A Tribute to Ocean Champion Fritz Hollings

Today, I’m in Charleston, South Carolina as we say farewell to a statesman who left an enduring legacy for ocean and coastal conservation. My former boss, U.S. Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina, passed away on April 6 at the age of 97. Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is delivering the eulogy at his funeral; former Secretary of State John Kerry, Congressman James Clyburn, Governor Henry McMaster, and former Senator Chris Dodd are in attendance as well.

Sen. Hollings already had a deep record of accomplishment as the youngest governor in South Carolina history and favored action over talk. He used his position to deliver real results for our ocean.

It is fair to say the ocean is in better shape today because of his life and legacy.

After his appointment as chair of the Senate Oceans and Atmosphere Subcommittee in 1969, he personally ensured adoption of many of the recommendations of the first seminal report on the ocean by the Stratton Commission. His first accomplishment was negotiating with the Nixon Administration, over the objections of industry voices, to create the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

NOAA would “bring some order to the chaotic federal system in which marine-science programs were scattered throughout 22 departments and agencies,” Hollings wrote in his book, Making Government Work. “I knew the difficulty we would face in trying to goad the federal bureaucracy into getting off their collective backsides and moving forward to preserve the marine environment.”

Yes, his language was salty—his roots were in salt water. The Senator grew up in the South Carolina Lowcountry around Charleston, and he always had a love of the sea. His interest in ocean exploration, including that of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, came from his work as a young man doing bathymetry surveys along the coast.  

His view on the ocean was akin to that of President John F. Kennedy, whom he helped boost for president, and who famously said: “All of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea—whether it is to sail or to watch it—we are going back from whence we came.”

The Senator was passionate about many things, from ending hunger to consumer protection and public safety. But I know him best for his work to raise public awareness about the major threats to ocean health, and as someone who laid the groundwork for ocean laws and institutions we take for granted today.  

He held hearings with explorers like Jacques Cousteau and Thor Heyerdahl on topics including ocean pollution, a fight we continue today. He presided over Senate hearings held around the country and led enactment of the federal Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972, creating a partnership between the federal government and the states to protect the coast from unsustainable development.  

That led to the creation of the National Estuarine Research Reserve System, which today includes Elkhorn Slough, just north of the Monterey Bay Aquarium here in California. Created at the same time, the California Coastal Commission implements the Act along our state’s iconic coastline. California’s coast today owes a debt to this effort.

Among the other landmark ocean laws Hollings helped enact were the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act and the 1972 Ocean Dumping Act, which established the National Marine Sanctuary Program—setting in motion the creation of our own Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.  

Hollings remained active in the oversight and funding of NOAA and its programs, including support and enactment of the Global Change Research Act of 1990. This legislation required an integrated research program to understand and articulate the impacts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases on the climate. He also created a new authority to help fund conservation of coastal lands in need of protection from development.  

By the time I joined his staff in 1999, Hollings was focused on creating a next generation Stratton Commission through enactment the Oceans Act of 2000. It created a new bipartisan U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, which delivered its report to Congress in 2004. As a result, we updated U.S. fishery law to position our nation as a leader in fishery management, and created laws to focus funding and attention on marine debris, ocean exploration and ocean observing systems. In Hollings’ final year in the Senate, we enacted the interdisciplinary programs authorized by the Oceans and Human Health Act.

Among Hollings’ other major pioneering achievements with benefits for the ocean:

• Enacted the first Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, which helped reduce greenhouse gases by regulating how far vehicles must be able to travel on a gallon of fuel.
• Created the first NOAA Joint Enforcement Agreement pilot with a state, which was expanded nationwide, deputizing coastal states to enforce federal ocean laws and regulations.
• Initiated and provided seed funding to create the Ocean Hall at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.
• Created numerous ocean scholarship programs, including the Nancy Foster Scholarships and the Hollings Scholarship, as well as the Educational Partnership Program.
• Worked with local partners to establish the Ashepoo, Combahee and Edisto Basin National Wildlife Refuge—protecting one of the largest undeveloped estuaries along the Atlantic Coast of the United States.

Hollings keenly understood the need to protect special places, and to increase our knowledge about things that were still a mystery. While he was politically pragmatic about the environment and conservation, he was also impatient with excuses and bureaucracy when they got in the way of problem-solving. He did not mince words with officials when he was fed up with double talk—like when he called for an investigation of FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) after the government’s sluggish response to Hurricane Hugo in 1989.  

Hollings loved learning and hearing from pioneering scientists, even visiting Antarctica to observe field research in action. He was a fierce believer in education, and created numerous federal scholarship programs for ocean scientists and policy students, focusing on increasing the number of women and underrepresented groups, and helping create a next-generation workforce at NOAA.

He knew that if people didn’t care about the ocean, it would be hard to make a difference. He was always willing to engage with ocean explorers like Bob Ballard. Hollings firmly believed that if people didn’t make the connection between the ocean and themselves, their children and their health, it would be hard to garner the support needed to protect and conserve it.  

Today, as I reflect on Senator Hollings’ distinguished service and his lasting accomplishments in ocean conservation, I’m reminded of a question he would often ask me: “So what’s the right thing to do? OK, let’s do that.”

He worked tirelessly to protect the ocean, and to make life better for the people of South Carolina and our nation, through science-based policy and pragmatic diplomacy. It’s now up to us to honor Hollings’ legacy by building relationships - including by reaching across the aisle - to conserve the ocean that gives us life. As the senator would put it: Let’s get it done.