The Case for a New NOAA Charter D „ , Department or Atmospherrc Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195

Abstract

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is not adequately equipped to meet the needs of the future for research, services, and information relating to the natural environment. A re-structuring of NOAA is called for, which would fill gaps in its program, assure strengthened capabilities for global observations, and help the agency to balance its multiple missions, and to order priorities in a manner consistent with the public interest. To implement those changes, a new legislative charter is needed defining new agency objectives and establishing the agency independent of the US Department of Com-merce (DOC).

1. Introduction

In the past two decades, technological developments in earth satellites, remote sensing, ocean and ice coring, and computers, and the data they have provided, have stimulated new under-standing of our natural environment. Based on proven tech-nology, there are, in prospect, applications of ground-based instrumentation to monitor precipitation and storm development over the United States, continuously and in exquisite detail, as well as other instrumentation to obtain nearly continuous ver-tical-wind soundings through the atmosphere at many sites, and satellite instruments to determine ocean-surface topography and wind velocities. In the near future, we may be able to observe natural phenomena of the atmosphere, ocean, and earth's sur-face with detail far beyond what has been possible in the past.

Spurred by these new data, new thinking about old problems has occurred, and new scientific insights have arisen in nearly all fields concerned with the natural environment. An exciting period of interdisciplinary research linking the geophysical and biological sciences is anticipated by many scientists. In 1983 the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP) was proposed by the National Academy of Sciences (Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics and Resources, 1983), and a number of steps toward implementation of the broad objec-tives of that program have been taken. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has identified a new major initiative under Global Geosciences. The Earth Systems Sciences Committee of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1986 issued a report that proposed priorities for United States participation in an international program of unprecedented scope involving several government agencies (NASA Advisory Council, 1986).

The growing base of information also is being applied to such problems as aircraft safety, threats to the earth's ozone shield, long-term effects of increasing atmospheric carbon diox-ide, and possible global effects of nuclear war. In coming

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decades other problems can be expected to grow in importance and to receive more attention—water supply and water quality, acid precipitation, air quality, development of solar and other energy sources, to identify a few of the most obvious.

These developments will not occur automatically or easily. The federal government must be responsible for acquisition and processing of the flood of data in prospect; for making it ac-cessible for research and for many applications; for leadership and funding for major research and operational programs; and for much of the technology development and transfer to ap-plication. How well is the federal government prepared for these responsibilities? The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is the agency whose missions are most central to problems of the natural environment. Its capabilities are essential to the future suggested in existing plans. NOAA research and service activities are involved in nearly all prob-lems of the natural environment. However, there is much evi-dence that NOAA is not now fully capable of providing institutional leadership in attacking the range of these problems identified as important to the nation's future, or of responding adequately to unknown future problems. The purpose of this article is to identify some of the weaknesses and some of the missing elements in NOAA's structure, and to outline alter-natives that might provide the necessary capabilities. A com-plete assessment is neither feasible nor necessary; rather, this paper is intended to contribute to an extended discussion of national policy alternatives leading to needed actions. Further discussions must involve the scientific and professional com-munities, government, and the general public.

2. NOAA'S current status

NOAA was established as a component of the US Department of Commerce (DOC) by the President's Reorganization Order No. 4 in 1970. It brought together the Environmental Science Services Administration, which earlier had been formed from the Weather Bureau and the Coast and Geodetic Survey, the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, the Lake Survey, and several smaller units. The NOAA mission, as stated in the US Gov-ernment Manual (Office of the Federal Register, 1986) is "to explore, map, and chart the global ocean and its living resources and to manage, use, and conserve those resources; to describe, monitor, and predict conditions in the atmosphere, ocean, sun, and space environment; to issue warnings against impending natural events; to assess the consequences of inadvertent en-vironmental modification over several scales of time; and to manage and disseminate long-term environmental informa-tion." NOAA is organized into five major branches: the Na-tional Ocean Service (NOS); the National Weather Service (NWS); the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS); the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service

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(NESDIS); and the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Re-search (OAR).

Total NOAA funding in FY 1986 was about $1086 million and for FY 1987 is about $1090 million. Since assuming office in 1981, the Reagan administration, each year, has proposed reductions in NOAA's budget of more than 10 percent. Con-gress has resisted these large reductions, and the final budgets, while decreasing somewhat in constant dollars, have been sub-stantially higher than the budgets proposed by the White House. Table 1 shows NOAA's total budgets for the past seven years together with budgets of the major agencies involved in research on the natural environment. Over the seven-year period as shown in Table 1, inflation was more than 50 percent. There-fore, in 4'constant dollars" the NOAA budgets decreased, while NASA Space Science and Applications (SSA) was essentially level, the NSF budget increased modestly, and the Department of Defense (DOD) Research and Development (R&D) more than doubled.

Impacts of budget reductions have been felt on ongoing NOAA programs and on the agency's contributions to inter-agency programs, as well as on the capacity to plan for future programs. NOAA's horizons, which should be a decade or more in the future, have been drawn in to immediate challenges to budget and program. At the same time, the administration has sought to transfer operation of NOAA's weather satellites and earth-observing satellites to private industry and to reduce weather-service activities. In addition, NOAA has been more and more subordinated within the DOC, and appointments of senior officials have been increasingly politicized. These factors have damaged the morale of NOAA staff and impaired its ability to respond to the new challenges. A recent paper titled "NOAA's Role and the National Interest" (Fleagle, 1986) discusses these matters and provides additional background.

3. Institutional issues

NOAA's institutional history is complex and the legislation specifying its missions is fragmented and incomplete. In con-sequence, NOAA's potential contributions to the national in-terest have not been recognized fully by the government or the public. In this section two institutional issues are discussed: collaboration of NASA and NOAA in programs of global ob-servations, and interagency relationships. a. NASA-NOAA collaboration NASA and NOAA have collaborated successfully in developing

TABLE 1. Annual Budget Authority (millions of dollars) (Office of Management and Budget, 1981 through 1987)

FY 1986 FY 1987 Change in FY 1980 FY 1985 (est.) (est.) 7 years (%)

NOAA $ 787 $ 1,270 $ 1,086* $ 1,090* 39 NASA/SSA 1,063 1,570 1,643 1,712 61 NSF 904 1,502 1,458 1,686 87 DOD R&D 13,561 31,327 33,736 41,930 209

* Estimates provided by NOAA Budget Office following passage of the appropriations bill.

the satellite observing systems, which now provide nearly global operational and research data. This collaboration has been based on a 1963 interagency agreement, which assigned to NASA responsibility for development of instruments and satellites for the NOAA operational program and to NOAA responsibility for operations. NASA-NOAA collaboration has "ridden the wave" of an expanding technology, and it has benefited from excellent leadership at the appropriate level in each agency and by close contacts with academic and industry scientists and engineers.

NOAA operates two systems of earth satellites: Geostation-ary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) located about 36 000 km above the equator at fixed longitudes; and down-ward-looking polar-orbiting satellites at a height of about 860 km, which observe virtually the entire earth each day. NOAA normally operates two GOES satellites, which provide contin-uous surveillance of cloud distributions Over the contiguous 48 states and the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific oceans. Sim-ilar satellites are operated by Japan, India, and Europe; and together they comprise the global stationary-satellite system. Each of the two polar-orbiting satellites revolve about the earth in a different polar plane with a period of about 110 minutes while the earth rotates on its axis under it. Each provides global observations of clouds and the earth's surface in visible and infrared radiation for each 24-hour day. Both satellite systems also obtain temperature and humidity soundings, surface tem-peratures, and certain more-specialized data. From time to time, normal operations have been interrupted by technical malfunc-tions, and schedules for the future have been threatened by budget reductions and by launch delays.

Important changes in the NASA-NOAA collaboration oc-curred beginning in the late 1970s. As the NASA shuttle and space-station programs have demanded larger and larger bud-gets, the pressures have been felt by NASA programs of space science and application. NASA funding for operational-satellite development decreased in the late 1970s and ended in 1979; and the interagency agreement, by which NASA was respon-sible for development, no longer holds. And with disruption of the shuttle program, NASA's contribution to future global observations is in jeopardy, along with all the rest of space science and applications' programs.

NOAA has conducted satellite research and development since the early 1960s; although small, it has been a vital asset to the national program. But when NASA failed to carry out the original interagency agreement, NOAA was unable to pick up the needed satellite R&D. As a consequence, NOAA sat-ellites in operation are using outmoded technology; and new proven technologies such as those for securing surface-wind velocities over the ocean and stratospheric temperatures from limb scanning, are not currently in use in operational satellites.

It is not clear how the continuing R&D, vital to further improvements in global observations, will be done. Within NASA the earth-observing program competes with the larger observational programs, astronomy, and solar-system explo-ration. And within NOAA, satellite R&D has been "squeezed" between rapidly increasing costs and an unyielding total-agency budget. The budget problem is illustrated by the fact that the cost of purchasing and launching a NOAA satellite, which was about $30 million in the early 1970s is now about $125 million, more than 10 percent of the total annual NOAA budget; and in FY 1985 $258 million was used for the purchase of satellites,

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Bulletin American Meteorological Society 1419 launching, and services, 25 percent of the total NOAA budget (Naimian, et al., 1985).

In view of the sophisticated and more-powerful observing and data-processing systems that are required for the future, a stronger relationship between NOAA and NASA's earth-ob-serving program is needed.

b. Interagency relationships NOAA's missions and activities overlap those of many other governmental agencies. While NOAA is responsible for ac-quiring and managing a major data base, which supports the environmental sciences and their applications, other agencies contribute to the data base and carry out their operational and research missions. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is responsible for monitoring and regulating air, water, and land pollution, as well as for research. The US Geological Survey (USGS) is responsible for charting the structure and processes of the earth's crust and interior and for observations and research relating to events such as earthquakes and vol-canoes. The NSF supports basic research into all these and other environmental problems, and it provides the primary sup-port for the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The Navy supports ocean observations and research. Each of these agencies supports research in universities and research centers, thus providing links with the nongovernment scientific community. Many other agencies are also concerned with environmental problems: the US Departments of Energy, Interior, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services, the US Coast Guard, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the US Air Force, and US Army. The Department of State is involved in problems of international scope. Many transorgan-izational links have been developed to provide communication and coordination among agencies involved in related work.

Problems of interagency coordination have been addressed by the Executive Office of the President (EOP) and by the Congress. Interagency committees were established in 1959 under the EOP to coordinate oceanic and atmospheric research; their functions are now the responsibility of the Committee on Atmosphere and Ocean of the Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering, and Technology. The Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorological Services and Support-ing Research, established in 1964 by the EOP Bureau of the Budget, coordinates the weather observing and forecasting sys-tems operated by NOAA, DOD, and the FAA. The National Climate Act of 1978 established the Climate Program Office (NCPO), and the Acid Precipitation Act of 1980 established the Interagency Task Force on Acid Precipitation, each with responsibilities for coordinating and fostering interagency re-search. These and other coordinating mechanisms have been indispensable, but their effectiveness is limited by the fact that their objectives may constitute very small parts of the broad missions of the individual agencies, and in some cases com-mittee objectives may be undercut by agencies. Ineffectiveness of interagency coordinating bodies has been long-recognized and has led to proposals to create a department of science and technology; this solution to the problem was proposed most recently in 1985 by a presidential commission (President's Commission on Industrial Competitiveness, 1985). A strong argument against such a department is that most agencies re-quire close affiliation with relevant R&D, so that if science and

technology were consolidated in a single department, new in-terfaces and new structures would have to be created within each agency.

In summary, NOAA operational and research programs re-quire close working relationships with other agencies. Strength-ening of NOAA under a new charter will not lessen this requirement, but it should contribute to more-effective func-tioning of interagency mechanisms.

4. Programmatic gaps

Although NOAA's operational and research activities embrace a very extensive range of environmental problems, in the fol-lowing important areas NOAA activities are inadequate. a. Air quality Major problems of air quality face the nation, but no agency has the central capability and responsibility for observing, un-derstanding, regulating, and improving the quality of the air we all live in. NOAA observations and resources and NOAA personnel are essential to meeting these objectives. NOAA has a part in air-quality observation and research, but its respon-sibility is very limited, and agency resources are small. There is no major component of NOAA expressly concerned with air quality. EPA has statutory responsibility for dealing with air-quality problems, but its research capabilities are distinctly limited, and it has not taken the leadership role in a broad interagency approach to problems of air quality.

Major air-quality problems include: chronic and occasionally life-threatening effects of air pollution; effects of acid depo-sition; possible effects of trace gases in reducing protection of the earth's ozone shield; effects of increasing atmospheric C0 2

and other trace gases on global climate; effects of radioactivity released from nuclear power plants or from nuclear explosions; and global consequences of a nuclear war.

Understanding of each of these problems requires the same science and many of the same resources, but they are handled separately by the federal government. Air pollution and acid precipitation have been assigned by legislation to EPA as lead agency. An interagency task force on acid precipitation, chaired jointly by EPA, NOAA, and the US Department of Agriculture, provides coordination. However, NOAA funding for this pro-gram has been limited to 5 percent of the total interagency budget (White, 1986). Primary "responsibility" for observing and analyzing changes in stratospheric ozone has been assumed by NASA, while the Department of Energy (DOE) is the "lead agency" in supporting studies of changes in carbon dioxide and of the spread of radioactivity. Consequences of nuclear war are being studied with the encouragement of the Office of Science and Technology Policy by the DOE, DOD, NSF, and the National Climate Program.

As this summary indicates, each of these five interagency air-quality problems is coordinated through a different mech-anism. NOAA is a participant in each area of research, but does not serve as lead agency for any of the areas, even though NOAA data resources and its capabilities in observation and computation provide the essential foundation for long-term air-quality monitoring and research.

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ways. The NOAA Air Resources and Aeronomy Laboratories, though relatively small, have made major scientific contribu-tions in the areas of stratospheric ozone, radioactivity, and carbon dioxide, as well as in air pollution and acid precipitation. NOAA scientists at NOAA-university centers and institutes have been responsible for significant research in atmospheric chemistry.

NOAA personnel are assigned to four EPA laboratories where they constitute the core EPA air-quality research staff. They work on EPA programs, are paid by EPA, but remain administratively as NOAA personnel. They have little influence on EPA policies. EPA has been widely criticized for failing to accord adequate priority to research objectives and for treating research simply as a service to the agency in pursuing its reg-ulatory responsibilities. Viewed nationally, much of the leading research on air-pollution transport, diffusion, and chemistry is carried out by laboratories supported by the DOE, by NSF, and by industry through the Electric Power Research Institute. Co-ordination has been provided for the most part through initi-atives taken at the level of the working scientists.

As a consequence of the low administrative priority given to air-quality research, results are essentially invisible to the policy levels of the US Departments of State, Interior, and Defense; and implications of research on air quality for inter-national relations, use of natural resources, conservation, and national defense can be easily overlooked.

Because air-quality problems are increasing in importance, greater resources probably will be required in the future. For this reason it is especially important that a more-effective ad-ministrative structure be created than exists now.

b. Arctic research No United States agency has lead responsibility for Arctic field research or its management. Whereas specialized national Arc-tic-research institutes operate in Canada, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, West Germany, Iceland, Japan, the United King-dom, and the USSR, there is no similar institute in the United States. Arctic research in the United States is therefore typically short-term and fragmented, and continuity of observations can-not be assured. Antarctic research, on the other hand, is the statutory responsibility of NSF. Although NOAA operates fleets of ships, aircraft, and satellites dedicated to environmental ob-servation, and the agency does conduct Arctic-research pro-grams, it has no leadership role in planning or management of international polar programs. The National Research Council has reviewed the needs for data in Alaska's ocean areas and has assessed NOAA's capabilities for meeting these needs (Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems, 1986). The Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee was created through the Arctic Research and Policy Act of 1984 (Public Law 98-373) to provide coordination and coherence, and the committee has issued a report consisting of research plans to be carried out by the agencies involved in Arctic research (Inter-agency Arctic Research Policy Committee, 1987). These are steps in the right direction; but an interagency committee does not meet the needs for continuity, observational and logistic capabilities, and leadership in international programs. Among the agencies that conceivably could assume interagency lead-ership for Arctic research, namely NOAA, Navy, and NSF, NOAA appears to be the logical choice.

c. Water resources Although problems of water quality and supply are becoming a severe national concern, NOAA's activities in hydrology are minimal. Increased research on the roles of vegetation and soil moisture could pay important dividends in increased under-standing of the hydrologic cycle and its role in global climate change. Computer models of atmospheric processes can con-tribute to better management of water resources, while the models can in turn be improved by incorporating more detailed information on soil moisture and evaporation.

d. Marine mineral resources Despite the dramatic discoveries made by NOAA scientists and others on processes of the ocean floor, which could have great economic significance, NOAA funding for observations and research is minimal. The US Department of Interior and NSF also have strong interests and capabilities in marine mineral research, and a policy decision is needed that will assign inter-agency leadership in this field and that will effectively utilize NOAA's valuable expertise in this area. e. Earth resources satellites Operation of Landsat, the earth-resource-satellite observation program, has been shifted from NOAA to private industry. One result of this action may be to de-emphasize research and ex-ploratory observations in favor of observations with greater near-term economic return; another may be to restrict availa-bility of data for research. The National Research Council, in a recent report on earth observations from space, has pointed out that the United States "faces a crisis caused by the absence of a firm national policy" and that we "are marking time as other countries move toward world leadership" (Space Appli-cations Board, 1985).

The reasons for these five gaps in NOAA's programs are varied. Perhaps the most fundamental is the administrative com-plexity of NOAA's origins and the resulting ambiguity of its missions. As emphasized in "NOAA's Role and the National Interest," legislation is needed to identify more coherently the observations, services, and research that the nation needs and to specify that which is expected of the agency charged with primary responsibilities for them. In the absence of such leg-islation, even if NOAA recognizes a national need for lead-ership in, for example, acid-precipitation research, it may be powerless to act, and the nation may muddle along with an inadequate or poorly focused program.

5. Policy issues

NOAA's missions have arisen over the years in piecemeal fashion. There is no single law that mandates NOAA respon-sibilities or that specifies its relationships to other agencies or to the nongovernment sector. Among unresolved policy issues the following are especially important: resource development, and relationships with the private sector and with the univer-sities. a. Resource development Marine resource development was the focus of interest of the commission that recommended NOAA's creation (Commission

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Bulletin American Meteorological Society 1421 on Marine Science, Engineering and Resources, 1969); and marine resources have been emphasized by the National Ad-visory Committee for Oceans and Atmosphere (NACOA). Dis-cussions of the restructuring of NOAA during the past decade have been dominated by questions concerning the use and de-velopment of natural resources. In early 1977 the Senate Oceans Policy Study and the Office of Technology Assessment pro-duced a draft plan to create a national oceans administration. This would have separated responsibility for atmospheric and oceanic services and research and left atmospheric activities to another agency. Momentum built within Congress and within the newly installed Carter administration to undertake major reorganization of NOAA. However, the case for a joint ocean-atmosphere agency also received strong support and ultimately prevailed within the administration. The EOP responded by initiating the President's Reorganization Project, which sought a wide range of views on the federal organization needed to handle natural resource and environmental issues relating to the atmosphere, the ocean, and the land. This led to a proposal for a department of natural resources (DNR), which would have brought NOAA and USGS and components of other agencies into the new department. The proposal was opposed by NA-COA, which recognized that marine interests might be sub-ordinated to land-resource interests in the new department. Lacking significant support, the proposal went nowhere.

In 1978, NACOA proposed a new department of oceans and atmosphere, independent of the DOC. It emphasized ocean resource development, but also proposed that inclusion of part of NASA in the new department be studied. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Organic Act of 1977, was introduced during the 95th Congress, and hearings were held. At the conclusion of the hearings it was recognized that the organic act did not adequately reflect atmospheric activities, and the bill was not approved. However, the House Committee on Science and Technology and the Senate Committee on Com-merce, Science, and Transportation jointly sponsored two workshops to provide discussion of policy issues related to the atmospheric sciences, and the Congressional Reference Service carried out a staff study of atmospheric services and research in relation to a NOAA organic act (Science Policy Research Division, 1980). No further action was taken in the 96th Con-gress.

The Reagan administration has opposed federal responsibility for marine development; this opposition is, of course, consistent with its general policy concerning government involvement in commercial enterprise. In this instance, application of the pol-icy appears to ignore the importance of national leadership in the recovery of ocean minerals, in fostering the health of world fisheries, and in international negotiations, such as those con-ducted under law of the sea conferences. Marketplace ideology may be leading the nation to an inferior position relative to other nations interested in marine resources. This policy may account in large part for the continuing effort to cut into NOAA's structure and budget and the effort to eliminate NA-COA, finally successful in 1986.

Since 1981, Congress, while defending existing NOAA pro-grams, has not initiated new efforts to enlarge responsibilities for use and development of natural resources. But an agency of this type has many advocates and remains a possible option for the future.

b. Interface with the private sector The relationships of NOAA to the private sector are changing as the value of environmental data and information increase and as technological capabilities grow. Issues have arisen in the relation of weather and satellite services to companies pro-viding services to industry and to radio or television stations reporting the weather, in the relation of weather and ocean services to oil-drilling companies and to shipping companies, in the relation of the fisheries services to commercial aqua-culture, and in many other cases. At one extreme NOAA pro-vides only raw observations; at the other extreme services are provided, which could be provided by the private sector. In many cases issues are complex and controversial. They are illustrated by the questions: How much of the cost of producing marine charts should be borne by the government and how much by individual users? Should such charts be distributed by the government or by the private sector?

Certain existing policies and actions contribute to the public interest, while others appear to be responses to special interests. The public interest is well served through the NWS providing hurricane warnings along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, while private companies provide specialized forecasting services for operation of offshore oil-drilling platforms. On the other hand, the present administration's efforts to turn over the weather satellites to private industry, and Congress' insistence that the NWS provide a special frost-warning service to the citrus-fruit industry are examples of policies contrary to the public interest, as defined by most observers.

The appropriate roles of NOAA and the private sector have been discussed in reports of NACOA (e.g. National Advisory Committee on the Oceans and Atmosphere, 1982), and congres-sional hearings have given it considerable attention without resolving it in any sense. A contract study of the NWS carried out in 1983 to identify minimum-service levels to meet legal requirements concluded that the NOAA-private-sector rela-tionship was complex, and sweeping conclusions and recom-mendations were not offered (Booz, Allen and Hamilton, Inc., 1983). So the appropriate roles of NOAA and the private sector remain uncertain and fluid. c. NOAA-university relations NOAA and its predecessor agencies have long been criticized for failing to establish stronger relationships with universities. NOAA invests the smallest proportion of its R&D funds in universities of any of the agencies with major interests in the natural environment. For FY 1984, the last year for which reliable figures are available, 11 percent of the NOAA atmos-pheric R&D budget was invested in university research (Com-mittee on Atmosphere and Ocean of the Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering and Technology, 1986). This contrasts dramatically with the corresponding figures for other mission agencies: NASA, 27 percent; EPA, 29 percent; DOE, 24 percent; DOD, 23 percent; Interior, 27 percent; Agriculture, 26 percent. For all agencies, 27 percent of the atmospheric R&D funding supported university research. Although these figures are limited to atmospheric R&D, there is no reason to believe that the contrast between NOAA and other agencies would be greatly different if ocean and fishery R&D were included. Consequences of this weak support for university research include negative effects on research output for the

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agency, difficulty in applying appropriate research standards, and difficulty in recruiting.

It is important to note that NOAA Administrators and senior officials have recognized the need for closer relationships with universities. Cooperative NOAA-university institutes and cen-ters have been established at several universities, and NOAA "funds" the Sea Grant Program and a small number of uni-versity research projects. In fact, the 11 percent reported for FY 1984 represents an increase from 7 percent in FY 1978. But the administration has failed to recognize the importance of basic research to NOAA's missions; in addition to exerting constant pressure to reduce NOAA research budgets, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in 1983 required that NOAA no longer identify any of its research as "basic." And, although Congress has resisted administration cuts in the NOAA budget, it has not focused on the research budget; and Congress as a whole does not recognize the importance of basic research to NOAA's missions. Fundamental changes are needed to enable NOAA to further strengthen its relationships with universities.

The White House Science Council has recently studied the relationships of government agencies to universities and has emphasized the crucial links between the health of the uni-versities and the strength of the nation and its quality of life (White House Science Council, 1986). Recommendations made in the council's report, if implemented, could dramatically strengthen NOAA's relationships with universities and increase its capabilities across a broad front.

6. Alternative solutions

There are several administrative changes that could be taken to correct NOAA's weaknesses while retaining existing strengths. These possible changes differ, of course, in their impacts on other agencies and their individual missions. The choice among them, therefore, must involve a variety of in-terests and finally a political decision.

a. A National Ocean, Atmosphere and Space Administration (NOAS A)

The Space Science Board of the National Research Council has proposed an assessment of the space program (National Re-search Council, 1986). Such an assessment could examine the contribution to national interests made by the NASA programs of earth observations, astronomy, space exploration, space sta-tion and shuttle. It might include consideration of consolidation of NASA and NOAA.

Advantages of a consolidated NASA and NOAA include greater visibility for problems of the natural environment and the possibility of shifting the balance of funding toward earth observations, increased administrative independence for envi-ronmental research and services, and stronger management and coordination of interagency and international programs. A cor-responding disadvantage might be that environmental research and services could be overwhelmed within the agency by the much more expensive space programs. Another disadvantage is that resources available to research centers and university scientists might be reduced. Also, it probably would be difficult to weigh the value of the national prestige of space programs

and the more-tangible value of environmental research and services on the same scale. But there could be benefits to space programs as well as to environmental programs if objectives could be identified that were clearly defined and that attracted broad support. b. A Department of Natural Resources (DNR) NOAA might be incorporated in a DNR, as proposed during the Carter administration. The chief advantages to organizing around natural resources lie in the sharper administrative focus on the agency's objectives, the greater concentration of funds, personnel, and facilities that might be achieved, and in the larger constituency that could be anticipated for a natural re-sources agency. Policy issues relating to the use, conservation, and development of natural resources could be considered more easily within the bounds of one department. And the department would have a major role in deciding the relative emphases to be placed on the various natural resources and on their devel-opment, conservation, and regulation.

One disadvantage lies in the probable greater emphasis on use of natural resources than on public safety and welfare as basic objectives of the department or agency. This could lead to short-term perspectives and to the neglect of the forward-looking research on which national and global welfare in the twenty-first century depends. Another disadvantage is that re-sponsibility for development would be likely to conflict with and perhaps compromise responsibilities for conservation and regulation. c. An independent NOAA Perhaps the most direct and simplest solution to NOAA's problems could be achieved through legislation establishing NOAA as an independent agency and specifying its responsi-bilities. This would free NOAA from subordination within the business-oriented Department of Commerce, and would provide an opportunity to formulate coherent, clear objectives. This alternative could include transfer of the NASA earth-observing programs to the new NOAA. The steps leading to legislation along these lines could be facilitated by appointment of a pres-idential commission or similar body charged with reviewing NOAA's present program, proposing the objectives of an in-dependent NOAA, and identifying steps to enable it to meet the new objectives.

An independent NOAA would have increased visibility on the government "landscape;" and communications with the OMB, the White House, and Congress would be more direct than has been the case in the past. Its program should be better understood by the public, and this should make it easier for the agency to respond to new challenges and demands. On the other hand, an independent NOAA probably would be small compared to other highly visible agencies, and it might there-fore be vulnerable in interagency contests over jurisdiction and budgets.

7. Conclusion: New legislation

The third of the alternatives outlined here (independent NOAA) is best, in the opinion of the author. Once a new, independent agency has been given a clear and adequate charter by Con-

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Bulletin American Meteorological Society 1423 gress, it should be in a far-stronger position to exert leadership and to secure a stable base of resources. The various missions of the agency would be reasonably coherent and comparable in their required resources. And as an agency with responsi-bilities that are likely to grow in number and in scientific and practical interest, a new, independent NOAA should be able to compete successfully with older and larger agencies.

Regardless of the choice of administrative structure, certain steps are essential in order for any administrative structure to be successful. NOAA should be released from the DOC dom-ination either by becoming an independent agency, by becom-ing part of a new department, or by consolidation in an existing independent agency. This step could be implemented by ex-ecutive order, but it would be better if it were based on the report of a presidential or congressional commission or similar group appointed to formulate new NOAA objectives. The com-mission could be charged with considering objectives for the agency such as the health of the global environment, marine mineral development, service to the general public, fishery conservation, and others, and with ordering priorities among them. Legislation could be proposed that would provide a clear statement of mission, would clarify the agency's role in inter-agency programs, and would recognize the essential role that research must play in the new agency. The legislation would establish the administrative and budgetary structure to imple-ment the statement of mission.

These steps are likely to encounter political opposition. The DOC would probably resist the loss of its largest component. The EOP, which has sought to reduce the range of NOAA activities, may not be willing to support creation of a stronger and independent agency. The several congressional committees with responsibilities for NOAA budgets would be reluctant to yield responsibilities to another committee. But many agency administrators and congressmen also recognize the need for stronger agency leadership in observations, operations, and research concerned with the ocean and atmosphere. The US government has proved capable of making difficult decisions in the past. There is an urgent need now for such a decision regarding NOAA's future role.

References

Booz, Allen and Hamilton, Inc., 1983: National Weather Service: A strategy and organization concept for the future, Booz, Allen and Hamilton, Inc., Bethesda, Md., 109 pp.

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