422 NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM LEGISLATION 



zoiital manner and not in an integrated vertical manner, such as was contem- 

 plated briefly early in the Kennedy administration. 



There is no way in which ICO can correct or substantially affect this budgetary 

 practice. Therefore there is no necessary relationship between the budget ICO 

 thinks to be appropriate, the summation of individiial pieces that reaches the 

 Bureau of the Budget from the agencies and departments, the summation of the 

 different pieces finally imbedded in a scattered fashion through the President's 

 budget message to the Congress, or the summation of the pieces finally agreed to 

 \> the different subcommittees of the appropriation committees of the Congress 

 and sent to the President to sign into law. 



Thus there is really nothing that can be called a national oceanographic 

 budget, and nobody has ever ventured to ever suggest a national ocean budget at 

 any level of the Government. 



9. Staff 



The staff of 100 is now provided in a makeshift manner by contribution of 

 people, quarters, and funds in a sort of contribution of kind from member agen- 

 cies. ICO itself has no staff money. Its staff does not really belong to ICO. 

 As a matter of fact it is one of the contentions of OST that providing an Oceano- 

 graphic Council within FCST with a staii", including an executive .secretary ap- 

 pointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, 

 ■ would create a staff within a staff at OST and that it would be difficult, if not 

 impossible, to set forth the respective duties, authorities and responsibilities 

 under such an arrangement. 



Yet there is no observation that is made more firmly by informed experts inside 

 and outside ICO than that the ocean function of the U.S. Government, in order to 

 operate more satisfactorily, absolvitely required a competent, energetic director 

 at a level requiring Presidential appointment by and with the advice and con- 

 sent of the Senate more than it needs any other one thing. 



It seems unanswerable that the ocean function in Government, to perform 

 better, must have a separate line item in the budget at its disposal for providing 

 adequate staff with experience and capabilities necessary to provide the func- 

 tion with adequate background information and leadership. 



10. Operational responsiMlity 



Regardless of any gross shift in policy or activity respecting ocean use. the 

 present ocean function in Government requires to take on some operational func- 

 tions of ioint concern to the whole apparatus, and TCO cannot do this. 



The National Oceanographic Data Center is the very heart of the national 

 ocean effort. It now hangs loosely outside of good government structure. It 

 has no line budget item of its own. Structurally it is in the Oflice of the Naval 

 Oceanographer, but only for housekeeping purposes. Operational policy is set 

 by a committee which is only partially governmental and not necessarily in tune 

 with overall governmental ocean policy. 



There is need for an instrumentation center as a service function for the 

 several ocean activities of the Government, and there is no good place to put it. 



Project "Mohole" is a large operational undertaking. It is being managed by 

 the National Science Foundation which is not an operational agency, and does 

 not want to be, because there is no better place for it in the Government. 



The "Weather Watch" system of unmanned buoys for taking time-series ob- 

 servations of both air weather and ocean weather at sea is going to be a very 

 large undertaking to provide services needed by several agencies. How it is 

 to be operated is one of the barriers to getting it established. 



This list of central operational functions needed by the present small ocean 

 program of the Government could be extended. It is hard to see how the ocean 

 function of the Government can grow larger without this ability being given. 



The inability to have jointly required operational activities is a reflection 

 of the disadvantages stemming from the fragmented nature of ocean work in the 

 Pederal Government in the broad mission-oriented civilian sector lying between 

 the discipline-oriented basic ocean research under NSF and the military mis- 

 sion-oriented ocean activity under the Navy. Not only common service missions 

 for this civilian sector are needed, but some of these require to be larger than 

 any of the present fragments can support budgetwise within their specialized 

 nnissions. 



This list of 10 things that are troublesome with the persent lodging of the 

 ocean fimction in ICO as a part of FCST could be considerably enlarged, but 

 these are sufiicient to illustrate the nature of the problem. The ICO is unable 

 to come to bear on these issues effectively. 



