Since Congress lifted a moratorium on offshore drilling last year, lawmakers have grappled with the issue of how best to regulate U.S. ocean waters to allow energy development while sustainably managing other marine resources. A new policy paper, published April 10 in Science by a team of Duke University experts, argues that establishing a public trust doctrine for federal waters could be an effective and ethical solution to such conflicts. "The public trust doctrine could provide a practical legal framework for restructuring the way we regulate and manage our oceans. It would support ocean-based commerce while protecting marine species and habitats," says Mary Turnipseed, a PhD student at the Nicholas School. The public trust doctrine is "a simple but powerful legal concept," Turnipseed says, that obliges governments to manage certain natural resources in the best interests of their citizens, without sacrificing the needs of future generations. The doctrine, already well established at the state level, would enable federal agencies to better manage conflicting demands such as conservation, energy development, fisheries and shipping in the 3.6 million nautical square miles of U.S. oceans. "We need to ... build a vigorous mandate that provides both the authority and the responsibility for federal agencies to work jointly to manage our oceans as whole ecosystems," says Rafe Sagarin, associate director for coastal and ocean policy at the Nicholas Institute. "As we contemplate managing our ocean resources, not only for today but for future generations, we need to ask ourselves two critical questions: For whom should the country's oceans be managed? And for what purpose? The public trust doctrine answers both of these questions." 

Nicholas Institute staff members received extensive media coverage this month for their expertise on timely policy issues. Tim Profeta, director of the Nicholas Institute, was quoted in a Bloomberg News story about how investors and financial firms could manage risks in the proposed U.S. carbon market, which could reach $1 trillion in trades annually by 2020. Profeta also was quoted in The New York Times and a Reuters International news story about prospects for U.S. climate change legislation this year. Stories about a policy paper on the use of the public trust doctrine in U.S. ocean management, co-written by the Institute's Rafe Sagarin, appeared in GreenWire, United Press International, The New York Times and Scientific American. A Climate Change Policy Partnership paper on natural gas prices generated stories in ClimateWire, Carbon Control News and other publications. Bill Holman, director of state policy, co-wrote a series of four guest editorials for the Greensboro News & Record on water allocation and conservation policies in North Carolina.