The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) considers marine, coastal, and human environmental impacts when reviewing proposed energy and marine mineral exploration and development activities on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). The bureau’s Environmental Studies Program (ESP) funds environmental and socioeconomic research to inform this work, as directed by the OCS Lands Act, including baseline studies and studies on the particular impacts of activities authorized. The ESP aims to provide the information needed to assess, predict, monitor, and manage environmental impacts of the activities BOEM authorizes.
BOEM is beginning to formulate its Fiscal Year 2021 Studies Development Plan covering all BOEM energy and minerals activities and invites your input in identifying study ideas for consideration on Alaska, Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and Pacific OCS areas. Ideas must be relevant to BOEM's information requirements in the areas of biological, oceanographic (physical and chemical), traditional knowledge, and social sciences, including economic and cultural research.
For reference, BOEM’s National Studies List for Fiscal Year 2020 identifies studies we will be procuring in FY20, subject to funding availability. The current Studies Development Plan is online and the Environmental Studies Program Information System (ESPIS) provides access to ongoing studies and completed reports. Please carefully consider BOEM’s Strategic Framework – particularly the criteria and questions – that BOEM will consider in its decision making. Also note that BOEM is keen to advance innovative technologies that may improve results and potentially reduce costs, such as use of unmanned vehicles in the sea and air, satellite imagery, and eDNA. Please comment on the potential use of such technologies when they may appropriately fit into the work you are suggesting.
Please send your suggestions in a short paragraph to ESP by Friday, January 3, 2020, and explain why you believe they should be considered for funding by BOEM in light of points noted above. All submitted ideas become property of the federal government. While suggestions will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, there is no guarantee they will be accepted. Some might be combined with other suggestions. Acceptance of an idea does not imply that the submitter will receive funding.
We appreciate your participation in this process and look forward to your suggestions.
Dr. Rodney E. Cluck
Chief, Division of Environmental Sciences
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
U.S. Department of the Interior