2014 ndi 6ws fitzmier, Lundberg, Abelkop deep ocean neg privatization cp

B) Best technology – the counterplan spurs companies to create the most cutting edge and effective technology so we will be better prepared to explore the ocean.

Private-public cooperation is key to enhance future exploration

Answer. Partnerships between government and industry can help to inspire and encourage future explorers by providing them access to data, information, and technology on ocean environments. The key, however, is to not try to prescribe this. What is essential is to have the partnership between government and industry be the type of healthy relationships described here. From these partnerships there will be myriad and excitingly unpredictable pathways to inspire and encourage future explorers. Creative minds love to educate the others through providing ways to enhance exploration. Examples from NANOOS region: A marine sensor company, Nortek USA, is a NANOOS member. They serve on our Governing Council and some of our PIs utilize their sensors on the observing assets, though this is not mandated. However, Nortek benefits from connecting with our PIs. While ocean sensor providers are in a for profit industry, most of them found that field because of their excitement to study the ocean and their passion to figure out how to do it better. So, it was quite befitting that as their industry has survived, in part because of ocean observing programs like IOOS, they have figured out how to give back and entrain others. Nortek created a scholarship program for students to use their equipment on research projects and an annual science meeting where students come to present their results. As NANOOS Executive Director, I have been asked to be their keynote speaker in the past; they continue to pull in passionate scientists to this role each year to inspire the next generation of ocean observers. Another example is the Microsoft Research, a NANOOS partner mentioned in my response to question 2, showcased our observational data and ocean model results in a 3-D presentation at the local Pacific Science Center's first ever Seattle Science Festival . . . a wildly successful event with over 20,000 attendees that is now an annual affair. A quote from one of their leads ``Going forward: I'd love to do more with NANOOS, I don't need funds as such but I am always time- limited . . .'' implies that creativity, desire, and, in this case, even funds are not the limitation. A successful outgrowth of this partnering has been engagement of both parties in the desire to display ocean data in more immersive ways . . . the partnership still in its formative stage, shows a good match and how the public, via the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, but also via the web worldwide, will benefit. I think these two examples show that private industry has a wide diversity of ways to inspire and encourage future explorers. The key is to have the partnering infrastructure of humans that can connect locally in a meaningful context.

Private implementation is comparatively better -- fills in for failing public sector -- Christopher Columbus proves

Mangu-Ward 13 [Is the Ocean the Real Final Frontier? The sea is the underdog, but it has some advantages over space, By Katherine Mangu-Ward, managing editor of Reason magazine and a Future Tense fellow at the New America Foundation, Published in 2013, http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2013/09/sea_vs_space_which_is_the_real_final_frontier.html]

But the way Söhnlein tells the story, this zero sum mind-set is the result of a relatively recent historical quirk: For most of the history of human exploration, private funding was the order of the day. Even some of the most famous examples of state-backed exploration—Christopher Columbus’ long petitioning of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, for instance, or Sir Edmund Hillary’s quest to climb to the top of Everest—were actually funded primarily by private investors or nonprofits. But that changed with the Cold War, when the race to the moon was fueled by government money and gushers of defense spending wound up channeled into submarine development and other oceangoing tech. “That does lead to an either/or mentality. That federal money is taxpayer money which has to be accounted for, and it is a finite pool that you have to draw from against competing needs, against health care, science, welfare,” says Söhnlein. “In the last 10 to 15 years, we are seeing a renaissance of private finding of exploration ventures. On the space side we call it New Space, on the ocean side we have similar ventures.” And the austerity of the current moment doesn’t hurt. “The private sector is stepping up as public falls down. We’re really returning to the way it always was.” And when it’s private dough, the whole thing stops being a competition. Instead, it depends on what individuals with deep pockets are pumped about—or what makes for a good sell on a crowdfunding site like Kickstarter.

Tax incentives are key to ocean energy development

Harmon 11 [Robert K Harmon, professor of Marketing and Technology Management and Cameron Research Fellow at Portland State University Director of the Strategic Marketing Area, “Incentivizing Ocean Energy,” http://oregonwave.org/oceanic/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Incentivizing-Ocean-Energy-%E2%80%93-July-2011.pdf]

Within the patchwork of U.S. renewable energy incentives, not all policies and incentives are equally effective for every technology or each stage of project development. With only three states currently generating a combined ocean energy capacity of 0.14 MW,30 the ocean energy industry is rightly focused on launching, testing, piloting and demonstrating projects that may not have significant production or performance certainty. Tax incentives that support early-­stage ocean energy development may provide optimal support for moving the industry forward, as they can provide immediate or at least near-­‐term support for an industry that still requires experimentation to determine the most compelling energy extraction designs. With upfront or near-­term incentives that are decoupled from performance, the technology developer can put a device in the water at a fraction of its actual costs, quickly gain operational and design experience from pilot-­‐scale testing, and revise the design to be commercially competitive. A number of tax incentives are specifically beneficial to early-­stage experimentation and pilot-­scale testing. Sales tax exemptions, investment tax credits, and accelerated depreciation schedules are all excellent ways to incent early-­stage ocean energy development. Sales tax exemptions directly reduce the cost of ocean devices by exempting sales tax on equipment purchases, while investment tax credits and accelerated depreciation incentives significantly reduce capital costs by decreasing an ocean energy developer’s total tax burden in the near term. Given the unique features and emerging state of the ocean energy industry, not all tax incentives will impact overall cost. These young technologies, particularly at the device testing and pilot scales, cannot rely on cost reductions from a PTC because their energy production is uncertain. The development of operations and maintenance best practices and the refinement of component design for survivability are the lessons derived from setbacks, such as component failures, which temporarily halt or reduce production. This performance unpredictably lowers the likelihood that current ocean energy technologies can take full advantage of a state or federal PTC. As the industry matures, a PTC will provide the consistent incentive necessary to refine and advance the industry’s most successful designs. In the meantime, a different incentive structure is needed to lower the cost of testing and demonstrating ocean energy.

Incentives are enough to solve the aff -- gets companies on board

Harmon 11 [Robert K Harmon, professor of Marketing and Technology Management and Cameron Research Fellow at Portland State University Director of the Strategic Marketing Area, “Incentivizing Ocean Energy,” http://oregonwave.org/oceanic/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Incentivizing-Ocean-Energy-%E2%80%93-July-2011.pdf]

Despite structural barriers, there are a clear set of tax incentives and related policies that have the potential to considerably reduce the installed cost of ocean energy. Generally, tax incentives that attract private investors and give developers an incentive that is not tied to production supports early-­‐stage ocean energy technology development and the valuable lessons of in-­‐water testing of design concepts without needing long-­‐term production for the full-­‐receipt of their credit. A sales tax exemption, while less generous than the PTC or ITC, can unambiguously lower the cost of a project, and can be effective for tax-­‐exempt entities. Oregon has no sales tax. The extension of existing tax incentive policies to ocean energy technologies is another straightforward method of furthering ocean technology development. In Oregon, expanding the Oregon Business Energy Tax Credit (OBETC) to include ocean technologies was an important step. The Oregon BETC has two levels of funding: • Up to $20 million for constructing a manufacturing facility. • Up to $10 million for other direct project costs. The $10 million project incentive cap is scaled appropriately to provide meaningful support to pilot-­‐scale ocean energy deployments. The $20 million manufacturing facility incentive could help ensure that pilot devices and future production runs can provide economic benefits to the state. The implementation of various tax credits and incentives can also be altered to better suit the needs of ocean energy. Three tax credit provisions help offset structural barriers associated with these incentives: carry forward, refundability and pass through. When a tax incentive exceeds the recipient’s tax burden, carry forward allows the excess credit to be claimed in later years, within some statutory limit. Conversely, refundability refunds the excess credit to the recipient in cash. Tax credit refunds would be the preferred stipulation for ocean technologies, as they completely remove the issue of tax-­‐burden adequacy. However, tax-­‐exempt entities still would not be able to participate. Pass through enables tax-­‐ exempt entities to “pass” the tax exemption onto a tax-­‐liable partner. This means the tax-­‐exempt entity must find a willing partner with adequate tax revenues. Another option would be to turn existing PTCs into a cash payment performance incentive—this modification would then allow tax-­‐exempt producers to receive the same benefit as their corporate counterparts.

IOOS/Deep Ocean Observation---2NC

Incentives solve best -- allows the public sector to shift the cost to private sector while still getting the satellite data

Pomerantz 8 [William, “NASA turns to the private sector as China flexes new space muscles”, October 2008, http://venturebeat.com/2008/10/21/nasa-turns-to-the-private-sector-as-china-flexes-new-space-muscles/]

Private spaceflight is booming. Just look at the Ansari X PRIZE winning flights of SpaceShipOne, the subsequent rollout of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo system, and the initial flight of Falcon 1, a commercial orbital launch vehicle funded by PayPal founder Elon Musk. You might think, hey, isn’t Virgin a UK effort? It’s actually headquartered in the U.S., with the technology being designed, the vehicles manufactured, and the launch taking place all within domestic borders. And the trend looks to continue with the popularization of programs like Google’s Lunar X PRIZE, which promises to do for robotic exploration what the Ansari X PRIZE did for human spaceflight. This upcoming weekend, the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge will be held in New Mexico. The $2 million competition will pit nine teams against each other to launch and precisely land a rocket on a simulated lunar surface. Buzz-generating prizes aside, there’s a long list of private firms getting in on the action. Names like SpaceX, Bigelow Aerospace and XCOR Aerospace are hard at work developing the technology that could lead to commercial manned spaceflight in the not too distant future. Small Texas company Armadillo Aerospace is building reusable-rocket powered vehicles with an eye toward eventual passengered voyages. And Blue Origin, an even smaller startup funded by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has already flown its New Shephard spacecraft, designed for sub-orbital transport. They hope to be marketing it to tourists within the next two years. Believe me, NASA is taking note. Officials know that in order to accomplish their goals –- to retire the Shuttle, to maintain the Space Station, to send humans to the Moon and beyond, and to maintain a high caliber of research throughout the solar system (on what is likely to remain a fixed budget) — they’re going to need to get creative about cutting costs. Offloading financial risk to the private markets and taking advantage of lower prices offered by lean entrepreneurial firms could be just the ticket. One interesting example is Orbital Sciences, a publically-traded company that constructs satellites and rockets for commercial and government purposes. Just yesterday it launched a satellite that it built — on a rocket it built — but the satellite itself, intended to map out the border between our solar system and interstellar space, will be used for NASA-funded research. Orbital is also playing an important role in the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program to help resupply the International Space Station. NASA has earmarked $500 million for contracts with firms like Orbital and SpaceX to deliver and return cargo, and eventually even crew members.

Incentives spur private funding and implementation of ocean observing technology

OSTP 14 [OSTP, Office of science and technology policy, “Implementation of Federal Prize Authority: Fiscal Year 2013 Progress Report,” Published in 2014, http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/competes_prizesreport_fy13_final.pdf]

NASA Climate Modeling Challenge. NASA’s Climate Modeling Challenge25 was a call to identify new sources of high-quality observational data for climate modeling to obtain solutions needed to augment NASA’s efforts to assemble climate analysis data from daily observations collected by satellites, surface devices, buoys, and other devices from 1979 to today. For a total prize purse of less than $7,000 , NASA obtained solutions and learned about a highly applicable and relevant climate data source formerly completely unknown to NASA climate scientists, as well as novel suggestions for the use of previously examined datasets. This challenge demonstrated the capacity of out-of-discipline perspectives to yield outstanding and unique results.  Increase cost-effectiveness to maximize the return on taxpayer dollars Prizes can be more efficient and cost-effective approaches to identifying solutions from the private sector than other procurement mechanisms. For example, challenge managers can run series of discrete competitions, allowing the agency to learn from earlier challenges and redefine requirements for subsequent challenges if desired. NASA challenge managers describe this serial challenge process as “more nimble and flexible” than traditional procurement methods. 27 In addition, in prize competitions teams compete not just for the cash purse, but also for the associated validation, prestige, and satisfaction that result from solving important problems. Therefore, prizes can incentivize significant additional private-sector and philanthropic investment, leveraging the prize purse’s impact. In the Orteig Prize won by Charles Lindbergh in 1927, nine teams spent a cumulative $400,000 to win the $25,000 prize purse.28 More recently, the $10 Million Ansari X PRIZE was won in 2004 by Burt Rutan and SpaceShipOne, after the 26 competing teams spent more than $100 million to win the prize.29

Science Diplomacy---2NC

Solves the science leadership advantage -- increased funding for R&D

USGOP 14 [US Government Printing Office, 2014, DEEP SEA CHALLENGE: INNOVATIVE PARTNERSHIPS IN OCEAN OBSERVATION, HEARING before the SUBCOMMITTEE ON OCEANS, ATMOSPHERE, FISHERIES, AND COAST GUARD of the COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE, SCIENCE, AND TRANSPORTATION UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION JUNE 11, 2013, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-113shrg87852/html/CHRG-113shrg87852.htm]

It should also be noted that DEEPSEA CHALLENGER was built by a joint American/Australian team, with approximately one-third of the work done in the U.S., by engineering companies in the Bay Area, and two-thirds of the work done by a start-up company in Sydney. The Australian government provides generous rebates to encourage research and development, and this was a strong driver in my choice to site the project primarily in Australia. I would strongly urge Congress to establish new incentives, as well as enhancing existing ones, to encourage R&D among small companies in the U.S., thus maintaining this Nation's critical lead in engineering and science. Now, the scientists and engineers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and ocean research centers across the Nation are poised to take the technologies developed for DEEPSEA CHALLENGER submersible and science platform to the next level, so that the knowledge gained in this project can help advance ocean science. This public/private collaboration is one of many that signal a new path to supporting the R&D and education initiatives that are critical to the future of the U.S. and global economies. I believe that advances in ocean science and technology must be at the forefront of this effort, given the growing recognition of the importance of ocean processes and their influence on weather and climate and economic and national security. Woods Hole's expertise in this area is part of the reason I have agreed to join one of its new initiatives, the Center for Marine Robotics, which aims to spur collaborations across government, industry, and academia to advance ocean science and exploration through the development and integration of new marine robotic vehicles and technologies. Despite our best efforts, the ocean remains aqua incognita to us--much the way the ground we're sitting on now was once considered terra incognita by early explorers. There's much more we need to know about how the ocean operates. We haven't invested nearly enough in ocean research. And I think it's going to come back to bite us at this moment in history when we know that the ocean is rapidly changing. The only way we can learn about this vast and crucial part of our planet is to submerge ourselves in it, using both human and remote automated technology, which requires adequate funding, given the difficulties of operating in the ocean, from the surface to the trenches.

Privatization creates comprehensive approach to US science leadership

Gentile 13 [James M. Gentile, Dean for the Natural & Applied Sciences, Hope College, Holland, MI, A Private Sector Initiative to Bolster U.S. Science, 05/20/2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-m-gentile/a-private-sector-initiati_b_3294021.html]

President Obama, in a speech to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences just a few weeks ago, spoke about the importance and positive added value of science to the nation. He correctly noted that science is a key to U.S. economic growth. Outcomes of scientific research provide the base for innovations that are responsible for roughly one-half of productivity gains measured every year by economists. The annual investment from federal agencies in the U.S. in both science, and the development of scientists, is roughly $30-35 billion. Indeed, this is a lot of money. But the distribution of these resources is often such that it leaves much of the seed corn of science, young scientists, lacking the support they need not just to undertake their research, but also to advance their careers. And, without support, the innovative and potentially transformative ideas from this future generation of scientists fall by the wayside. At a recent national meeting supported by the American Association for the Advancement for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Robert Conn, president of the prestigious, California-based Kavli Foundation, remarked that the struggle of young scientists is not a new situation. Conn noted that Albert Einstein, for example, following the publication of his landmark studies in 1905, went three years before he found a permanent job. He also reminded us, however, that while the U.S. university system ultimately sheltered Einstein before World War II, today's innovators and scientific explorers might not fare as well. Why? The culprit is the flattening of federal science funding that has occurred in recent years and the difficult issues involved in the fair and equitable dissemination of those dollars. For example, the reduced amount of federal research dollars is compounded by the fact that the significant majority of grant awards made established labs run by senior researchers as opposed to individuals at earlier stages of their careers (about 7 percent of the awards go to researchers 65 years or older while only about 3 percent go to scientists younger than 36). The challenge to support more scientists at diverse career stages (including graduate students and postdoctoral fellows -- two groups that provide the lifeblood for future science discoveries) will deepen, according to the AAAS, with estimates that there will be a reduction of an additional $54 billion out of federal science research funding over the next five years. In reaction to this diminished funding, and potential reduction in the science workforce, a new coalition of private science foundations that fund science has recently been announced. This coalition includes the Kavli Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the W.M Keck Foundation, the Simons Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. These organizations have jointly pledged to lead a drive to double philanthropic foundation donations to $4 billion annually, concomitant with a similar doubling by wealthy donors for an additional $4 billion a year, in the next 10 to 15 years. Contributions from wealthy donors for an imitative such as proposed here is not a very big stretch. First, and foremost, all of the foundations in this consortium were founded by the vision, commitment, and wealth of just such individuals, and therefore provide remarkably successful models of how private dollars can catalyze science. Warren Buffet made the news not long ago with a $31 billion gift to the Gates Foundation -- not just because he was friends with Bill and Melinda Gates, but because he believed in the mission of the foundation. Thus, Mr. Buffett's decision was important not so much that he was giving his wealth away, but that he was asking someone else to pursue philanthropy on his behalf, in a structured and organized manner, for a cause in which he believed. This is not unexpected and not necessarily unique. More recently, for example, The Giving Pledge community formed. This constituted a commitment by the world's wealthiest individuals and families to dedicate the majority of their wealth to philanthropy. It has evolved with well more than 400 individuals signing the pledge. While not all of these philanthropists see science research and/or education as their main interest, scientific advancement for the betterment of our understanding of complex problems such as climate change, microorganisms that can affect human health with pandemic potential and the delicate balance between GMO's and feeding the world, is at the forefront of interest for many. More important than just the money, however, is that private-sector foundations can afford to fund more high-risk, high-return research (which often comes from the genius of scientists early in their career) without the badgering and bickering that too often comes from Congress as well as a sometimes constipated and overly cumbersome conservative peer-review mechanism when tax dollars are at stake. They can follow the advice of Nobel Prize winner Enrico Fermi, who once said that an experiment with an 80 percent chance of working as predicted is hardly worth doing. He noted that "....you should try something you don't know will work. We need someone to support the wildest and most creative ideas. We can't tell you which ones will change the world, but we know one of them will." There are select innovation awards, and monies targeted to early-career scientists, available in the NSF and NIH that, though relatively few, are important and need to be retained and expanded. And certainly the Department of Defense DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and the Department of Energy ARPAe (Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy) initiatives are effective and critically important efforts to promote and fund innovation. But more is needed, and the private sector can go a long way to meet, complement, and enhance those efforts. Bold examples of what private dollars can do to support the vision of Fermi include the Kavli Institutes, which are embedded in universities around the nation, and dedicated private research endeavors such as Janelia Farm, built on a site outside of Washington, D.C., and supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Van Andel Institute in Grand Rapids, MI. Not only do such institutes and investments provide space and resources for higher risk, innovative research, they provide a much-longer research and planning horizon than embraced by most federal agencies. And, as evidenced by the recently launched Brain mapping initiative, public/private partnerships can come into play such that federal agencies and private foundations (and businesses) can join forces to drive major initiatives that will significantly benefit humankind. What the foundation consortium is building, in my opinion, is a much-needed, aggressive and innovative venture philanthropic approach to the funding of science. It takes concepts and techniques from venture capital finance and high technology business management and applies them to achieving philanthropic goals. It is characterized by: a willingness to experiment and "try new approaches"; focus on measurable results; the readiness and latitude to shift funds between organizations and goals, or between programs within a given foundation or "cluster" of foundations. To do so it must be based on tracking measurable results; giving intellectual, infrastructural (when needed) and human capital as well as financial support; funding on a multi-year basis; a focus on capacity building, instead of isolated programs or general operating expenses; and a unique high, collaborative involvement by foundations and donors with their grantees. The collaboration, partnering, and philanthropic outreach evidenced by this group of foundations, and its catalytic impact on federal dollars, is going to pay huge dividends in the future not just to the cause of science itself, and the budding careers of the next generation of scientists, but importantly to the benefit and continued science and technology leadership of our nation. As the former president of a private science foundation, as an academic dean committed to helping all academic researchers (and their students) succeed in their careers, and as a research scientist, I am thankful for, and praise, the vision and leadership exhibited by this consortium.

Overfishing---2NC

Privatization solves overfishing

Mitchell 8 [Sara Mitchell, Professor and Department Chair Political Science University of Iowa, “Ruling the Sea: Institutionalization and Privatization of the Global Ocean Commons, Published Jan 1^st 2008, http://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=polisci_pubs]

Advocates of a second solution to CPR problems suggest that “the only way to avoid the tragedy of the commons in natural resources…is to end the common property system by creating a system of private property rights.” (Ostrom, 1990: 12) At a domestic level, this has led to the creation of property and title rights, or enclosure of the commons (Wijkman, 1982). Allocating the resource through ownership principles focuses the harm of “negative externalities” from the The ISA may also be a mechanism for dealing with the increasing problem of illegal fishing, largely in response to moves to privatize large areas of the sea. For example, more than $1.6 billion of illegal seafood enters the European market each year, which has resulted in surging fish prices in the European market. Diffuse users of a common property resource to the single owner of a resource. As a result, owners devote greater resources and interest to the preservation and maintenance of their individual allocation. In terms of fisheries, this can be seen by the partial enclosure of the commons through the creation of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs).

Private sector solves best in the long term -- data proves

Mitchell 8 [Sara Mitchell, Professor and Department Chair Political Science University of Iowa, “Ruling the Sea: Institutionalization and Privatization of the Global Ocean Commons, Published Jan 1^st 2008, http://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=polisci_pubs]

Our final analyses consider the effects of EEZs and UNCLOS on marine fish catches in order to determine if these policies have any serious implications for the health of oceanic resources. Hypothesis 5 predicts a U-shaped relationship between the duration for EEZ/UNCLOS commitments and changes in marine catches. We evaluate this hypothesis in table 6, entering the number of years for EEZs and UNCLOS for each state in a given year, as well as the squared values of these variables. Beginning with the privatization solution (Model 1), we find support for a U-shaped relationship between the establishment of EEZs and changes in marine catches; the coefficient for EEZ years is negative, while the coefficient for EEZ years squared is positive. The relationship is plotted in Figure 1; we can see that it takes about 23 years for fish catches to experience positive growth, a finding consistent with the biological literature on the recovery of fish stocks (Hutchings and Reynolds 2004). We find a similar U-shaped relationship between UNCLOS and changes in marine catches (Model 2). The conservation efforts in UNCLOS seem to be quite effective, as it takes only 15 years for a growth in marine catches to occur. These finding provide renewed optimism for political solutions to CPR problems.

STEM---2NC

Private sector solves STEM Innovation

Kaufman 12 [Erik Kaufman, Hutchinson Herald Editor, “Camerons Bold Entrepreneurship Fuels Continued Exploration,” Published in 2012, http://www.smalltownnews.com/article.php?pid=166&aid=139199]

The recent success of a one-man submarine into the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean is keeping man's exploratory spirit alive and well in the face of continued funding cuts for space exploration. James Cameron, a well-known movie director and producer, Sunday became just the third person to touch down in the deepest part of the ocean nearly seven miles beneath the surface of the water in a specially-designed submarine designed to handle the extreme pressure of operating at such intense depths. The previous two explorers to visit the trench did so in 1960 aboard a United States Navy submersible named Trieste. That crew spent just 20 minutes on the ocean floor and could not observe much due to the amount of silt that was stirred up as the craft landed. It was the last time human observers have traveled to the lowest point on the planet. Cameron, who has shown a fascination with the oceans through film productions like The Abyss and Titanic, took about two and a half hours to complete the decent in his craft, the Deepsea Challenger, a vertically-oriented submarine that Cameron designed himself and was built with the assistance of the National Geographic Society and watchmaker Rolex. Cameron returned safely to the surface, but his stay on the ocean floor lasted less than half as long as planned due to mechanical issues with the craft. Cameron is, without doubt, a dreamer. His vision of alien worlds and penchant for telling futuristic stories has made him one of the most successful directors in Hollywood history. The difference here is that he is making that a reality after realizing that few were taking the reins when it came to ocean exploration. Much like space exploration, deep-sea exploration is dangerous and expensive. As mentioned before, the United States government has not sent a live human to where Cameron visited this weekend in 52 years. With recent government cuts in space exploration funding, several private entrepreneurs have attempted to fill the gap with private sector technology. To some extent, they've had success. But not as much success as Cameron did this weekend. By returning to the deepest part of the ocean, Cameron attempts to remind people that exploration, in arguably its most pure form, is something best undertaken live by people themselves. While the robotic rovers on Mars have more than surpassed expectations in terms of lifespan and flexibility, their presence will never be a substitute for a pair of human eyes and human a brain studying an environment from within. Here's hoping Cameron's success continues to drive other deep sea explorers to continue to push the envelope and seek out the farthest reaches of our planet and remind us all why exploration of the unknown continues to be an important pursuit.

AUVs---2NC

Tax credits are key to AUV development

Bluefin 12 [Bluefin Robotics, private AUVs company, “Governor Patrick Visits Bluefin Robotics, Promotes Innovation Economy,” Published in 2012, http://www.bluefinrobotics.com/news-and-downloads/press/governor-patrick-visits-bluefin-robotics-promotes-innovation-economy/]

Governor Deval Patrick today joined Bluefin CEO David Kelly and employees at the company’s Quincy location for a tour of the facility, highlighting the Patrick-Murray Administration’s support of the Commonwealth’s thriving innovation economy. “We are committed to growing our innovation sectors because that's where the future lies and it creates great jobs,” said Governor Patrick. “Companies like Bluefin Robotics are clear examples of our growing leadership in the world's innovation economy.” Founded in 1997 by a core group of engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Laboratory, Bluefin manufactures AUVs for scientific research, naval mine warfare and offshore oil field seafloor surveys, particularly for deep-water installations. In 2005, Bluefin became a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Battelle Memorial Institute, a global science and technology enterprise that develops and commercializes technology and manages laboratories for customers. Battelle oversees a staff of 22,000 scientists, engineers and support specialists and conducts $6.2 billion in annual research and development. In 2008, Bluefin started looking for a new facility to consolidate its engineering, manufacturing and marine operations teams and soon chose the Quincy Fore River Shipyard, which has access to a harbor, essential to the company’s product testing and development. The Patrick-Murray Administration’s Massachusetts Office of Business Development (MOBD) met with Bluefin Robotics in the spring of 2009 to discuss assistance for the expansion of the company’s facility. After working with MOBD, Bluefin, which at the time had 75 employees, was awarded a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) package from the city of Quincy and an Investment Tax Credit (ITC) from the Commonwealth’s Economic Development Incentive Program. The ITC is equal to 5 percent of the company’s $4.5 million investment, which is $225,000. Today, Bluefin is comfortably operating from their 55,000 square foot facility in Quincy and employs over 90 people. The company continues to hire skilled engineers and technicians in order to fulfill current contracts and position itself for future business. “We are proud to be recognized by the Patrick-Murray Administration as having a positive economic impact on the area,” said Bluefin Robotics CEO Kelly. “Moving to Quincy was a critical move that has allowed the company to take on more business and grow the company—the MOBD was a key component in making that possible.” The Patrick-Murray Administration has made growing the Massachusetts economy through supporting small businesses a top priority. Recently, Governor Patrick announced that the Administration is streamlining and rescinding state regulations to improve government efficiencies and reduce extra burdens on small businesses, helping small businesses continue to thrive and create jobs through a systematic review of state regulations. Also, no new regulation will be issued without serious consideration of impact and input of small businesses. Growing the innovation economy is one of the five main initiatives included in an economic development plan, “Choosing to Compete in the 21st Century,” filed by the Administration in December 2011. Beyond previous achievements like creating a 10-year, $1 billion life sciences initiative and creating the world’s largest global start-up competition and accelerator program in MassChallenge, “Choosing to Compete” sets goals of increasing state funding for early-stage entrepreneurs, identifying up to five emerging areas of global innovation excellence and supporting those areas through public-private collaborations, and improving talent retention for the innovation economy.

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