430 NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM LEGISLATION 



of the ocean upon U.S. activities, and derive from this vieAvinp; a national ocean- 

 strategy, a national ocean program with which to implement it, and a national 

 ocean budget with which to finance the program, taking into account the total 

 interest of the United States as well as the particular interests of the several 

 States, and all ocean activities of the United States whether industrial, scientific,. 

 or governmental in nature and whether at a State, National, or international 

 level. 



The planning for this could be appropriately initiated by a temporary com- 

 mission as proposed by the Rogers bill and included in the version of the 

 Magnuson (S. 944) bill as passed by the Senate. Undoubtedly it M'ould be 

 useful to have such a temporary high-level commission take a first run at this 

 problem if doing so did not merely result in a 2-year further delay in getting 

 the Federal Government moving effectively on this ocean use activity field and if 

 the report of the commission did not result in a program too inflexible to be 

 bent to the continuing needs of this rapidly moving field of effort. 



If such a temporary commission is established alone for this purpose (as en- 

 visioned by the Rogers bill) it must be viewed only as an expedient in the knowl- 

 edge that it will need to be replaced by a permanent entity having a continuing 

 function of this same nature in the normal apparatus of the Government. 



It is difficult to see how a permanent entity of this sort can be handled at 

 less than a Cabinet level. The ICO certainly cannot handle this task because it 

 does not have sufficient breadth of responsibility nor can this be given to it 

 without a major disruption of the whole philosophy of the Federal Covincil for 

 Science and Technology. This is not desirable because the FCST as presently 

 organized and operated is too valuable in other activities to disturb for these 

 purposes. 



Accordingly the Lennon bill, and related ones, as valuable as they would be for 

 the improvement of our organization for ocean science, are not appropriate to the 

 present task. We have already moved beyond the need for which they would 

 provide to a higher and broader level of need. 



The normal way of handling the sort of problem with which we are presently 

 dealing in the U.S. Government is to form a council consisting of the heads 

 of the appropriate departments and independent agencies. This is frowned upon 

 as being a burden upon Cabinet-level people. This objection is nonnally cir- 

 cumvented by providing for an alternate who can serve with the Secretary's 

 power for this particular purpose. Despite some Executive objection to this with 

 respect to ocean matters at this time. I see no really adequate alternative, and 

 note the recent formation of the National Water Council to perform a similar 

 function in another field. 



The two components (council and temporary commission) noted above as 

 useful and necessary for the planning, coordination, and conduct of a national 

 oeeanographic program are provided for in good fashion and at a proper level 

 in government by the amended S. 944 as it passed the Senate. This bill would 

 mark a giant's step ahead in this field and if this committee reports that bill 

 out exactly as it is and the House passes it, Ave will be not only much ahead 

 of where we now are. but will have taken a preliminary step that has to be 

 taken in any event before we go forward to the broader field of occupation and 

 use of the ocean environment. 



It is probably unrealistic to expect this Congress to go further than this in the 

 present session. Nevertheless S. 944 does not purport to treat of some of the 

 other needs we have in this ocean use field and its passage will do nothing to 

 reduce those needs. Accordingly this Congress will have these added matters 

 before it in its next session, and they are partially included in some of the bills 

 before the committee today. Accordingly it is useful to look at some of these 

 other aspects. 



(2) Operations 



In a permanent solution to these problems I do not believe it practical to do 

 without a council at Cabinet level to coordinate ocean activities of the United 

 States as proposed in S. 944 because it is quite impractical to put all of the opera- 

 tional aspects of the Government in respect of the ocean in one agency or 

 department. 



The Department of State is not really an operational entity in this context. 

 It depends on the other aspects of the Government doing normal operations while 

 its function is the relation of the output of these other aspects of the Government 

 into the fields of foreign policy and foreign relations. But there is sucJi a high 



