NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM LEGISLATION 487 



that items be added. Budget policy is established by tlie President. 

 The general guidance on budget policy is given to the Budget Bureau 

 and the agencies prior to the time the budget estimates are received, 

 and the agencies have this guidance which they are to apply in the 

 development of their proposals for expenditures which are sent to 

 the Budget Bureau. 



The President has made very clear, and this has been no secret, it 

 has been a matter of public record — in fact, he announced last week 

 he is going to divide the budget this year in consideration to two 

 things; One, sessions devoted to new programs; and another one to 

 what can be done about on-going programs. And I think he made 

 very clear to the agencies that there are priorit}?- requirements in the 

 (xovernment which we need to meet, and he does not want these met 

 merely by adding increases to the budget and the numbers of people 

 in on-going programs ; that we have to find the resources to meet our 

 new requirements by cutting out things of less priority or things 

 which are no longer required, and there is a good deal of emphasis 

 on that today. 



Mr. Caset. Now, back to specifically oceanography, what I was in- 

 terested in was in this ICO document with reference to the underseas 

 research vehicles which the document seems to stress would be quite 

 desirable and most needed at this time. 



They state that the member agencies of the ICO are eager — I pre- 

 sume they mean all of them — would be eager to operate these under- 

 seas research vehicles on research and engineering projects, but they 

 are, however, reluctant in fiscal year 1966 to embark upon a costly 

 program of development, especially with the state of the art in its 

 present pioneering stage. 



Now, of course, there is more to it ; I just picked out that one specific 

 statement, but they go on to say that the development of such a vehicle 

 is furnished to technology as well as to give them experience in the 

 capabilities, and so forth. 



Mr. SEmMAN. On this very point, something has happened sub- 

 sequent to the report of the ICO, and on April 18, 1965, the President 

 announced that the Department of the Navy and the Atomic Energy 

 Commission are jointly developing a nuclear deep ocean engineering 

 vehicle, and so on. 



Mr. Casey. I was wondering, Doctor, if they all felt that was great 

 but they were all afraid to put thait particular thing or some other 

 item or some other object that they all thought was very commendable 

 and desirable at this time in the budget. Who gets their nerve up or 

 would you, as the Bureau of the Budget, say, this is something that 

 should be done, and consulting with the Office of Science and Tech- 

 nology decide who should do it and put the money in their budget 

 on your own. 



Mr. Seaman. This has been done in certain areas; I would be, 

 again, less than frank if I said this implied that this happened very 

 often — it does not. 



Mr. Casey. I am sure it does not ; you have more requests than you 

 know what to do with. 



Mr. Seidman. That is right, but, on the other hand, I think one of 

 the functions of the Office of Science and Technology is to identify 

 gaps in our scientific programs. Necessary work sometimes falls be- 

 tween the cracks, because the agencies have varying interests in terms 



