Performing a coordinating and evaluating role within the Government and between the public and private sectors; and

Providing policy advice and consultation as a principal adviser to the White House, the Office of Management and Budget, the Domestic Council, and other entities within the Executive Office of the President.

These responsibilities would be accomplished in several ways, including:

Utilizing the assistance of a small science policy staff that would be established within NSF;

Engaging task groups coordinated through the NSF science policy staff. The task groups would be composed of personnel from other science and technology involved agencies, other NSF staff, and outside consultants, either singly or in various combinations;

Utilizing NSF staffs through the regular NSF line organization to provide indepth studies and assessments; and

Utilizing the existing central support and staff services of the NSF for nonprogrammatic support.

In carrying out the responsibilities under the plan. I would draw extensively on the resources of the many members of the science community who interact so frequently and generously with the National Science Foundation. The Director of the NSF is most fortunate to be closely associated with the members of the National Science Board. The Board's members come from important leadership positions in various sectors of the Nation, academic and industrial, and combine a wide diversity of interest and experience with a high level of talent. I would expect to draw on the experience and wisdom of the Board members as appropriate. The members have indicated their willingness to do everything possible to help in making this plan effective. Also, I would intend to maintain liaison and coordination with all other Federal agencies involved in science and technology programs through the Federal Council on Science and Technology or any science policy council which might be organized in its place.

In summation, Mr. Chairman, we believe that the arrangements proposed under Reorganization Plan No. 1 can be made to work well. The National Science Foundation has the resources to deal with the important new challenges. It is our conviction that under this plan. science can continue to play a significant and growing role in service to man in our national and international life.

Let me say, Mr. Chairman, I have the highest respect for Dr. Stever and for the fine job he has done as the Director of the National Science Foundation. I just hope that this Congress will not let anything happen that will limit him in any way in continuing to do the fine job in science that he has been doing. And this is the only concern that I have, as he is well aware.

The program-and I do not think you were attending this morning when I asked Mr. Malek. Do you view this, in any way, as a reduction in the importance of science to our overall national policy or a downgrading of science?

Dr. STEVER. Mr. Fuqua, I think it depends on how well we perform the job. I, personally, believe the National Science Foundation has, either in its own staff or available to it through other agencies of Government and the science community, the people to do the job that is needed.

And, on the other side of the issue, this morning the members of the committee very clearly delineated the two crucial questions. The first-Is NSF capable?-and I have just said I think it is. The other is: Who will listen and who will take action?

This morning Mr. Malek pointed out that the Director would report to the President through Mr. Shultz, the Assistant to the President. He indicated that the Director, in acting as Science Adviser, could interact with all of the major units of the Executive Office, OMB, and the Domestic Council and all agencies that have science and technology programs. And I think, if we work hard, we can make our advice not only heard but help them integrate it into the larger considerations.

I do not deny that the National Science Foundation's address is not the same as the White House, and I think a lot of people have picked that two-block separation as a symbolic separation. I do not think it needs to be in our effectiveness.

Mr. FUQUA. My concern is not the effective job that NSF can do but I want to make sure that the lines of communication are available, that the powers that do, so to speak, have this available to them. I hope we do not have to get into another Sputnik situation and find ourselves where we have a great gap in science and technology and suddenly embark on some kind of crash program to upgrade our science programs. I think this is what started NSF in the beginning. I hope that, while the squeaky wheel usually gets oiled, we do not get in that situation. We have been successful in our scientific endeavors and are continuing to make great progress. I hope that we do not, in an atmosphere of complacency, let science slip back to a stepchild status. This is my concern and my hope.

I have the fullest confidence in you, and I just want to make sure that we do not downgrade this and find, 5, 10 years later, or maybe even less that "Gee, we sure made a mistake back in 1973 in not giving science the strong voice that it needs in the overall policies and priorities of this country."

Dr. STEVER. I share your hope for the future, and we are going to try to make this work completely effective.

NSF BUDGET

Mr. FUQUA. Now, Mr. Malek this morning indicated-I asked him a question about any additional funding that you might get, since you are going to be covering that before another committee starting tomorrow, and he indicated that "No, you were going to absorb all of this cost." How much absorption cost is this going to be to the added functions that you are going to have? And is this, in effect, going to cause you a reduction in some other worthwhile program?

Dr. STEVER. We thought over this very carefully. And let us break it up into pieces. In the first place, there are some parts of the OST job that the NSF will not be assuming, particularly in the role of national security and defense, as was made clear in the President's message accompanying this reorganization plan.

There are a number of the OST personnel, then, whose function we will not be assuming, and a number of others where our support personnel-we have a sufficiently large support staff in the Foundation-we believe, can absorb the load, and we have available from our previous plans some unfilled slots. We would hire some people into those. Admittedly, over our long-range plan, we would have used some of these for what I would say are normal jobs, but I personally believe that in calling upon professionals throughout the National Science Foundation and throughout other parts of the Government, we are going to be able to spread this load quite effectively.

And let me tell you how much is available in NSF alone. Of the 1,150 people on our staff, 500 of them are professionals and, of those, 350 are professionals in the science and technology area. We have a well rounded staff, and you must remember that they cover the areas of applied science that I spoke of here, and all of the areas of the physical sciences, environmental and social sciences. So, I think that these tasks are being given to an organization with a large and very competent staff which is already involved in some of this work. And I believe we can absorb them without adding to our total staff. Fortunately, as I said, in our expansion plans we still have some openings that we will use, hopefully, to get some of the OST staff now available.

Mr. FUQUA. You, generally, then agree that this is probably an upgrading of NSF by assuming this larger role and responsibility? Dr. STEVER. I think it is a natural step in a number of steps that have been taken steadily over the years, some of them starting and inspired in Congress and some of them proposed by the administration and in working back and forth.

The RANN program was proposed by the administration and very strongly supported by Congress. The Congress itself, came through originally with the amendments to the NSF Act in 1968 which added applied research, and specifically mentioned the social sciences. So I think this is another step of strengthening NSF for a broader science and technology role.

Mr. FUQUA. Let us hope it all works for the good.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. STEVER. Thank you.

Chairman HOLIFIELD. Mr. Horton.

UPGRADING OF NSF

Mr. HORTON. Mr. Chairman, I just also wanted to make the point that it would seem to me that what this is, is more an upgrading of NSF, not necessarily an upgrading of science in the Federal Government.

The fact that the Office of Science and Technology functions are going to be transferred to you, it would seem to me would upgrade your position. And, then, Mr. Malek indicated that it was the intention of the President to ask you to take on the additional post of

Science Adviser which was explained this morning to mean that you are not only adviser to the President but also to the other offices in the executive branch.

So, it would seem to me that it is, or could be considered as, an upgrading. And, apparently, that is the way you feel about it also? Dr. STEVER. Yes, sir.

Mr. HORTON. You are actually the operating agency in the science field, for the Federal Government, and it would seem to me that this is an upgrading of that operational agency, as it were.

Dr. STEVER. Yes, sir. Mr. Horton, you know we share all of the fields of science with other operating agencies and have had to build up a series of relationships back and forth with them, in many different fields.

Mr. HORTON. No further questions.

Chairman HOLIFIELD. Mr. Moorhead?

FUNCTION OF SCIENCE ADVISER

Mr. MOORHEAD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. Stever, I do not understand the difference between the function of advice on national security matters in the present situation compared to the situation under the Reorganization Plan No. 1. What will your function as a science adviser be? How would it be different from the function performed by OST?

Dr. STEVER. I think the studies that would need staff and experts, as say in military science or science associated with other security problems, would be handled by the National Security Council or by the Department of Defense. Of course, lots of these sciences

Mr. MOORHEAD. Was that not true before?

Dr. STEVER. That is correct, but that is not going to be handled by the National Science Foundation now. However, as Science Adviser, that is, as an individual, I may be asked by the President or the Director of the National Security Council to participate in security science as well. I think the distinction here is made, and I think quite a proper one, that the National Science Foundation itself, the staff that I described, is primarily oriented to basic sciences and the civilian oriented sciences, nonmilitary. We do not have large military systems study groups, and so on. So, I think that this distinction is a very proper

one.

But every now and then, basic science or some of our nonmilitary science also could help in a security matter; and that is the reason, I think, the President has asked the Science Adviser to participate, to be available to participate in those studies. But the Science Adviser does not have a primary responsibility there.

Mr. MOORHEAD. The next thing is a kind of a doubleheaded question, Dr. Stever.

I notice in this reorganization plan, the OEP functions were spun off to departments or agencies. But the science function was given not to the Foundation but to its Director, and similarly with respect to the functions formerly performed by the Science Adviser to the President.

Do you, as the Director, as Science Adviser to the White House, know the reason for this?

Dr. STEVER. Let me take the second question first:
Why as the Science Adviser to the White House?

I think Mr. Malek explained this morning that the President wanted a more effective, coordinated, handleable organization for the White House and one of the gentlemen on the committee discussed the impossibility of a President being in direct communication with a very large number of people that, on paper, report to him. So, his organization of the counsellors and the assistants to the President was designed essentially to get the Executive Office together in an organized and a focused way when it became clear that there were too many people for effective decisionmaking or participation.

Therefore, the Science Adviser is asked to report through the Executive, the assistant to the President, or asked to help the Director of the OMB, or the Chairman of the Domestic Council, and so on.

And I think the President has a very specific mission. He wants to describe in titles the way the thing really works.

Let me take the first of your questions, which is why is it transferred to the Director of the National Science Foundation. I think that this is transferred to the Director of the National Science Foundation to make it very clear where the responsibility is, in the Director, to do OST tasks. Mr. Beckler, who has been a senior official of OST for many years might add to that.

Mr. MOORHEAD. Before you do, let me point out, of course, that the OEP goes to the departments and agencies, not to the Secretary of HUD or the Administrator of General Services.

But I want to hear you, sir.

Mr. BECKLER. Well, I do not have anything to add to Dr. Stever's statement. The intention clearly is to stress that these responsibilities are in the Director of the National Science Foundation as an individual rather than in the Science Foundation as a whole, which includes the policymaking responsibilities of the National Science Board.

Dr. STEVER. Mr. Chairman and Mr. Moorhead, let me take another opportunity to add something there.

The National Science Board, which is the policymaking board of the National Science Foundation, as I say, has encouraged me and they said that they would do everything they could to make this proposed reorganization work effectively. And I think there will be times when the administration asks the Director, either in his role as the Science Adviser or as Director of NSF, to take tasks which, from the administration's viewpoint, are proper ones. The Director can then call either upon the National Science Foundation itself or call in other units of Government to help in that job. And if these were the responsibilities of the National Science Foundation itself, this would put the National Science Board into the actions of other executive agencies. I think there is a distinction that, with respect to the activities of the National Science Foundation staff, our board is our policy board. But when I, with these OST functions, call upon another administrative agency to help, they are not activities of the National Science Foundation.

Mr. MOORHEAD. Mr. Chairman, I could go on, but I understand the pressures of time.

I just would say that if it is to transfer this particular Director, I am very satisfied, but I am sure, in the long run, I would rather have it go to the Foundation.