1. United States
2. Maine
3. Letter

I am writing as a constituent to express my profound alarm regarding the National Science Foundation's abrupt directive to dismantle the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI). The decision to deploy ships this month to strip away over 900 deep-sea instruments across critical global water arrays—from the Pacific Northwest to North Carolina and the vital Irminger Sea—is a catastrophic mistake for our economy and national security. This decoping effectively turns off our planetary headlights. For a decade, this $368 million infrastructure has provided foundational baseline data that cannot be replicated. Stripping these instruments directly threatens our coastal communities. Marine data from the Endurance and Pioneer arrays feeds directly into weather modeling used to predict devastating coastal flooding, track extreme weather events, and issue life-saving tsunami warnings.  Furthermore, our domestic seafood and maritime industries rely entirely on these sensors to navigate marine heatwaves and manage collapsing fisheries. The Irminger Sea array, positioned between Greenland and Iceland, monitors the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)—the powerful current system regulating the global climate. Severing this data pipeline blinds global science to imminent climate tipping points.  Defunding this cost-effective, bipartisan-supported research does not save taxpayer money; it forces our Coast Guard search-and-rescue operations, commercial harbor pilots, and meteorologists to operate in the dark. It is an act of environmental and economic self-sabotage.  I urge you to use your legislative authority, appropriations power, and oversight capabilities to halt this short-sighted descoping immediately. We cannot protect our nation from an intensifying climate if we intentionally destroy the eyes and ears monitoring it from the depths. I look forward to hearing how you plan to act on this critical matter I am writing as a constituent to express my profound alarm regarding the National Science Foundation's abrupt directive to dismantle the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI). The decision to deploy ships this month to strip away over 900 deep-sea instruments across critical global water arrays—from the Pacific Northwest to North Carolina and the vital Irminger Sea—is a catastrophic mistake for our economy and national security. This decoping effectively turns off our planetary headlights. For a decade, this $368 million infrastructure has provided foundational baseline data that cannot be replicated. Stripping these instruments directly threatens our coastal communities. Marine data from the Endurance and Pioneer arrays feeds directly into weather modeling used to predict devastating coastal flooding, track extreme weather events, and issue life-saving tsunami warnings.  Furthermore, our domestic seafood and maritime industries rely entirely on these sensors to navigate marine heatwaves and manage collapsing fisheries. The Irminger Sea array, positioned between Greenland and Iceland, monitors the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)—the powerful current system regulating the global climate. Severing this data pipeline blinds global science to imminent climate tipping points.  Defunding this cost-effective, bipartisan-supported research does not save taxpayer money; it forces our Coast Guard search-and-rescue operations, commercial harbor pilots, and meteorologists to operate in the dark. It is an act of environmental and economic self-sabotage.  I urge you to use your legislative authority, appropriations power, and oversight capabilities to halt this short-sighted descoping immediately. We cannot protect our nation from an intensifying climate if we intentionally destroy the eyes and ears monitoring it from the depths. I look forward to hearing how you plan to act on this critical matter I am writing as a constituent to express my profound alarm regarding the National Science Foundation's abrupt directive to dismantle the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI). The decision to deploy ships this month to strip away over 900 deep-sea instruments across critical global water arrays—from the Pacific Northwest to North Carolina and the vital Irminger Sea—is a catastrophic mistake for our economy and national security. This decoping effectively turns off our planetary headlights. For a decade, this $368 million infrastructure has provided foundational baseline data that cannot be replicated. Stripping these instruments directly threatens our coastal communities. Marine data from the Endurance and Pioneer arrays feeds directly into weather modeling used to predict devastating coastal flooding, track extreme weather events, and issue life-saving tsunami warnings.  Furthermore, our domestic seafood and maritime industries rely entirely on these sensors to navigate marine heatwaves and manage collapsing fisheries. The Irminger Sea array, positioned between Greenland and Iceland, monitors the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)—the powerful current system regulating the global climate. Severing this data pipeline blinds global science to imminent climate tipping points.  Defunding this cost-effective, bipartisan-supported research does not save taxpayer money; it forces our Coast Guard search-and-rescue operations, commercial harbor pilots, and meteorologists to operate in the dark. It is an act of environmental and economic self-sabotage.  I urge you to use your legislative authority, appropriations power, and oversight capabilities to halt this short-sighted descoping immediately. We cannot protect our nation from an intensifying climate if we intentionally destroy the eyes and ears monitoring it from the depths. I look forward to hearing how you plan to act on this critical matter