Rep. Dave Min is pushing his first bill in Congress — a plan to track marine life along Southern California’s coastline.

The legislation would create a program within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to collect data on biodiversity loss and at-risk aquatic species, building on research from the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project, a Costa Mesa-based research group that studies water quality and marine ecosystems.

Introduced on Thursday, Feb. 13, this is the California Democrat’s first bill as a member of Congress.

“The idea here is we don’t know how bad the problem is with the extinction crisis when it comes to our aquatic life off the coast of Southern California,” said Min, who serves on the House Natural Resources Committee.

“We know that right now, we’re facing extinction crises in a lot of different biomes across the world because of the rapid and aggressive changes in climate,” Min added. “It’s good to start understanding how bad this crisis is, where we’re at risk and maybe get a sense of what we can do about it.”

Min said he sees the bill as a less contentious way for him to kick off his time in Congress.

“This was a bill that we thought could be a good bipartisan bill to introduce. We don’t think it’s as controversial as some of the other topics I’m hoping to take on,” he said, teasing a future focus on issues including reproductive health care and gun violence prevention as well as pushing back against President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who is leading Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency cost-cutting initiative, as they rapidly advance their agenda.

Of the bill, Min said, “It’s just asking us to study more deeply the impacts and the rate at which we are experiencing a loss of biodiversity in our marine coastal areas. In other words, how bad is the extinction crisis, what types of animals and fauna are being affected right now?”

The program is estimated to cost $2 million per fiscal year from 2025 to 2031.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has reportedly taken aim at NOAA, seeking to reduce its budget and workforce and directing the agency to identify climate-related grants. It’s still unclear what effect these searches might have, but the administration has already reversed many of the Biden administration’s climate policies.

Min argued that any discussions about NOAA’s funding should happen in Congress.

“I encourage my Republican colleagues to bring that conversation forward …. the right way to do that, the democratic way to do that is in Congress, where we have a debate, discuss the issues, and then we vote,” he said.

When asked about the challenges of passing the bill in a Republican-controlled Congress, especially with Trump’s proposed spending cuts, Min said he hopes Republicans will support it since it doesn’t push any ideological agenda.

Several environmental groups, including the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project, Ocean Conservancy and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, have already supported the bill.

“This bill will ensure states, local governments and conservation planners have the tools and data they need to effectively manage at-risk species and preserve our treasured coastal communities for decades to come,” said Dr. Steve Weisberg, executive director of the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project.

The bill has been assigned to the House Natural Resources Committee.

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