This week's report from the US Commission on Ocean Policy (see page 787) should lend valuable impetus to proposed legislation that would strengthen the mechanisms and financial support for ocean research.

As James Watkins, the commission's chair, has repeatedly pointed out, its work represents a rare opportunity to bring important issues, such as the declining health of marine ecosystems and bad fisheries management, to the fore. The exploration and management of the oceans is a widely neglected government function, not just in the United States, and the first review of ocean policy in 35 years provides a rare opportunity to overhaul it.

But critics of the present set-up are already arguing that the commission may have missed its chance. They say that its central proposal — to create a National Ocean Council at the White House — is insufficient to reconcile the conflicting policies that dog ocean management.

The commission could instead have recommended taking the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), which regulates fish and other marine life, along with its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), out of the US Department of Commerce. Scientists at the NMFS and the rest of NOAA often say that they are constantly looking over their shoulders at pressures from commercial interests, which should not be allowed to override the wider public interest in sustainable ocean management.

Critics say that the NMFS would work better inside the Department of the Interior, or that NOAA could become an independent agency, like the space agency NASA, to whose budget and national profile oceanographers have often cast an envious eye. An alternative would be to create a cabinet-level Department of Natural Resources, combining agencies such as the NMFS with the interior department's resource services, as President Jimmy Carter proposed 25 years ago. This kind of radical surgery was endorsed last year by the non-governmental Pew Oceans Commission (see Nature 423, 577; 200310.1038/423577a). But Watkins' panel apparently felt that proposing a new agency in the current climate in Washington would be an exercise in futility.

Instead it urges government to “strengthen NOAA and improve the federal agency structure”, and urges the doubling of the agency's research budget. It also suggests the creation of a trust fund, whereby the oil and gas industry, and other commercial users of offshore territory, would pay levies to help with ocean management.

Fortunately, the oceans have plenty of friends on both sides of the aisle in Congress — as does Admiral Watkins. Perhaps it is a shame that the commission didn't strike a bolder course. Even so, the report, along with the Pew commission's work and last year's National Academy of Sciences study on ocean exploration, puts Congress in a good position to legislate for the future health of the oceans. It should pass laws this year to strengthen NOAA and create a National Ocean Council at the White House, and ensure adequate support for a proposed integrated ocean-observing system.