Bipartisan Senate effort seeks to preserve NSF's ocean monitoring network

Senators Merkley and Murkowski led a bipartisan letter on June 15 urging the National Science Foundation to reverse plans to dismantle the Ocean Observatories Initiative. The network tracks ocean chemistry, seismic activity, and tsunami risk across the Pacific. Once data collection gaps occur, they cannot be recovered. NSF had pledged five-year funding as recently as March 2024, making the reversal unexpected.