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Message to the Congress Transmitting Annual Report on the Federal Ocean Program.

September 11, 1972

To the Congress of the United States:

It is with pleasure that I transmit today the report of the Federal Ocean Program. It has been a year of significant accomplishments and continued evolution of new directions to know, conserve, and use the sea.

A most important characteristic of our maturing ocean program is that we are increasingly viewing our efforts in the marine environment from the fresh perspectives illuminated by our need for its abundant resources and by the necessity to search carefully into the consequences of our actions in its development. We must insure the proper balance of these through measures which are compatible with the long-term maintenance of a healthy marine environment.

During 1971, strong emphasis was placed on improvements in the management of our marine living and nonliving resources, on easing pressures which threaten certain species with extinction, and on enforcement of measures to prevent environmental pollution and degradation. We have stepped up our studies of the ways in which we must manage our coastal zones to protect our fisheries, to make them available for marine transportation, to minimize pollution, and to enhance their recreational values. I have recommended legislation to establish national land use policy programs which include priority provisions for coastal zone management.

Further, in view of our increasing concern with energy supplies to sustain the Nation's economic growth and the health and well-being of our people, the Federal Ocean Program moved to explore the geophysical and geological character of our continental shelves. It should be recorded that 1971 was the year in which the Federal Government began to move vigorously to map and chart these promising submerged lands and their resource potential.

A major share of the Federal Ocean Program continued to support vital national defense objectives related to operations in the marine environment. Nevertheless, the major program increases of the past few years and those for the coming year are in the civil sector. Among the important accomplishments have been the increasing momentum to provide the operational capability for man to do useful work beneath the sea through application of research submersibles and laboratory habitats; the development of a system for the assessment of the abundance and distribution of harvestable living marine resources; and the designation of the first four Sea Grant Colleges.

Our efforts to explore the marine environment have been increasingly characterized by the trend toward major large-scale studies conducted by Federal agencies in national programs such as the Marine Ecosystems Analysis study of the New York Bight, and with other nations in international programs, such as the International Field Year for the Great Lakes and the International Decade of Ocean Exploration. In these, we are moving out to the ocean "laboratories" with arrays of ships, specially designed buoys, aircraft, earth-orbiting satellites, and submersibles to apply collective efforts to solve special problems and to advance knowledge and understanding.

I am pleased to report, also, the continued strengthening of Federal ties, both in scope and level of activity, with industry, state and local governments, and universities. I consider this a most essential aspect underlying our marine programs. As I have stated in the past, private industry, state and local governments, scientific and other institutions must increase their own efforts if we are to continue our headway toward solving the myriad of marine problems.

My budget request for the Fiscal Year 1973 provides $672 million in support of our programs in marine science, engineering, and services, an increase of more than $60 million over last year's request. This budget will enable us to continue our advances in all areas of importance to our vital and increasing national interest in the seas.

RICHARD NIXON

THE WHITE HOUSE,

September 11, 1972.

Note: The message is printed in the report entitled "The Federal Ocean Program: The Annual Report of the President to the Congress on the Nation's Efforts to Comprehend, Conserve, and Use the Sea April 1972" (Government Printing Office, 121 pp.).

Richard Nixon, Message to the Congress Transmitting Annual Report on the Federal Ocean Program. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/254927

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