56 NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM LEGISLATION 



U.S. Department of the Interior, 



Office of the Secretary, 

 Washington, B.C., July 29, 1966. 

 Hon. Herbert C. Bonner, 



Chairman, Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, 

 House oj Representatives, Washington, D.C. 



Dear Mr. Bonner: Your committeee has requested our views and 

 recommendations on seven specific bills concerned with the problem 

 of planning, coordinating, and financing the national oceanographic 

 program. This Department, through the Bureau of Commercial 

 Fisheries, the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, the Bureau of 

 Mines, and the Geological Survey, is greatly interested in, and directly 

 concerned with, the science of oceanography. We are primarily con- 

 cerned with the development of the natural resources of the oceans. 

 Consequently, we desire that this form of research and development 

 proceed efiiciently and effectively in the national interest. 



Described briefly, the bills before the committee are: 



H.R. 6457 is similar to H.R. 5654. The major difference is that the 

 new Council established by the bill would not be a Cabinet-level 

 council, but would be composed of representatives from member 

 agencies and would be established in the Office of Science and Tech- 

 nology in the Executive Office of the President. 



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All of these bills deal in various ways with the problem of planning, 

 coordinating and financing the national oceanographic program. This 

 is a large program of research and development which involves several 

 Federal Government departments and speciaHzed agencies. It is 

 largely based on the recommendation of a committee of the National 

 Academy of Sciences, which in 1959 proposed that the Federal Govern- 

 ment embark on a 10-year program of expanded research on the 

 oceans. The program involves studies of the physics, chemistry, 

 geology, and biology of the ocean and its contiguous waters; the 

 relationships and interactions between ocean and atmosphere; and the 

 living, mineral, and fossil resources of the ocean waters and seabed, 

 and methods of conserving and harvesting these natural resources. 

 Since 1960 the program has been coordinated and its budgets planned 

 by the Interagency Committee on Oceanography of the Federal 

 Council for Science and Technology. Funds are appropriated through 

 the budgets of the individual cooperating agencies. The large 

 number of bills which have been introduced in the Congress in recent 

 sessions proposing to alter this coordinating machinery or to begin new 

 studies of the ocean and its resources reflects the concern of the legisla- 

 tive branch of the Government that the present mechanism for 

 planning and review may not be adequate. The varying nature of the 

 individual solutions to the problem represented by these bills is a 

 fair indication of the complexity of the problem. 



We believe that there is a growing need for a perspective in which 

 the oceanographic programs of the Federal Government can be more 

 clearly seen in relation to each other and in relation to the national 

 goals which they support. All of these bills contain some features 

 which could be helpful in carrying out a national oceanographic 

 program. The position of the executive branch, however, is that 



