National Policy Planning 



— The Council's key function should be to assist the President in carry- 

 ing out his statutory leadership responsibilities, not to serve as an 

 operating agency. 

 — It should aid in strengthening the programs of the agencies and in 

 coordinating activities so as to foster an enterprise stronger than the 

 sum of its parts. 

 — Its scope of activity, in keeping with the spirit of the legislation to take 

 into full account all the uses of the oceans, should be broader than the 

 programs of scientific oceanography which had been coordinated by 

 its predecessor, the Interagency Committee on Oceanography of the 

 Federal Council for Science and Technology. 

 — The Council should give high priority to the institutional framework 

 and governmental processes by which science converges with consider- 

 ations of law, socio-economics, and public policy and should seek new 

 ideas within and outside government. 

 Also underlying the Council's activities have been three fundamental 

 concepts, namely: 



— While the Government provides much of the leadership and support 

 for ocean research and exploration, the development and exploitation 

 of marine resources is the responsibility of private enterprise. 

 — State and local participation is critical to the successful management 



of activities in the coastal marine environment. 

 — In view of the inherently international character of the oceans, a 

 multinational approach to many uses of the sea is essential. 

 A major consequence of the establishment of the Council has been the 

 elevation of major issues of national importance to consideration at a gov- 

 ernment-wide policy level and selection of those priority matters deserving 

 Presidential attention. These priority recommendations have reached the 

 President in the context of broadly based national goals as well as in terms 

 of agency missions and priorities. 



Some 65 policy issues have been considered by the Council. The Council's 

 action has in turn been reflected in Presidential statements, new initiatives 

 set forth in this and the two previous Annual Reports, and special budgetary 

 emphasis. In brief, the Council has considered its major functions to be iden- 

 tification of goals from numerous and diffuse alternatives; mobilization of 

 fragmented, and often dormant, resources into a coherent multiagency 

 framework directed toward these goals; and formulation of priorities and 

 action programs to achieve these goals. 



To assist in preparing recommendations on issues requiring Council-level 

 action and to foster exchange of information and coordination of policies 

 and programs, the Council established four interagency committees which 

 report to the Vice President: Marine Research, Education, and Facilities; 

 Ocean Exploration and Environmental Services; Food from the Sea; and 

 Multiple Use of the Coastal Zone. Additionally, at the request of the Vice 



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