135 
the Federal side provides for the coordination of Federal activities in these areas 
and for assistance to the States in their management activities. 
Any comprehensive national program for the estuarine and coastal zone must 
provide flexibility in many ways to fit regional and local conditions and situations, 
but regardless of variables it must establish a guiding policy and a set of objec- 
tives. Regardless of variables, in order to be effective the program must provide 
for: (1) Planning and implementation; (2) active administration, coastal coordina- 
tion, and financing; (3) the development of the knowledge and data necessary as a 
basis for all action. 
The recommended national policy will put in effect a comprehensive national 
program for the effective management, beneficial use, protection and development 
of the estuarine and coastal zone of the Nation involving Federal, State, and local 
governments, and public and private interests in an appropriate manner. It will 
permit the optimum use of this vital resource by recognizing the existence of 
competing uses and accommodating them through appropriate management and 
further, conserve these resources in such a manner as to keep open the options 
for various uses in the future and not foreclose them. This management system 
will recognize the primary and constitutional role of the States in managing 
their resources as well as the role of the Federal Government in protecting the 
wider national interest. The principal goal of the national program is the use of the 
estuarine and coastal zone for as many beneficial purposes as possible and, where 
some uses are precluded, to achieve that mix of uses which society, based on both 
short- and long-range considerations, deems most beneficial. 
(3) Coastal Zone Management Conference *.—These hearings brought 
together a wide range of parties involved in the problems of coastal 
zone management. The tone of the conference can best be illustrated 
by excerpts from some of the testimony given therein: 
Statement oF Dr. SamueLt A. LawreNcr, Former Executive Director, 
ComMIssioN, ON MARINE SCIENCE, ENGINEERING, AND RESOURCES 
* * * We need to establish a firmer legal framework for ownership and use of 
coastal and offshore lands. Above all, the Commission concluded, the pressures for 
multiple use of these limited coastlands require an organized approach in order to 
coordinate the separate plans and activities of Federal, State, and local government 
agencies and of private persons and corporations. 
STATEMENT OF JOHN R. QuarRues, AssISTANT TO UNDER SECRETARY FOR EN- 
VIRONMENTAL PLANNING, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 
There appears to be developing something approaching a consensus that re- 
sponsibility should be vested primarily in the State government and exercised at 
the State level. 
* & * T don’t believe anyone who has seriously focused on the problem thinks 
that the Federal Government can, from Washington and from the Federal level, 
devise management plans which properly would anticipate the use that each acre 
of land should be devoted to over the years ahead, so the Federal Government 
needs to be ruled out as being the primary responsible agency in management of 
coastal areas. 
* * * The localities, I would suggest, are not suitable for exercising these 
functions. It has been fairly widely recognized that localities suffer from deficien- 
cies of not having strong staffs, skilled people to deal with some complex problems. 
Also, of course, they are extremely concerned with development of their individual 
tax bases of assessable property within the town limits. 
These considerations, however, I would suggest, overlook the principal difficulty 
with leaving responsibility at the local level, which is that good planning from this 
time forth needs to encompass a range of vision beyond town limits * * *. 
Development cannot be done well on a local basis * * *. I think that, regarding 
this problem on a national level, serious consideration must be given to whether 
we can continue to allow areas which can be seen as needed to meet other needs to 
be used for residential development. 
(4) Report to Committee on Multiple Use of the Coastal Zone of the 
National Council on Marine Resources and Engineering Development on 
53 Thid., reference 51. 
