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Commission or the Great Lakes Basin Commission, plus perhaps this 
Environental Council in which we have been so interested here, it is 
possible that we would have been a better nation. There might have 
been talents, in such agencies to gage the impact of that tremendous 
development in the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence Canal and also the 
impact that it had all along that route. 
I have been very impressed as I have met with the Commission that 
has been studying this under Dr. Stratton. I have a great admiration 
for the depth of their study and their conclusions. 
The cumbersome nature of the existing agencies dealing with our 
environment leads me to believe that it couldn’t help but be improved— 
at least as far as the oceans are concerned—by a development such as 
the Commission proposed. 
In Dr. Frosch’s statement he said on page 15, referring to the terri- 
torial sea question : 
As indicated previously the DOD attaches great importance to the settlement 
of the territorial sea question prior to submitting any initiative on the seabed 
problem. The main reason is because the limited jurisdiction of the coastal states, 
insofar aS seabeds are concerned might be extended unilaterally to include other 
rights if there is no firm prior international agreement on the extent of total 
Sovereignty. 
Representing as I do, the State of Massachusetts, and with our great 
interest in the sovereignty of the that coastal zone, how does your 
statement relate to that ? 
Dr. Froscu. Well, I think “States” in this statement of course refers 
to national States. I think the fear here is that, if the boundaries of 
some form of jurisdiction were to be established, for example, by some 
form of individual nation’s assertion of its control, even if that na- 
tion’s attempt to establish it by assertion were rather circumscribed 
and sort of responsible and narrow, this might well be followed by 
a number of assertions by other countries which were entirely in terms 
of their self-interest so that we might end up with a large collection of 
individual assertions which would then be acted upon unilaterally and 
we would find ourselves in a situation where it would be extremely 
difficult to negotiate anything. 
It seems to us to be much preferable to try to negotiate a general 
agreement on what reasonable boundaries for various kinds of jursidic- 
tion and particularly for coastal waters and sovereignty would be. 
We have seen this happen in the past. Some counties have made 
unilateral assertions of fishing rights boundaries and others have 
followed with various distances. We are in favor of attempting to 
negotiate some kind of a general international agreement on what the 
boundaries ought to be; really as a protection against getting into a 
chaotic situation in which the attempt to make boundaries is by 
individual assertion. 
Mr. Kerru. Wouldn’t NOAA be the best agency to reflect the 
national interest as it developed a point of view for our Government 
in dealing with other nations ? 
Dr. Froscn. If established, from our point of view it would be one 
of two agencies that would have major interests in the sea that would 
contribute toward formulating a U.S. position, the Department of 
Defense with its peculiar responsibilities for national security being 
the other one. 
