The US Commission on Ocean Policy submitted its final report, "An Ocean Blueprint for the 21st Century," and as a reaction the President released the U.S. Ocean Action Plan.The first stage of work is completed based on the Oceans Act of 2000, however, the US has yet to show the growing second wave since the Stratton Commission report, Our Nation and The Sea: A Plan for National Action which was published in 1969.

The US Presidential Election conducted last year was the first election after the New York terrorist attack and was more dominated by the threat of terror and the war in Iraq than economic issues.In an opinion poll before the election, although a staggering 86% of Americans answered that restrictions should be tightened for environmental protection, environmental issues were never discussed during the election campaign.Why don't environmental issues rivet public attention?

Many historical oceanographic data sets are not widely available because they exist only in manuscript form and are at risk of decay and damage.This article describes projects initiated in the early 1990s to locate at-risk data sets and incorporate them into a global, comprehensive, integrated, scientifically quality-controlled ocean profile-plankton database with all data in one, uniform format in order to facilitate oceanographic and climate research.Efforts will continue to digitize these data and make them available in future databases.