278 NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM LEGISLATION 



ographic Council would largely duplicate those of the Federal Council 

 and the ICO with respect to oceanography, and whether they could 

 be perfonned more eifectively by the proposed council is not clear. 

 The proposed Council would supersede the etl'ective linkage of ocean- 

 ography with the Federal Council structure. 



Moreover, this bill raises a general question relating to the structure 

 of the executive branch for dealing with questions of science policy. 

 Whereas, the Office of Science and Technology was created with the 

 concurrence of the Congress to advise the President on matters relat- 

 ing to science and teclinology and to coordinate the activities of the 

 Federal agencies, this bill raises in principle the desirability of estab- 

 lishing a series of national councils which report directly to the 

 President. 



This means of organizing to deal with problems of science and tech- 

 nology would pose complicated problems for both the President and 

 the agencies themselves. For these reasons, I cannot recommend 

 enactment of the bill. 



Fourth, H.R. 6457, by Mr. Ashley, to provide for a comprehensive, 

 long-range, and coordinated program in oceanography. In many re- 

 spects this bill is similar to the one discussed above, except that the 

 National Oceanographic Council would be placed administratively 

 in the Office of Science and Technology. From an organizational 

 viewpoint, this would create an impractical arrangement — a council 

 within an office the heads of which both report directly to the Pres- 

 ident, and a staff within a staff in the Office of Science and Technology. 



In addition to these deficiencies rooted in basic concepts, it would 

 be clearly undesirable to have a representative of the Office of Science 

 and Technology, with general policy responsibilities, serve as a mem- 

 ber of a national council which is to advise the President as an advocate 

 of a single specialized area of science and technology. 



Fifth, H.R. 5884, by Mr. Rivers, and an identical bill by Mr. Keith, to 

 provide a program of marine exploration and development of the 

 resources of the Continental Shelf and to establish a Marine Explora- 

 tion and Development Commission. As I pointed out at the Maryland 

 Governors Conference about 1 year ago, the Continental Shelves, which 

 are most accessible to exploration, have not yet been mapped geolog- 

 ically, which would be important from the viewpoint of the economic 

 development of marine resources envisioned in this bill. 



We have begun, however, to explore the Continental Shelf sys- 

 tematically in terms of its oceanogra]ohic characteristics and natural re- 

 sources. During fiscal year 1965, about 20 percent of the total Fed- 

 eral effort in oceanography was devoted to Continental Shelf studies. 

 A systematic survey of the geological and geophysical characteristics 

 of the east coast Continental Shelf and slope, supported by the U.S. 

 Geological Survey, is now roughly 70 percent complete. 



I would not like to give the impression that we feel we are doing 

 everything just right; however, with two agencies — Commerce and 

 Interior — with responsibility for marine surveys and resource manage- 

 ment, respectively, I expect a more concerted effort will be made to 

 prepare for the economic development of these offshore areas. 



With respect to the bill itself, I have several reservations: Fii*st, 

 that it would be premature to enact such a bill at this time when the 

 extent of legal problems related to resource recovery from this area 



