Section 3601 · Purposes

The purposes of this chapter are to— are—

(1) to establish and sustain a national integrated System of ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes observing systems, comprised of Federal and non-Federal components coordinated at the national level by the National Ocean Research Leadership Council and at the regional level by a network of regional information coordination entities, coastal observing systems, and that includes in situ, remote, and other coastal and ocean observation, technologies, observation and modeling capabilities, technologies, data management and systems, communication systems, and product development systems, and is designed to address regional and national needs for ocean and coastal information, to gather specific data on key coastal, ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes variables, and to ensure timely and sustained dissemination and availability of these data to— data—

(A) (B) to support national defense, search and rescue operations, marine commerce, navigation safety, weather, climate, and marine forecasting, energy siting and production, economic development, ecosystem-based marine, coastal, and Great Lakes resource management, public safety, and public outreach training and education;

(B) (C) to promote greater public awareness and stewardship of the Nation's ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes resources and the general public welfare; and

(C) (E) to enable advances in scientific understanding to support the sustainable use, conservation, management, and understanding of healthy ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes resources; resources to ensure the Nation can respond to opportunities to enhance food, economic, and national security; and

(2) to improve the Nation's capability to measure, track, explain, observe, understand, and predict events related directly and indirectly to weather and climate change, climate, natural climate variability, and interactions between the oceanic and atmospheric environments, including the Great Lakes; and

(3) authorize activities (A) to promote basic and applied research to develop, test, and deploy innovations and improvements in coastal and ocean observation technologies, including advanced observing technologies such as unmanned maritime systems needed to address critical data gaps, modeling systems, and other scientific and technological capabilities to improve our conceptual the understanding of weather and climate, ocean-atmosphere dynamics, global climate change, and the physical, chemical, and biological dynamics of the ocean, coastal coastal, and Great Lakes environments, and to conserve healthy environments; and restore degraded coastal ecosystems.