14 



tegic plan and our implementation plan for it in light of the reality 

 of the resources that are at our disposal. 



Mr. Weldon. Will you have, Ms. Josephson, to go along with the 

 10-year strategic plan, a cost estimate, if you were able to achieve 

 the optimum, which would be to fully implement the strategic 

 plan; and then allow us to see what, in fact, decisions we are going 

 to have to make if the budget numbers are severely less than that, 

 which is probably going to be the case? 



Will that be available to us to look at and to analyze over the 

 next five to ten years? 



Ms. Josephson. I will have to see whether or not the Office of 

 Management and Budget allows us to give you such a figure. I am 

 not clear, but I will go back and raise that question. 



[The following information was supplied subsequent to the hear- 

 ing:] 



At this time, NOAA is unable to provide the full estimated cost of the Strategic 

 Plan over the next 10 years. Some of the components of the Strategic Plan are ex- 

 pected to have decreasing costs over the next 10 years, while others are expected to 

 be gradually increasing. It is NOAA's hope that overall costs of the Strategic Plan 

 will lessen in the final 5 years of the Strategic Plan. 



Mr. Weldon. I would think if you could give us what your opti- 

 mum would be, and then as we see what the numbers are, coming 

 out of OMB, we can begin to understand what the implications of 

 those numbers are and what it is you want to achieve over the 

 next 10 years. 



The final point deals with dual-use technologies and coordination 

 with the military, and we have discussed that at length in hearings 

 in this Subcommittee as well. 



I was just wondering what the impact and whether NOAA is, in 

 fact, coordinating with the military — especially the Navy, as they 

 downsize, and specifically, the integrated underseas surveillance 

 system. Is that going to be impacted, and to what extent, in terms 

 of NOAA's use of that for marine research? 



Ms. Josephson. We do coordinate very closely with the military 

 in these areas. A new task force has just been established of pro- 

 gram managers, rather than scientists. There was a first group 

 that was science-based, looking at the implications of defense tech- 

 nologies for the civil side, and they completed their task sometime 

 this spring-summer. 



Now there is a new task force on the application side, on which 

 we are represented, that is just starting to work. So we are very 

 hooked in and very interested in the application of these technol- 

 ogies to our missions. 



On the second part of your question, about the lUSS, that does 

 raise some serious questions for us, because we have already estab- 

 lished that, for example, in enforcement for NMFS, in the ability 

 to track larger marine mammals, and also in identifying vents in 

 the ocean floor, there are some very possible aspects of the lUSS. 

 But for us, for example, to take it over from the Navy would be a 

 financial impossibility. 



So we will be concerned if it is decided that the lUSS should no 

 longer exist, wondering what the civilian side of the house could do 

 to obtain data on some basis from an lUSS were there to be a de- 



