1226 
The Coast Guard has proposed to the Congress that legislation be enacted 
which would require VHF radiotelephone equipment aboard vessels as another 
aid to insure safe navigation. The administration and enforcement of this pro- 
gram, when the statutory authority is established by the Congress, will be a new 
responsibility in the field of transport services for the Coast Guard. 
AS an agency responsible for the formulation and administration of safety 
regulations governing the operation of vessels the Coast Guard has the added 
responsibility to investigate marine casualties. Such investigations, among other 
things provide information for use by the Coast Guard in improving the agency’s 
work with respect to transport safety functions. 
When the Coast Guard was transferred from the Treasury Department to the 
Department of Transportation in 1966, the agency was given the responsibility 
to make the determination with respect to the location and plans for bridges 
and other structures to be built across or adjacent to navigable waterways 
in order to determine their suitability from the standpoint of maintaining 
navigation. This is an important transport service function inasmuch as over- 
head structures across navigable waterways can create a limiting dimension 
if they do not provide adequate clearances. 
One final point should be noted in any consideration of a change in status 
of the Coast Guard which would relegate its transport service functions to 
low priority. That point is the comparative data on fatalities with respect 
to modes of transportation. Fatality rates are one measure of the efficiency of 
safety control systems such as the control system exercised by the Coast Guard 
for marine transport services. For the year 1966 the motor carrier industry 
experienced 10.77 fatalities per billion ton miles of truck transportation. The 
railroads experienced 2.64 fatalities per billion ton miles of railroad freight 
service. The barge and towing industry experience 0.274 fatalities per billion 
ton miles of freight service. This record speaks well for the Coast Guard’s role 
as the nation’s safety coordinator and administrator of marine transport services 
and should constitute a high recommendation to have the agency retain its 
priority in this field of work. 
The American Waterways Operators, Inec., believes that the Coast Guard 
should remain in and continue to operate within the Department of Transporta- 
tion where the nation’s major policy decisions for the various modes are made 
and where priority is placed on transportation services such as the barge and 
towing industry relies upon the Coast Guard to perform. We repeat: transfer 
of the Coast Guard to the proposed new National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Agency would inevitably relegate these transport service functions to low priority. 
In view of this, AWO believes the transfer of the Coast Guard, as proposed 
in H.R. 18247, is not in the public interest, and, in fact, very well might be 
detrimental to the national transportation interests. 
STATEMENT OF JACOB BLAUSTEIN, Co-FOUNDER AND FORMER PRESIDENT, AMERICAN 
O1L Co.; DrrEctorR, STANDARD OIL Co. (INDIANA) ; FORMER U.S. DELEGATE TO 
THE UNITED NATIONS—COMMENTING AS AN INDIVIDUAL AND NOT IN BEHALF OF 
TRESE ORGANIZATIONS 
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I appreciate the invitation 
to submit this statement to this distinguished subcommittee to comment upon the 
report of the Commission on Marine Science, Engineering, and Resources, and to 
have this opportunity strongly to endorse the enactment of H.R. 13247. Hnact- 
ment of this proposed legislation is the single, most important step which must 
be taken to prepare this nation in the decades ahead to make full and wise use 
of the surrounding seas. In my judgment, the nation’s needs and opportunities 
in relation to its marine environment are of such priority that action to establish 
a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) would be remembered as 
one of the outstanding achievements of the 91st Congress. 
As with several other of our Commission members, I had had no special train- 
ing or involvement in marine affairs prior to being asked by the President in 
January, 1967, to participate with his Commission in a searching appraisal of 
our nation’s marine interests and activities. AS an oil man, I had noted our 
erowing dependence upon offshore sources to meet accelerating needs for energy 
fuels and had been impressed by the industry’s technological virtuosity in 
operating in this new environment. 
