Gulf marine sanctuary proposal faces Republican opposition

In an effort to burnish his legacy as a defender of the oceans, the Bush administration is considering creating a string of marine sanctuaries in the Gulf of Mexico.

But the proposal is hitting opposition from Republican senators fearful that the plan would hamper oil and natural gas drilling and hurt fishermen.

Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said last Wednesday that the proposal “holds potentially grave consequences” for the region’s economy and comes at a sensitive time as Gulf states try to recover from devastating hurricanes.

“The Gulf Coast economies are still in a state of flux, and we should be providing local industries with an appropriate support structure, not hampering their efforts and threatening further recovery,” Vitter said.

He was joined by Alabama’s two Republican senators, Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions. The three senators sent an April 21 letter to James Connaughton, the chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, to express their “strong objections” to the sanctuary plan.

The senators are worried that President Bush would invoke the 1906 National Antiquities Act to establish the sanctuaries, which would protect nine coral banks and hard-bottom areas extending in a large loop around the Gulf from Texas to Florida.

The law gives the president the power to designate ancient cultural sites and unusual geological features as national monuments and bypasses Congress and interest groups.

Bush invoked the 1906 law in June 2006 when he set aside the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and the surrounding waters, creating a monument spanning 140,000 square miles.

The senators said declaring the areas monuments would not allow enough “public participation and stakeholder input.”

Kristen Hellmer, a spokeswoman for CEQ, said that if the administration pursues the plan there would be “plenty of opportunities for anyone to provide input.”

Billy Causey, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration official working on the proposal, said the protected areas would be small in size and change very little in practice.

Fishing and drilling are restricted in some of the areas.

Ecologically, the idea of protecting offshore oases dovetails with new research showing that the Gulf marine ecosystem relies on a ring of deep-water reefs and banks connected by the clockwise motion of ocean currents extending in a loop from Belize to the Florida Keys.

Under the plan, Causey said the United States would like to see Mexico and Belize establish sanctuaries of their own along this loop rich with sharks, hermit crabs, cobia, amberjack, sea sponges and coral.

The threats are numerous, too, from poaching, treasure hunting, pollution, fish trawls, divers and drilling.

“We think that setting up a string of protected areas, protecting these valuable gems out there for the Gulf of Mexico, would definitely burnish the president’s conservation credentials,” said Jack Sobel, a senior scientist with the Ocean Conservancy. “It could create a true-blue legacy for him.”