MARINE SCIENCE 87 
Dr. Revetxr. I am kind of puzzled by what kind of coordination is 
best here. It seems to me that there are two things that are quite 
important, and that is that whatever body exists should report to the 
Congress as well as to the executive branch. 
Another thing that we run into is that the Interagency Committee 
proposes and approves and blesses an oceanographic budget for the 
different agencies, but this somehow never gets all the way through 
the budgetary processes. 
I don’t quite understand how you overcome this. That is, the Bu- 
reau of the Budget, or perhaps the department level of the depart- 
mental secretaries, the plans of the Interagency Committee seem to be 
very seriously cut down. 
The CHarrman. The trouble with the thing is that suppose every- 
body on the Interagency Committee agrees that you want to go ahead 
with the program. Take the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. The 
Interagency Committee as a committee decides that a certain program 
should be recommended. So the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries takes 
it to the Interior Department with the blessing of the Interagency 
Committee, and maybe an advisory committee, such as the bill pro- 
vides. But when they get there they immediately get mixed up with 
the priorities of the Interior Department, of which there are many, 
and of which oceanography or fisheries, to use that as an example, are 
orphans. Fisheries long has been an orphan as far as the budget is 
concerned. This is the sort of problem which has to move through the 
Department as a separate entity. In other words, not to get mixed up 
with the priorities of the Land Management or of the Bureau of Recla- 
mation and all these things. In some departments it is all right. I 
suspect that Navy doesn’t have too much trouble. 
Dr. Revetie. They have a lot of trouble. 
The CHatrman. But not as muchas the rest of them. 
Dr. Rrveite. There is a great conflict. 
The Cuarrman. This is the sort of thing which bogs down a pro- 
gram which everybody agrees upon. 
Dr. Reverie. The Navy has a problem between the “do it now” 
men and the “long range” men. Some people want another destroyer 
and others a research ship. 
The Cuarrman. The National Science Foundation, the work they 
have been doing would have been 20 years behind if we had run what 
they are doing through each agency that is involved. But because we 
set up in the beginning a National Science Foundation that puts it 
out to the agencies, it has worked. The agencies would have been 20 
years behind and would never have gotten off the ground if it had 
been done the old way. 
These agencies, in oceanography, have done a great deal since we 
started this 3 or 4 years ago, and are moving pretty fast. But we 
still have those pitfalls of trying to run it through the various agen- 
cies involved without any coordination. 
This is an administrative problem that we have in the bill, I appre- 
ciate. 
Dr. Reverie. What I thought is that by having this committee set 
up by statute and reporting to Congress, as well as to the executive 
branch, in effect it would have a way of bypassing the Bureau of the 
Budget, at least in part. Not totally, and it is not desirable, but it 
should have some voice. 
