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Bureau of the Census

The Census Bureau provides a continuing statistical profile of the Nation, measuring the significant social and economic developments in each geographic area. The Bureau's statistics are used to guide government programs costing billions of dollars annually, and they play a part in most business decisions.

Census taking in the United States has its foundation in the Constitution, which requires a census of population every 10 years to determine each State's share of the membership in the House of Representatives. The first census was taken in 1790, and the most recent in 1970. As directed by Congress, population censuses obtained a gradually increasing volume of data on the social and economic characteristics of the population down through the years. Because of the everincreasing demand for up-to-date statistics, the Bureau will start taking a mid-decade census in 1985.

In addition, other censuses were developed to fill particular data needs. Today, in addition to the population census and the 10-year census of housing, the Bureau takes 5-year censuses of retail trade, wholesale trade, selected service industries, manufactures, mineral industries, construction, transportation, agriculture, and governments.

Between censuses, the Bureau collects current data to monitor economic and social trends in the Nation and issues reports that vary in frequency of publication. Included are annual, quarterly, monthly, and even weekly reports covering such subjects as population characteristics, retail and

wholesale trade, industrial production, service industries, housing, construction, and State and local governments. The Bureau also compiles and publishes monthly data on U.S. exports and imports.

The Census Bureau takes special census of population at the request and expense of local areas, and often makes surveys for other agencies of government. For example, monthly data on unemployment are collected for the Department of Labor; a continuing health survey is conducted for the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, as well as crime surveys for the Department of Justice.

The Census Bureau issues thousands of pages of statistics each year. However, information concerning each person or business by law is kept completely confiidential and may not be made available to any person or organization outside the Bureau. Only the individual concerned can obtain information from his own questionnaire.

The Census Bureau publishes several widely used compilations of statistical information. These include the Statistical Abstract, issued annually; the Pocket Data Book, issued biennially; the County and City Data Book: the Congressional District Data Book; and Historical Statistics of the United States.

In improving its own techniques, the Census Bureau has contributed to many developments, including: sampling methods for surveys; punchcard systems for data processing; the first electronic computer for data processing; an optical scanning instrument to record data to be processed by computers; and computerized geographic coding of street addresses.

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Bureau of Economic Analysis

The Bureau of Economic Analysis carries a major share of responsibility for the general economic analysis that is done in the Department of Commerce. In reporting on the state of the United States economy, BEA uses primarily a comprehensive set of national economic accounts, which it has been developing over the past several decades. These have to do with national income and gross national product, international transactions, inputoutput, and the extensive body of regional economic information.

The national income and product accounts constitute the best known part of BEA's economic accounting framework. These accounts are summarized by the gross national product (GNP). They provide an up-to-date, overall view of national production, and its distribution among consumers, business, government, and the foreign. customers of the United States. GNP registers both the value of all goods and services produced and the costs incurred and incomes generated in the production process.

The international transaction accounts provide a complete and systematic view of all economic transactions between the United States and foreign countries. Major types of transactions covered include exports, imports, travel, transportation, foreign aid, private capital flows, and changes in official reserve assets.

The national economic accounting framework established by BEA has become a mainstay of modern economic analysis concerned with such key issues as inflation, economic

growth, the distribution of income, and the Nation's role in the world economy. Probably never before have economic yardsticks of this kind played such an influential role in the formulation of government and private business policies.

One of BEA's recently developed set of economic accounts is the U.S. input-output table, which shows what each industry buys from and sells to every other industry in the economy. The table provides a cross-sectional view of the economy that is especially useful for industry analyses and projections. The first input-output table published by BEA covered the year 1958; a new and more detailed one for 1967 appeared in 1974. Annual updates are made for broad industry categories.

In order to provide perspective on the economy below the national level, BEA issues reports on income and employment by States, regions, and counties. Detailed estimates of personal income for the metropolitan

areas in the Nation go back to 1929.

BEA has done pioneer work in its surveys of business plans, the best known being the quarterly and annual surveys of business expenditures for plant and equipment. These surveys provide the best clues to the behavior of a dynamic part of our

economy.

The agency's data and analyses are published in its monthly magazine, Survey of Current Business. The magazine regularly contains-in addition to charts and a wealth of statistics-a review of recent business developments, together with analyses of significant emerging trends, and special articles that contribute to a better understanding of the economy.

Each month the Bureau publishes Business Conditions Digest, reporting trends of about 300 significant indicators of the Nation's economy, and presenting the composite index of leading indicators which foreshadows broad movements in the economy in the short term.

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National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

OAA, the National Oceanic and

NOAA

Atmospheric Administration, was created in 1970 to serve as a leader in a national effort to improve our understanding and uses of the earth's physical environment and its oceanic life.

Its formation brought together the functions of the Commerce Department's Environmental Science Services Administration (including its major elements: the Weather Bureau, Coast and Geodetic Survey, Environmental Data Service, National Environmental Satellite Center, and Research Laboratories); the Interior Department's Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, Marine Game Fish Research Program, and Marine Minerals Technology Center; the Navy-administered National Oceanographic Data Center and National Oceanographic Instrumentation Center; the Coast Guard's National Data Buoy Development Project; the National Science Foundation's National Sea Grant Program; and elements of the Army Corps of Engineers' U.S. Lake Survey.

NOAA scientists and engineers measure processes within the global ocean, study interactions among sea and land and sea and atmosphere, and map the geophysical structure and resources of the ocean floor. They describe and conserve the living resources of the sea, seek to develop new ones, and link the responses of marine life to environmental changes. They survey the varied faces of the continents, and monitor the effects of solar radiation on the earth and near-earth environment. They monitor and predict conditions in the atmosphere and ocean, and issue timely warnings against such destructively natural events as hurricanes, tornadoes, winter storms, seis

mic sea waves, and floods, and the potentially disruptive environmental changes which occur over decades, generations, centuries. They are investigating how man may modify the environment-constructively and destructively, deliberately and inadvertently. They work on a global scale, over a broad range of earth-looking disciplines, using as tools a mix of artificial satellites, instrumented aircraft, research ships, submarines and undersea habitats, automated sensor stations, laboratories, and giant computers. Through NOAA, the Commerce Department is applying the knowledge gained from this focus of scientific and technological expertise and experience to the benefit of the Nation and humankind.

NOAA combines the functions of several Federal activities in the environmental and marine biological sciences and related technologies. Through its major organizational elements the National Ocean Survey, National Weather Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, National Environmental Satellite Service, Environmental Research Laboratories, and Environmental Data ServiceNOAA carries out its broad programs of service and research.

NOAA administers and directs the National Sea Grant Program. This program provides support for institutions engaged in comprehensive marine research, education, and advisory service programs, supports individual projects in marine research and development, and sponsors education of ocean scientists and engineers, marine technicians, and other specialists at selected colleges and universities.

The agency also administers the Coastal Zone Management Program,

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to preserve and protect, develop and restore, the Nation's coastal resources. Through a system of Federal grants, coastal states are aided in the development and operation of effective management programs. Through the related Coastal Energy Impact Program, allotments are granted states to help communities plan for and deal with the effects of coastal energy development in the coastal zone.

The National Ocean Survey prepares and distributes nautical and aeronautical charts, conducts precise geodetic and oceanographic surveys, and predicts tides and currents. It maps and charts American coastal waters, the Great Lakes, and navigable waters of the New York State Barge Canal System, Lake Champlain, and the Minnesota-Ontario Border Lakes. The National Ocean Survey manages NOAA's research and survey ships and their coastal facilities. It is responsible for the development of a national system of automatic ocean buoys for obtaining essentially continuous marine environmental data. It also provides the national focus point for technology related to instrument measurement, evaluation, and the reliability of sensing systems for ocean use.

The Survey employs approximately 2,500 persons. Its major facilities include the Atlantic and Pacific Marine Centers, at Norfolk, Va., and Seattle, Wash.; the Lake Survey Center in Detroit; and a network of geophysical observatories.

The National Weather Service reports the weather of the United States and its possessions, provides weather forecasts to the general public, issues warnings against tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and other weather hazards and, in the Pacific, seismic sea waves, and records the climate of the

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United States. The Weather Service
also develops and furnishes specialized
weather services which support the
needs of agriculture, aviation, mari-
time, space, and military operations.
These services are supported by a
national network of observing and
forecasting stations, communications
links, aircraft, satellite systems and
computers.

The Weather Service's 5,000 em-
ployees are located at approximately
400 facilities within the 50 states, at
overseas stations, and on ships at sea.
Special facilities include the National
Meteorological Center in Suitland,
Md.; the National Hurricane Center
in Miami, Fla.; and the National
Severe Storms Forecast Center in Kan-
sas City, Mo.

The National Marine Fisheries Service seeks to discover, describe, develop, and conserve the living resources of the global sea, especially as these affect the American economy and diet.

The Fisheries Service conducts biological research on economically important species, analyzes economic aspects of fisheries operations rates, develops methods

for improving

catches, and, in cooperation with the
U.S. Department of State, is active in
international fisheries affairs. With the
U.S. Coast Guard, the National Ma-
rine Fisheries Service conducts en-
forcement and surveillance operations
on the high seas and in territorial
waters. It also studies game fish be-
havior and resources, seeks to describe
the ecological relationships between
game fish and other marine and estu-
arine organisms, and investigates the
effects on game fish of thermal and
chemical pollution. It administers and
enforces the Marine Mammal Protec-
tion Act of 1972, with respect to

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