NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM LEGISLATION 421 



ments. ICO lias no such channels of its own so that State ocean use policy and 

 activities can be coordinated with Federal ocean policy and activities. 



If. Channels to internalUonal and intergovernmental agencies 



A substantial part of the total federally supported ocean activity is being 

 undertaken through international and intergovernmental agencies. ICO has no 

 regular channels of its own to these agencies. Accordingly it is unable to co- 

 ordinate adequately ocean use policy and activities supported by the Federal 

 Government in the international field with what the Federal Government is 

 supporting at the national and the State level. There is no formal reporting 

 at all at the national level of the substantial intercrossing of ocean activities 

 between the State and international levels. 



5. ConspiciHty 



There is solid feeling that ICO is buried down so far in the Government hier- 

 archy that it is not noticed. This applies not only to ICO as an organization but 

 to most of its individual members in their own departments or agencies. 



What is needed as much as anything in the conduct of the Federal Gk)vern- 

 ment's ocean activities and policies is to get them and their origination out into 

 the open in a conspicuous position. 



6. Guidance 



FCST is not in a position to provide guidance to ICO because its field of 

 competence and responsibility, in itself, is too narrow to give guidance to a 

 national ocean program. The Congress has given no clear statement of policy 

 as to what it wants done in the ocean field. One of the prime jobs of ICO is 

 the review of current activities and planned programs of individual agencies in 

 the context of the Government's overall long-range effort. But there has never 

 been a statement of what the Government's overall long-range effort in the ocean 

 field should be or should encompass. FCST is not competent to do this fully. 

 There is no other part of the executive designed to do so. 



Another part of this problem is that ICO has difl3culty in being responsive to 

 the Congress. The Congress hears the Ofiiee of Science and Technology and not 

 the Federal Council on Science and Technology. The committees and subcom- 

 mittees of FCST, of which ICO is one, have no regular way of being in contact 

 with the Congress and the Congress cannot reach them because of executive 

 privilege. The congressional liaison of the ocean function is a very serious part 

 of this whole problem with which ICO can deal only imperfectly. 



7. Program 



An examination of ICO reports gives no indication that its so-called national 

 oceanographic program, leaving aside the narrowness of its base, is anything 

 more than a compilation and summation of the aspirations and hopes of what 

 the individual bureaus and oflices want to do in the coming year. There is 

 little evidence of any sublimation of these individual agency desires into a na- 

 tional program aimed at attaining national goals even in this limited field. 

 There is little indication that the program, as an overall program, has been 

 screened and adapted to fit a set of national priorities ; there is every evidence, 

 on the other hand, that it is a simple addition of priorities arising from the 22 

 different priorities of its member agencies, which are not much related to each 

 other in respect of ocean affairs. 



8. Budget 



Between the discipline-oriented (basic) science aspects handled by the Na- 

 tional Science Foundation and the mission -oriented militai'y aspects as handled 

 by the Navy, the civilian industry aspects of the Federal Government's ocean 

 activities are so fragmented amongst small entities that no single piece is large 

 enough in its ocean-oriented mission to justify the substantial budget items 

 required to service the common ocean requirements of this broad mission-oriented 

 civilian area of needed ocean work. 



Because of this fragmentation the budget cannot be considered in a unitary 

 manner in the congressional appropriation apparatus because each fragment goe.s 

 to a different subcommittee on an appropriation committee and thus the in- 

 dividual pieces cannot be considered in relation to each other or as parts of a 

 national whole by congerssional experts in ocean activities and needs. 



While this not an absolute necessity in the Bureau of the Budget apparatus, 

 the ocean budget, in actual practice, is also treated there in a fragmented hori- 



