advisory roles with respect to all Federal programs related to environmental quality. The Council, then, is concerned with all aspects of environmental quality-wildlife preservation, parklands, land use, and population growth, as well as pollution. The EPA would be charged with protecting the environment by abating pollution. In short, the Council focuses on what our broad policies in the environmental field should be; the EPA would focus on setting and enforcing pollution control standards. The two are not competing, but complementary-and taken together, they should give us, for the first time, the means to mount an effectively coordinated campaign against environmental degradation in all of its many forms. NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION The oceans and the atmosphere are interacting parts of the total environmental system upon which we depend not only for the quality of our lives, but for life itself. We face immediate and compelling needs for better protection of life and property from natural hazards, and for a better understanding of the total environment-an understanding which will enable us more effectively to monitor and predict its actions, and ultimately, perhaps to exercise some degree of control over them. We also face a compelling need for exploration and development leading to the intelligent use of our marine resources. The global oceans, which constitute nearly three-fourths of the surface of our planet, are today the least-understood, the least-developed, and the least-protected part of our earth. Food from the oceans will increasingly be a key element in the world's fight against hunger. The mineral resources of the ocean beds and of the oceans themselves, are being increasingly tapped to meet the growing world demand. We must understand the nature of these resources, and assure their development without either contaminating the marine environment or upsetting its balance. Establishment of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-NOAA-within the Department of Commerce would enable us to approach these tasks in a coordinated way. By employing a unified approach to the problems of the oceans and atmosphere, we can increase our knowledge and expand our opportunities not only in those areas, but in the third major component of our environment, the solid earth, as well. Scattered through various Federal departments and agencies, we already have the scientific, technological, and administrative resources to make an effective, unified approach possible. What we need is to bring them together. Establishment of NOAA would do so. By far the largest of the components being merged would be the Commerce Department's Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA), with some 10,000 employees (70 percent of NOAA's total personnel strength) and estimated Fiscal 1970 expenditures of almost $200 million. Placing NOAA within the Department of Commerce therefore entails the least dislocation, while also placing it within a Department which has traditionally been a center for service activities in the scientific and technological area. Components of NOAA Under terms of Reorganization Plan No. 4, the programs of the following organizations would be moved into NOAA: -The Environmental Science Services Administration (from within the Department of Commerce). -Elements of the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries (from the Department of the Interior). The marine sport fish program of the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife (from the Department of the Interior). -The Marine Minerals Technology Center of the Bureau of Mines (from the Department of the Interior). -The Office of Sea Grant Programs (from the National Science Foundation). -Elements of the United States Lake Survey (from the Department of the Army). In addition, by executive action, the programs of the following organizations would be transferred to NOAA: -The National Oceanographic Data Center (from the Department of the Navy). -The National Oceanographic Instrumentation Center (from the Department of the Navy). -The National Data Buoy Project (from the Department of Transportation). In brief, these are the principal functions of the programs and agencies to be combined: THE ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE SERVICES ADMINISTRATION (ESSA) comprises the following components: -The Weather Bureau (weather, marine, river and flood forecasting and warning). -The Coast and Geodetic Survey (earth and marine description, mapping and charting). -The Environmental Data Service (storage and retrieval of environmental data). -The National Environmental Satellite Center (observation of the global environment from earth-orbiting satellites). The ESSA Research Laboratories (research on physical environmental problems). ESSA's activities include observing and predicting the state of the oceans, the state of the lower and upper atmosphere, and the size and shape of the earth. It maintains the nation's warning systems for such natural hazards as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, earthquakes and seismic sea waves. It provides information for national defense, agriculture, transportation and industry. ESSA monitors atmospheric, oceanic and geophysical phenomena on a global basis, through an unparalleled complex of air, ocean, earth and space facilities. It also prepares aeronautical and marine. maps and charts. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries and marine sport fish activities.Those fishery activities of the Department of the Interior's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service which are ocean related and those which are directed toward commercial fishing would be transferred. The Fish and Wildlife Service's Bureau of Commercial Fisheries has the dual function of strengthening the fishing industry and promoting conservation of fishery stocks. It conducts research on important marine species and on fundamental oceanography, and operates a fleet of oceanographic vessels and a number of laboratories. Most of its activities would be transferred. From the Fish and Wildlife Service's Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, the marine sport fishing program would be transferred. This involves five supporting laboratories and three ships engaged in activities to enhance marine sport fishing opportunities. The Marine Minerals Technology Center is concerned with the development of marine mining technology. Office of Sea Grant Programs.-The Sea Grant Program was authorized in 1966 to permit the Federal Government to assist the academic and industrial communities in developing marine resources and technology. It aims at strengthening education and training of marine specialists, supporting applied research in the recovery and use of marine resources, and developing extension and advisory services. The Office carries out these objectives by making grants to selected academic institutions. The U.S. Lake Survey has two primary missions. It prepares and publishes navigation charts of the Great Lakes and tributary waters and conducts research on a variety of hydraulic and hydrologic phenomena of the Great Lakes' waters. Its activities are very similar to those conducted along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts by ESSA's Coast and Geodetic Survey. The National Oceanographic Data Center is responsible for the collection and dissemination of oceanographic data accumulated by all Federal agencies. The National Oceanographic Instrumentation Center provides a central Federal service for the calibration and testing of oceanographic instruments. The National Data Buoy Development Project was established to determine the feasibility of deploying a system of automatic ocean buoys to obtain oceanic and atmospheric data. Role of NOAA Drawing these activities together into a single agency would make possible a balanced Federal program to improve our understanding of the resources of the sea, and permit their development and use while guarding against the sort of thoughtless exploitation that in the past laid waste to so many of our precious natural assets. It would make possible a consolidated program for achieving a more comprehensive understanding of oceanic and atmospheric phenomena, which so greatly affect our lives and activities. It would facilitate the cooperation between public and private interests that can best serve the interests of all. I expect that NOAA would exercise leadership in developing a national oceanic and atmospheric program of research and development. It would coordinate its own scientific and technical resources with the technical and operational capabilities of other government agencies and private institutions. As important, NOAA would continue to provide those services to other agencies of government, industry and private individuals which have become essential to the efficient operation of our transportation systems, our agriculture and our national security. I expect it to maintain continuing and close liaison with the new Environmental Protection Agency and the Council on Environmental Quality as part of an effort to ensure that environmental questions are dealt with in their totality and that they benefit from the full range of the government's technical and human resources. Authorities who have studied this matter, including the Commission on Marine Science, Engineering and Resources, strongly recommended the creation of a National Advisory Committee for the Oceans. I agree. Consequently, I will request, upon approval of the plan, that the Secretary of Commerce establish a National Advisory Committee for the Oceans and the Atmosphere to advise him on the progress of governmental and private programs in achieving the nation's oceanic and atmospheric objectives. AN ON-GOING PROCESS The reorganizations which I am here proposing afford both the Congress and the Executive Branch an opportunity to re-evaluate the adequacy of existing program authorities involved in these consolidations. As these two new organizations come into being, we may well find that supplementary legislation to perfect their authorities will be necessary. I look forward to working with the Congress in this task. In formulating these reorganization plans, I have been greatly aided by the work of the President's Advisory Council on Executive Organization (the Ash Council), the Commission on Marine Science, Engineering and Resources (the Stratton Commission, appointed by President Johnson), my special task force on oceanography headed by Dr. James Wakelin, and by the information developed during both House and Senate hearings on proposed NOAA legislation. Many of those who have advised me have proposed additional reorganizations, and it may well be that in the future I shall recommend further changes. For the present, however, I think the two reorganizations transmitted today represent a sound and significant beginning. I also think that in practical terms, in this sensitive and rapidly developing area, it is better to proceed a step at a timeand thus to be sure that we are not caught up in a form of organizational indigestion from trying to rearrange too much at once. As we see how these changes work out, we will gain a better understanding of what further changes in addition to these might be desirable. Ultimately, our objective should be to insure that the nation's environmental and resource protection activities are so organized as to maximize both the effective coordination of all and the effective functioning of each. The Congress, the Administration and the public all share a profound commitment to the rescue of our natural environment, and the preservation of the Earth as a place both habitable by and hospitable to man. With its acceptance of these reorganization plans, the Congress will help us fulfill that commitment. RICHARD NIXON. THE WHITE HOUSE, July 9, 1970. SENATE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS Staff Memorandum No. 91-2-23 JULY 23, 1970. Subject: Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1970-Environmental Protection Agency Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1970 was transmitted by the President to the Congress on July 9, 1970, and referred to the Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization on July 15, 1970. Unless it is disapproved by a majority vote of either House of the Congress, prior thereto, the last day for floor action on a resolution of disapproval will be September 7, 1970. A reorganization plan becomes effective on the 61st day following its transmittal to the Congress, unless the plan, as in the case of Reorganization Plan No. 3, provides for a later effective date. Under the provisions of section 7 of this plan, it will become effective on November 7, 1970. Hearings on Plans 3 and 4 have been scheduled by the Executive Reorganization Subcommittee for July 28 and 29, 1970. PURPOSE Plan No. 3 of 1970 is part of an effort to organize rationally and systematically the activities of the Federal Government which relate to the environment, by centralizing in one new agency the responsibility for the major Federal pollution control programs, now located in three Cabinet departments, one independent agency and two interagency councils. The plan would (1) establish as a new independent agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, headed by an Administrator and a Deputy Administrator who would be appointed by the President, subject to Senate confirmation, at Levels II ($42,500) and III ($40,000), respectively, of the Executive Schedule Pay Rates; (2) authorize the President to appoint, subject to Senate confirmation, no more than five Assistant Administrators at Level IV ($38,000); (3) transfer to the Administrator the major statutory functions and responsibilities, relative to water and air pollution control from (a) the respective Secretaries and Departments of the Interior, Agriculture and of Health, Education and Welfare; (b) the Atomic Energy Commission and (c) the Federal Radiation Council; (4) transfer to the Agency from the Department of the Interior the Water Pollution Advisory Board, together with its functions, and certain hearing boards provided for in the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, and transfer to the Administrator the functions of the Secretary of the Interior with respect to being or designating the Chairman of the Water Pollution Control Advisory Board: (5) transfer to the Agency from the Department of HEW the Air Quality Advisory Board, together with its functions, and the functions of the Secretary of HEW with respect to being a member and Chairman of that Board; and (6) abolish, exclusive of any functions, the Federal Water Quality Administration in the Department of the Interior and the Federal Radiation Council. THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE In his message accompanying Reorganization Plan No. 3, the President stated that it had become increasingly clear that more knowledge was required concerning our total environment-land, air and water-that the development of such knowledge and the effective protection and enhancement of our environment required a reorganization of Federal efforts, and that the Government's environmentally-related activities have grown up piecemeal over the years. Addressing himself to the need for an Environmental Portection Agency, the President concluded that "our national government today is not structured to make a coordinated attack on the pollutants which debase the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land that grows our food" and that "the present governmental structure for dealing with environmental pollution often defies effective and concerted action. Despite its complexity, for pollution control purposes the environment must be perceived as a single, interrelated system * * *" but "present assignments of departmental responsibilities do not reflect this interrelatedness." Elaborating further, the President said: "Many agency missions, for example, are designed primarily along media lines-air, water, and land. Yet the sources of air, water and land pollution are interrelated and often interchangeable. A single source may pollute the air |