Why have no regulations been promulgated for the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve?
The National Marine Sanctuary Program’s (NMSP) priority is to focus on the sanctuary designation process, which will include the development of regulations for the preferred alternative (under the Sanctuary proposal), rather than undertake a resource-intensive, concurrent process to issue regulations for the Reserve. Furthermore, most of the conservation measures of Executive Orders 13178 and 13196 (EO), which established the Reserve, need no additional action and are already in effect.
