[CINAR_PIs] Draft

[Francisco Werner]

Dear Pete, Mike et al.,

I concur - very good letter.  It's not clear how the Sens/Reps from our
states would advocate for additional funds (and how much).

1. Do we need to be more specific?

2. Should the letter urge for support for increases for *all* CIs?  It may
be easier for them to make the case than if they focused initially on CINAR.

3. I also believe am free to sign off without going through university
channels, but if OK with all, I would like to ask for input from our Federal
Relations person in DC.  She's quite savvy and may offer suggestions for the
letter. 

Cheers,
Cisco.



On 9/2/09 3:42 PM, "Mike Roman" <roman at hpl.umces.edu> wrote:

> Letter is fine. Note that we were awarded this grant/institute  through
> an open competition - hence advocating funds for CINAR is not really
> lobbying for an earmark. This was the interpretation by my unit
> President. Since this advocacy in not viewed as supporting an earmark, I
> am free to sign off on letter (i.e. it does not have to be in University
> of Maryland earmark approved list)
> Mike
> 
> Pete Jumars wrote:
>> Don et al.,
>> 
>> Here is a very rough draft of the letter we discussed this morning:
>> 
>> Dear Senator or Representative of Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts
>> or Maine:
>> 
>> As you know, Institution X in your state, together with W, X, Y and Z,
>> has successfully competed to become a member of a new NOAA cooperative
>> institute, a Cooperative Institute for the North Atlantic Region
>> (CINAR).  CINAR brings together an immense array of talent in areas of
>> science needed to assist NOAA in its mandate to manage fisheries under
>> the pressures of human use and climate change.  It targets a region of
>> the East Coast whose marine populations are connected by
>> southward-flowing coastal currents and promises solutions to thorny
>> fisheries management problems through explicit spatial planning and
>> understanding of climate change in the coastal ocean.  This spatial
>> planning becomes all the more important as additional uses of the
>> ocean are anticipated, i.e., to generate energy from offshore wind.
>> 
>> CINAR joins the Northern Gulf of Mexico Cooperative Institute as
>> NOAA¹s second regional institute in a trend of consolidation from many
>> individual-institution cooperative institutes to a few regional
>> cooperative institutes.  It is the logical path to ecosystem-based
>> management of marine communities and is fully compatible with the
>> parallel move to regional ocean observing networks
>> <http://www.usnfra.org/>, e.g., the evolution from GoMOOS to NERACOOS
>> and MACOORA to cover the CINAR region.
>> 
>> What undercuts this otherwise good news, however, is the lack of funds
>> in the NOAA budget to allocate to our new cooperative institute.  We
>> encourage you to support increases in appropriations, well justified
>> by both oceans commissions, to the lines that support cooperative
>> institutes at NOAA, allowing us to help them in their urgent goals of
>> better managing fisheries resources and the coastal oceans.
>> 
>> 
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ---------------
>> Pete Jumars <http://www.umaine.edu/marine/people/sites/pjumars/>
>> *For administrative purposes:*
>> Director, School of Marine Sciences
>> 360 Aubert Hall, University of Maine,
>> Orono, ME 04469-5706
>> Voice: (207) 581-4381; Fax: (207) 581-4388
>> *For research purposes:*
>> Professor of Marine Sciences,
>> Darling Marine Center
>> University of Maine
>> 193 Clark's Cove Road
>> Walpole, ME 04573-3307
>> Voice: (207) 563-3146 x.242; Fax: (207) 563-3119
>> *Fastest communication:*
>> e-Mail: jumars at maine.edu <mailto:jumars at maine.edu>
>> Cell: (207) 592-0717
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> 
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>>   
> 
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