Answer 1. Without accepting the premise that the NSF has always had difficulty selling itself-I should like to repeat the broader point from my prepared testimony that science has had difficulty selling itself to the Congress and to the American public. The NSF, however, does have an opportunity to help mitigate that problem: by describing in specific terms how science and engineering contribute to the public weal; by reciting the payoff of science investments in the long run and the need to continue to sustain the long term as well as the short term point of view; to express the meaning of science and engineering in terms of public policy questions rather than in terms of scientific questions; to improve the substance as well as the mode of communication between science and the non-scientific world, and in so doing to counter isolation from the political domain; and finally, to take advantage of the new authorization for policy level staff to strengthen the Foundation's capabilities both regarding its internal planning and its interface with other Federal agencies and the many communities of interest beyond that of science itself.

Question 2. Will you elaborate on how you believe Congress might improve its organization and staffing in order to deal more knowledgeably with matter relating to science and technology.

Answer 2. This was responded to in supplemental information provided on August 18.

Question 3. With respect to your suggestion for the creation of multidisciplinary research institutes to focus on social goals, please enumerate the areas which you believe should receive consideration.

Answer 3. This was also responded to previously as to candidate areas for multi-disciplinary research institutes. I should like to elaborate, however, on the role of such institutions

1. To develop a multi-disciplinary base of technical competence that would provide facts and analysis for subsequent decision-making.

2. To conduct research needed to fill gaps in that knowledge.

3. To provide an improved coupling between the different institutional interests related to the issues; i.e., Federal and State governments, industry and academia. 4. To provide a meeting place between the general public whose welfare is intimately involved in each of these topic areas and those who will make the decisions concerned.

Question 4. You have now had experience in a focal position on two major Executive Office coordinating bodies—the Federal Council for Science and Technology and your present assignment. Under what conditions can voluntary interagency coordinating bodies be effective? What have you found to be the major drawbacks to coordination by this means?

Answer 4. The success of Executive Office level coordinating bodies depends upon :

1. Expression of interest by the President in specific topic areas that cross different agency lines and have a Presidential priority, but fail to be the prime responsibility of any single agency.

2. Provision of sufficient professional staff to develop facts, analysis of issues, and recommendations for action-after consultation with the agencies and other interests involved, but independent of such special interests.

3. Some ability to review and comment on the funding involved.

4. Determination that such a body has an important role to play and a willingness to take a bold position even on unpopular recommendations-without watering down the decisions to some ineffective common denominator.

Question 5. Has the application of planning-programming-budgeting methods and techniques had measurable effects on the management or organization of Federal science activities in your field of interest? Please elaborate.

Answer 5. It is difficult to have quantitative answers from PPBS in the field of science and technology because both costs and benefits may be subject to many uncertainties. The concept, however, has validity, particularly when planning is conducted with adequate specificity in terms of goals, each one of which is matched by plans for achievement, and where limitations are recognized in applying cost-benefit criteria to societal and economic goals. The limitations of such planning should also not be permitted to squeeze out flexibility or opportunities for higher risk undertakings.

Mr. DADDARIO. But I do have another question which relates itself to some of the questions asked of you by Mr. Mosher, because in this whole matter of organization I think we have got to look at the admin

istration and policy of how we in Government deal with science. You have cautioned us to increase our involvement with those people in the scientific technical community who can give us advice. This committee has established a whole series of connections along that line for a long time. We are now in an area where the country is seeking tax reform in the sense of beginning to deal with whether or not the Congress will strengthen or weaken this capability.

There is a proposal, as I understand it, before the Ways and Means Committee at the moment which cautions the learned societies that they must not engage in political activities. They eliminate the words "no substantial part," which would mean that they would engage not at all. Isn't this one of the policy problems which this Congress should look to? Shouldn't we watch carefully legislation which prevents us from having these advisory connections?

Dr. WENK. Mr. Chairman, I was not aware of that provision, and I have to agree with you completely, that this is a matter of great con

cern.

As one who has participated in a number of engineering professional organizations, I have taken the initiative to try and encourage them to think through these issues and to volunteer spontaneous comment or views, or try to make it clear that they were available if they were asked. This is one of the important mechanisms by which you can gain a better understanding of science and technology than we have had before.

And I must agree with you completely, this is a matter of concern. I was not aware of this provision.

Mr. DADDARIO. Well, your reply to Mr. Mosher compels me to ask these questions and to say, that I have written to the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Mills, and to every one of its members advising of the activities which have taken place in this area over the last 4 or 5 years during which we have tried to spell out what the responsibilities of these societies are and to open up doors of opportunity so that we may seek advice in a better way than that which presently exists, and to indicate that the courts have-the Supreme Court itself having reviewed some of these matters-begun to establish a precedent which allows for this to develop in a meaningful way. It would be my hope that these doors would be kept open and that the Ways and Means Committee would not go further than perhaps to spell out and develop guidelines which would further illustrate its feelings about what "no substantial part" might mean.

Dr. WENK. I am not sure what those who proposed that legislation were trying to guard against. It is not my impression that these professional societies, except those that have publicly identified themselves as lobbying organizations, do in fact lobby.

Mr. DADDARIO. At any rate, I bring this up because I think that is an important point, and also to illustrate that as this committee looks at this particular problem, it goes beyond organization; it goes into the way in which we develop policy and the way in which what we do manage, and that this all fits together in what the committee will eventually recommend. Although I would expect that somewhere along the line, we should do better. I would think that-my offhand observation of the testimony before us and the study which this committee

has undertaken in the past would mean that we should do better than to leave things where they are, including the feeling that Dr. DuBridge's office, now having responsibilities in environment, urban affairs, space, marine sciences, a whole multitude of other things, ought to be strengthened to have the manpower capability and the facility capability to perform these functions in more than a perfunctory

way.

Dr. WENK. Several years ago I had the occasion to look at the role of the Office of Science and Technology and I believe the essence of that analysis was that their capabilities should indeed be strengthened. If I could just comment on this last point you raised, Mr. Daddario, and that is the matter of the professional organizations' involvement. Let me just say from the point of view of my own responsibility, I have tried at least to practice what you have heard preached here. In marine sciences, we have specifically gone to all of the industrial and professional organizations that we know have interest and specifically solicited advice. This was done quite overtly. The interesting thing is that we got some, and in one or two cases it is known that the Government doesn't agree with the advice that we received. But nevertheless, this it seemed to me was a very necessary part of understanding how this works.

We have gone to the American Fisheries Institute, we have gone to the National Petroleum Council, we have gone to the Marine Technology Society, to the American Society of Civil Engineers, and specifically to the two academies, Academy of Science and Academy of Engineering, in what is going to be a long-term continuing request for advice.

I really believe the Government has got to do this, and I believe that it should be made clear that legislation might inadvertently cut off this mechanism of really understanding what it is that the country needs.

Mr. MOSHER. Mr. Chairman, isn't that proposal aimed not only at learned societies and not so much at learned societies as foundations and other institutions? I think it would be a disaster, myself.

Mr. DADDARIO. I was limiting my comment to the engagement in no substantial part rather than the other complicated factors dealing with the foundations which we could go into, but simply to talk about that from the point of view of the committee's involvement on that subject and the way in which that does fit into the hopes and ambitions of this committee and is a proper part, too, of development of our ability as a committee of the Congress to provide for the Congress better advice specifically along the lines Mr. Mosher has inquired about. I do not believe, either, that the only time a society should offer its advice is when it has been asked because there may be times when it has something of particular importance which it should come forth with.

Dr. WENK. I agree.

Mr. DADDARIO. Even if it has not been asked. Because there could be many occasions when this could be so. That involves itself in the no substantial part. There ought to be flexibility, I believe.

Well, Dr. Wenk, I do have a whole series of other questions, and we do want Dr. Handler to finish his testimony today. We thank you for having come. We appreciate your candor.

Dr. WENK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DADDARIO. Thank you.

Dr. Handler?

I need not say anything more about our next witness, Dr. Philip Handler, than that this is the first time he appears before this committee as Chairman of the National Science Board and as President of the National Academy of Sciences rather than when he appeared on the last occasion as president-elect of that academy. His biographical background and relationship to this committee is well known.

Let's go as far as we can go, this morning, Dr. Handler.

STATEMENT OF DR. PHILIP HANDLER, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Dr. HANDLER. Thank you very much.

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I am most pleased to appear before you this morning to participate in what I consider to be a most timely discussion of a major problem in our society. I would like to join Mr. Mosher in applauding the lyrical statement by Dr. Wenk which I thoroughly enjoyed, and to most of which I couldn't conceivably take exception.

Although I wear several titles, it is not in those capacities that I speak this morning. The views I shall present are entirely personal, since, in this instance, I am not as yet empowered to speak for the membership of either the National Academy of Sciences or of the National Science Board. Neither group, as such, has, as yet, addressed these problems or arrived at a consensus. The Board does, however, hope to speak to this problem sometime this fall and bring to you and to the President, a well considered statement documenting the case in some detail. What I have to say this morning, however, is a purely personal statement.

The Federal Government is today the principal patron of science and science education in these United States. This situation stems from the fact that science is useful rather than from the fact that the intellectual structure of science, largely erected within our own lifetimes, is a magnificent heritage which we shall leave for succeeding generations, entirely analogous to the gift of the cathedrals of the middle ages or the great art of the Renaissance. It is because science breeds technology which is applicable to the solution of the diverse problems of our national life as well as to our national defense that the Federal Government provided about $2.25 billion toward the support of fundamental research in the last fiscal year and almost twice that much for the support of what is called applied research. Support of science on that scale has not been the result of a conscious, overt, planned decision on the part of the Federal Government. It is, rather, the sum of a multitude of lesser decisions made within the White House, a variety of Federal agencies, and the congressional committees which have legislative and fiscal oversight for those agencies.

In one set of actions the Federal Government did overtly and deliberately recognize the contribution which science had already made to our national life and which it was expected to make in the future-actions which, seemingly, were intended to assure that that

future contribution will be of the magnitude and quality commensurate with its recognized potential. I speak of the creation in 1950 of the National Science Foundation and those legislative acts which, since, have strengthened its charter.

Ironically, however, the growth of Federal science support far outstripped the growth of appropriations to the National Science Foundation which, in fiscal year 1969, provided only 15 percent of the Federal support of academic science and 12 percent of the Federal support of basic research. The evident reluctance to sustain the growth of the National Science Foundation, the 20-percent decrease in its appropriation for fiscal year 1969 and the action of the House with regard to the NSF appropriation in the current year may all be taken as evidence that many Members of the Congress are unpersuaded that support of the national scientific enterprise, unjustified in terms of specific agency missions, is a matter of high priority. On the other hand, the Congress has consistently looked with favor upon the support of research which, in the eyes of those responsible for the missions of such agencies as the Atomic Energy Commission, NASA, HEW, and the Defense Department, is imperative to future success in their missions.

Yet, today, there is increasingly frequent reference to the desirability of reorganization of the Federal structure for the support and conduct of science. Opinions in this regard and the rationales which underlie such suggestions have been admirably summarized in the report entitled "Centralization of Federal Science Activities," a report to this committee prepared by the Science Policy Research Division of the Legislative Reference Service of the Library of Congress.

No point will be served by detailed repetition, here, of the diverse arguments which have been advanced, pro and con, with respect to the desirability of creation of a major new Federal agency dedicated to the Federal support and/or conduct of scientific research. The principal pro arguments, however, derive from the failure of science support to increase through four consecutive fiscal years, and the increasing evidence that, as predicted, in times of budgetary stringency, those responsible for administration of the mission agencies necessarily defend those activities most closely related to immediate accomplishment of their missions so that their most long-range scientific research programs may receive short shrift.

Moreover, from the standpoint of the Congress there has been increasing concern with respect to the amount of overlap and duplication of effort in this relatively uncoordinated system administered by a series of Federal agencies, with the possibility of inequities in the geographic distribution of funds when, for no one major agency, certainly no "mission agency," is this a major responsibility, with the difficulties of liason and of information storage and retrieval, concern with respect to the contents of these diverse programs, and with respect to the efficiency of use of federally owned and operated laboratories. Meanwhile, the OST in the White House, charged with "coordination" of the Federal science effort, is woefully understaffed for this task and can hope only to achieve a few major planning efforts and the day-to-day "firefighting" as problems arise. From the standpoint of the administrators of some agencies, overlapping jurisdictional authority