At this level, we recommend that the proposed department be assigned 

 the bulk of Federal activities and expertise required to: 



• develop policy, programs, and strategies for marine and atmospheric 

 resource development within the broader framework of natural re- 

 source development objectives; 



• exercise marine area multiple-use coordination and regulation; and 



• acquire and apply necessar\' scientific and technological knowledge, 

 engineering capability, and services. 



We discuss the purposes to be served and organizational arrangements 

 for their achievements in what follows. 



A DEPARTMENT FOR NATURAL RESOURCES 



The case for bringing ". . . together in one agency most of the primary 

 responsibilities and functions required to assure the most effective achieve- 

 ment of natural resources and related environmental objectives" was well 

 made in the publication, "Papers Relating to the President's Departmental 

 Reorganization Program.'" "" We agree that, ''.... since natural resources 

 involve a coherent system of relationships among resources and with the 

 environment, they need to be managed within a single organizational 

 framework.'" ** And we certainly agree with the analysis that population 

 growth, urbanization, industrialization and expectations of rising standards 

 of living are putting increasing pressure on resource after resource, here 

 within the United States and around the world, and make the proposed 

 reorganization urgent. 



We feel that the analysis presented, however, is incomplete. It displays 

 a near total preoccupation with the problems of managing terrestrial re- 

 sources and environments with little attention to those in the coastal zone 

 and in marine areas where resource-environment relationships are so mark- 

 edly different. The numerous studies of governmental reorganization which 

 it cites as forerunners of its recommendations begin with a report of a Joint 

 Commission of Congress to President Harding recommending the transfer 

 of non-military engineering activities of the War Department and the 

 functions of the Federal Power Commission to the Department of the In- 

 terior. They include among the many citations the recommendations by 

 both Hoo\er Commissions. The first presented in 1949 a minority view to 

 consolidate water resources and public land management functions in a 



* Office of Management and Budget, GPO, February 1972, p. 121. At the time of 

 this writing, this is the only published document available to NACOA that de- 

 velops in detail the basis for the Administration's thinking on the new department. 

 Although we are aware that several variations of the theme presented in the 

 "Papers" are under current consideration, we are addressing the principles in- 

 volved, and their application to marine and atmospheric affairs. 



** Op. cit. p. 115. 



