803 
In particular, I think its emphasis on the States as the focus for 
responsibility and action is perceptive and wise, as is its specification 
of the Federal role as that of assistance and support in the develop- 
ment of State coastal zone authorities. 
And, of course, the Federal role includes also the protection of the 
national interests in the coastal zone. 
Finally, I concur with the identification of the Great Lakes as 
urgently in need of special attention, and I agree that work toward 
the restoration of the water quality of the Great Lakes should be an 
urgent national commitment. 
You remember the Commission proposes a Great Lakes restoration 
feasibility test national project as a step in this direction, and I 
endorse this particular national project also. 
So much for my feelings for the Commission’s recommendations 
on the coastal zone authorities. 
T would like to turn briefly to the related proposals of the Commis- 
sion concerning coastal zone laboratories. This discussion occurs 
mainly in chapter 2. I agree with the Commission that the coastal 
States, whether or not they establish formal coastal zone authorities 
do now and will continue to need access to research centers specializ- 
ing in the solution of local and regional problems associated with the 
use or misuse not only of the marine environment but of the entire 
environment. 
I also agree that, where the marine environment is concerned, the 
Sea Grant program is an appropriate vehicle for establishing and 
supnerting such laboratories or centers. J worry about three aspects 
of the Commission’s treatment of this subject, however. 
First, the Commission is silent concerning the rationale for deter- 
mining the number and location of coastal zone laboratories, except 
to state that they should be local and regional and in conformity to 
the local and regional differences in the nature of the problems to be 
solved. 
In the absence of a clearer criterion, however, it will be all too easy 
to conclude on purely political grounds that there should be at least 
one coastal zone laboratory in every coastal State. 
On this basis, unless funding is very generous, the chances are that 
a number of these, and perhaps all of them, will be “subcritical” in 
size and, hence, too small to mount effective programs. 
This particular criticism of subcriticality and inability to mount 
effective programs the Commission itself has leveled at the Federal in- 
house research laboratories and this criticism led the Commission to 
its recommendation that the Federal in-house laboratories be consoli- 
dated into a smaller number of sronger centers. 
T feel that to avoid future criticism of coastal zone laboratories of 
a similar nature, the location and number problem should be subjected 
to further study. This might be an appropriate responsibility of the 
sea-~rant program staff. 
My second misgiving has to do with the explicit recommendation 
that such laboratories be established only in association with academic 
Insitutions. The same recommendation appears with regard to the pro- 
posed University-National Laboratories, and the statement is made 
that the Federal in-house laboratories be encouraged to acquire such 
university associations, too. 
