To look out at Puget Sound on a clear day is to be dazzled by its beauty. But that's just the surface.

Elliott Norse, president of Marine Conservation Biology Institute, a non-profit in Bellevue, struggles with the fundamental problem of public awareness about what's underneath.

Unfortunately, "out of sight is out of mind," he says, despite the fact that oceans make up 99 percent of the habitable space on Earth and provide half of our oxygen.

MARK HARRISON/SEATTLE TIMES

Kayakers paddle back to the beach after an evening outing in Puget Sound.

He's blunt about the problem -- the way too many people, industries and government agencies are treating the oceans.

"Oceans have two purposes -- to take things out, like bluefin tuna, and put things in, like feces," he said. Norse founded the institute in 1996 with a mission he describes as "science for the sake of change," applying marine conservation to strengthen policy.

In the Puget Sound area, almost three million people live on a large mass of land surrounding a relatively small body of water, flushing toilets, changing oil, fertilizing lawns, bleaching laundry and creating other human impacts that the abundant rain washes into the sound, he said.

But the biggest menace is carbon dioxide, which is making ocean waters more acidic and threatening local shellfish, among other effects. It's no longer a problem that can be solved locally, Norse believes. The oceans are declining so dramatically that change will have to be from the top.

Pushing on the policy side, the institute worked to curb bottom trawling and helped convince the Bush Administration to establish three new marine national monuments, creating the world's biggest marine protected area.

"Most Americans don't know that George W. Bush was the best friend of the oceans we've ever had," Norse said.

Norse was optimistic that the Obama Administration would do even more.

One of the institute's main goals is to work with the administration on a National Ocean Policy, which President Obama was on the verge of announcing.

The national policy would mean a coordinated focus on U.S. waters, now subject to 20 federal agencies, state and local governments, and more than 140 different federal laws and regulations, and management based on the idea of environmental stewardship, Norse said.

One of its backers is Jane Lubchenco, the former Oregon State professor now administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

A National Ocean Council would integrate the different branches of government, and a system of Marine Spacial Planning would help determine things like which areas are most fragile, which are best for wind and wave power and how that would affect fishing.

Amid that progress came Wednesday's reversal of a ban on oil drilling off most U.S. shores, which Obama announced as part of a new policy that could mean oil and natural gas platforms in waters along the southern Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and part of Alaska. He explained the change in the context of the nation's need for energy and jobs to keep American businesses competitive.

Norse called it "a carefully calculated political decision," but one he's not sure will achieve its goals.

"This is a president who plays things down the middle. He makes decisions that won't always make his friends or his enemies happy," he said. "This is not something I wanted to see. It's a major change and it's one that has all sorts of ramifications."

One of them is that an intelligent national policy is needed more than ever to balance economic and environmental interests, he said.

"I wish we didn't need to drill for oil, but on the other hand we are addicted to it," he said. "I think we need to understand that our addiction has costs."