1067 
A summary of the funds available is shown in table 1. 
It should be noted that the funds are for the operation of the Cen- 
ter. The contributing agencies like other users are charged. This type 
of funding has not resulted in any severe limitations on the operation 
of the Center, but it is a clumsy method, and it is awfully difficult to 
plan ahead in that we never are sure of the level of the funding. 
The agencies have not always found it possible to contribute at the 
level the Advisory Board recommends. A single agency line item 
funding has been suggested. 
During the 86th Congress bills were introduced that would have 
included in the NODC certain types of marine environmental data 
which we do not now store, specifically the fisheries, the hydrographic, 
the bathymetric, meteorological, coastal, and certain kinds of geo- 
physical data. 
In keeping with the mission-oriented aspects, however, other agen- 
cies have been designated as repositories of these types of data: The 
Naval Oceanographic Office and the Coast Geodetic Survey, the 
bathymetric; the Weather Bureau, the meteorological and climato- 
logical records; and the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, the fishery 
statistics. The geophysical data now reside in several agencies. 
The Commission did not undertake a detailed proposal for the na- 
tional marine data service activities. It deferred to the ongoing 
study funded by the Council to the System Development Corp. 
Unfortunately this study is not complete. However, within the 
framework of the present hearings, I would like to comment on some 
aspects of marine data management. 
I would like to emphasize that the views are essentially my own. 
(Juite possibly program managers and representatives of agencies 
performing missions that generate or require the marine data will 
have different views. 
The oceans are a potential source of protein and mineral resources. 
Our knowledge and experience dictate that these resources are not 
unlimited and that we should develop sound management policies. 
This requires the use of existing data and information and requires 
adequate planning for the continued generation and analysis of such 
data. 
Although oceaography is a relatively new science, man is becoming 
increasingly aware of the necessity to consider the oceans, or segments 
of the oceans in their totality. 
Discovery, assessment, harvest, and the management of the fisheries, 
for instance, demand knowledge of the physics, the chemistry, the 
geology, and the biology of the marine environment. 
The petroleum industry requires the geological, the geophysical, 
and the biological data from the surface and the deep sediments on 
the ocean floor and information concerning the physical, the chemical, 
and the biological properties of the water column above these 
sediments. 
These are but two examples of the users that would benefit from 
having one marine data center from whom the data could be obtained. 
The problems now resulting from the storage of the marine environ- 
mental data in more than one center have been cogently expressed by 
Dr, White, administrator of ESSA, in an article that he recently. 
published and I quote in part: 
26—565—70—pt. 2 36 
