@article{053a09cb9ce44083bc2b7d4dc6496adc,
title = "The portal is the plan: governing US oceans in regional assemblages",
abstract = "We apply theories of environmental governance, assemblage, and geo-epistemology to critically reflect on ocean planning in federal waters of the USA. US ocean planning was initiated in July 2010 when President Obama issued Executive Order 13547; this set in motion what was then called coastal and marine spatial planning, but without a congressional legislative mandate or budgetary appropriation. There are many reasons we might expect ocean planning to be centered in the US federal government, but ocean planning is transpiring in a neoliberal era in which there is little enthusiasm for “big government” and its projects. Thus, the project has been one of governance, with federal and state agencies participating along with non-government actors. What does a public planning process of this scope and geographic extent look like as a project of environmental governance? We focus on governance actors and the scale at which they operate, as well as the data infrastructure to support ocean planning, to analyze how US ocean planning is both illustrative of and contributes to our understanding of contemporary environmental governance. We have argued elsewhere that ocean planning in the USA has the potential to deliver outcomes alternative to marginalization of communities and enclosure of environments for capital accumulation, but this potential is fragile. In an era of unstable government when executive orders can be issued and revoked at the whim of the White House, questions about who/how ocean planning is carried in real space/time become even more important.",
keywords = "Assemblage, Data infrastructure, Governance, Mapping, Marine spatial planning, Ocean planning",
author = "Campbell, {Lisa M.} and {St. Martin}, Kevin and Luke Fairbanks and Noelle Boucquey and Sarah Wise",
note = "Funding Information: We also suggest that funding by GBMF was facilitated by the regional focus. This funding was critically important in the absence of a congressional appropriation and that importance increased once NOAA resources in the Regional Ocean Partnership Funding Program were expended. As a rule, philanthropies do not give resources directly to the federal government. GBMF supported the activities of NROC and MARCO and their RPBs indirectly, through direct grants to Third Sector New England and the Coastal Stewardship Foundation, respectively. They provided additional funding directly to university, non-profit, and private consulting partners. Although some of this funding theoretically could have been provided by GBMF to similar organizations had ocean planning been a project of the federal government (e.g., GBMF funded the Ocean Conservancy to promote ocean planning nationally), it is not clear that it would have been; both the need for and the level of control over resources would have been different had ocean planning been supported by a congressional appropriation and mandate. Without these, a private philanthropy emerged as critical in the regional governance assemblage. Although there are important questions about the role of private foundations in funding public projects, in this case one that could transform access to a vast public space and its resources, our point here is that non-state actors and their funding were both critical and possible because of the relatively limited role for the federal government in ocean planning via executive order. Funding Information: We thank the numerous individuals we interviewed and interacted with for their time and thought. This article benefited from constructive feedback from two anonymous reviewers. This research was supported by the US National Science Foundation (Award Nos. 1155484, 1359943 and 1359805). Funding Information: Perhaps one of the most important roles of non-state actors has been in funding ocean planning. As one informant noted, long-term funding for data portals is the “million dollar question,” particularly given the disparate data sources, providers, servers, and funding sources. Although federal agencies did provide some funding for regional ocean planning, the majority of financial support in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic came through the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF), a California-based private philanthropic organization. Since 2004, GBMF has spent over US$300 million dollars on their commitment to “acheive healthy and resilient marine ecosystems in the United States and Canada” ( https://www.moore.org/initiative-strategy-detail?initiativeId=marine-conservation-initiative ). This supports all marine activities, not just ocean planning, but investments in ocean planning have been considerable. For example, GBMF provided the Ocean Conservancy with grants totaling over US$11M dollars between 2012 and 2018, to develop and promote regional ocean planning in the USA; prior to 2012, GBMF funded the Conservancy{\textquoteright}s efforts to promote area-based management in oceans. In the Northeast, GBMF provided NROC US$9.2M to support regional ocean planning, between 2010 and 2017. Once NOAA funding was no longer available, the support from GBMF was critical; for example, GBMF grants provided 64, 72, and 86% of NROC funding in 2014, 2015, and 2016. In addition, GBMF provided US$5.1M to Sea Plan, a partner that supported ocean planning efforts first in Massachusetts and then in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. Funding for efforts in the Mid-Atlantic was similar. GBMF provided US$4.6M in funding to support ocean planning efforts by MARCO, plus US$3.4M to Monmouth University to develop the data portal. Funding Information: We thank the numerous individuals we interviewed and interacted with for their time and thought. This article benefited from constructive feedback from two anonymous reviewers. This research was supported by the US National Science Foundation (Award Nos. 1155484,?1359943 and 1359805). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.",
year = "2020",
month = sep,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1007/s40152-020-00173-3",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "19",
pages = "285--297",
journal = "Maritime Studies",
issn = "1872-7859",
publisher = "Centre for Maritime Research, MARE",
number = "3",
}