Confronting Our Changing Oceans

Floor Speech

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Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, my constituents and I are blessed to live, to work, and to play in the paradise that is south Florida. And those of us who have fallen in love with south Florida all want our kids and our grandkids to enjoy the same positive experiences that define our unique community.

That sense of wanting to be able to pass down that south Florida lifestyle to future generations is really what has motivated me to action on the threat my community faces from a changing ocean. Sea level rise has been occurring steadily along southeast Florida for the last hundred years, and we should be concerned about increasing coastal flooding and saltwater intrusion into our drinking water sources.

Meanwhile, new research at the University of Miami suggests that ocean acidification is not only slowing the growth of corals off our coast, but is actually causing the underlying reef structure to begin to dissolve. To counter the threats from changing ocean conditions, we must develop strategies to protect people's livelihoods and the coastal waters upon which south Florida's local economy depends.

One such strategy that could pay huge dividends is the restoration of the coral reefs off south Florida. This is actually, Mr. Speaker, the third-largest barrier reef in the entire world. Our reefs have been declining for 40 years, and recent coral disease outbreaks and bleaching events have proved to be devastating.

To save south Florida's reefs, I am introducing the Conserving Our Reefs and Livelihoods Act, or the CORAL Act. The CORAL Act would widen the scope of reef restoration and conservation research to include the impact of ocean acidification, warming seas, and invasive species on coral reefs. It would allow for the release of emergency response funds to study coral disease and bleaching events as they happen, instead of as a postmortem.

It would expand the focus of the law from simply focused on conservation, to gearing Federal agencies and their partners to play active roles in restoration and recovery. And it would promote innovative work toward understanding the genetic diversity of corals, so that researchers can captive-breed native corals that are specially adapted to current and future ocean conditions for use in restoration projects.

The environmental and economic benefits of coral reefs are strongly intertwined, and the CORAL Act would give everyone a place at the table to help develop consensus-based and scientifically rigorous conservation and restoration efforts--efforts that produce real results for Floridians.

Restored reefs will increase economic activity through better fishing, diving, recreation, and tourism; and healthy coral growth will allow reefs to keep pace with rising seas to limit the potentially devastating impacts of storm surge on our coasts in the future.

Mr. Speaker, having fled the oppressive Castro regime in Cuba with my parents decades ago, I know that south Florida is special because it serves as a place of hope for so many. We cannot allow changing ocean conditions to rob us of our livelihoods, of our lifestyle, of our identity as an optimistic community.

My CORAL Act is only a start for south Florida, but it will help in understanding the impacts of ocean acidification, warming seas, coral disease, and invasive species on our reefs so that we can develop effective solutions, so that we can salvage our reefs, and so south Florida will continue to thrive as part of an ever-changing landscape and as an enduring source of hope and inspiration to people from around the world.

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