Scuba Diving industry critical of Obama Administration's National Ocean Policy

The Diving Equipment and Marketing Association (DEMA), representing the industry scuba diving industry, Tuesday submitted comments on the National Ocean Policy draft Implementation Plan.

As part of President Obama’s National Ocean Policy impacting all US Federal waters and the Great Lakes, the National Ocean Council released this draft Implementation Plan as a means by which the NOC intends to implement nine separate and overarching objectives of the Policy. The comments were submitted by Tom Ingram, DEMA’s Executive Director, who sits on the National Ocean Council’s panel of recreational users, on behalf of the diving industry.

In the submitted comments the dive industry expressed concern that the plan as presented could harm individuals and communities which depend on economic contributions from aquatic-oriented activities and more harm could come to environmental resources if collecting the necessary scientific information is not made the first priority. The plan currently calls for first creating new layers of bureaucracy.