On April 9, the House Science, Space, and Technology’s Environment Subcommittee approved for further consideration several bills relating to ocean acidification. Specifically, the Subcommittee approved:

• R.1716, the Coastal Communities Ocean Acidification Act, which would better inform federal research and monitoring plans by taking into consideration the needs of coastal communities vulnerable to ocean acidification;
• R.1921, the Ocean Acidification Innovation Act, which would incentivize innovation in our nation’s ability to understand, research, monitor, or adapt to ocean acidification;
  R.988, the National Estuaries and Acidification Research (NEAR) Act, which would improve our ability to understand the impacts from ocean acidification in estuarine environments; and
• R.1237, the COAST Research Act of 2019, which would reauthorize our nation’s investments in ocean acidification and broaden the scope of federal work to better understand the effects from acidification not only in the open ocean but also in the coastal zone.
  These bills currently have bipartisan support, and are in response to stakeholders across the country calling on Congress to support federal research and monitoring of ocean acidification.