174 OCEANOGRAPHY 1961 — PHASE 3 



Mr. Batter. Wouldn't it be better, then, to have the data center es- 

 tablished by statute ? 



Mr. Hughes. It doesn't seem to me the statutory designation of the 

 center, per se, would affect the availability of funds. The funds 

 could be granted, or not granted in either circumstance just as they 

 are granted or not granted to one of the departments of Government. 



Mr. DiNGELL. Just a minute. You are a very experienced man 

 in this field of budget, and I imagine your experience goes beyond that 

 of any of the members of this committee. I do not think you intend 

 to sit there and give us the understanding that an agency could 

 arbitrarily withhold funds from a statutorily composed organism of 

 the Federal Government to which it was a contributor. I do not 

 think you want us to infer from your testimony this morning that a 

 contributor to an informal organization of this sort, set up by an agree- 

 ment of this kind, could be denied the right to withdraw if it were 

 so minded under the terms of the agreement we have here, and with 

 which I am sure you happen to be familiar. Am I correct? 



Mr. Hughes. You are quite correct. I thought the import of Mr. 

 Bauer's question was: What happens if funds are not requested by 

 one of the contributing agencies, or funds are not granted by one 

 of the contributing agencies, and what I intended to convey was failure 

 to provide funds, whether this failure be failure of request within 

 the executive branch, or failure of appropriation in the Congress, it 

 seems to me is a contingency which confronts this and other agencies, 

 and would have to be dealt with in the same way whether or not the 

 organization were statutory or otherwise. I would certainly concede 

 a statutorily designated organization has a firmer foundation than an 

 administratively designated one. 



Mr. Bauer. What we are interested in in this committee is estab- 

 lishing as firm a foundation as possible so this organization could go 

 forward and carry out the functions we feel it should have. I am 

 sure you agree with us that is a laudable purpose in order to protect 

 the interests of the United States, and to carry out our scientific 

 research on a more stable and permanent basis and intelligently organ- 

 ize and plan a permanent collecting agency, responsible not only for 

 the collection of data, but also for the intelligence processing of this 

 data. So studies are necessary in carrying out the intelligent han- 

 dling and management and compilation and collection of this data 

 which is a very laudable purpose, I am sure you will agree. 



Mr. Hughes. We certainly have no quarrel with the objectives of 

 the legislation. 



Mr. Bauer. Thank you very much. 



One further question. In your reply to our request for your feelings 

 from the Bureau of the Budget in the matter of Congressman Miller's 

 bill, you mentioned an authorized program of the Smithsonian In- 

 stitution in oceanography. Could you give us a little help as to what 

 that program is? 



Mr. Hughes. I am afraid I cannot, Mr. Bauer. I will be glad to 

 furnish for the record a brief description if the committee wishes. 



Mr. Bauer. I would appreciate it very much if you would supply 

 that for the record. 



(The information requested follows :) 



