The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced nearly $220 million for 32 new habitat restoration projects nationwide yesterday. The grants are supported by funding allocated in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law) and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, both of which Ocean Conservancy strongly advocated for.
The awards are funded by the 2021 $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which also includes significant investments in clean energy, conservation, and natural infrastructure.
In early January 2024, new legislation was introduced to modernize outdated commercial fishing regulations along the Atlantic Coast due to changing fish locations in response to warming ocean temperatures. Senator Murphy of Connecticut was a proponent of increasing federal and state spending on the cleanup of Long Island Sound to help restore commercial and recreational fishing in the state.
He remarked, “As ocean temperatures keep getting warmer, fish up and down the coast are migrating north. This makes business a lot harder for Connecticut fishermen. We should be doing everything possible to help fishermen adapt to our changing climate, and this legislation would update totally outdated policies that hurt our state.”
The restoration projects across the country in 22 different states will also help sustain fisheries as well as the coastal economy. Jeff Watters, Ocean Conservancy’s vice president of external affairs, said, “Our coasts are the gateway to our ocean and on the front lines of climate change impacts. We are grateful to NOAA for investing in coastal habitat restoration. Projects like those announced today will pay dividends for decades to come, protecting coastal communities and helping ocean and coastal wildlife to flourish. These grants to safeguard our ocean ecosystems, coasts, and communities – especially historically underserved communities – are a defining legacy of the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that will benefit all of us.”
