Breaking the HABit Part II: Legislation
This is Part II in a series on the obstacles to HAB education, which looks more closely at HABHRCA and legislating against algal blooms.
Click here to continue to Part I, which explores some of the challenges faced and how to combat them.
Click here to continue to Part III, which delves into HAB news coverage and why you might have never heard of them.
In America, the history of combating algae blooms is a short one. Relevant legislation has only been on the books for a few decades and there is little precedent where needed. In Harmful Alga Blooms: Impact and Response, author Vladimir Buteyko details some of our first national responses to the blooms, writing, in 2010, “Efforts to address the HAB problem at the Federal level began with the 1993 report, Marine Biotoxins and Harmful Algae: A National Plan and the Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research and Control Act (HABHRCA) of 1998.” The bill created funding for the Interagency Task Force on HABs and Hypoxia under the White House Office of Science and Technology, and focused response to coordination between federal, state, and local officials. It was amended in 2004, and re-authorized through 2018, thanks to the Harmful Algal Boom and Hypoxia Amendments Act, which mandated multiple studies, and allocated funding for such. In 2017, after the bill had lapsed, three senators introduced HABHRCA 2017, which would have authorized the bill through 2023. It passed unanimously in the Senate, yet it has stalled in the House of Representatives since May of 2018, trapped in subcommittee. Meanwhile, the extension provided by the Amendments Act has timed out, to less than dramatic fanfare.
The House of Representatives must immediately pass the Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research and Control Act (HABHRCA) which has been brought forward in 2017, and again in 2018, but which stalled both time in subcommittee. Previously extended in 2004 to provide finding and inter-departmental support, via a federal Interagency Task Force called the Interagency Working Group on Harmful Algal Blooms, Hypoxia, and Human Health (IWG-4H), this bill expired in 2018 and no other has come to take its place. This has left the nation in a critical position, with regard to algal bloom damage, and must be rectified
In 2017, the bill was introduced by Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), and was cosponsored by nearly a dozen more Representatives from both sides of the aisle. In fact, support only grew for the bill, with seven Representatives signing on to cosponsor the bill in 2018, after the introduction of HABHRCA 2018 by Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) in July of that year. In fact, Rep. Bonamici signed on her support as an original cosponsor of Rep. Mast’s bill, which is essentially the exact same verbage as the one she put forth.
The bill in question — HR4417 in 2017, and HR6645 in 2018 — has already passed unanimously in the Senate. In fact, Senators weighed on the bill less than five months before voting to renew HABHRCA. There is clear support and political will on both sides of the aisle, if we could simply get the work done!
Support for these bills not only spans the political spectrum, it’s a who’s-who of states that have been affected by algae blooming in their waters. There’s Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), who’s home state’s offshore blooms spew domoic acid into the food chain, affecting shellfish harvests and closing fisheries, and Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), from the state that is now famous for record-shatteringly precipitous blooms. From Rep. Mast’s home state Florida, a staggering eleven other Representatives, from both parties, have pledged their support. These places have all been touched by the devastating reach of algal blooms, pushing these elected officials to act not out of self-interest, but out of concern for their constituency.
In the case of HABHRCA 2018, the bill has been in subcommittee since August of 2018 — a staggering eight months. Even if one were to argue that Representatives need more time to weigh on the bill, HABHRCA 2017 as been in subcommittee since May of 2018! The House of Representatives has been given over a year to consider this bill. It is now time to vote for its passage and allow work to again resume combating HABs!
This is Part II in a series on the obstacles to HAB education, which looks more closely at HABHRCA and legislating against algal blooms.
Click here to continue to Part I, which explores some of the challenges faced and how to combat them.
Click here to continue to Part III, which delves into HAB news coverage and why you might have never heard of them.
