User:William Ardourel/sandbox

california-v-norton/ Significant administrative actions concerning the oceans and marine life carried over from previous administrations. These included decisions under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act. Notable examples include the decision on reinstating Indian whaling by the Makah Tribe of western Washington state, the definition of "dolphin-safe" for canned tuna imports, denial of a permit to import beluga whales from Russia for public display and captive breeding by several prominent sealife parks and aquaria, rejection to consider the Reef Manta Ray as a threatened distinct population segment, and adoption of regulations governing the import of fish and fish products from countries that do not effectively control by-catch of marine mammals in commercial fisheries. There is currently a regulation on the usage of purse seines in Florida waters, that states that who-so-ever possess or uses purse seines for catching fish will face legal consequences.

Recurrent, politically-sensitive decisions include incidental "take" permits for noise harassment by military training and readiness exercises using active sonar and by-catch reduction regulations for US commercial fisheries that interact with endangered sea turtles, seabirds or cetaceans or occur within designated critical habitat of endangered marine mammals. After designating critical habitat for threatened polar bear populations listed by the Bush administration, the Obama administration considered listing petitions for additional marine life species threatened by climate change, including ice-dependent seals in the U.S. Arctic, and reef-building corals. The Deepsea Corals Conservation Program made significant investments in research on deepwater corals.