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project by the Commission and yet within the Department it received 
a very low order of priority. It seems to me that this is what the mem- 
bers here are trying to emphasize, that if we do have these national 
science projects and they can’t be gotten off the ground within the 
agencies, doesn’t it seem that we need something new that can get 
them off the ground ? 
Mr. Brees. We think we can get this one off the ground. It does not 
have a low order of priority imsofar as the Department itself is 
concerned. 
Mr. Cuinean. As I understand it the Coast Guard requested funds 
under the previous administration for a new oceanographic ship to 
replace the Coast Guard cutter H'vergreen and this request has been 
taken from the budget. Have there been any new efforts by the Depart- 
ment to replace those funds ? 
Mr. Brees. The problem with a new oceanographic cutter is one 
that concerns me a great deal. Early this year the Coast Guard took 
another look at the costs of building the ships that they would like to 
build and found that the cost level had escalated to a point where, in- 
stead of being able to contract for three ships within the amounts of 
money that we had requested, we couldn’t get but two. 
In other words, the costs of a new oceanographic ship had gone up. 
so far, and the costs of the other ships had gone up as well, that you 
just couldn’t buy it. So we asked for reprograming of that money. I 
think this is related more to the problem that exists in the industry 
today and the inflationary trend that has been present in his part of 
the industry as well as most of the others. It has caused us to repro- 
gram that money and look forward to ‘another time. 
Part of that money, part of that reprogramed money, is going to 
go into the national data buoy system, at least we are requesting that 
it go into supplement the data buoy program. 
Admiral Trimble might have a little more information that he 
would like to add. | 
Admiral Trrmpie. Well, I think the information Mr. Beges has 
given is substantially correct. There was another incident that pre- 
cipitated our reprograming proposals which I might say that the 
Department of Transportation fully supported. 
The incident was a fire on the Hvergreen. We had planned when we 
built the oceanographic ship which was to replace the Hwergreen in 
approximately 3 years, to retire the Hvergreen from the international 
ice patrol and the oceanographic functions she was performing. This 
past spring she had a serious fire on board and the extent of damage 
was over a half million dollars. So at this point, in addition to the 
rising costs that we had to face in our construction program and the 
need for funds to support the national data buoy program, we felt 
that it would be better considering the various possibilities and pri- 
orities confronting us, to apply the funds to repairing the H'vergreen 
and continue to use her for the foreseeable future. 
This was a painful decision: It was a Coast Guard one which was 
supported by the Department of Transportation. Now we are going 
on with our cutter construction program through the use of these 
funds; these cutters also perform heavily in the oceanographic area. 
They are used for ocean station duty and they are heavily instrumented 
