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Floor Speech
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Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bill, the Coral Sustainability Through Innovation Act of 2022. This no-cost bill allows the head of any Federal Agency with a representative serving on the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force to award competitive prizes for the purpose of stimulating innovation to advance the ability of the United States to understand, research, or monitor coral reef ecosystems or to develop management or adaptation options to preserve, sustain, and restore coral reef ecosystems.
Federal Agencies with a representative serving on the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force include the Department of Commerce, DOC; the Department of the Interior, DOI; the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA; the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID; the U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA; the Department of Defense, DOD; the U.S. Coast Guard, USCG; the U.S. Department of Justice, DOJ; the U.S. Department of State, DOS; the U.S. Department of Transportation, DOT; the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA; the National Aeronautic Space Administration, NASA; and the National Science Foundation, NSF. In addition to Federal Agencies, other members of the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force include the States of Hawaii and Florida, the territories of Guam, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Commonwealths of Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau.
Corals serve myriad ecosystem functions, which include serving as a source of food, a place for recreation and tourism, a source for coastal protection, and an important part of local cultural practices, to name a few. A number of studies have been conducted to place a monetary value on the importance of coral reef ecosystems in Hawaii. A U.S. Geological Survey, USGS, study published in 2019 estimated the flood protection value of coral reefs in Hawaii alone at $836 million annually. When accounting for all U.S. coral reefs, so those in the waters of Hawaii, Florida, Guam, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the same study estimated the flood protection value to increase to $1.8 billion. Another study published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, in 2011 estimated the total economic value of Hawaii coral reefs to the American people to be $33.57 billion. There is no doubt the importance of corals to our Nation.
Unfortunately, there are currently a number of variables that are threatening the health of our Nation's coral reefs. These variables include climate change-driven warming of ocean temperatures and ocean acidification, unsustainable fishing, and pollution. As a result of global bleaching events and disease outbreaks corals are projected to decline significantly over the coming decades.
In an effort to mitigate the impacts of declining coral health, this no-cost bill prioritizes programs that address communities, environments, or industries that are in distress due to the decline or degradation of coral reef ecosystems. Allowing Federal Agencies on the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force to enter into private-public partnerships via prize competitions, as this bill does, will allow for the advancement of innovative research that will advance our Nation's ability to preserve, sustain, and restore coral reef ecosystems.
Time is running out to ensure that coral reef ecosystems remain the vibrant habitats that so many aspects of our society's functioning have come to rely upon. Innovative solutions at no extra cost to the American people, such as those supported by this bill, are desperately needed to reverse the damage that our Nation's coral reef ecosystems have experienced over the past decades to ensure that they will be around to benefit Americans in the coming decades. ______
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