Ch. 1— Summary, Issues, and Options • 27 



tional Ocean Pollution Planning Act of 1978 (Public 

 Law 95-273) designates NOAA as the lead agency 

 for compiling a 5-year plan for Federal ocean pol- 

 lution research and development (R&D), a plan 

 that is revised every 3 years. The National Marine 

 Pollution Program links the R&D activities of 11 

 Federal agencies, establishes priorities, and reviews 

 the budgets of the agencies with regard to the goals 

 of the program and screens them for unnecessary 

 duplication. Public participation in Federal plan- 

 ning is fostered through workshops at which ma- 

 rine pollution R&D progress is reviewed and fu- 

 ture trends and priorities discussed. Each agency 

 submits its own budget request to OMB, but ap- 

 propriations are authorized to cover NOAA's ex- 

 penses for preparing the plan and monitoring 

 progress. In 1986, the Act was amended to pro- 

 vide for an interagency board that will review in- 

 dividual agency budget requests in the context of 

 the current 5 -year plan. 



Congressional Options 



Option 1: Establish an interagency planning 

 and coordinating committee within the 

 executive branch and a public advisory 

 commission similar to those created in 

 the Arctic Research and Policy Act, with 

 Federal agency budgets submitted sepa- 

 rately to OMB. 



Congressional Action: Enact authorizing leg- 

 islation. 



Option 2: Establish an interagency planning 

 and coordinating task force composed of 

 Federal agency representatives and pub- 

 lic members similar to the task force es- 

 tablished for acid precipitation R&:D by 

 the National Energy Security Act, with 

 a budget request combining all agency 

 budgets in a single EEZ document. 



Congressional Action: Enact authorizing leg- 

 islation. 



Option 3: Mandate interagency planning and 

 coordination and assign lead-agency re- 

 sponsibility to a single agency as Con- 

 gress did in the National Ocean Pollution 

 Research and Development and Monitor- 

 ing Act of 1978. 



Congressional Action: Enact authorizing leg- 

 islation. 



Option 4: Allow ad hoc cooperation and co- 

 ordination to continue at the discretion 

 of Federal agency administrators. 



Congressional Action: No action required. 



Advantages and Disadvantages 



Congress has attempted in various ways to im- 

 prove the planning and coordination of government 

 functions among Federal agencies with related mis- 

 sions. Informal agency coordination has largely 

 failed in the past, although the track record of in- 

 teragency coordination groups has had mixed re- 

 sults. To be effective, interagency coordinating 

 mechanisms must have means to coordinate both 

 the programs and budgets of the agencies. The suc- 

 cess of ad hoc agency coordination depends primar- 

 ily on comity and cooperation among government 

 managers. Therefore, personnel changes, which 

 happen frequendy at high levels of the Federal Gov- 

 ernment, can alter an otherwise amiable relation- 

 ship among the agencies and destroy what may 

 have been an effective coordination effort. 



Efforts by Congress to improve agency account- 

 ability, planning, coordination, and budgeting 

 through legislation have also met with mixed re- 

 sults. Some laws require elaborate plans that must 

 be updated periodically and transmitted <:oncur- 

 rently to Congress and the President. Other stat- 

 utes require that annual reports be similarly com- 

 piled and transmitted. Such information can be 

 useful to Congress in carrying out its oversight 

 responsibility for agency performance and may be 

 useful to the President in his capacity as "chief ex- 

 ecutive officer" of the Federal Government. 



The extent to which congressional committees 

 and the President effectively use these agency plans, 

 programs, and reports required by law varies con- 

 siderably. In some cases, agency plans and pro- 

 grams receive little or no attention from Congress; 

 in other cases, such as the MMS 5-year leasing pro- 

 gram required under the Outer Continental Shelf 

 Lands Act, the planning document often becomes 

 the focus of public debate. 



Although Federal agencies often have closely 

 related functions, their budgets are generally for- 



