28 • Marine Minerals: Exploring Our New Ocean Frontier 



mulated with little or no mutual consultation. Fur- 

 thermore, budget examiners at OMB who are re- 

 sponsible for the review of individual agencies 

 seldom collaborate with other OMB examiners who 

 are responsible for other agencies with similar pro- 

 grams (e.g., NOAA's budget is reviewed by a dif- 

 ferent OMB budget examiner than is DOI). A sim- 

 ilar situation exists within Congress among the 

 appropriations subcommittees that are responsible 

 for individual agency appropriations. To remedy 

 this problem, Congress has in several cases man- 

 dated that "cross-cutting" budget analyses be pre- 

 pared for related multiple-agency activities so that 

 the entire range of funds directed toward a specific 

 effort can be easily seen. Cross-cutting budget anal- 

 yses are required in the Arctic Research and Pol- 

 icy Act, Title VII of the Energy Security Act, and 

 the National Ocean Pollution Research and Devel- 

 opment and Monitoring Act of 1978. 



OMB exercises nearly omnipotent control over 

 the funding levels recommended in the President's 

 budget that is submitted to Congress each year. 

 Program budgets that are presented to Congress 

 are arrived at through a byzantine negotiation proc- 

 ess that involves OMB, Cabinet departments, agen- 

 cies within the departments, programs within agen- 

 cies, and finally, if appealed, the President. The 

 budget process is internal, and neither the public 

 nor Congress is privy to the negotiations. 



Congress has attempted to open the executive 

 branch budget process to more public scrutiny by 

 directing the agencies by statute to submit recom- 

 mended program budgets directly to Congress as 

 part of the interagency planning and coordination 

 process without prior review by OMB; the National 

 Ocean Pollution Research and Development and 

 Monitoring Act uses this mechanism. Although the 

 approach appears reasonable in theory, it seldom — 

 if ever — works in reality. OMB continues to main- 

 tain its authority over all budget recommendations 

 transmitted to Congress from within the executive 

 branch. 



Unified budget submissions to OMB accompa- 

 nied by cross-cutting budget analyses and program 

 plans that justify the funding levels, such as pro- 

 vided in both the Arctic Research and Policy Act 

 and Tide VII of the Energy Security Act, seem to 

 work reasonably well for developing rational inter- 

 agency budgets within the normal budget process. 



As currently implemented under the Energy Secu- 

 rity Act, unified budget submissions from several 

 agencies in a single document covering acid pre- 

 cipitation have the advantage of earmarking funds 

 specifically for research in each agency as if it were 

 a line item in the budget; on the other hand, the 

 Arctic Reseairch and Policy Act merely requires that 

 Arctic R&D be "designated" in the normal agency 

 budget submissions to OMB. The budget proce- 

 dures under the Energy Security Act focus more 

 directly on the multi-agency budget related to acid 

 precipitation rather than on the single budget of 

 each agency. The National Ocean Pollution Re- 

 search and Development and Monitoring Act pro- 

 vides little advantage over the normal agency bud- 

 geting process. 



Providing for Future Seabed Mining 



The Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) 

 authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to lease 

 minerals in the Outer Continental Shelf. '^ Although 

 the main thrust of OCSLA is directed toward oil 

 and gas, provisions are also included for leasing sul- 

 fur (Sec. 8[i] and [j]), and other minerals (Sec. 

 8[k]). Sulfur has been mined in the Gulf of Mex- 

 ico since 1960 using borehole solution mining tech- 

 niques. Because of the similarities between sulfur 

 mining and oil and gas extraction, DOI applies to 

 sulfur the same general regulations that govern pe- 

 troleum operations.'^ When OCSLA was enacted 

 in 1953, little was known about hard minerals in 

 the continental shelf. Scientists were aware of their 

 existence, but technology was then not generally 

 available for either exploring or mining the seabed 

 for hard mineral deposits. 



DOI claims jurisdiction under OCSLA to all off- 

 shore areas seaward of the territorial sea over which 

 the United States asserts jurisdiction and control. 

 Since the United States is not a party to the Law 

 of the Sea Convention, the only applicable treaty 

 recognized by DOI as affecting offshore jurisdic- 

 tion is the 1958 Convention on the Continental 

 Shelf.'* The 1958 Convention authorizes coastal 



'^Public Law 83-212; 67 Stat. 462, Aug. 7, 1953; 43 U.S.C. 1331- 

 1356; as amended by Public Law 93-627; 88 Stat. 2126, Jan. 3, 1975; 

 and 95-372; 92 Stat. 629, Sept. 18, 1978. 



"30 Code of Federal Regulations, ch. U, Part 250. 



"Convention on the Continental Shelf, in force June 10, 1964, 15 

 UST 471, TIAS No. 5578, 499 U.N.T.S. 311. 



