NATIONAL OCEANOGRAPHIC PROGRAM LEGISLATION TUESDAY, AUGUST 3, 1965 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON OCEANOGRAPHY OF THE Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 10 a.m., pursuant to call, in the caucus room, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Alton Lennon (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Mr. LENNON. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a church so you won't have to sit in the back seats. We would appreciate it if you who are attending these hearings would come to the seats in the first five or six rows. Thank you very much. The meeting will please come to order. Today we are beginning hearings on a number of bills designed to strengthen the Nation's efforts in its study of the exploitation of the ocean resources of the world. I think these hearings and the results they achieve will rank high in importance among the legislative activities of this Congress. There are 16 bills before us this morning, dealing with some 7 approaches designed to state our national objectives in the field of oceanography and to establish the best organizational mechanism to implement those objectives. (The bills and agency reports follow :) [H.R. 921, 89th Cong., 1st sess.] A BILL To establish the National Oceanographic Agency Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That there is hereby established an independent agency which shall be known as the "National Oceanographic Agency" (hereinafter referred to as the "Agency"). SEC. 2. There shall be at the head of the Agency an officer to be known as the Administrator. The Administrator shall be appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate. SEC. 3. The Agency shall establish a coordinated national program for oceanography and related sciences including meteorology. In order to implement that program the Agency shall have authority to carry out research projects and programs of the United States in this broad area. SEC. 4. There is hereby transferred to the Agency all functions relating to oceanography and related sciences which are vested on the date of enactment of this Act in any officer, employee, department, agency, and instrumentality of the United States. There are hereby transferred to the Agency so much of the personnel, property, records, and unexpended balances of appropriations, allocations, and other funds, of any department, agency, or instrumentality of the United States with respect to which any function is transferred under this section, as the Director of the Bureau of the Budget determines necessary in connection with the exercise by the Agency of the functions so transferred. SEC. 5. All orders, regulations, directives, and other official acts of any officer or employee of the United States with respect to functions relating to oceanog raphy and related sciences which are transferred by this Act and which are in force on the date of enactment of this Act shall continue in force until modified, amended, superseded, or revoked by the Administrator. SEC. 6. In the performance of his functions the Administrator is authorized— (1) to make, promulgate, issue, and rescind rules and regulations governing the manner of the operation of the Agency and the exercise of its powers; (2) subject to the civil service laws and the Classification Act of 1940, as amended, to appoint and fix the compensation of such officers and employees as may be necessary to carry out its functions; (3) to accept unconditional gifts or donations of services, moneys, or property, real, personal, or mixed, tangible or intangible; (4) without regard to section 3648 of the Revised Statutes, as amended (31 U.S.C. 529), to enter into and perform such contracts, leases, cooperative agreements, or other transactions as may be necessary in the conduct of its work and on such terms as it may deem appropriate, with any agency or instrumentality of the United States, or with any State, territory, or possession, or with any political subdivision thereof, or with any person, firm, association, corporation, or educational institution; (5) to use, with their consent, the services, equipment, personnel, and facilities of Federal and other agencies with or without reimbursement, and on a similar basis to cooperate with other public and private agencies and instrumentalities in the use of services, equipment, and facilities, and each department, agency, and instrumentality of the Federal Government shall cooperate fully with the Agency in making its services, equipment, personnel, and facilities available to the Agency, and any such department, agency, or instrumentality is authorized, notwithstanding any other provision of law, to transfer to or receive from the Agency, without reimbursement, supplies and equipment other than the administrative supplies and equipment. (6) to establish within the Agency such offices and procedures as may be appropriate to provide for the greatest possible coordination of its activities under this Act with related activities being carried out by other public and private agencies and organizations; and (7) with the approval of the President, to enter into cooperative agreements under which officers and employees (including members of the Armed Forces) of any department, agency, or instrumentality in the executive branch of the Government may be detailed by the head of such department, agency, or instrumentality for services in the performance of functions under this Act to the same extent as that to which they might lawfully be assigned in such department, agency, or instrumentality. SEC. 7. Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, no function shall be transferred under this Act which the President determines should not be transferred in the interests of national security. Hon. HERBERT C. BONNER, U.S. ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION, Chairman, Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, House of Representatives. DEAR MR. BONNER: The Atomic Energy Commission is pleased to comment on H.R. 921, a bill to establish the National Oceanographic Agency. As you know, the Atomic Energy Commission was one of the four Federal agencies that first suggested and participated in efforts to coordinate a national program in oceanography. However, the Commission feels that on balance H.R. 921, which transfers to a newly created National Oceanographic Agency all functions relating to oceanography and related sciences presently performed by other Government agencies, is undesirable. In connection with the bill's general purpose of establishing a coordinated national program for oceanography and related sciences, it should be noted that the Federal Council for Science and Technology, created by Executive Order No. 10807 on March 13, 1959, established a permanent Interagency Committee on Oceanography by letter dated March 3, 1960, from Dr. George Kistiakowsky, Chairman of the FCST, to the Honorable James H. Wakelin, Jr., Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research and Development. The primary function of the ICO is to coordinate the activities of various agencies having an interest in oceanography in order to eliminate duplication of effort and to provide a total program with appropriate objectives. It is our understanding not only that the ICO's advisory functions would be taken over by the National Oceanographic Agency but that the proposed bill would interpose an independent agency between the President and the executive agencies in the direct chain of line authority. Oceanography is of prime programmatic interest to the Commission. We believe that staff assistance rendered by the Interagency Committee on Oceanography has been valuable in coordinating efforts by the various agencies in the oceanography field. By the same token, however, the Commission believes that it would be detrimental to its mission if overall directive authority for oceanographic activities was invested in one agency. The Bureau of the Budget has advised that there is no objection to the presentation of this report from the standpoint of the administration's program. Sincerely yours, R. E. HOLLINGSWORTH, EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, Hon. HERBERT C. BONNER, BUREAU OF THE BUDGET, Washington, D.C., March 11, 1965. Chairman, Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: This is in reply to your letter of January 22, 1965, requesting the views of the Bureau of the Budget on H.R. 921, a bill to establish the National Oceanographic Agency. The bill would establish an agency to which would be transferred all functions relating to oceanography and related sciences that are now vested in various Federal agencies, except those excluded by the President for reasons of national security. The agency would be headed by an Administrator appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate. The new agency would establish a coordinated national program for oceanography and related sciences. Under current organizational arrangements, oceanographic activities are being conducted by a number of agencies in support of their basic missions. For example, the Department of the Interior supports oceanographic activities related to its fisheries programs. The Department of Commerce conducts oceanographic activities supporting the navigation and charting responsibilities of the Coast and Geodetic Survey. The Department of the Navy conducts oceanographic activities related to antisubmarine warfare and other defense missions. This is the traditional way in which science has been or ganized in the Government, with research activities being conducted by agencies whose specialized operational requirements require new knowledge. In our view the proposed transfer would adversely affect the accomplishment of operating missions by divorcing oceanographic activities from programs which they are designed to support. A further difficulty is that the proposed agency would be authorized to coordinate activities in those fields of science related to oceanography, including meteorology. Such a step would upset existing arrangements for coordination. For example, a Bureau of the Budget circular assigns responsibility to the Department of Commerce for facilitating coordination of Federal meteorological activities. This assignment is consistent with the central role of the Weather Bureau in providing meteorological services to the general public and to many special users. The Department of Commerce has developed the first annual plan for Federal meteorological activities and copies have recently been provided to appropriations committees of the Congress. Your committee is aware of the significant steps that have been taken in recent years to strengthen overall coordination of oceanographic activities at the Presidential level. A committee of the Federal Council for Science and Technology has been developing annual plans for the Government's oceanographic program for the past several years. These plans, that are provided to agencies and to committees of the Congress, have served to facilitate orderly growth of this important field. The Office of Science and Technology, created as a Presidential staff agency in 1962, has played a major part in obtaining information and advice from foremost authorities in oceanography, drawn from within and outside Government. Oceanography is one of the fields of science subjected to special review by the Bureau of the Budget, with the advice and assistance of the Office of Science and Technology. The continuing top level attention being given the field of oceanography demonstrates the advantages of the existing policy machinery. While programs need to be conducted by agencies whose missions require special knowledge of the ocean environment, overall planning and coordination is best exercised at the Presidential level. arrangements for policy planning and coordination must be flexible in order to adjust readily to the changing requirements of a dynamic technology. These The present organization has fostered the growth of the Federal oceanographic program from $35 million in fiscal year 1958 to an estimated $135 million for fiscal year 1965. However, arrangements at the Presidential level for overseeing this large program would be further strengthened through the passage of H.R. 2218, a bill that the Bureau of the Budget recommends for enactment in a separate letter to your committee. Because the Bureau of the Budget regards the existing organization of oceanographic activities as basically sound it is recommended that H.R. 921 not be enacted. Sincerely yours, PHILLIP S. HUGHES, Assistant Director for Legislative Reference. |