Unalaska, AK – While federal agencies have focused their efforts this week on tsunami and earthquake preparation and response, volcano monitoring is also being addressed on Capitol Hill.

Yesterday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski reintroduced a piece of legislation that would create a national volcano early warning and monitoring system. Right now, there are five volcano observatories in the United States, with locations in Alaska, Hawaii, and the West Coast. These observatories are run through state and federal partnerships, and their purpose is to watch for thermal anomalies and predict eruptions. The proposed national system would link these observatories up through a new national watch office and database, and it would also fund the program at $15 million annually. Right now, the volcano observatories lack a single, consistent funding source.

Ken Dean is the acting coordinating scientist at the Alaska Volcano Observatory, and he says that a drop in funding has put stress on AVO's full-time monitoring capabilities.

"The decrease in the funding that we've had is getting to the point where we're having trouble maintaining the AM and PM watches, 7 days a week, 365 days a year," says Dean.

Thirty active volcanoes are currently being monitored in Alaska. Most recently, Mount Redoubt erupted in 2009 and affected production at the Drift River oil terminal. In 2008, an eruption of Okmok Volcano resulted in an evacuation of Umnak Island. Today, Murkowski stressed the impact that volcanic can have on air travel.

"Most of the time those volcanoes are just kind of sitting quiet, but when they go, you don't want to be in a jetliner sitting above," says Murkowski.

The volcano monitoring bill was first introduced in 2009, shortly after the Redoubt eruptions. It ultimately stalled after making it out of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.