631 
the Nation’s economic and social needs, conducting the scientific, 
technological, and management organization and should serve as 
stimulus, guide, and support for State marine activities and pro- 
vide a central point in the Federal Government to which industry 
can look for advice, cooperation, and some kind of support in 
industrial marine enterprises . . . 
The proposed National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency 
should report directly to the President and should acquire through 
transfer those Federal organizations and programs integral to 
its mission but which do not provide close operational support 
to the departments and agencies in which they are presently 
located. . .¥8 
The Stratton report came up with a number of recommendations 
calling for specific action to advance national capabilities in the 
oceans, and concluded that reorganization was necessary to carry 
out its recommendations. Marine activities in the United States had 
grown over the years largely without plan to meet specific situations 
and problems, and were scattered among too many Federal agencies. 
The Stratton report did not call for complete consolidation of all 
ocean activities in one agency, but referred in particular to those 
marine activities which—in the view of the Stratton Commission—were 
peripheral to the parent agencies’ primary missions. Many of these 
activities were considered to be too small to have an impact, and 
their isolation from each other had caused an inevitable degree of 
insularity that cannot be overcome by coordinating mechanisms." 
The Stratton Commission concluded that the objective of a national 
ocean program recommended by the Commission could not be 
achieved unless a strong civil agency would be created within the 
Federal Government with adequate authority and resources.'® The 
new agency proposed by the Commission, called the National Oceanic 
and Atmospheric Organization, was to be the principal instrumentality 
within the Federal Government for administration of the Nation’s 
civil marine and atmospheric programs.'® 
THE CREATION OF NOAA 
Following the recommendations of the Stratton report, President 
Richard M. Nixon transmitted to the Congress Reorganization Plan 
No. 4 on July 9, 1970. It provided for the establishment of a new 
civilian ocean agency. The principal difference between the President’s 
proposal and the recommendations of the Stratton Commission were 
that the Commission had recommended that NOAA would become 
an independent agency and would have included all of the Coast 
Guard. The President was opposed to creating a new, independent 
ocean agency, and opted instead for a National Oceanic and At- 
mospheric Agency as part of the Commerce Department. The Coast 
Guard was to remain part of the Department of Transportation with 
the exception of the national data buoy program which would be 
transferred to the new organization (NOAA). President Nixon 
3Tbid., pp. 17, 18. 
\4Ibid., pp. 228, 229. 
15 Tbid., p. 229. 
16 Ibid., p. 230. 
