CeNCOOS UPDATE
May 11, 2005

*See draft of stakeholder needs, which will be used to help inform the business plan at: http://www.cencoos.org/documents/Summary%20of%20CeNCOOS%20stakeholder%20needs.pdf . Comments and additions welcome!

*See draft of partner capacities, which will be used to help inform the business plan at: http://www.cencoos.org/documents/Summary%20of%20CeNCOOS%20Partner%20Capabilities.pdf . Comments and additions welcome!

*See all upcoming events, as well as meeting summaries, presentations, and other resources at www.cencoos.org/news.htm. 

*Highlights from the National Federation of Regional Associations meeting May 2, 2005
--Josh Pederson, Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary's Sanctuary Integrated Monitoring Network (SIMoN) gave a presentation on the geodatabase to hold inventory information about the ocean observing activities in the CeNCOOS region. Many thanks to Josh!
--draft workplan presented to the group for comments
--Molly McCammon and David Martin elected co-chairs; Josie Quintrell and Rick Devoe elected vice co-chairs
--trying to hire someone at least part-time for a few months to help with coordination. After those few months and the NFRA is incorporated with funding, will hire an Executive Director
--Rick is sending invoices to the RAs for the $2000 for the coordination work. This $ can be federal.
--Need committee nominees from the RAs.  Each RA must provide two nominees total, spread across any of the following committees:  organizational, governance, legislation, and outreach. Nominees names and contact info. to Molly
--agreement to send letter to Ocean.US on our input for the new Ocean.US Director. 
--David to re-emphasize same NFRA priorities as last year at the second annual IOOS Implementation workshop (funding for RAs, NFRA, pilot projects, national and regional DMAC)
--Would like to also see the following:  more federal agencies consult with RAs and to do so in a coordination fashion via Ocean.US - need a bidirectional working group for this; need articulation of the national backbone; clarify questions about certification
--developed NFRA -Maritime industry resolution
--Meetings will be approximately quarterly and will be piggybacked with others as much as possible. Next meeting: September.

*Highlights from the second annual IOOS Implementation workshop, May 3-5, 2005
--Lots of introductory presentations and breakout groups focused on theme of natural hazards. Meeting report will be available from www.ocean.us "workshops" 
--Some notes from Rick Spinrad's (NOS) presentation: 
----ocean observing has high level attention due to the Pew oceans report and the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy's report - as evidenced by the President's Executive Order and U.S. Ocean Action Plan. These are a "great start". 
----U.S. Ocean Action plan puts forward a new governance structure for ocean issues in the government.  Questions on how to evolve the National Ocean Partnership Program into this. Because of these governance changes the IOOS plan is still not fully approved.
----Ocean.US is currently an interagency planning office. What we need is an interagency program office with budgeting authority to fully implement a sustained and coordinated ocean observing system. 
----gave an example of IOOS coordination re: Harmful Algal Blooms
----Noted the overall challenges to IOOS: a) requirements - diversity of them, gaps in data, where to invest; b) integration - diverse single capabilities and observations, integration between feds, integration between feds and RAs; c) external - connect with GEOOS/GOOS, consistent message and approach - this is big!!, identify the right players and engage support, liability issues - particularly with regard to RAs, performance measures to be identified

*CeNCOOS end user committee met on May 11th.  Notes will be available soon. FMI contact Rondi Robison at rrobison@ucsc.edu 

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Legislative News
*See May Legislative summary for ocean observing developed by Glen Mandigo, SMI, at: http://www.cencoos.org/documents/5-10-05%20update.doc

*S. 361 Ocean and Coastal Observation System Act of 2005. Stalled due to unspecified appropriations levels.

*HR 1584 introduced by Representatives Weldon (R-PA) and Allen (D-ME). This is companion legislation to S.361 to authorize appropriations for ocean observing. Referred to House Science Committee on April 11. 

*HR 1489 introduced by Representative Gilchrest (R-MD). This is also companion legislation to S. 361, with a lower authorization level. Referred to the Subcommittee on Environment, Technology, and Standards on April 11. Letter submitted by National Federation of Regional Associations with comments.

*House Science Committee approves tsunami warning legislation, HR 1674 - includes FY 2006 authorization of appropriations for $26M

Many thanks to the Great Lakes Observing System for sharing this template.