436 NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM LEGISLATION 



and use the ocean, and our institutions require to be modified to tal?e account of 

 this. Tlie effect is coming in the following manner. The Navy's research and 

 development activities are being increasingly restricted to the accomplishment 

 of its military mission more effectively, thus withdrawing gradually much sup- 

 port from the civilian-use missions of the rest of the economy which heretofore 

 have depended heavily upon side effects from Navy research and development 

 in the ocean. Discipline-oriented (basic) research funding is increasingly be- 

 coming the primary mission in Government of the National Science Foundation 

 for ocean science as well as other science. 



These twin moves appear to be inevitable as cost-effective accounting spreads 

 through the Federal Government, and their effects are irreversible. The civilian 

 ocean research and development function, lying in the center between these two 

 primary basic and military functions, is fragmented among about 20 bureaus and 

 offices resting in departments and independent agencies whose primary missions 

 are land oriented. 



Accordingly the mission of each of these fragments is so small, both absolutely 

 and relative to other missions of the department or agency in which each resides, 

 that it cannot form the justifiable basis for a budget item large enough to attack 

 ocean occupation and use problems in a meaningful manner. The result is that 

 the ocean activity of the United States useful to the successful occupation and 

 use of the ocean by the civilian sector does not move with sufficient speed to 

 accomplish the strategic desiderata noted above. 



There is no practical way in which this situation can be corrected by normal 

 increments in budget for these individual fragments as the economy grows be- 

 cause in order to develop the weapons, tools, ideas, and institutions we need with 

 which to successfully occupy this new oceanic environment, change in order of 

 magnitude of government expenditures for these purposes is required, as was 

 the case when we tackled the new environent of the arid Great Plains, of the 

 lower atmosphere, and of nearby space. 



The only practical apparent way around this budgetary problem is to consoli- 

 date existing small bureaus and offices primarily concerned with the ocean into 

 a new entity of government in order that a purely ocean-oriented mission will be 

 sufficiently large to .iustify budget items required especially for services needed 

 jointly by several of them. 



This cannot be done by transferring ocean research and development activities 

 out of all bureaus and offices in Government and consolidating it in one new 

 entity for the practical reason that an office, bureau, or administration having 

 statutory ocean use functions cannot tolerate being separated from its particular 

 ocean research and development activities. This is as true of the Bureau of 

 Commercial Fisheries, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the Weather Bureau 

 as it is of the Navy. 



Accordingly the practical approach to this problem is the consolidation of 

 bureaus and offices that have primarily ocean-oriented function out of depart- 

 ments and agencies having primary land-oriented functions (such as the Bureau 

 of Commercial Fisheries out of the Department of the Interior) into a new 

 entity having a primary ocean-oriented mission, while leaving other bureaus and 

 offices having ocean-oriented activities that are subordinate but needed by the- 

 primary mission of the department or agency where they presently reside (such 

 as the Navy in the Department of Defense) . 



This necessary process was initiated by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 2 

 last month, but must move much further and faster before this problem is suc- 

 cessfully solved so that we can go forward in developing at suitable speed the 

 weapons, tools, ideas, and institutions we need to successfully occupy and use 

 the new environment of the ocean. 



11. The size of the budget items reqiiired for these purposes are not fully docu- 

 mented publicly, but comprehensive studies of this matter, with justifications 

 and cost-benefit ratios, have been made by four different committees of highly 

 competent specialists from both industry and the academic community. They 

 indicate, in rough terms, that our annual expenditures in ocean-oriented activi- 

 ties require to be expanded by an increment in the order of a half billion dol- 

 lars per year if we are to cope with these ocean-use problems with the timing 

 indicated by the strategic considerations. 



12. The ultimate goal of these activities should be the occupation for use of 

 the deep-sea bed. While difficult in the extreme, this is no more impossible than 

 subsisting on the moon, and it is miich more practical. Leaving aside the 

 major mineral resources of the deep-sea bed, which can probably be harvested 

 by other means, the occupation of the deep-sea hed would change the power 



