NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad on Tuesday defended a controversial plan to impose speed limits on more boaters along the Atlantic Coast, saying it’s necessary to make sure the endangered North Atlantic right whale does not go extinct.
“This is not something we think would be nice to do — we have to do this, by dictate if you will, from the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act,” Spinrad told a House Science, Space and Technology panel.
With the issue a top concern for lawmakers this year, Spinrad was fully prepared when he went to Capitol Hill to pitch NOAA’s $6.6 billion budget request for fiscal 2025 to the Subcommittee on Environment.
When Republicans began grilling him on the proposed speed limits — and wondering how the speed limits could be enforced — Spinrad quickly picked up a photograph he had brought that showed a dead right whale after it had been hit by a boater off the coast of Georgia earlier this year.
