July 7, 1965
PAGE 15773
INTRODUCTION OF S. 2251, THE MARINE AND ATMOSPHERIC AFFAIRS COORDINATION ACT OF 1965
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I introduce for appropriate reference the Marine and Atmospheric Affairs Coordination Act of 1965 and ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the RECORD at the end of my remarks and that it remain at the desk through July 9 in order that Senators who wish to might join as cosponsors.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The bill will be received and appropriately referred; and, without objection, the bill will be printed in the RECORD, and held at the desk, as requested by the Senator from Maine.
The bill (S. 2251) to coordinate and consolidate the major civilian marine and atmospheric functions of the Federal Government through the establishment of a Department of Marine and Atmospheric Affairs, to enunciate national policies pertinent to the marine and atmospheric interests of the United States, to further the expanded exploration of marine environs and the use of marine resources, to encourage research and development in the marine and atmospheric sciences and technologies and for other purposes, introduced by Mr. MUSKIE (for himself and other Senators), was received, read twice by its title, and referred to the Committee on Government Operations.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, there is a variety of bills before both Houses of the Congress to enhance and encourage the Federal role in the management of our marine affairs. These bills encompass ideas for the improvement of our merchant marine fleet, review of our interests in the law of the sea, exploration of the Continental Shelf, enhancement of our anadromous fisheries management efforts, import restrictions on fisheries products from those nations practicing poor conservation techniques in our adjacent waters, advisory council proposals for the coordination of our oceanographic effort, the establishment of a massive NASA-like organization for the conquest of the oceans -- our "inner space" -- and many others.
In addition, President Johnson has now proposed reorganization plan No. 2, consolidating the Coast and Geodetic Survey, the Weather Bureau and the Central Radio Propagation Laboratory to form a new agency in the Department of Commerce to be known as the Environmental Science Services Administration.
All of these ideas have merit and are rooted in the national concern over the conduct and future direction of our marine and atmospheric activities. In my opinion, they are symptomatic of:
First, the recognition of the tremendous importance of the oceanic and atmospheric environs to our daily lives and economy; and, second, the fragmentary attention we give these matters in Government policymaking and administration.
The legislation which I introduce today is designed to crystallize our attention on the need to coordinate our work in the interrelated areas of marine and atmospheric environments which so vitally affect our economy, trade, our international relations, strategic posture, natural resource programs and our basic continental climate and weather patterns.
It is my hope that this legislation and my remarks may serve as a catalyst for the Congress in considering the far-reaching implications of our activities or lack of them -- in exploring, understanding, and using the resources of the atmosphere and the ocean.
It is essential for those of us who have been primarily concerned with our interior natural resource programs to turn our eyes to the sea around us. In so doing, we will join the efforts of our distinguished colleagues, Senators MAGNUSON, BARTLETT, and others who have continued to direct our attention to the implications of an inadequate "national will" concerned with marine and related affairs. It is my hope that the discussion engendered may contribute to the development of a "national will" to move forward in a strong, coordinated marine and atmospheric program.
In reviewing the problems and potentials inherent in our status and purposes in marine and atmospheric use and technology, my thoughts focus on several matters.
First, let me put into perspective the status and present direction of our efforts to conquer the mysteries of the marine environment. The words of Mr. James H. Wakeline, Jr., former Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research and Development are appropriate:
For centuries man has looked to the sea as a surface on which to sail to distant lands for exploration and trade, as an arena for naval battles, as a supplementary source of food -- but always as a region of mystery with unpredictable and awesome displays of strength. While the world's oceans do, in fact, cover almost three-quarters of the surface of the earth, our real interest lies as much in the volume beneath the surface as in the surface itself. The extent to which we can use this deep domain depends critically upon our knowledge of its boundaries, its properties, and its contents. To obtain this knowledge, we have been working on a concentrated program in oceanography to study the dynamics of ocean behavior on and beneath the surface, to map the depths and shorelines with much greater accuracy and to access the vast storehouse of food, minerals, and chemicals for future exploitation by mankind. From this program, and others related to it, we will learn much about how to alter and control the tremendous energy developed through the interaction of the air and the sea and released as hurricanes, typhoons, and other storms of great destructiveness. It remains for us now to put this knowledge to work and to find out how we can economically extract the resources from the sea for our use. Before we can fully apply this knowledge, however, we must learn how to live, work, and operate in the ocean depths. Without this capability we cannot effectively use the ocean space for our country's defense or make available its vital materials that we will require for future generations on the earth."
In our national assault upon the marine environment, I see a tremendous historic parallel with that of our country a century and a half ago as we began to unlock the frontiers and rich resources of the western North American continent.
In this earlier day Jefferson and a few others who advocated the opening of our West stood virtually alone. Powerful political and industrial forces sought to divert our energies from westward expansion toward Europe and seagoing trade. John Adams, then Senator from Massachusetts, sided with Jefferson in a display of political courage and vision which brought about his ouster from the Senate and what he then believed to be his political demise.
A few years later another New Englander, Daniel Webster, spoke in questioning terms of our great West, saying, "What do we want with this vast worthless area? What use have we for this country?" Although I do not hear specific voices in this day against our national marine program effort, there is a counterpart reelected in apathy, lack of concern and absence of a "national will" to forge ahead.
The role of the Federal Government in opening our West was to explore, to map, and to provide capital and land incentive for the private development of the area. This role was a unique experiment a century and a half ago which staggered the European mind with its audacity.
Are we any less audacious today? I think not. The frontiers of the sea, Great Lakes, and the atmosphere between earth and space are before us. We need to use their resources and powers. Government can again lead the way through exploration, scientific inquiry, and capital incentive for business and private capital to follow. We need only to channel our energies and coordinate our efforts to lift the curtain of uncertainty over the realm of the little known.
The lifting of this curtain requires recognition of a little realized fact. This fact is that we now possess the technical knowledge and industrial capacity to live, work, explore, and exploit the resources of the marine world. Heretofore, the main thrust of governmental concern with marine and atmospheric affairs has been in the realm of basic scientific inquiry. For a long time scientific knowledge has been ahead of the engineering technology required to accelerate exploration and resource utilization in marine environments. This is no longer the case.
We now realize that technology has caught up and even surpassed basic science. We are now ready to pursue a vigorous course of marine resource utilization which will enhance our economy and contribute greatly to our general welfare.
Apparently, this basic fact did not influence the administration in its preparation of the Reorganization Plan No. 2 proposal.
This plan is directed essentially toward the coordination of basic scientific inquiry within the interrelated fields of marine and atmospheric affairs. This is a sound proposal as far as it goes -- but now is the time for governmental action to go further. Our programs must continue scientific research and inquiry -- but this must be in partnership with the technologies of use and development. Our aim must be to encourage the mastery and use of these environs for the benefit of man.
Like the conquest of space, the conquest of the marine environs requires the development of complicated equipment and specialized systems. These include: Vehicles to come and go from work sites and in which to explore and map, together with the navigational and propulsion systems for these vehicles, underwater construction techniques, unique construction materials, communication systems, power and distribution systems and a wide variety of new techniques for working in an aquatic environment. We have the technical knowledge to develop these systems. In fact, many now exist. We need only to define and coordinate our national efforts and to provide the incentive to attract the interest of those technological industries with the capacity to do the job.
So much for perspective. I would like to draw attention now to some of the effects and problems evident in our present national effort.
First, despite unused fisheries resources in our own waters, we do not catch the fish we eat, expending about $600 million annually abroad for the importation of fisheries products. This represents a substantial part of our dollar drain.
Because our resources are unused, an increasing volume of Asiatic and European fishermen are attracted by our default to use our waters and catch our resources. All too frequently these foreign fishermen utilize exploitive practices in our waters, seriously undermining our resource conservation efforts. All this evades the law of the sea and the Continental Shelf doctrine and causes extreme embarrassment to the State Department.
Accenting this international problem is the relatively low status of our representatives in the departments of State, Interior, or Commerce who meet with the ministerial level representatives of other nations relative to U.S. interests in international marine affairs. Other nations, very logically, I think, believe that our Government doesn't care enough about these matters to give them high official attention.
Second, much of our international commitment is concerned with underdeveloped countries and the dietary lack of protein in 60 percent of the world's population. We ship our surplus grain to these nations but do little to attack the basic problem. We know that sustained fisheries resources exceed the world's protein requirements -- and further, that great unused resources are available just off the shores of many an underdeveloped country,
Other countries, particularly Russia, capitalize on this knowledge by building up the fisheries capacities of underdeveloped nations and by direct landings of fisheries products by their home fleets. In this way the Russian fisheries and merchant marine make a profit of their activities, and at the same time use their vessels as an adjunct of their defense posture throughout the world in recognition of the strategic importance of the world ocean areas -- 70 percent of the earth's surface.
Our sick fisheries industry and declining merchant marine do not compete nor do they add the important strategic element of U.S. occupation throughout the world ocean area.
Third, we are constantly reminded that our continental reserves of strategic fossil fuels and minerals are dwindling; that, indeed, we are living today on the "savings" required for future generations. Were we to mine more from the sea and the continental shelf we would be, in effect, living on our "income" rather than exclusively on our savings, for every river, every stream, every rain brings dissolved minerals and chemicals from the land to the sea -- enriching and replenishing the sea.
By this I do not suggest any abandonment of our interior resources or that we need depend upon the minerals, oil, and gas resources of the sea today and or even tomorrow. I do maintain, however, that we must accelerate our effort, now, to explore, to chart and locate and to use the resources of the marine environment. If we do not, others will. Through use and industrial incentive our technology will rapidly improve.
Fourth, the hearings of the subcommittee on air and water pollution have brought to light some serious problems in the "aging" and deterioration of the Great Lakes, estuarian, and harbor areas. The speed of the "aging" process in such bodies of water is normally measured in millennia. We now have reason to believe that large quantities of nutrients entering our Great Lakes and coastal bays in waste discharges are speeding up this process significantly. Also, we find that even with the overnight elimination of pollutants from these waters -- if such were possible -- the reversal of the “aging" process, or even its slowing down, appears to be next to impossible under the limitations of present knowledge.
To those in this body from our Nation's heartland, I need not overemphasize the economic impact of water level drops or vegetative concentrations in the Great Lakes.
Shoaling waters, warming waters, and increased vegetation affect shipping, the fisheries industry, recreation, and shore based industry drastically. We need to learn more about the currents, temperature, and other factors influencing this "aging" process of the Great Lakes. This requires an intensive exploratory and research effort which must be undertaken now before it is too late and economic disaster strikes the heartland of our Nation.
In addition we should note the Great Lakes comprise the largest fresh water sea in the world. What we learn in such a microcosm can be of infinite value in our pursuit of knowledge within the world oceans.
Fifth, although the scientific community has recognized the interactions of the air-sea interface in the creation of both broad climatological and local weather patterns, we have as yet scarcely scratched the surface in learning how to modify these phenomena for man's benefit. Among our colleagues, Senator ANDERSON has stressed the importance and future potential for the replenishment and delivery of continental water resources inherent in weather modification techniques.
The needs in this area are legion, but just envision the day when controlled buildup in the snow pack above a western reservoir can replenish that reservoir and help regulate streamflows for power, irrigation, pollution abatement, and so forth, or when controlled weather modification can replenish depleted underground aquifers or transport water in rain over barrier mountains to arid but fertile soils. A dream today? Maybe so -- but it can be reality tomorrow.
The work going forward toward more adequate weather warning systems for tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods is fairly well known. But also the Navy and Weather Bureau, in Project Storm Fury, seek to find means to modify, bend, or ameliorate these furious storms of tremendous human and economic impact. The day when we can modify the hands of Nature for man's benefit -- when such recent disasters as the Northwest and Mississippi Valley floods are things of the past -- is not too far distant -- if we accelerate and enforce our "national will" to better understand the interacting marine and atmospheric phenomena which cause them. The costs of such accelerated effort are insignificant in comparison with the potential benefits.
Sixth, the need for power to produce the wonders of our industrial and technological age are apparent to us all. We are all familiar with the disparity of power available to various parts of our country. The potentials for the generation of such power by nuclear energy and by the prospects of obtaining vast oil reserves on the Continental Shelf or from the oil shale deposits of Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah are known. Equal, if not greater power generating potential exists through the harnessing of oceanic power. I have dwelt on the potentials of tidal power at Passamaquoddy between Maine and Canada many times before this Chamber. Similar opportunities exist in Alaska, lower California, and many other parts of the world. The French have just completed the Rance River project on the coast of Brittany making tidal power a reality.
Possibly of even greater importance as a source of oceanic power, since it is not tied to a specific location, is the use of the ocean thermocline as a source of power. In this system electric turbines are powered by steam obtained from water at surface temperature at reduced pressure. Experiments in this area are underway and the technology of the near future should produce a workable power plant of perhaps 4,500 kilowatts per unit with byproducts of fresh water: fish and plankton and mineral production.
Another significant source of ocean power is wave action. It is believed that wave action rather than nuclear or solar power would best and most economically provide the power source for the thousands of buoys envisaged in the future exploration and development of the oceans. Ocean currents, of which as yet we know little, may provide still another source of power generation.
These then are some of the problems we face today and a few of the potentials we can enjoy tomorrow.
Let me turn now to how our Government is meeting this great challenge in the marine and atmospheric program area. Our main effort is entitled the national oceanographic program. It is one of several government wide programs planned and coordinated by the President, with the advice and assistance of the Office of Science and Technology. In the field of oceanography the Director of OST, who also serves as Chairman of the Federal Council for Science and Technology, looks to the Council's Interagency Committee on Oceanography to carry out the program.
As a "committee" in Government this group has been quite successful in their efforts to coordinate the diverse functions of 5 departments, 3 independent agencies, and 22 operating bureaus and offices. Despite their competent work and continual improvement, the Interagency Committee on Oceanography suffers from a number of circumstances with which it is powerless to deal. These are:
First. None of its members is the policy head of the department in which he works, nor is departmental oceanographic policy delegated to him. Whenever ICO makes a decision, that decision is subject to the independent and individual policy review of several department heads. Within the concerned departments marine and atmospheric affairs are relatively minor parts of overall responsibilities.
Second. Each ICO member has his own full-time job. They meet from time to time and give the ICO program a few hours of attention, but their prime attention is devoted to their own daily responsibilities.
Third. The staff of ICO is loaned from other agencies. It receives budgetary support from other agencies. These two situations make it difficult for the most dedicated operation to establish relative program priorities. Even the most objective public servant finds it difficult to judge a project favored by a bureau chief who may soon again be his boss.
Fourth. A program is not a program unless it has a budget with which it may be implemented. The ICO budget for a national oceanographic program is a conglomeration of budgets for marine and atmospheric affairs within 22 bureaus and offices. The ICO, considers the budget as a whole but each budget request is contained within the several departments, bureaus, and agencies. Thus each appropriation request is reviewed by a variety of Bureau of the Budget examiners. Each must compete with other agency functions at the bureau and departmental level for "pieces of the appropriation pie" due such agencies. By the time the President's budget is sent to the Congress it is at once unidentifiable as a national effort and bears little resemblance to the thoughtful design of ICO.
Fifth. The many segments of the President's program bearing on marine or atmospheric affairs is presented to at least 32 substantive and appropriation committees of the Congress. Among these committees there is little communication.
The consequence of all this -- despite ICO's best efforts -- is the lack of a well-balanced national program of marine and interrelated atmospheric affairs or a budget for it. Accordingly, this country does not have a truly national well directed effort in this vital area of concern.
This bill which I introduce today proposes:
First, the enunciation of the broad national purposes, concepts, and objectives required for a coordinated balanced program in marine and atmospheric affairs. In this, it places emphasis on an acceleration and expansion of marine exploration, technology, and scientific endeavor. It outlines a Federal role of full partnership and coordination with State, local government, industrial and academic activity in the marine and atmospheric field. It promotes incentive for private capital investment to follow governmental leadership in the development and exploitation of the marine and atmospheric resources and environmental uses.
Second, it authorizes a marine exploration fund providing for an accelerated exploration program at the Federal level with cost-sharing incentives for the States, academic and industrial communities. Loans and grants are authorized for purposes of developing, improving, and testing the instrumentation, vessels, vehicles, equipment or facilities required to implement a progressive program of marine exploration and discovery.
Third, it authorizes a marine and atmospheric research and development fund for the acceleration of basic research in the component areas of necessary scientific inquiry. This includes: the advance of oceanographic engineering, advancement of knowledge pertinent to the geomorphology and geology of the Continental Shelf, Great Lakes, and deep ocean floors and, similarly, for the biological life, chemical and physical characteristics of such environs. It also provides for research and development related to climatological and meteorological phenomena of the air-sea interface and atmosphere as well as the transmission and generation of electrical energy in such environs.
Fourth, it recognizes that the coordination of our major civilian agencies concerned with marine and atmospheric affairs is essential. It recognizes three basic areas of governmental focus or influence within the framework of our national efforts. These are: First, within the Department of the Navy representing the marine and related military and security interests of the United States; second, within the National Science Foundation and Smithsonian Institution representing the academic interests in such matters; and, third, within a new Department of Marine and Atmospheric Affairs representing the civilian marine and atmospheric interests and industry.
In creating this new department, I believe a moderate, sensible position is taken between the present fragmented operation which we now pursue and the creation of a massive new NASA-like agency for these environs.
Essentially, the new Department would carry the President's reorganization plan No. 2 to a logical conclusion. Included in this new Department would be the U.S. Maritime Administration, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, U.S. Weather Bureau, the National Oceanographic Data Center, the Coastal Engineering Research Center, the Sea-Air Interaction Laboratory, the Central Radio Propagation Laboratory – all existing agencies -- and a new bureau of marine fisheries formed by the environmental division of the fisheries, responsibilities of the present Fish and Wildlife Service. A new coordinating office of Marine Geology and Mineral Resources would also be established.
These are the major agencies concerned with marine and atmospheric affairs. There are many other agencies such as the Geological Survey, Bureau of Mines, Public Health Service, and so forth, concerned with missions in the marine environment, but it is thought to be unwise to separate the marine functions from these present agencies at this time.
In addition, this bill does one other thing: it provides for the establishment of a joint committee of the Congress to be the forum for the consideration of the future direction and role of government in marine and atmospheric affairs. This I believe necessary if this vital area of national program need is to be properly communicated to the people. The parameters of discussion, the range and scope of the problems, and the scientific, resource, and social areas of inquiry are too broad for consideration within the framework of existing committee structure in either the House or the Senate.
Mr. President, this then is the direction of the legislation I introduce. In closing, let me emphasize again my intentions. These are to help focus national attention on the problems and opportunities before this Nation in the marine world and lower atmosphere around us.
It is my hope that hearings pertinent to Reorganization Plan No. 2 and on this bill will bring our national purposes into focus for legislative action -- action which will coordinate our efforts and infuse them with the strength and imagination inherent in our people.
In closing, may I remind my colleagues of the words of our late President John F. Kennedy as he said, "Knowledge of the oceans is more than a matter of curiosity. Our very survival may hinge upon it." Now I may add that knowledge alone is not enough, our survival may well hinge on our occupation and use of the vast marine world around us.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Mr. SALTONSTALL. Mr. President, will the Senator from Maine yield?
Mr. MUSKIE. I yield.
Mr. SALTONSTALL. Mr. President, I have read with a great deal of interest the bill which has been introduced by the Senator from Maine. I am very much aware of the need for the acceleration and coordination of our research efforts in oceanography, and I am pleased that the Senate will now have an opportunity to study this need more closely.
Our underwater resources could immeasurably supplement our interior natural resources.
I am glad to support the intent of the bill introduced by the junior Senator from Maine. My only reason for not joining in cosponsorship of the bill is that I feel these efforts should be coordinated under a presently existing department rather than creating a new governmental department.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments of the Senator from Massachusetts.