Although the House Appropriations Committee mostly spared the Obama administration's effort to advance a National Ocean Policy, the ocean planning effort could still face significant challenges from Republicans next week.

The fiscal 2013 spending bill for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other agencies, which the House panel approved last week, is a mixed bag for the administration's ocean plan.

The report language accompanying the bill states that it does not fund coastal and marine spatial planning. But the committee did not include a broad rider -- which some Republicans had requested -- that would have blocked all funding for any work related to the ocean policy. And the panel also funded regional grants that help pay for research and infrastructure for marine planning.

But as the spending bill heads to debate on the House floor next week, it could face some push-back. A spokeswoman for Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), who has been leading the charge against ocean planning, said he and his committee are "currently considering other legislative options" to try to put a hold on the ocean policy. Hastings and 23 other GOP lawmakers asked the spending committee to include riders in all the appropriations bills that would block every federal agency's work on the project.

"Chairman Hastings continues to believe that funding for the president's initiative to impose mandatory ocean zoning should be put on pause until the full economic impacts and consequences are known," spokeswoman Crystal Feldman said yesterday.

The report language accompanying the bill states that it "includes no funds for coastal and marine spatial planning activities under any NOAA program, project or activity." It is unclear how that rider will affect the agency's work if included in the final spending bill, NOAA officials said yesterday.

The administration proposed a separate line item for coastal and marine spatial planning in its fiscal 2011 budget, but after lawmakers refused to fund it, the administration did not make a separate request for marine planning in its fiscal 2013 budget proposal.

President Obama signed an executive order last summer that launched the National Ocean Plan and created a National Ocean Council -- an attempt to improve coordination and planning on marine issues from the more than two dozen federal agencies that oversee actions that affect the ocean.

The executive order calls for regional bodies across the United States to begin "coastal and marine spatial planning." The marine plans are intended to address growing demands on the ocean for fishing, transportation, energy and recreation. The effort draws on recommendations made by the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy in 2004.

But the effort -- applauded by ocean scientists, environmentalists and some ocean industry groups -- has caused anxiety from some ocean users and political backlash from Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Hastings has held hearings and written letters to bash the plan, which he thinks could lead to a large federal bureaucracy that could affect development at sea or on land.

Some major industry groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Farm Bureau Federation, American Petroleum Institute, and Alaska Oil and Gas Association, joined him in asking for a spending freeze on the policy. Other small business leaders from deepwater wind, tourism and fishing industries asked appropriators to fund the policy.

Administration officials say they want to do a better job communicating the advantages of the policy and advocate for funding to get efforts off the ground in regions that want to start their own ocean planning efforts.

"I think a lot of the controversy is over misunderstanding," Sally Yozell, director of policy at NOAA, yesterday told a conference of the American Geophysical Union in Washington. "When they say it could lead to another layer of bureaucracy, that is totally not the case. We are streamlining and making things more efficient so you don't have to go from agency to agency to agency."

"The alternative to better coordination is less coordination and more inefficiency. I don't think anybody wants that," said Steve Fetter, the principal assistant director for environment at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. "We have to explain why this is good governance and makes the best use of limited resources."

The House Appropriations Committee's spending bill and the Senate committee's draft bill each include $4 million for regional ocean partnerships. NOAA uses those funds for competitive grants for groups working to start regional marine plans or gather data on ocean resources and uses. For instance, one group in Alaska is preparing to survey ocean decisionmakers on how they make decisions about where to fish or where to start a new project, what tools they use and what could help them.