lieve that such studies should be undertaken before amendments 
are made to the present Coastal Zone Management Act. Again, 
the advice of the committee on this matter would be useful. 
NACOA recommends that as we move into the parts of the 
Coastal Zone Management Program requiring Section 306 grants 
for the management of the coastal zone areas, funding for the 
Coastal Zone Management Program should increase. For fiscal 
year 1975, funds have been provided for initiation of the Section 
306 grants. It is the intent of the Administration to request funds 
to meet the requirements of this section of the Act as the needs 
are identified, to the extent practical within overall budgetary 
constraints. 
The committee raises the issue of coastal zone information 
transfer and use, and recommends that one way to deal with this 
program is to build advisory service programs within the Coastal 
Zone Management Program. We concur with the committee that 
such services are essential to the successful conduct of the Coastal 
Zone Management Program. One of the basic reasons for the 
placing of the coastal zone management responsibility in NOAA 
was because it could be affiliated with a wide spectrum of other 
ocean programs. One of these is the Sea Grant Program, which is 
specifically authorized by its legislation to provide advisory serv- 
ices of all kinds. It would appear to me that a better way in 
which to approach the increasing need for advisory service on 
coastal zone programs is to continue to build and strengthen 
NOAA’s marine advisory services generally, under the National 
Sea Grant Program’s leadership, rather than to build another 
advisory service under the Coastal Zone Management Act. In 
recent years we have recognized the key importance of adequate 
marine advisory services and have been building and strength- 
ening the advisory services of the National Sea Grant Program 
to the point where we now have functioning advisory services in 
almost all of the coastal states. Approximately 200 people are 
now involved in providing such advisory services. 
We have recognized the need for closer collaboration and plan- 
ning on the part of the Sea Grant Program and the Coastal Zone 
Management Program. To this end, we are planning to colocate 
the Sea Grant and Coastal Zone Management efforts and to pro- 
vide for joint planning for both of these efforts so that they are 
closely coordinated and mutually supporting. 
11 
