, travel, capacity-building) if expanded engagement requirements are not accompanied by additional funding.
Added formal coordination and consultation steps could slow decisionmaking and program implementation, delaying research, monitoring, or adaptation actions.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Updates the ocean acidification law to add tribal/NH definitions, require ongoing stakeholder input, add tribal advisory board seats, require a tribal engagement policy, and make technical fixes.
Makes targeted changes to the federal ocean acidification research law to improve stakeholder input and tribal participation. It adds definitions for Indian Tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations, requires the program to keep ongoing mechanisms for input from industry, coastal stakeholders, Indigenous knowledge holders, and others, and adds tribal representation on the advisory board with a required engagement policy within one year. Also directs federal agencies to identify collaboration with State, local, and tribal governments and makes technical and typographical fixes to clarify existing statutory text. The bill is mainly administrative and does not create new funding or emergency authorities.
Introduced April 9, 2025 by Lisa Murkowski · Last progress April 9, 2025