when conflict occurs. So it's a bit like the world west and a bit of a free range at the moment. So I'll talk you through some of this with specific examples. I could introduce myself first that I'm the university director for energy transition at Aberdeen University and Aberdeen has had as a city a rich heritage as an energy hub, particularly in oil and gas, and is pivoting towards the energy transition and renewable technologies. And we're seeing an upsurge in interest in carbon storage offshore wind, potential hydrogen sites and conflicts arising with a number of stakeholders as a result, including those in the environmental and fishing stand and gravel aggregates and the Ministry of Defence and other stakeholders as well. I'm going to talk first of all about the driver for some of the offshore real estate conflict. In the UK, we have a legally binding commitment to meet net zero targets by 2050. And the main industrial clusters, as you can see, perhaps on the slide on the right, are in eastern and northeastern England, Humberside and T side, places like south Wales, Merseyside, and there's Grangemouth in Scotland to the north. In the red letters. I'm sorry to interrupt. Are you able to just move the, there's a little black welcome screen that's covering part of them. It's not moving for me. That's the problem. I didn't, I hope she wouldn't be able to see that. Yeah, there we go. Let's see. Yeah, it's really odd. It's got a timing thing on it. Yeah, don't know how to get rid of that. No worries. We'll make sure to provide your slides. So anything in that corner we get. Thank you so much. So what's hidden behind here is the southeast. England, but you can see where the main industrial clusters are and they face the red areas that I put in. EISB and SNS. Now what are they? They are the East Irish Sea Basin and Southern North Sea basins of shore that historically have been areas where oil and gas has been produced from. And so now that we're coming to the end of the life of those two basins, they're being potentially looked at for carbon storage. And our regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority, have indicated that we need around 78 gigatons of carbon storage in order to meet our net zero targets. Now they have identified stores between a minimum of 47 and the maximum of 172 that might be used in the subsurface. Now that has led to a study of these areas in the green box and the orange box, the East Irish Sea and the Southern North Sea, where a number of carbon dioxide appraisal and storage licenses and a new competitive licensing round has been undertaken. But as I've said here on the slide, it's one thing to have the ambition to store carbon in the subsurface, quite another to turn it into reality. We've been fortunate to be able to use data sets in the public domain as well as commercial data sets to put together blanket coverage of the Southern North Sea. In the red colour are the gas fields in the Southern North Sea and the pipelines that exist. And in the green and the olive brown colours are the coverage of what's called 3D seismic data, which allows us to get a body scan of the subsurface beneath. We've had availability of 2000 wells and been able to integrate well logs, check shots, cores and gas composition reports. What that enables us to do is to analyse the subsurface and characterize it forensically for the reservoir, the seal, the trap, the overburden and also non-geological risks like legacy well integrity, holocation and regulatory considerations. And what we've done is to look at each of these parameters and in a traffic light system green for go, yellow or amber for pause and red for stop based on the geological criteria. And then stack those parameters above each other to get a combined common risk segment map to show the best areas for carbon storage, the most advantaged areas. And this diagram shows the combined mapping and the green area is shown on the right hand side offshore of Eastern England. So this is just based on the geological criteria, how you identify where the best sites are and in red those areas you wouldn't seek to do carbon storage. Independently, wind energy has been promoted in the UK and currently has 14 gigawatts of offshore wind fully commissioned. This is four times what we had just a decade ago and equates the second largest offshore wind market in the world. The British Energy Security Strategy, published something like 18 months ago now, set the ambition to go up to 50 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030, including from five from what's called innovative floating technologies associated with oil and gas intog. Now, if we are going to monitor the subsurface, which is a legal prerequisite in European law for carbon storage, there are a number of techniques can be deployed. But normally it is seismic data of taking a boat with a wide streamer set of sound recordings in being towed in the offshore. Now, you cannot take a large boat with streamers through fixed wind turbines. It's a bit like trying to go through a ski slalom. And this example here is the first exemplar that we've got in the North Sea where conflicts have arisen. This is a map. So the warm colours are where things are higher and the cooler colours are where something is lower. And this yellow surface around here is what defines the endurance structure. The first carbon storage site identified in the North Sea, which is progressing under the Track 1 cluster scheme with the UK government support. The red area here is the overlap of the largest offshore wind farm proposed called Hornsea 4, which has a different joint venture operator. Hornsea 4 is operated by Orsted. The endurance carbon storage structure is operated by JV led by BP. Both of these were going along blissfully on a wire that they were going to effectively cause conflict offshore. Because in order to measure monitoring for the carbon footprint in endurance, you need to take that boat with the streamers behind it. And you can't do so over part of the structure or over a neighbouring structure to the southeast. Where that's outside the carbon store. But of course, if you put carbon dioxide into the ground, into this structure, you force something out. Water in this case. Water that may contain contaminants, which would come to the seabed here out with the licence. But it was covered, but partially by the wind farm. This has been a long running dispute that has just been settled commercially by BP effectively throwing money at the problem. In order that Orsted don't build their wind farm over the structure. But this dispute went to the undersecretary of state in government to make a decision. Because there is no, at the moment, independent arbiter or regulator to inform the discussion and make the final decision. This is what the typical screamer setup looks like with a boat. You can perhaps see how large on the basis of the boat showing here. This is a kilometer wide. And of course, you also need evacuation routes if there are any issues in the service with cables or pipelines and so on. So there has to be a balance between the size and the design of wind farms and the subsurface beneath. This is another example of the unintended consequences to building a wind farm in the large red box is a 500 square kilometer proposed wind farm called out of dowsing. Here within the red box are subsurface depleted fields, which are potential carbon storage sites. There is a way to take a cookie cutter to this and to ensure that the 500 square kilometer wind farm, which has to reduce by law to 300 square kilometers, could accommodate the carbon storage sites. However, the wind farm operator finds that having carbon storage sites underneath is an inconvenient reality, which might impact them in terms of insurance indemnity. And of course, a different ownership where they have no control on the subsurface if there is any carbon storage leakage. So the competition for offshore real estate is leading to this area being mighty crowded. And when you add the common rest segment layers together as I showed before, and take into account other factors like wind farms, you suddenly see there's a lot less space available for carbon storage. And this is before we weave in the other multiple stakeholders in the area, and is actually a now a threat to the UK meeting its net zero emission targets. Unless there is primacy given to specific technologies in different areas, we may find the overlap actually rules out the win-win solution between these different areas. This work was published in August of this year. I can provide the public publication for you to interrogate, but has led to the North Sea Transition Authority and the Crown Estate and Crown Estate Scotland now seeking to engage with further stakeholders. This is the situation in Scotland where, again, there are carbon stores, there are wind farms, there are fishing areas and environmental protection zones. And the question is whether wind and carbon storage and the other stakeholders can happily cohabit offshore or collocate. It gets more and more complex the more you look at this. This diagram starts to weave in all the various elements for each of the main sedimentary basins that are currently being looked at for wind power as well as carbon storage and other uses like hydrogens and gravel extraction all incorporated into this area, let alone then fishing on top. And I'll finish off with where we are in Scotland because we have had what's called a National Marine Plan 1. Earlier this year there was a forum here in Edinburgh which kicked off National Marine Plan 2, which was basically a tacit admission by the Scottish Government that National Marine Plan 1 had failed. And it had failed because the fishing communities are not being consulted and the Scottish Government had designated large areas of the offshore for environmental protection zones which were actually overlapping with Scottish fishing grounds. Which led to a sort of political standoff. And the lady here shown in the picture, Mary McCallan, is the current Just Transition Secretary and in kicking off National Marine Plan 2 basically said we're not going to make the same mistakes as we did last time. However what was interesting was in the room there were over 100 people and I actually didn't recognise very many if any and the whole room was full of the fishing communities who basically said this is going to be an interesting day for you John because we're actually going to go to Parliament we're going to protest because fishing has not had the voice and our communities are under threat. They did indeed do that and Mary McCallan, who is the Scottish National Party, represents the National Party, in coalition government with the Greens, the Green Party, took the brave political decision to put on pause all the environmental protection zones and have the fishing communities consulted for National Marine Plan 2. The reason I said that I didn't recognise many people in the room because I was surprised that offshore wind, carbon storage and oil and gas were not presented. So I'm a little concerned that National Marine Plan 2 might include fisheries but other stakeholders are left out. So what I hope I've been able to do here and I realise it's a confused picture that I'm portraying because that is the reality that we find in the UK at the moment. There are questions that are arising about whether carbon storage and wind farms can be collocated. It depends on really early engagement and spatial planning between the different operators. The use of technologies that enable the measurement monitoring and verification of the carbon dioxide plume. So what we need in terms to be compliant with European regulation for carbon storage dictates that you have to have at least 3D seismic data currently. Other technologies may exist but they're expensive like ocean bottom nodes 10 times the cost to do that to be compatible with offshore wind. And that means the commercial model for CO2 makes it less attractive in those areas. We have to factor in other stakeholders take a holistic view. So fisheries, sand and gravel, aggregates, oil and gas environmental protection zones. And I don't at the moment see that happening in a holistic way. We're about to kick off a project called co-locate with the Crown Estate and Crown Estate Scotland to look at ways to find solutions and identify areas where co-location can take place or to give primacy in those areas to one specific technique without detriment to another technique which would go elsewhere so that the UK can get back on track to meet its net zero pathway. I hope that's useful to you and be very happy to answer any questions you might have and I apologize for that little black box that hopefully wasn't too destructive. It wasn't John and thank you so much that was a wonderful presentation very very much appreciated. We do have some time for Q&A and we got started a few minutes late so I'll let us run over by just a couple of minutes as well. I'm going to turn first to Scott who can barely stand. John I can barely stand and I'm so excited by your talk this has exceeded my expectations I'm very pleased. It's only because you teed up that question before. I've been telling my colleagues here I went to the AAPG SEG national meeting here in Houston not too long ago and I talked to a lot of subsurface folks from the North Sea who worked on this very issue you've been talking about and what I was basically told was it's ill-advised to try to co-locate CCS and wind energy projects in the same place. It even becomes more of a challenge if you don't just require 3D seismic but you want to have 4D seismic time lapse seismic to monitor how the blue moves through time. Essentially, it's a deal killer. Now that was third advice and I've passed that on to my colleagues here but you got to hear the discussion. Did you sit in the discussion this morning? No, I just joined now at 6 o'clock my time, 1 o'clock yours. One of the interesting things about the Gulf of Mexico which is where the marine spatial conflicts issue is pressing right now is it has been identified as one of the potentially largest CCS reservoir areas we have in the U.S. Particularly in the offshore anywhere from 300 to 500 gigatons of potential capacity. Which though is probably in saline reservoirs not necessarily in depleted fields where it looks like your focus is almost entirely on depleted fields. I may have given you that impression Chris. The reason I have done so is that in early stages proof of concept is simply to go to reservoir seal pairs in defined traps which are well characterized. But the bigger prize of course is saline aquifers in terms of capacity and volume and people are looking that at that as well. But wind farms equally impact those areas and one thing I might add is that we have 8000 wells in total in the North Sea. Many of them were completed 30 or 40 years ago and when they were completed, yes they were done in compliance to the regulations for plugging and banding a dry hole, a water bearing hole for oil and gas. But never with the thought that 40 years later they might be used for a different purpose the areas. And so have they used the right cement or plugged and abandoned accordingly. Some of these things are straws to the seabed. They are largely in the saline aquifers, the failed areas. So one rogue well in the wrong place can be a basic game changer and showstopper for carbon storage. So we're still trying to work through some of those issues for saline aquifers as well. And given the nature of the subsurface geology, some of the saline aquifers come to seabed. So we are also concerned that they're open systems and there's a whole load of issues about pressure management and so on as well. So at the moment we're focusing on, if you like, the known knowns of the closures, the depleted fields, which are really well characterized. Thank you. So that was, but it sounds it sounds like though that the that they're the potential when one looks at co-locating in the same area. CCS and wind, wind, major wind farms, particularly on the shelf where they would be closely spaced turbines, you've got a real challenge there to put them in the same. Yes. Yes. And in fact, to go one stage further Chris, the work that we were doing informs the national regulator that is the North Sea transition authority. They had 41 nominations for the first CCS licensing round for carbon storage. Only 13 appeared in the licensing round itself that was offered. And of course, I was curious what happened to the other 28. So I spoke to the NSDA and their chief executive officer. And he said, it's like this, John, we had to go along the path of least resistance that it had to be a successful licensing round and any conflict at all, any hurdle, we took out those nominations. So in other words, 41 became 13 because 28 were affected by wind farms. Yeah. Thank you very much. No, very, very, we would dearly love to see that paper too, by the way. Okay. Love to see that. Thanks, John. Yes. Yeah, John, that was wonderful. This is probably a bridge too far, but has there been a lot of thinking about how climate change might rearrange the spatial trade-offs? And what to do about it? Yeah. Yeah. So let me take two, that in two parts. First of all, there was a question earlier about trade-off analysis. This is desperately needed in the UK. It doesn't exist at the moment. There are 26 regulators and some of them are effectively championing the technology that they're looking after. And then, of course, you've got people working in silos saying carbon storage is all or I want to do hydrogen or when they're not talking to each other. And that's even within the same company, I have found, having a partnership within the wind farm and the carbon store and not even knowing they're talking about the same geography. There are other trade-offs, of course, as you sort of imply, Les, and one of my colleagues, Beth Scott Aberdeen, has been doing some fantastic work at looking at how some of the wind farms are affecting ecology, productivity in the North Sea, and, of course, also working in forward projection models for climate change and some of the effects on weather patterns and what that will mean in the future as well. And in terms of productivity and the food chain and into fisheries and the communities, we are seeing things changing as a result of wind farms going in and the weight that they produce or local currents around the structures, which are not really being factored in terms of horizon scanning of what the consequences, the unintended consequences of doing this might be. I don't know if that helps you, Les, in terms of answering the question, but there are positive and negative feedback loops to this. No, it helps a lot. I'd be grateful to be connected with Beth Scott. Yeah, just send me your email. I've been delighted to do that. I was involved with a workshop yesterday with an offshore wind operator called Maram Wind, where these discussions came up and Beth presented and it was absolutely stunning what she's doing. Thank you. I'll turn next to Laurie. Hi, John. Thank you very much. I was reading this morning about porthos and it just being approved offshore Rotterdam. And it looks to me and just like a quick look that there are some of the Dutch wind farms that are really close to that as well, but maybe not overlapping. Or do you know what consideration was given by the Dutch regulators? So because of the conflict between Allsteads, Hornsey Wind Farm and the endurance structure in the North Sea, people became very aware of this conflict. And so things like porthos, green sands in Denmark, northern lights in Norway have managed to say effectively there's primacy to carbon storage. That's a driver to capture, transport and safely secure emissions. And having identified that site, they've given that primacy. That's not always the case everywhere, particularly away from depleted fields where saline act was occur and so on. But at least in porthos, there is the overlap is not there. Thanks. Thank you. I have a question going back to, to Michaela's presentation that I wanted to make sure I had an opportunity to ask and that is, I thought it was really interesting the methodology of relying on representatives for the survey process to understand what these marine spatial planning processes are like in each country. And I'm wondering how, how much you think that influences the perception or the, or the impression that your group gets on what those processes actually are, depending on who you're speaking with. And if there's in the update in 2024, if you are relying on the same survey respondents, or if there is a new mix of people and not just individuals but perhaps as importantly or more importantly represent representation within within that group. So that's a great question and I'll invite Andrea to step in as well since she was part of that process for the chapter. But it's a great point obviously the information that we'll get could vary depending on who that representative that filled out the survey. As I mentioned, marine spatial planning is not a focus of the work that we do so we were trying to include the information in the best way possible to us. And this has been a method we've used for several of these ocean energy system tasks, where we use the different countries that are part of ocean energy for our case ocean energy environmental our initiative and ask the country representatives to find the expert in their country who can fill out the survey and provide us with the best available information, and that allowed us to get information from 16 different countries that otherwise we might not have that capacity to get so certainly some tradeoffs there. For the 2024 report, we are not conducting the survey again. Andrea correct me if I'm wrong but we did it for both the 2016 report which was published the year I started at PNNL and then also for the 2020 report. And so we feel at this point that the survey isn't necessarily needed to be completed again we're not really seeing a ton of movement on marine spatial planning specifically for marine renewable energy. So we don't think that it would be quite as useful as maybe it was in the past but our team is going through updates and trying to find additional information. And we will be running that by our current country representatives to help make sure that information is the most up to date. I think I answered all of your questions but if I forgot something let me know. I was just going to add to that that Michaela has it exactly right there hasn't been enough movement to do this over again it was like squeezing blood out of Iraq to get what we got the previous times. However, I do want to point out that the representatives of the 16 countries are tasked as the country's contribution to this because the US pays for the rest of the cost, but there is a required participation by these other members of the group of cash that they are required to consult and get the correct information so they're not sort of random people that we've said oh would you give us your best shot so well we can't guarantee it's absolutely correct. We do a certain amount of checking and Anne Marie O'Hagan who was the primary author of that chapter this is her field so the we felt that we had pretty good. There's no basis for the information we have but she is right it's not going to be our focus for well, maybe by 2028 will have been enough movement but changes haven't been great. And I'll note that the 2020 chapter has all the references for everything that I noted I did pull those out today otherwise those tables would be unbearable to look at. So I'm curious about like what actually the regulations were where we got that information that's all referenced in the chapter. I'm looking around the room, and also online for any raised hands I encourage to if our, if our bone participants have any questions or thoughts or, you know, encourage their participation as well so we'll give Chris has put a note in the chat box about is it fair to say that European regulators are giving primacy to CCS and depleted fields. Actually, I would say the other way around Chris, when farms are us in the sense that the movement towards clean energy. If you think about CCS it's effectively waste disposal and doesn't necessarily have a commercial model or basis in the US the introduction of the 45 q made a huge difference where you suddenly had tax credits given. And I used to come to the states and present on some of this stuff. And to be very frank with you. Maybe it was partly my personality or something but people used to run for the doors. When I stood up to talk about the North Sea and carbon storage, and there was tumbleweeds going through the lecture theater until about 2018 19. I had to be sort of encouraged to come across I thought is it really worth coming across to an empty hall again. And when I presented in 2019 2020 on this stuff. Suddenly the halls were full and it was standing room only and I thought to myself what on earth has happened. And it was the 45 q, the tax credits suddenly anyone and everybody wanted to know as much as possible about carbon storage from this random academic from Scotland. It changed everything and we do not have a 45 q in the UK. But we do have it and because it's waste disposal that means there isn't a commercial model in Norway and in Denmark, they have built what's called green sands and northern lights. And if you've ever watched the film, Field of Dreams, this is sort of Kevin, Kevin Cosner writ large, they have built it on the assumption that people will come. And I'm often asked, do people come? Well, yes, what's happened is the petrochemical works in Belgium, in order to have legitimacy and meet its net zero targets. Basically, it's called INEOS is the chemical company have driven the green sand project in record time so it's overtaken the UK and northern lights in Norway has cement factories, coal mines in Poland and power stations in Germany. Basically saying how much do we need to pay you to take our emissions off our hands, because it allows them to meet their ESG goals and then actually raise money and have a legitimacy to keep their power stations going. We don't actually have that in the UK. So very long answer to you, Chris, but I would actually say in the UK, wind has got primacy and it very nearly knocked out that endurance CCS site until BP threw money at it to come to commercial arrangement so that there wouldn't be overlap. So I have a follow up question for you actually it's kind of maybe it's a comparison in the in the US our friends here at BOEM have the lucky responsibility to not only be responsible for oil and gas in the on the outer continental US but also wind energy and eventually here we're going to hear about CCS I think they're going to have responsibility for that and they've got only 2,500 pages of regulations for us to look at so can't wait for that, but sounds like they have the ability then to make the trade off choices them set within within their own context. You don't have anything like that in the UK it sounds like you don't have that. It's grown organically so effectively the subsurface is managed by the North Sea Transition Authority. So they look after oil and gas and carbon dioxide storage and now hydrogen as of about a month ago, but the sea bed and the shallow subsurface. That's handled by the Crown Estate in England and Wales, but Crown Estate Scotland across the border, whereas the NSTA is national, the sea bed is actually the different parts of the United Kingdom. Then you've got the like the sea column and environmental agencies for the things like Ocred, Marine Scotland, I could just go on and on there are so many regulators, there is no overarching independent if you like UK net zero authority. And if as you're suggesting that does exist in the states in one body, then I think you're in a far better position, because then you've got effectively one single point of entry to make a decision. There are so many different regulators so many different operators and methods that it is a really complex matrix and I really like the idea of this sort of trade off analysis to try and move the dial because we've got to get to solutions and quickly. And as some of you may know that in recent days and months, no but no wind farm operator bid for any licenses in the North Sea in the most recent round. And most people say oh that's terrible. I'm actually thinking thank goodness it buys us a bit of time to get this right. Because the more you put these things out there, then the less space you've got to do other things and they're not necessarily being put in places which are have no other use. Thank you very much for that. I trust our friends from BOM heard that particularly with regard to the second round of decision on second round of leasing and when leasing in the Gulf Mexico. John, thank you so much really appreciate your time I think you gave us a spectacular presentation and obviously there was a lot of interest in it, and to Michaela and her team as well very much appreciated I think Michaela maybe had to hop off already but really grateful for the time today for the contribution star thinking into our meeting and discussion. We're running a few minutes behind, but we are on to the last item of our agenda for today. And I'm going to turn to Brad life Brad thank you for your patience. I know you you gave us a few teasers yesterday about this topic that you're going to be talking about and it has us all. You know on the edge of our seats. It's not it's not everyone that can follow a spectacular presentation as I heard it just referred to with a presentation about bureaucratic minutiae. So, I'm super excited, and it's all downhill from here. Well we appreciate you joining us again today and we will not spend any more time. I'll turn it over to you. So I apologize for not being there in person. I love you all, but in a shameless plug my daughter is the female lead in the show heard in high school later this afternoon and so I need to make sure I am close and ready to get over there and help out with all the pre show stuff and then be proud dad probably not crying in the in the auditorium. So, yeah, so let's on a Friday afternoon talk about bureaucratic minutiae and how bone coordinates studies across different programs within the ESP and outside of the ESP. I'm going to share my screen, hopefully, correctly and appropriately. Can we see that. Yep, it just came up. Cool. Well, go back. Great, settle down, settle down. All right. So, I'm realizing that there's a little bit of nuance to this, this conversation based on the first couple of days we had this week at our retreat in shepherds town. We had a first environmental retreat in a couple of years. And that was really great. And one of the things we talked about was obviously studies coordination. And one of the questions that I know we've talked about we previewed a little bit yesterday like Kerry said was. How do we coordinate studies across the agency specifically studies that may not be conducted through the environmental studies program. To which my response is environmental studies outside of the ESP. No, we don't want that. And there's there's a reason for that. There have been issues in the past where environmental studies and I'm putting that in quotation marks were conducted outside of the ESP without knowledge of folks in headquarters office environmental programs. Yes, the folks who manage the environmental studies program, generally not a huge deal potentially not a big deal. One of the issues that you see when that happens is that a lot of times in those cases studies are managed by a single individual. You have one person who is taking that from idea to inception to final product. And that's really not enough eyes on on something for, especially if we're going to be using that for decision making processes, you know, bone is an applied science organization. We have science informed decisions, right? We want to make sure that we're clear about what that means. And they're formed by science science doesn't always win the day, but it is a piece that goes into all of our decisions sometimes science does when sometimes environmental issues do take primacy. Sometimes economics politics, whatever do as well. And that's fine. We just, you know, we need to make sure we're we're honest about what is driving our decision making process. So we need to talk about two things. First, we need to all be on the same page and we're happy to step in conversation about what is an environmental study. And we need to know what happens if a research need arises outside of the national studies list process right this is our nine month process ish. Where we go from study profile, which is a one to two page outline. So what are the research needs? Basically, you know, what do we think we need? What kind of research do we think we need to get it? And when do we need it? All the way to a couple years later, you know, till sorry, we're just like the NSL process, but nine months later, that final list of things were actually going to fund in the next fiscal year. It's signed by the director of the agency, whoever that may be at the time. So it's a long process. We are well aware that study needs come up outside of that process. Right. So how do we handle that? I know we have a lot of new people. So I'm actually going to pause here and ask the COSA folks, if it would be helpful for me to give sort of the elevator speech version of the national studies list process. I think, yeah, I'm seeing some nods around the room. So maybe an abbreviated version. Yeah, would be great. All right. So, right about this time of year, shortly after the new fiscal year starts, Rodney and our lovely public affairs support send out a notification to the public and to internal folks, all of our scientists across. Boom. I apologize to keep touching my nose. I'm about to sneeze. I'm trying not to. So that call goes out. And from here on out for the next couple of months, apologies. There we go. Folks start developing ideas for studies for the next fiscal year. Those get put into what we call study profiles. And over the next probably two to three months, those study profiles are developed, refined, and then collected into what we call our studies development plan. Right. This is the big wish list of what all of our scientists, and I'm including all our analysts and those because they are scientists as well. What they see is their research needs. We spend another couple of months going through reviewing those tightening them up. Making sure that those profiles was clear as they can be so folks understand what those needs are. Then we go through a process working all the way through the studies coordinators and chiefs. The regional supervisors for environment or their equivalent up to the regional directors and then up to the directorship of the agency refining that list. Based on the needs of each office and program to get to a list roughly. Hopefully by the end of the fiscal year of the things that are that there's consensus around as being. There's needs of the agency. For the next fiscal year, what studies do we need to get started. And then those hopefully get signed by the end of the fiscal year by the director. And we start the process over again, it's been a nine month process, right, but it's pretty it's it's step by step there's lovely Gantt charts that John Lilly can can show folks. That's basically how it how that works. But it is a process you start at the beginning. You don't get it at the beginning. You're sort of not in. And you end up at the end with the national studies list. Now, of course, you can't dictate when a study needs arises. Right. So we have to have some process for how to get things funded and started to identify those information needs outside of that process. Right. So that any questions on that. That's a very brief overview. I don't see any questions or any hands raised. So go right ahead, Brad. All right. So to start with, we all need to be on the same page. What is an environmental study and we actually didn't have this until a couple of years ago. Where we had a team, so a cross bone team that was put together to define what environmental study was. And so what kicked off the need for this was these studies that were being funded outside of the ESP without awareness of the folks who are managing the ESP. Right. That caused a couple of problems. It's not a great place or a great feeling when the director or the deputy director calls Rodney or me or Yoko or Bill and says, hey, what's going on with this study. And we say, well, that's not a bone study. And they send us a link and it is, it's a bone study, but it hasn't gone through the environmental studies program. So it's conducted with operational funds. And we weren't notified of that. Obviously that's a problem. We look silly. So we put a team together cross bone team to define what is an environmental study with the understanding that anything that met that criteria must go through the ESP processes and be tracked just as any other ESP study would be. With those things, these studies originating outside of the process itself, there is a cost sharing involved. Generally when that comes up, the originating office of that need will find operational funds to pay for that. The environmental studies program, efficient environmental sciences and OEP will share roughly $5,000 to give that what we call an NSL number national studies list number that also has it assigned. So, and just instead of just having a lead within the agency, which is our contracting officers representative. It's something called an environmental studies program representative and that gives you another SME to help you through that process to help you with all of sort of the bureaucratic stuff of putting the study package together, getting it through procurement, all that sort of fun stuff. It also helps with the review of review of everything from the procurement package itself, the RFP or RFQ or the IA documents agreement documents, cooperative documents, contract documents, another set of eyes with an SME. And then that gets it into the ESP process writ large. So, what is an environmental study for bone is any research effort, like anything that meets that, like I said, meets that definition has to come through our processes and procedures. And so how do we define that we define that as any oceanographic ecological biological socio economic or socio cultural research that and this is where you know I had a drum roll I would do it, but I don't collect data. This is where I am going to do what you should never do for a presentation, which is do a lot of reading of things on the slide. Basically collecting new data, including baseline information anything that helps you gain an improved understanding of what's going on, and not just of the areas themselves but potentially impacted areas right because the OCS LA says we have to understand impacts to the human coastal and marine environment right so what's happening in that spot where the study is being done, but where the work that that study aims to understand its potential impacts, where those impacts could be felt. Monitoring, obviously monitoring is a big thing that we do environmental monitoring new tools to monitor all those kind of things. I'll leave that up for a second for folks to read and that will share this later. Anything collecting or synthesizing new data to inform NEPA analyses or consultations right so if we are, if we need to do sort of a real small effort, you know, in the, you know, 50 $100,000 effort to just like hey, collect a little bit of information synthesize it put that together for our NEPA analysis or consultations that is new information being gathered that is environmental study. Anything that develops improves models to help us with analysis precision making technology development, things like that, that help us collect better information, work more effectively, cheaply, all that fun kind of stuff. Happy to talk about innovation at some other time as well. The efforts that would take information from environmental studies share those with stakeholders, the public get that information out there. If it is specifically talking about ESP research, and you want to go out and do that. That's something that should be tracked by the ESP technical reports and new data information. The economic efforts used at NEPA or associated compliance should be tracked as well. And that includes some of the analyses for the national program or similar analysis for specific projects. All right, so I'm going to stop there for a second and ask if there are any questions about what is an environmental study for bone. Looking around the room I don't see any 10 cards up and no hands online. That means I'm doing a great job. That's going to tell myself anyway. All right, so now let's talk about things that aren't an environmental study, right? So this group that was put together, didn't just talk about what is, right? But we didn't want there to be a black hole. And we didn't want to have to answer every sort of nuance question. Well, what about this? What about this? What about this? So we said, all right, well, what isn't? What can we definitively categorize as not an ESP study? So internally facing white papers for NEPA support. They're just, you know, hey, we need someone to put together, you know, summarize these 10 papers so that someone can save the summary instead or basically not even save some understand what's in there, right? Just summary documents. Renewable, sorry, resource evaluation studies and modeling for offshore energy and sediment. EMD scenario work, so exploration and development scenarios are things that go into our economic analyses and other analyses for the national program that doesn't count in here. We don't want to, we don't want to get involved in that. Tools or applications designed to collect information from lessee, right? We develop tools, we develop applications for environmental purposes. But if it's just to take in information from the folks that we regulate, we don't, we don't need to be involved in that. General data management. Does the ESP pay for data management? Yes. It's just a data management thing. We don't need to get involved in that. Geologic sample storage, scoping for public meetings, general outreach, kind of stuff. We don't, we don't need to be involved in that. If it's not directly coming out of ESP work, we're directly related to ESP work. And there's a whole bunch of other economic activity that the agency does that is handled through a different office, things like fiscal terms, royalty rates, auction formats, RIAs, other economic products. That's not environmental. We're happy to leave that sort of in the realm of the ECON team. They do a great job. Then there's a very well-formed team across the Bureau. And they keep each other well informed of what's going on. So it's not a concern there. Actually, I'm going to drop back a second. Any questions on what isn't an ESP study? Yes. Let's go. You've got Jeremy and then Scott. Yeah. What about studies that are done by developers? So, you know, they may do an avian study. They may do a right well study. They obviously do geophysical and geotechnical studies. I take it those wouldn't be considered to be environmental studies, but they somehow get into the overall boom mix. And how do you integrate that knowledge into the wider environmental studies program? Okay. So I would say those are environmental studies. Those are not boom environmental studies, right? So if we require them to do a study or if they do it voluntarily. To meet some need that that bone has as a regulator and we're going to take that information in. To help us with with our analysis of those projects. We don't really have a mechanism to dictate how they do that study. Right. They're spending their money to meet that need. We do not impose ourselves into that process. Right. We do. We would want those to be obviously appropriately peer reviewed. And reviewed before we take them in, we would review those and judge whether or not. Those are adequate and appropriate for us to, to use in our decision making processes and that's up to the subject matter experts within the agency. But because we are not. We're not funding that we didn't come up with the idea for that study. We're not tracking that within the environmental studies program in terms of something that bone has conducted and funded. How do you then decide whether if that knowledge already may exist out there? How do you then incorporate that into your decisions on what to fund in the environmental studies program? I mean, if you don't know that it's out there, it seems that you can't incorporate it into your decision making on what the best to fund. Oh, absolutely. Yes. I mean, we have to know that it's that it's out there. And so that I have a whole. I can, I can bust out my scientific integrity slides if we want later. The integrity of our decisions as an agency depends on sort of the integrity of everything from the data and information that we use and the staff that we have. And their professionalism, their. Scientific integrity there. How up to date are they in their field? All those things, right? So that is something that we really push through the department to your scientific integrity policy. That our staff at all levels, especially our analysts really need to be engaged in their field. As subject matter experts, they need to know the research that is out there for the types of things that you are talking about. Generally, those are things that the folks who are writing those analysis, those consultations. They're very aware of that work that is going on. If it's something that and anyone else bill or anyone else can jump in. If it is something that is being done as sort of a condition of a lease or something like that. We're not just going to take that blindly we're going to review that make sure it meets meets our information and quality needs. But, but does the environmental studies program staff have knowledge of those studies that are done in the leasing area. And the idea is that really what we're talking about here Jeremy is just within bone and in the environmental studies programs like the human marine and coastal environment and spending our $30 million. Now anytime an analyst is proposing a new study. Anytime a scientist is doing a section of a NEPA document. A good scientist you consider everything that's out there you talk to everybody you consider all the literature you consider dissertations you consider any kind of information now since you come up with. Well we're talking about here is tracking within bone. And I just see this has nothing to do. I mean, we're not trying to define an environmental study for the world. We're trying to define what an environmental studies is within our process. Yeah, of course we would get those broader broader things. Yeah, and if I could jump in this this ties back to the feedback loop study that the Jake and I see talked about right so. Those analyses those those NEPA analysis environmental analysis site hundreds to thousands of documents right and comparatively a small number of those are ESP documents, right things that we have identified a research gap. Funded it through the ESP gotten that final report and incorporated that in right and the reason for that is that we're not looking to recreate the wheel every time we do an analysis right so our is Rodney was saying. Our folks. The expectation is that that our folks are going to know what is out there what is the state of that science and where those research gaps are. The gap there that no one else is filling that's that's what we're going to fund. Right, we're going to fill those gaps and information needs that our analysts have. We're not just going to do research for research sake. If it's already been done, if it's already out there, the expectation is that that that's going to be to be brought in. And we're going to fill in the gaps to the ESP. And, you know, and Jeremy, thanks for the comment. I would also add that the co session has been very helpful in developing there were seven criteria that are part of our decision making framework and one of them one of the criterion is the, you know, the. The need to know this that information that's not otherwise available so it's right there as a criteria is important point. Right. At the end of the day, the environmental studies program is is a resource and a tool for bone analysts and bone scientists. Right. If you don't have the information you need if it's not out there. If no one else is doing it. This is your tool. We provide that service to help you get that information. Right. There's another question. I have a question. This is a very helpful talk by the way. So, I'm thinking about studies that are modeling specifically for the evaluation resource potential for the OCS energy and sedimentary inventories. I'm wondering how things that come up that might pertain to the potential impacts of geo hazards and or climate event impacts. Let me give you a specific example study BOM report 2020 slash or dash 040 potential earthquake landslide tsunami and geo hazards for the Pacific offshore or US Pacific US offshore Pacific wind farms. I think it's the only study you've done on that it has it's relevant not just for the geo hazards but also for hazards associated more generally and issues related to floating wind. Is that in your inventory. Yeah. So that would be in the inventory. So as long as it's the impact of those events on the work that we're doing. That's interesting. That would be there if it is just solely resource evaluation. Right. What is the potential. What is the energy potential of this area. How much sand is in this area that meets the criteria for whatever thing that. Resource evaluation is not about impacts. You know, lives at risk assets at risk. This was funded I think by ORP or yeah. Renewable energy so that it wouldn't be funded by you wouldn't have been funded by you I think it was funded by even. But it would appear on your you'd be tracking it though right it's fun. I got I can track them on that one specifically but that is something that should be tracked. I'd love it if you do that. That was not funded directly by and whether we're tracking it or not. I don't know. I would like to know the answer to that. But I don't know if we did a cross share on that or not. I would much appreciative. This is a study I've referred to several times. I've I'm frustrated that I don't know more about it. So what is that. What is that number again. 2020 dash zero four zero and I understand there is an update that was supposedly done but it was too secure for me to get access to last time I asked so I'm intrigued about that one. Well, again, this is one reason we're doing this process because we're not because that was funded outside of the studies program. That's why I would have heard thought it was from you guys, we would have gone through the study development plan and you would have seen it. And so that's one of those things right so the reason one of the reasons we were tasked with putting this group together to try to figure that out is that if it's not known unknown. Like if the ESP is not informed that this study is happening. We don't know about it. Right that's not known unknown to us. And that's that's not great. That's not a great look right. Thank you. Thanks, Brad. All right, so what I'm going to go to next is really bureaucratic minutiae, but it's really just there to kick off a conversation. So, again, we have this sort of nine to 10 month process to go from the inception of a study idea to getting national studies list signed, then obviously we go into the procurement process for those things. And then something comes up outside of that process. What happens if say a governor calls and says, Hey, my, you know, office of natural resources has $200,000 to do a study on this is not quite enough to do what we want bone. Can you know, can you partner with us when Noah invariably calls somebody in the third quarter and say, Hey, we got all this money we need to spend. We need a governor on this type of study. How do we handle that is there a process for them there is a process for that. And it's very dry and bureaucratic. And we have, you know, a 300 page procedural desk reference that everybody hates because 300 pages long, but the reality is most of the time when you need something from that it's only, you know, a couple of paragraphs long. And really, it is a pretty simple process to add a study to the national studies list. Right, so if you have a need. And there's funding available either through what we lovingly call our PQ a or program quality assurance. So whenever we have whenever we have our ESP budget, we hold back a certain amount for things like cost overruns. We sort of late, you know, late in the year or unexpected study needs that come up at some point in the year. So we can we can do that or you can use programmatic funds as well and then you have that, you know, that $5,000 cost share, but it's a pretty simple process. We can do this in a couple of days, and then get it moving. And what this does is that assigns an ESP representative right that second person that we talked about that second SME to help you through that process and then it kicks it into all of our processes that track. All of your, you know, process deliverables in term deliverables, final deliverables, data deliverables, all that kind of stuff. So this is the process to do that anything that meets that definition that we talked about earlier of the environmental studies program study environmental study needs to be conducted through the ESP. If you want to fund it with your own money from some other officer program. Here's how we do that. There's a bigger question that I think that you are interested in is not so much, you know, who sends email to who kind of thing like we have on the page right now. I mean, how, as an agency, do we coordinate those needs. And there are a couple of ways that that we do that. Obviously, regular communication between, you know, from Rodney, myself, Yoko, the studies chiefs in headquarter OEP to our colleagues in all our regions of programs. So we know when these needs are rising when they're coming up. So we can, you know, plan for them as well as we can, at least be aware of them. We have monthly meetings with all the studies chiefs and coordinators as well to talk about emerging issues, things like that. Staff staff communications. We have communities of practices within the agency.  So I'm going to take this off the screen because it's boring. So that's a big picture. And really just sets the stage for whatever conversations you all want to have about this issue. Coordination of research across the agency. Yeah, thank you so much. I think it's really valuable that we have these discussions periodically. And it certainly, I think helped clarify a lot of things that were buzzing around in the committee conversations. Just to sort of summarize what I think I heard and sort of the big picture while I wait for hands to go up. To me, like, there's a recognition that study needs may arise outside of the regular STP process whereby you do the call, you solicit the profiles. There's an internal review process. It gets on our radar. It gets into the STP and eventually onto the national studies list. And that you all would consider it sort of going through the STP process. Even if sort of an abbreviated fashion, so long as you all are notified and then that the whomever it is that's initiating the study is willing to go through those steps that you have in the desk reference. Yeah, so just to clarify, right.  And you have a research need that comes up when you identify that and bring that to us that doesn't kick off a nine month process start to finish. Right. What that does is that says, hey, I have a research need. It needs to be tracked through the environmental studies program. Right. And there are, there are requirements for that. Right. So we need to have a cost sharing. We need to assign an ESP representative and then all of the requisitions and sort of business side of that are then conducted through and tracked by the ESP. Right. So that so you can kick that off. I mean, I've seen it happen. You know, within a couple of weeks, going from our notification to getting it added to the NSL to being done into procurement and awarded. So that that is consistent with what I was trying to articulate. I guess my question that arises is, and you, you're highlighting how quickly that can be done further. It enforces my question, I guess, which is what, what criteria, how, how, or are the seven criteria that are in this, the studies development plan, how are those applied or how are other criteria and metrics applied in terms of determining whether or not even in the cost sharing model. It is a good investment of bones funds to move forward with that study. So, realistically, most of those things, when we're, when we're talking about these types of things, you have had, you know, basically at the regional director level or program director level saying, we've looked at this, we need this. And that can be for a whole host of reasons from, you know, so either, you know, like talked about the state saying like, hey, we have money we want to do this to, hey, you know, something just went sideways, you know, there is now litigation risk unless we fill this data gap. All right, now let's go ahead and do this. There can be a whole host of reasons as to why someone would come to us. But generally, if they're coming to the ESP to say that they needed that legitimate business case has already been made for needing to have that study and we're not going to, we're not going to fight you on that, right? Like, we're not going to say, all right, well, let's go back there and like, no, you've already gone through your process. You've identified the funds. You've said this is necessary for XYZ. You know, we're going to provide that service to you. And eventually Stacy would be the same criteria because you have the need to know and it would go through those criteria if it's an environmental study. Right. Yeah, right. We don't fund fair market value macroeconomic studies for the economics division. Understood. It's not an environmental study. Yeah. Scott, is your, is your attention. Are there any other folks on the line that had questions? All right. We had on the, oh, I'm sorry, Bill, go right ahead. Actually, I had a comment on the previous point, the previous presentation and something Professor Underhill was saying that that I thought might be useful for people to be aware of. Professor Underhill, I said, I believe that there's a binding requirement in the United Kingdom for zero carbon emissions by net by 2050 and, and then we talked about the complexity of the system there and, and the, and the boom situation I think was, was laid out in a way that people might think is much simpler in the sense that, yeah, well, this is the point we, it's indeed we, you know, we do regulate these all these things that were mentioned and so it is it is simpler and the leasing, you know, authority is with bone. But for example, for, for oil and gas. I actually let me step back. Although, although the president of the United States has has set the, the goal of zero net and we've, we've let the Paris agreement parties know that's our objective we're still constrained by the different statutes the government sees and so for oil and gas there's the five year program and there are these eight balancing considerations one of which is environmental and somebody could argue that because of climate the environmental necessity is such that, you know, you have to like set up a system to get to zero net, but no one is really, no one is really advanced that in a significant way for us and what we did and what we ended up doing in the five year program document was just noting what it would take. So there's an analysis in the document about what it would take to get to 050 but then the basic mandate is to make the continental shelf available for development subject to environmental safeguards with those so so so we, I think I think it would be safe to say that that bone or really at the interior department administration is not not comfortable, certainly not the way it's proceeding now to treat zero net by 2050 as the regulatory objective of the oil and gas program. The other thing that complicates it that I think you're aware of is that the current legislation requires a an oil and gas lease sale covering at least 60 million acres, at least, at least that to occur in the year before any offshore sale so there's call it a poison pillar which so so I guess the point I'm trying to make to maybe some of the other the folks that were commenting is, you know, we have, we have a lot of complications too. Thank you. I want to just take a moment to thank Brad for his presentation. I don't see rod is your question for Brad. Okay, well then we'll continue that conversation and I'll turn to you next. Quick question Brad so I think you said that the monies for research needs studies environmental studies sat in something called the PQ is that did I get that right. We have so we have. So, let's just do a little hypothetical here. So say, on a good year, lately, we get $35 million for ESP research, right and just doing that's all for that extra mail research that the agency does. We will hold back somewhere between probably 500 to $750,000 and not assign those to studies. And basically hold that back because we know we're going to have cost overruns we know somebody is going to want to do.  We have these these off cycle needs that we're talking about. So we want to make sure that we have some funding available to cover those unknown needs. Right. So we don't want to spend all, you know, $35 million right at the beginning of the year and not have any money left over for any of those sort of contingencies. Okay. And that money sits centrally or does that. Okay. All right. All the money is central. Yeah, so I was that was really my question. I was trying to get a sense of how many dollars we're talking about and where it was sitting. Okay, it's been 500 and 750 usually and the entire environmental studies program budget is managed centrally by DES right by Rodney's group right so we manage that we control those funds. And Rod, there's not there's not a line item from Congress for the environmental studies program. There's an item which is environmental program so it includes assessment, etc. But there is a mandate in the outer continental shelf lands like that there be an environmental studies program to understand the impacts of energy mineral development on the human coastal marine environment, blah, blah, blah. So if the agency goes away. Well, you know, the ESP will live on in some shape or form. We'll still have a job. I don't know about the rest of the folks. Yeah, Brad, I know I know that there's good reason that up until now everything's been oriented toward permitting. But I know it sounds like a broken record on this but is there a way is there a plan for a pot of funds to just learn everything we can from the installations that are going out there. So that there is an opportunity for learning and adaptation. So, so I would respectfully challenge that a little bit right so we had that conversation yesterday about, you know, not all of bone studies get cited in these environmental documents right these things that go toward toward permitting right and that makes sense to me. The environmental studies program doesn't just support leasing, right, doesn't just support doing ESS EAs it supports consultation processes. It supports, you know, just the agency writ large, you know, trying to protect us against litigation doing certain things like that so there are a whole bunch of things that are not environmental processes that are not directly related to permitting that the ESP funds science to help inform those processes. We don't apportion. So if you look at sort of that that specific issue sort of monitoring installations, we don't say, you know, 25% of our budget is going to go toward that. Do we want to make sure that that's a part of our portfolio. Yes. But at the end of the day, the folks of us sitting and I'm speaking about this in terms of folks sitting in, in OEP. So the folks sort of managing that that central program. We try to be agnostic about what those funds go towards right so we have regions and programs we have the folks are doing the operations we have folks who are doing the consultations we have folks who are working with the states with the tribes, doing all of the, all of the work. Right. So when we reorganized a bunch of years ago, the environmental studies program was pulled out of the operational side of bone. Right. We used to report through the leasing program. We got pulled out and put into our own place. Right. So we don't have to report through that. Yes, we look across Roddy looks across, you know, and that's one of his the things that he does and Bill looks across. We used to make sure that we have sort of that balance portfolio of things. And that those are the conversations that happen at the higher levels of the agency as we're going through trying to get consensus all the way from the study chiefs to the director going through that process. Through the regional directors, regional leadership program leadership up to the director. Yeah, if I can interrupt just quickly, I think, I think bone is doing a great job on the balance. I don't think that's the issue is, I think the issue is that bone doesn't have enough money. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I would agree that right so and so they showed the the graph the other day right so that was the nominal level of funding for the environmental studies program from its inception. First year we were fully funded was I believe 1973. We had roughly $32 million in 2023 we have roughly $32 million. Okay, so just to keep pace with inflation and I've had my economists check me on my math we should have somewhere between like 150 and $120 million just to keep pace for inflation. We don't have that. So is there a way to run this up the flagpole it's probably not the job of this committee I'm not sure but I would say. Yeah, it stays it's going down. We certainly can't do that right so we certainly can't do that right so we can't go boom as an agency or us as the environmental studies program folks we can't go to Congress they give us more money. Could we do a better job of informing. Appropriators, what we're doing the importance of our work. You know how we are being, you know, physically responsible with what we have and the great work that we're getting from absolutely we could do we could do more that we could be better about that. And that I believe that is in talking with some of our congressional folks and public affairs folks that they have plans for that. But again remember, we're a small agency. Guess how many people we have in our congressional affairs shop to. Right. It's better than one, but when you only have to that makes you more sort of responsive. So, thanks. I'd love more money. But yeah, so if you have some less will take it. I'm going to go to Jim and then to Rodney. Okay, this will be really quick just a real world example. I have all the details Ari sitting in the back she can keep me honest, but at one time I sat in the studies chief job in the Gulf. Then I sat in Rodney's chair and a similar chair to Bill kind of similar not exactly the same. Now I'm the regional director for the golf. For example, the end of the year comes up. There's money left. I get approached to buy Ari and the studies folks and say we have a study that's ending. But wait a minute, we could really use one more season of data collection with these cruises are expensive and it's an critical area. And so literally I say that's where we're putting money. I give Ari the thumbs up Ari and her team contacts Rodney and Brad and magically I've got 700,000 K to keep a study going for a year or so to get more information it's an ESP study. But we had leftover operational funds to get another year of incredibly valuable data, because if we had to go out and recompete it and line things up again, we couldn't afford it. So the program has got a lot of flexibility. And it's very nimble. In fact, I was at one meeting the other NAS building. And the chair of the ocean studies board pointed at one of our sister agencies that said you ought to do it like bone does it because they're flexible and nimble. And so it's really a good process and with the regions working with our headquarters office. We make sure the money is spent in the right place and occasionally we do get a few extra dollars of operational funds that we can supplement an environmental study. It really a lot of bang for our bucks. Did I say that right Ari for your study. And that's another pathway and that's even more simpler than adding a study to the NSL right that's just a cost increase request. Hey, we want to put some more money on this. Here's what we want to spend it on. We're getting good results. We started to look at what we've, you know, the SME in charge of it agrees. Yeah, we're getting good results. We need more. We need another season. Great. Let's do it. That can take place in just a couple of days to get that moving. But I mean, that can, yeah, I mean, adding the study can take. You know, hours, and then it's just the procurement piece to extend the extend the completion date of the project. Yeah, there's one more thing I wanted to make the committee aware of and I'm not sure you are. Perhaps you are ESP has contribution authority. That means we can take in funds from the private sector. Like a developer. We've used it in the past and cost shared with companies like shell. For example, in the Arctic to do various types of science. There's usually been in the past a one off study, like would be in our study development plan we conduct the study, we get the final report the data done. The contemplation now and it kind of goes back to what less was saying earlier. And one thing that keeps me up at night is long term monitoring how we're going to monitor over the lifetime of projects and really understand cumulative effects. In the Atlantic in the Gulf in the Pacific in the Arctic in the territories among all the activities that we oversee. So one area we're exploring and the possibility is using our contribution authority. Looking at what's required. You know, for a company in there, for example, for offshore wind and their construction operation plan. Let me give you an example of his past acoustic monitoring companies needed to do that past acoustic monitoring as part of their requirement. The environmental studies program could work with them and use some of our. Our appropriated funding to leverage that the reason we're looking at past acoustic monitoring and why that's a good example is because we did get, I believe it was 6 million. To construct or began the construction of an array in the Atlantic for past acoustic monitoring. So it's enticing. I think for developers to actually add to that broader regional array, which one could build it more on the basis of science, rather than arbitrary lease lines. I think so the contribution authority. I know this is quite a bit to think about, but the contribution authority is a an avenue. You know, to pursue in the future that again could perhaps get us a little bit closer to the longer term monitoring and really create again kind of what I think less said earlier as well. I mean, I see this as, you know, we could really create with each array or even with each turbine or with each activity, even if we see if it's carbon sequestration or various other green hydrogen. I mean, I think we could create laboratories for learning, you know, across the outer kind of shelf. I mean, you know, if again, if those are kind of requirements anyway, that a developer must do and now it's not going to be across the board, right. But, you know, I think where possible the environmental studies program could work with that contribution authority to actually enhance that monitoring. So I think about I haven't really done it yet. Like I said in the past has been kind of a one off but I did want to share that with the committee. Before we talk about it too much public. Thanks. Thank you all, we are a couple minutes past the hour but I want to still take a few moments just to share some closing remarks and give our co chairs and opportunity for any final thoughts as well. Before I turn it over to them, while we still have folks in the room, my primary closing remark in addition to thanking of course all of the contributors to this meeting over the last two days. The primary thing that I really want to communicate is my personal gratitude to our outgoing members. We have five folks that are rotating off of our committee at the end of this calendar year for whom this is their last meeting.  It has not gone unnoticed and on top of it all you all serve as volunteers, which is so so greatly appreciated. The two others that will be rotating off that are not on the line currently Susan parks who has really. She has been our point person on all things marine mammals for the on behalf of the committee and Mary Louise Timmermans, we owe her congratulations. In addition to our gratitude she's taken a new position at her university, which requires that she rotate off of the committee. But again, I just want to take a moment to sincerely thank each of you, and to recognize that some of you, Rod, have not only served bone through COSA, but through the FACA committee. And it for as a representative of a pretty narrow field. And I think you have served them well, Scott, you served as a liaison before joining as a member and becoming a chair, and your willingness to still join the committee after having been a liaison, I think is quite remarkable. And, and Carrie you have constantly provided us the the human dimension and social reminders that I think this committee and boom has really benefited from so with that, I will turn it over to Scott and Rod. Okay. So, and I want to thank everybody for their participation this meeting I thought it was we another good day so I thought yesterday was a good day today was a very good day to some a lot of food for thought. I want to thank our invited guests you really made major contributions. And I, and I hope we can continue to to build on on the relationships we started today. This is my son song I'm out of here after this. I've been working in the OCS for 42 years, working with first with MMS folks and then with BOM when I came in. It was a time of huge challenge. We were in the oil crisis, the mandate that charged all of us was go find some more energy for the United States strategic imperative. And I had the pleasure to do that for 32 years with shell. We're working closely with not only the folks of bone but the other predecessors at MMS. Many of those pictures you showed today Jim of installations in the Gulf Mexico, they were projects I was involved in, and my in my teams and I'm very proud of that effort. But now we face another big challenge it's not go find oil let's get ready for the energy transition. And once again, boom you're going to have to dive back in it's a huge challenge not just for for you but for all the folks who work in the various industries. And the and the academic groups that the train our people and support us, making that transition is no small challenge. I think there may be in the course of the day sessions here I think I want to highlight three areas where I thought there might be opportunities for national Academy we're here to help to, you know, through COSA and or other efforts to try to assist Bowman in meeting some of these challenges. The first is in the area. First of all, let me go to the area of CCS. It's a new frontier for you. It's a new frontier for everybody. We are not not in the lead on this so there's lessons to be learned from our friends across the Atlantic. And I particularly for offshore operations. I think we should avail ourselves of that opportunity. I would encourage that there be some efforts to try to have a workshop or a study of some sort, but probably including also our friends in the National Academy of Engineering to to look at the challenges and opportunities around offshore CCS to do it right. It's a big challenge in sorting out the difference between putting CO2 and depleted fields versus putting them in saline aquifers, the resource potential difference between the two is huge. And I think we want to make sure we get that right. I do really believe the US could be the Saudi Arabia for CCS if we if we get our heads around it and tackle it appropriately, but that's an opportunity. Another one is in offshore wind, particularly floating wind. So, we didn't get to hear everything that Jim shared in his or Dr. Anaheel shared in his paper that we looked at but they've done quite a bit of work looking at comparing economics around things like fixed platforms and floating wind in the North Sea where they've got a lot more experience than we do. They've got installations they're putting out there. I think it would be very useful to learn more about what they have learned so far to bring it to bear on our side of the Atlantic. A very significant part of our resource potential in wind is tied up with floating wind essentially everything on the on the Pacific coast and and some of the most prospective areas on the Atlantic coast are going to require floating technology. I think we need to understand not only economics but some of the risks associated with it. And this brings me to another study area that I think would be where I think the Academy could help you I would encourage you to avail yourself of the Academy to help you redo the report that I talked about to to to Brad. I think it needs it needs a third party look from the from the experts to look at the geo hazards associated with floating wind. Particularly that's going to be relevant on the Pacific coast because we have seismic hazards but it's not without some risk in other places like the Caribbean if you want to put it there. So that's that's another one. The last thing I'd like to identify and we talked about this is the subject of much of today's discussion is this whole area of marine spatial planning and trying to come up with some approach to handle the trade offs. You, you know, you, you're the ones who are going to have to deal with the trade offs and we really need to get it right. And I think, you know, I'm not sure necessarily the first one there is should be the one we put everything on I'm not sure that's that is necessarily be the right answer everywhere so I think a systematic approach to how we're going to sort through that going forward, particularly with all your program programs that as as Dr under here I'll talk about compete for the same space of ocean. And many of them you can't put the same thing can't put more one of them in the same place. It's going to be important that we figure out how to tackle that systematically. I think the Academy can help you there I think this group can help you there. And take advantage of that resource. So best wishes and and rest fellow fellow committee members I wish you all the best. We welcome you back anytime. And please have a shot but I think I would echo everything that Scott said. In the last couple of days of being extremely interesting. We covered a huge amount of territory. The they've been very, very productive. I'm grateful to everybody for for contributing to that. Scott and I were keen to promote a model in which we thought about different ways of engaging with different mechanisms that the National Academies and this committee has of engaging with I would encourage everybody to continue to think outside the box and different ways in which that exchange can take place, whether it's individual co some members working with SMEs to provide advice to workshops with future National Academy studies. I think all of those things are good and I think we're seeing some of the fruits of those different kinds of ways of thinking and engagement. I think we're also seeing a model in which it's less a case of bone reporting out to us on things and more of an exchange of information and thinking about ways that COSA can be very can be more useful because that's the objective of the committee. As Stacy pointed out, I've been involved with bone for a long time when I first started, I had different colored hair, Rodney had a different colored beard. And when I first met Bill and Susan, it was at a factor meeting where you came and said we're going to do this in a different way. And I think that decision that you made at that time has been both useful and fruitful for bone. I've had experience of both and there were certainly great things that happened at the FACA, but I think that is clear that this has been a useful partnership and a good decision. And it's been fruitful for bone. I would like to, I guess, thank as I step aside from from this committee, I'd like to thank the leadership of Boa and also all of the SMEs that have come and presented to us and all the knowledge and the hard work that they done and that work is is a lot they take on a lot of work. And and I'm continually impressed with with that work that they do. The National Academies have done a tremendous job. Stacy and Jonathan and Eric and Susan and Deb and there's been others as well. So I'd like to thank all of those folks. Hello COSA members in the room on the line and previous ones. I've learned a tremendous amount from you all Scott you've had an ending amount of energy for for doing work for for COSA and I've enjoyed the conversations we have we kind of fighting our corner sometime so and all the outside experts the capacity for the National Academies to draw people in and draw expertise in is tremendously useful for Boa. And so thank you all for that. And the I think that there have been real improvements. I think the relationships with the tribes are never going to be perfect, but they've been tremendous improvements in the relationship with the tribes, environmental justice communities outreach. And I think all of those things I've seen in the time that I've been involved. So thank you everybody. It is been a pleasure to work with you all. And good luck in the future. But I just would. I'd like to join Stacy and in thanking Scott, Rob, the other Kerry and the other department members. You do this for free. And you don't have to do it. And, and it's, I mean, I think your contributions have been incredibly helpful. And don't, you know, don't forget us. Just, you know, we can, we could, we could still benefit from your advice, but and I, and I, and I think I really think I agree with you. Of course, I'm biased. I like this committee. But, you know, I think, I think in good part because of the contributions of the outgoing members and don't go. Anyone else don't, don't leave the place until you have to. But I'm confident that you've greatly strengthened this small agency. And, you know, a lot of it, I've always thought from the beginning actually that the, there were two reasons for bone to have and the National Academy as an advisor. One of them is sort of the substantive technical advice, which has gotten gotten better and better over time, kind of like what you were saying, Rod. I mean, we're really in the groove now. And I think it's important for the agency to be prepared to expose itself to you openly in a, you know, get on the mics, recorded the world looking in whatever and and that's been very valuable to and it's, I mean, and, and I appreciate all the tough questions that have come our way. And it was definitely home done on a couple of things today and I thought she was right on the point. So, so anyway, but thank you very much for your time. You didn't have to do it and it's very helpful. Thanks, Bill. With that, I will adjourn our open session.


Welcome back. Well, finally this hour. She was a Mouseketeer, a teen television star and a survivor now She's a member of the Alhambra family Facts of life star Lisa Welshel is on stage this week in Jacksonville in a revised version of the Tony Award-winning Butterflies are free even more exciting. She'll be playing opposite her own daughter Clancy Cobble Lisa and Clancy are here now in studio. It's a special treat ladies. Good morning. Good morning So exciting to have you both in studio. Hope you're enjoying your visit to Jacksonville so far. So good We've been working off a lot, but we're gonna be here for a while So we we've had had lots of recommendations. So that's great And I looked at your Instagram and Twitter last night. I see you've already been to Clark's fish camp You know we should open up the phones and people can call in and tell you where they think you need to visit while you're in It's 5 4 9 2 9 3 7 to speak with Lisa Welshel and Clancy Cobble First of all, I just have to say this You look exactly the same Lisa as you looked on Facts of Life. It is truly incredible. You look amazing Radio because nobody can actually question that at this point. No, no, no, you look you look the same You have an age today now. Let's talk a little bit about the show How did how did it come to pass that you both decided to do this the show together? It was actually I was asked to do another show for them and I said, yeah, it sounds great be fun And then the director called and said I've got another proposition for you What do you think about the show butterflies are free, which I had never read so I watched the movie and of course the Goldie con character is just I mean, it's my daughter and I called the director and I said well, this looks really great But could my daughter audition for the young woman and he said yes But she really has to audition because I've been burned before and so she'd be put it We filmed a little scene and sent it to him He fell in love and now he's just head over heels in love because she's Excellent so Clancy tell me about your part. Well, it's the Goldie Han characters what they was in the movie She's adorable. I want to be her in real life She's super cute 19 year old free-spirited little hippie and moves in next door to a blind boy and Changes everyone's lives.  Who do you play in the production? I play the young blind boys Overprotective mother who is not too happy that this young woman's coming in and changing his life because pretty much That's her whole life. And so she has to change as well You must have had Clancy when you were 13 years old How old are you Clancy 22 22? And so Lisa you got your start as a mouse keteer when you were what 12 12 years old But actually I got my start in theater and musical theater at Fort Worth when I was eight And so this is kind of coming back to my roots. I haven't done theater I did a Peter Pan and at Starlight Theater in Kansas City when I was 22, but other than that I haven't done theaters since I was a child. So this is really fun on so many levels I would think it's fun to have that feedback from the live audience Well tomorrow night's our first preview night. So you'll have that so we'll see and it's been kind of nerve-wracking with rehearsals. It really It's it's a complicated show. Well, it's not that it's just been so long I mean, yeah, they say it's like riding a bike But there's one thing when you ride a bike when you're a kid and there's another thing when you ride a bike Well, you know, but you've always performed it and of course many know you from the facts of life Such a popular show you were on that show for almost I didn't realize this almost 10 years Yeah, nine years and then you went on and did survivor. How did that come about and what was that like? Well, I took a little break in between there And I'd been watching survivor with the family the whole time loved it I'm a big game player very competitive. And so this was like the ultimate game I'd always wanted to be on it, but it couldn't I was homeschooling the kids and traveling and speaking There came kind of a conjunction of a perfect storm That enabled me to have the time to go to the shows. So I sent in an audition video and was cast and you did really well I did I made it to the final you did tribal council So what's it like for you? Clancy? Do you hope to are you already in the business? Do you want to follow in Lisa's footsteps and being actress? Yeah, I just moved out to Los Angeles I moved in with my mother and I have an agent now. So this is actually my first Professional job as an actress. It took a picture of my first check. It was very exciting. Oh, wow That's so exciting. So you're both based in california now and but you grew up in in texas, right? Yeah, I was born in los angeles We lived in texas for about 10 years and I just moved back out last year Wow And uh, you know it I know that uh as as someone who has a strong faith Hollywood can maybe not always be the easiest place How do you balance that because you're an icon in the in the christian community? You really are well You know, I think you can find your pocket of community anywhere And hopefully the biggest pocket is in your heart. So no matter where you are there's just that solid sense of the presence of god and the love of god and so therefore That can just flow out of you know of you wherever you are in whatever a group you are You find yourself and so it really hasn't been it doesn't matter where I am really And I'm amazed we're not getting calls. Uh, if you're just tuning in, uh, lisa welshall You might remember her from the facts of life survivor and more is in studio now with her daughter clancy cobble They're performing at the alhambra theaters butterflies are free opening later this week We want you to call us right now. Let us know where they should visit when they're in jacksonville Five four nine two nine three seven now you went to clark's fish camp You can tell so maybe that's why the calls aren't coming in because once you've been to clark's fish camp Where do you go from there really give me your reactions? What did you think? Well? I'm a vegetarian It was a little overwhelming. Oh, that's funny, but they have really really tasty veggie pasta Did you have any gator meat? Did you try that? We did we had gator toes gator tail. Yes, we did I mean, hey, I I just figure you know, you just need to just experience everything and so I was just sad We didn't get any ostrich or hyphen. They've got it all there. So what else is on your agenda while you're here? What else do you hope to do? Well, we're going to disney world And you know, I I guess we're waiting for Call in to tell us where we should go or if you know what if you can call and ask any question I guess but here we have sandy and sane august. Oh lots of calls now sandy and sane augustine. Hi sandy go ahead Hey melissa, I like the player from flax of life. You were like the girl. I wanted to be so bad Thank you But you all have to come up to sane augustine. You have to eat a collage Okay collage. Yeah, that's a great tip. Somebody taking notes here. Yeah, sane augustine in general is worth the trip It's beautiful. Okay. Uh, absolutely beautiful It's about a half hour down the road. Maybe 40 minutes the oldest city in the country The nation's oldest city hundreds of years old Beautiful very spanish french architect. Well really more spanish, but gorgeous It's about to celebrate its 450th year and the calls are coming in so fast It's going to take them just a second to get them in the queue Let's go now to quish in jacksonville quish. Good morning Good morning. I have a location for the two young ladies up there. Okay A place in five points called cozy tea Oh, yeah, that's a good idea. Is it like a tea room? Yes. Oh, I love it. I walked by it and I thought this is a place We need to go. Okay. It is. It's like an old-fashioned british. Yeah, that's a great idea. Thank you It's an old school british tea room, you know, you can get tea and scones and my favorite Yes, it's and you know, uh, he raises a great point. Just the five you went you've already been to five points I saw a movie there. Oh, what'd you see? I saw bird man. Oh, what'd you think of it? Oh my gosh? I just enjoyed it. So good. All right. Donna in riverside. Go ahead. Donna. You're on the air Hi, melissa. It's so exciting to hear from lisa winter and her daughter. I uh, enjoy I'm a big fan from facts of life And loved her own survivor I just a big fan from survivor And I want to invite you both to come to riverside sometime We have many different restaurants and places to uh, eat and uh, have a drink or or take walk in the park And i'm just going to uh, to her and invite her over sometime. Please do. Yes, definitely send it to my twitter That'd be great. Uh, I noticed you were getting a lot of tweets last night And when did you how long have you guys been in town? Just a week just a week. Uh, eric and jacksonville. Hey, eric. Thanks for holding. Go ahead Good morning. Yes. I have some suggestions to go to eat. Good. That's our favorite thing to do I know palm valley fish camp. Oh another fish camp. All right I do like a good hush puppy. So there you go. There you go, dude. And then i'm taverna, which is in san marco Also a great suggestion. Yeah, spistro x is excellent. Okay. Yeah, are you making notes for me? Okay. Thanks, eric. Mary and san marco. Hey, mary Yes, go ahead, mary.  It's exciting to have you both enjoy your time in several weeks to go see butterflies are free with stars Lisa Welshel and her daughter clancy cobble alhambra jacks dot com for tickets The preview is tomorrow night. Uh, and uh, I hope you really enjoy it. It's a pleasure So nice to meet both of you. Thanks for being with us. Thank you. Thank you again That's alhambra jacks dot com for tickets to butterflies are free and that's our show Thanks to all of our guests and callers today. Our producer is sean birch The show theme is composed and performed by the jacksonville symphony orchestras peoder chef chick If you have feedback for us, we want to hear it emails to first coast connect at wjct.org and make sure to catch our daily podcast It's now up on itunes