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organizational. Tliey have a committee, as 1 am sure you know, on 

 science and teclmoloo-y and they operate through a committee system 

 somewhat different from our Cabinet kind of operation. It seems to 

 me that you wouldn't lose your identity as a commission and the prob- 

 lem of oceanography wouldn't be downgraded any further than it has 

 been if there was a Secretary for Science and Technology who could 

 make recommendations to the Congress and to the executive branch. 



Could you tell me the nature and extent of any discussions concern- 

 ing the alternative approaches, namely, instead of an executive agency 

 of which there are numerous ones, Committee on Purchases of Blind- 

 Made Products, for example, right alongside of the Civil Service Com- 

 mission and CAB. This agency that would be established would de- 

 pend a great deal upon the kind of creation that it has and the kind of 

 public sup]3ort. 



Did you have any dialogue within your Commission as to the rela- 

 tive merits of the approach tlmt you recommended and the approach 

 alternatively, through recommending a Cabinet member for science 

 and technology ? 



Dr. Stratton. Mr. Chairman, the answer is that we did consider 

 that. We had some discussions about the question of a department of 

 science and technology, an issue which has been debated here, as I know 

 personally, since 1946 or thereabouts. We recognized that this is a pos- 

 sibility. We thought also about a department of the environment which 

 has been recommended, or science and the environment. There have 

 been suggestions of a department of industry and technology. 



A variety of such proposals are in the offing. I say quite frankly, and 

 I would rather speak personally, and the other Commission members 

 may concur or disagree, that at first I found rather appalling the idea 

 of coming out with a recommendation for a new agency, because I be- 

 lieve that we have been proliferating new agencies of one kind or 

 another for too long a time. Again, it seems to me that reorganizing 

 and restructuring the Federal Government is long overdue. 



As you know, in recent years proposals for what might be done have 

 been coming up stronger and stronger — some have gotten into the pub- 

 lic journals, and a department of science and technology has been men- 

 tioned as one possibility. 



In the end we came to the conclusion that this was perhaps reaching 

 beyond our competence and our mandate. We have said that we are 

 proposing to you the elements of an entity that we think must be 

 brought together if we are going to do the job we ought to do for the 

 oceans, but that a larger restructuring would not be precluded by this 

 proposal — in other words, such an entity might one day be encom- 

 passed in a totally reorganized Department of Interior, for instance — 

 not just a small readjustment, but a new view of land and sea. 



I am not proposing this. But there are various options that are open 

 in making a more manageable form of our Federal Government. 



Whatever one does, we believe that this grouping of functions, even 

 more important than agencies, is essential to do the job and that it can 

 fit into a larger framework of a kind that you w^ere suggesting. 



Mr. Eeedy or Dr. Geyer, would you like to comment on this ? 



Mr. Eeedy. I would like to add one thing, Mr. Chairman, and that 

 is that wliat we were proposing is an organization designed to meet 



