16 



at the White House who believes in land use, and, of course, we 

 were interested in coastal zone management." 



So, I said, "By the year 2000, 80 to 85 percent of the people will 

 live within 50 miles of the coast or the Great Lakes, and racing 

 down to the sea and lakes will be development, urbanization, urban 

 sprawl, recreation pressure, fisheries, and different power facilities. 

 They will all crowd down to the sea, and we must have a plan to 

 save the coastal ecosystem." 



And I could not get past Erlichman, although I had had hear- 

 ings, and we had support from Alaska, all over the west, and the 

 east coast. The recommendation was to establish a separate entity, 

 an independent agency known as the National Oceanic and Atmos- 

 pheric Administration. But I could not get the proposal into the 

 White House without a miracle, because Erlichman kept killing it 

 every time I made a move in the Senate and sent witnesses to tes- 

 tify against it. But John Mitchell was close to the President, recog- 

 nized that we ought not to let all this work just go, and agreed to 

 talk to President Nixon to get something going. 



So, he went over and talked to the President and came back and 

 told me, "I got it for you." He said: "We are going to institute the 

 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It is not going 

 to be an independent agency; the President is against that, so we 

 have to put it in one of the Departments. It would be appropriate 

 to put it in the Interior Department, but there are some political 

 differences between President Nixon and Governor Hickel, then 

 Secretary of the Interior." 



And he said, "As a result, we are going to give it to Maurice 

 Stans and put it over in the Commerce Department." I said, "Well, 

 I thought it was going into the Interior, but it suits me if you want 

 to put it in Commerce. We will run with it and get it going." Dr. 

 Robert White, who is now head of the National Academy of Engi- 

 neering, was the first director after we got it established. 



Gov. Wally Hickel is an outstanding individual. I worked with 

 him very closely. I am one of his admirers and think he is very con- 

 scientious about Alaska and the interests up here. But it was, you 

 know, Republican politics. They acted like they were getting along, 

 but when you read the papers a month later, they were after each 

 other. Even now, if they did not have us to kick around, as former 

 President Nixon would say, the Republicans would be after each 

 other before the end of the year, and then we would get a respite 

 and be able to regroup. 



But it was a difference of some kind; I never did understand it. 

 That is why I got the NOAA reorganization plan signed. I got it 

 started by Executive Order 4 in November 1970. We have been 

 going ever since. 



Now, subsequently we had a chairman who abolished the Sub- 

 committee on Oceans and Atmosphere, and the only way to keep 

 a focus on fisheries and coastal policy was through something I had 

 instituted, in addition to the subcommittee, called the National 

 Ocean Policy Study. I chair that currently. 



Senator John Kerry, of Massachusetts, has chaired most of the 

 hearings. We share that responsibility because there are a lot of 

 hearings to be held. Senator Stevens is the ranking Republican 

 member. He keeps us honest and informed. And so we work a lot 



