490 NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM LEGISLATION 



Mr. Drewry. This is one of the points that have been giving me 

 some concern ; just to take oceanography, for instance, who would be 

 the advocate for oceanography as a concept before the Bureau of the 

 Budget and who would take initiative to justify the oceanographic 

 budget before the Congress ? 



Mr. Seidman. There is not an oceanographic budget. As m other 

 fields of science each of the agencies supports its own program. This 

 has usually been more effective in obtaining funds from the Congress, 

 I might add, than where an agency has to justify the budget request as 

 necessary to support another agency's mission. 



Our central agencies often have difficulty obtaining necessary funds 

 when they have to explain their needs in terms of some other agency's 

 requirements. What I am saying here is that if the Navy comes in 

 and explains what it needs in terms of its mission, it is much more 

 likely to get a sympathetic hearing from the Appropriations Commit- 

 tee, than another agency is in justifying its program in terms of Navy 

 requirements. 



Mr. Drewry. This is one thing that worries us ; oceanography comes 

 up in the budgets of all the various agencies, and the defense of the 

 budget request before the Appropriations Committee is, as I under- 

 stand it, made by someone, an official of the separate agency. 



Is there any provision for Dr. Hornig, for example, to come up and 

 justify the oceanographic part of a particular agency's budget, to say 

 "This portion of this budget item was developed as a part of a broad 

 program of oceanography and not solely as a mission of a particular 

 agency ; it has been well coordinated ; we think it is essential to the 

 overall program?" 



Mr. Seidman. You put your finger on a very good point, Mr. 

 Drewry, it applies not only to oceanography but to other programs. 

 The agencies have to go in and justify their budgets in terms of their 

 own requirements ; I think this is the sound way of doing it. However, 

 one element of a program may be of low priority to them in terms of 

 their own mission, but if you dropped it, it might affect your total pro- 

 gram quite seriously, in terms of keeping a balance among the various 

 elements of the program. And, again, this is one of the unsolved 

 problems in the present appropriation process. 



When an agency is asked by its subcommittee chairman which of 

 its budgetary items it would be willing to delete or reduce, it is likely 

 to give up something which might be rather urgently required in 

 terms of the total program, but which has a lower order of priority 

 for the specific mission of that agency. 



Mr. Drewry. We have heard statements to that effect and it would 

 seem to me to be something that could be correctable perhaps by the 

 Director of the OST himself being the person 



Mr. Seidman. It might well be that it would be useful for the Di- 

 rector of the OST and the Director of the Budget to come before 

 the full Appropriations Committee and explain the part of the budget 

 dealing with science as a whole, so the committee will have an un- 

 derstanding of how the parts interrelate. 



Mr. Drewry. You mentioned in stating your reasons for being 

 opposed to pulling together oceanographic items into a single agency 

 or council, the question of where, for example, the oceanography 



