US Hearing to Focus on New Ocean Technologies

The Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, chaired by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), will hold a hearing next week to examine the proliferation of new ocean technologies, how such technologies could improve government performance, and any impediments that exist in the use of such technologies.

The federal government is responsible for recording, understanding, monitoring and protecting the oceans in the Exclusive Economic Zones which surround United States and territories out to 200 miles, and even in areas of the ocean beyond those littoral zones.  Understanding and monitoring both the physical characteristics of these areas and how these areas are being used is vital to our national defense, the safety of maritime transportation, and to the protection and use of the natural resources contained in these areas.  In order to reduce costs and improve mission effectiveness, the Coast Guard and other federal agencies will need to rely on ocean observation and maritime domain awareness (MDA) technologies to make the most efficient use of valuable vessel, aircraft and crew time.

Private companies and academic institutions are developing better ways to understand and monitor the oceans and human activity on the oceans by inventing new, or making advances in existing, ocean observation and MDA technologies. Next week’s hearing will examine some of these developments, as well as potential impacts of federal regulatory regimes on the use of such technologies.

The Subcommittee hearing, entitled, “Using New Ocean Technologies: Promoting Efficient Maritime Transportation and Improving Maritime Domain Awareness and Response Capability,” is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, May 21, 2014 in 2253 Rayburn House Office Building.

Witness List:
•  Thomas W. Altshuler, Ph.D., Vice President & Group General Manager, Teledyne Marine Systems
•  Chuck Benton, CEO, Technology Systems, Inc.
•  Casey Moore, President, Sea-Bird Scientific
•  Dean Rosenberg, CEO, PortVision
•  Commander David M. Slayton, Research Fellow, Hoover Institution - Stanford University
•  Eric J. Terrill, Ph.D., Director, Coastal Observing Research and Development Center, Marine Physical Laboratory - Scripps Institution of Oceanography