MARINE SCIENCES AND RESEARCH ACT A3 
quently, there appears to be no need to create a Division of Marine 
Sciences in the National Science Foundation. 
Section 4 of the bill would authorize the appropriation of $3 million 
to the National Science Foundation for the provision of fellowsh ps to 
graduate students training to become professional oceanographers. 
This Department believes there are sufficient existing programs to 
train needed oceanographers and that the provision for fellowships in 
section 4 is therefore not necessary. The National Science Foundation 
provided 2,150 graduate fellowships to all sciences on a nationally 
competitive basis in fiscal 1960. In addition, the Foundation encour- 
ages students to enter the field of oceanography through their visiting 
scientists program, undergraduate research participation program, 
and summer training for secondary school students program. Univer- 
sities and students can obtain funds for this type of training under the 
National Defense Education Act. Federal agencies can, in addition, 
provide training and education at the undergraduate and graduate 
level under the Government Employee Training Act. 
In accordance with the recommendations of the Subcommittee on 
Oceanography, it is recommended that a National Oceanographic 
Records Center should be established at the Suitland offices of the 
Navy Hydrographic Office. This would be preferable to establishing 
such a center in the Department of Commerce, as is provided in 
section 7(b) of the bill. The Hydrographic Office already has such 
a center with data from approximately 300,000 oceanographic stations 
amounting to 4,800,000 lines of punchcard data. New data are being 
fed into this deck at a rate of about 61,500 items per year. Hstablish- 
ing a new center as proposed by the bill would duplicate existing 
personnel, data, and machines. It is suggested, in addition, that the 
center should be jointly funded and operated by the Navy, Coast and 
Geodetic Survey, Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, and the National 
Science Foundation. 
_ Itis also requested that the following proviso be inserted at the end 
of section 7(b): “Provided: That this Center shall not duplicate the 
work of the National Weather Records Center’’. 
Line 9, page 15, of section 7(e) should be amended by adding the 
phrase ‘‘and matter’? between the words “energy” and ‘“between’’. 
The Department believes that the provisions of section 7(f) should 
only require the Maritime Administration to construct ships when 
requested by other Government agencies. Consequently, the follow- 
ing provisions should be substituted for the matter in section 7(f), 
line 17, page 15, to line 8, page 16, inclusive. 
“(f) Require that the Maritime Administration, when requested 
by other agencies of the Federal Government— 
“(1) Construct, on a reimbursable basis, such oceanographic 
research ships as may be required by such agencies; 
(2) Design or arrange for the design, and supervise the con- 
struction of such ships; and 
(3) Undertake research and development for oceanographic 
research ships of unusual or novel design.” 
Deletion of section 8(a) and rewording of section 8(b) is recom- 
mended to authorize support of the records center by the Coast and 
Geodetic Survey in the amount of not more than $80,000 per annum. 
This is in accordance with the recommendation made above and of 
the Subcommittee on Oceanography. 
