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Council on Environmental Quality Blog

  • United We Serve

    Posted by CEQ on June 22, 2009 at 2:54 PM EDT

    On June 22, 2009, as a part of the President’s United We Serve summer service initiative, Chair Nancy Sutley, along with a group from CEQ, worked with the Anacostia Watershed Society to plant native wetland species in Kingman Lake, a 35-acre wetlands marsh adjacent to the Anacostia River. Kingman Lake is the biggest tidal wetland in Washington, D.C.
    United We Serve is an extended call to service by President Obama challenging all Americans to help lay a new foundation for growth in this country by engaging in sustained, meaningful community service. The United We Serve summer service initiative began June 22nd and runs through the National Day of Service and Remembrance on September 11th. The initiative is led by the Corporation for National and Community Service, the federal agency dedicated to fostering service in communities across the country.
    During this summer, the President is renewing his call to all Americans to identify needs in their communities, engage in meaningful service to create change – and stay engaged with those projects long after September. To create new service projects, to find service projects in their communities and to share stories about projects that are making a difference, Americans can visit the Corporation for National and Community Service’s website, www.serve.gov.
    CEQ United we Serve 1
    (Chair Nancy Sutley begins the planting process at Kingman Lake)
    CEQ United we Serve 2
    (Crossing Kingman Lake to reach the mud flat)
    CEQ United we Serve 3
    (CEQ staff plant arrow arum seedlings)
    View the full United We Serve sildeshow.

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  • Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force

    Posted by CEQ on June 12, 2009 at 10:20 AM EDT

    On June 12, 2009, President Obama sent a memorandum to the heads of executive departments and federal agencies establishing an Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, led by the White House Council on Environmental Quality. The Task Force is charged with developing a recommendation for a national policy that ensures protection, maintenance, and restoration of oceans, our coasts and the Great Lakes. It will also recommend a framework for improved stewardship, and effective coastal and marine spatial planning.
    "The oceans, our coasts, and the Great Lakes provide jobs, food, energy resources, ecological services, recreation, and tourism opportunities, and play critical roles in our Nation’s transportation, economy, and trade, as well as the global mobility of our Armed Forces and the maintenance of international peace and security," President Obama wrote in the memorandum. "We have a stewardship responsibility to maintain healthy, resilient, and sustainable oceans, coasts and Great Lakes resources for the benefit of this and future generations."
    "The challenges our oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes are facing are complex, and to meet these challenges we must have the participation of a wide spectrum of views from within the federal government," said Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. "The Task Force has a wealth of opportunity to make our oceans, coasts and Great Lakes healthier - both environmentally and economically."
    The recommendations and frameworks developed by the Task Force will be cost effective and improve coordination across federal agencies. The Chair will terminate the Task Force upon the completion of its duties.
    Read the President’s Proclamation on National Oceans Month
    The Task Force will hold their first public meeting on August 21, 2009, in Anchorage, AK.  For more information, click here. 
    The Task Force seeks input on its work from interested communities, governments, tribes, businesses, associations, non-governmental organizations and the general public.  To submit a comment to the Task Force, click here.
     

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