It wasn't quite 'a break the glass' emergency moment but in a recent letter to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Senators Cory Booker and Robert Menendez warned that a "concerning number of whale deaths along the Atlantic Coast" could be the harbinger of extinction for certain species of the extraordinary mammals.
In a March 28 letter to Janet Coit, the assistant administrator for Fisheries National Marine Fisheries, New Jersey's Senators, along with their colleagues Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) signaled a sense of urgency writing that "accessibility, transparency, and timeliness" was of the utmost importance when it came to "NOAA's whale injury and death reporting."
