select for priority attention those maritime and 

 atmospheric issues that have become urgent, 

 whether for economic, social, or technological 

 reasons, is an opportunity afforded no existing 

 committee in this area. This opportunity NACOA 

 has been given by its charter and by its statu- 

 tory permanence. We find it a sobering charge. 



In NACOA's First Annual Report to the President 

 and to the Congress, we have chosen four topics: 

 Law of the Sea, Fisheries, Weather Modification, 

 and Coastal Zone Management. These issues meet 

 two criteria: each is of current importance and 

 each, despite the short half-year of our exist- 

 ence, we feel we can treat with balance. This 

 means that some issues we did not treat may be 

 more important than some we did, but we did 

 not feel we can be helpful in these particular 

 areas with so short a time to prepare. However, 

 what we lay aside this year we may be in posi- 

 tion to consider next. It also means that we judge 

 some areas neglected in this Report to be well 

 in hand. This is particularly true of the national 

 program in basic marine and atmospheric re- 

 search despite certain weaknesses in ocean engi- 

 neering. 



Of all the fundamental and pressing issues which 

 NACOA wanted to include in this Report, but 

 did not. Marine Transportation stands out. We 

 did agree that recent governmental actions have 

 been important in slowing the decline in our 

 merchant marine. However, we also found that 



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