Clean Water Initiative will help the Federal Government continue to assist state and local communities as they respond to outbreaks of harmful algal blooms such as Pfiesteria and red tide.

Preserve and Enhance Scientific Infrastructure addresses the Administration's deep-seated commitment to harnessing the power and promise of leading-edge advances in technology, which are so crucial to the Nation for the 21st century, especially our critical capacity to engage and win in the increasingly competitive global economy. The Advanced Technology Program will continue to provide resources for the cost-shared exploration and development of precompetitive, high-risk technologies with significant commercial potential. In addition, the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program will continue to assist the Nation's 382,000 small and medium sized manufacturers assimilate new technologies and manufacturing processes. The Commerce Department's technical infrastructure - once the envy of the world, but now increasingly unable to keep up with new and more sophisticated vital research -must be modernized. This includes an Advanced Metrology Laboratory at NIST, which will provide a new state-of-the-art facility capable of conducting sophisticated research and developing critical metrology standards. In addition, NOAA's Climate and Global Change program supports sustainable development by addressing scientific issues associated with long-term climate and air quality.

Promote Natural Disaster Reduction recognizes that while we cannot control the forces of nature and their $50 billion annual devastations of American communities, workplaces, and homes, we can do three things: move out of harm's way, keep out of harm's way, and promote long-term recovery. This initiative focuses Commerce programs' capacity to act as key agents of change for improving the Nation's ability to save lives and reduce the costs of future natural disasters.

Restoring funding for the National Weather Service base operations pursuant to the

recommendations of retired General John Kelly Jr., is a key component of this initiative.

Economic and Trade Assistance for Impacted Communities will enable the Department through a new office in EDA to coordinate the Federal response to communities and localities experiencing major plant closings or adjusting to changing trade patterns. As our Nation's economy evolves with the infusion of new trading partners and shifting needs, this coordinated effort will give our communities the tools they need to compete in the global marketplace as effectively as possible.

Support Public Broadcasting Digital Conversion provides a commitment to ensure that public broadcasting is modernized to support education and cultural programming in under-served areas of the country. As the broadcasting industry converts to digital equipment, the public broadcasting stations must keep pace, but these stations will have difficulty generating the resources to invest in necessary technology required to retain their spectrum licenses. NTIA, in a joint program with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, will provide grants to stations which support the conversion, and promote greater efficiency and innovation in the public broadcasting system.

Promote Electronic Commerce is the strategy announced by the President in July 1997, to expand economic growth through the Internet and other computer-based communications. Our world-class technological capabilities in areas such as telecommunications and encryption, and our responsibilities for functions including intellectual property protection, place Commerce at the forefront of this initiative which is so critical to the Nation's leadership role in the 21st century. Our FY 1999 activities under this initiative include: Census will implement the International Trade Data System to improve collection of critical trade data; NTIA will improve spectrum availability for public safety needs, reduce Adjacent Band interference, implement a New Technology Application initiative, and through the National Information Infrastructure Grants program, will encourage more widespread commerce via the Internet and ensure that the latest

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technological advances are applied to develop the world's best telecommunications information infrastructure; MBDA will make information, consulting, and business opportunities more available on the Internet; PTO will make its services more Internet accessible; and, ITA will work to ensure that American firms are not disadvantaged by foreign regulation of electronic commerce and help our firms harness this technology as a way to increase exports.

STRATEGIC PLANNING AND THE FY 1999 BUDGET: COMMERCE SETS A CONTEXT FOR THE FUTURE

The Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) requires that agencies develop strategic plans that contain goals, objectives, and performance measures for all major programs. As a Department, we have embarked actively on an effort to capitalize on the synergy between our programs, and to implement a strategic plan which enunciates a central mission statement and links our programs together. The Commerce Strategic Plan, issued in September 1997, does just that.

As stated in the Strategic Plan, our Mission Statement and three Strategic Themes are:

The Department of Commerce promotes job creation, economic growth, sustainable development, and improved living standards for all Americans, by working in partnership with business, universities, communities, and workers to:

Theme 1. Build for the future and promote U.S. competitiveness in the global marketplace, by strengthening and safeguarding the Nation's economic infrastructure. (We call this the Economic Infrastructure Theme.)

Theme 2. Keep America competitive with cuttingedge science and technology and an unrivaled Information base. (This is the Science. Technology, and Information Theme)

Theme 3. Provide effective management and stewardship of the Nation's resources and assets to ensure sustainable economic opportunities. (This theme covers our Resources/Assets shin activities.)

A key advantage of our Strategic Plan's structure is its flexibility, which recognizes that some programs can have dual applications. For example, some technology programs can be cited under Theme 1 because they support the expansion of the economic infrastructure, as well as Theme 2, because they focus on technological innovation. Similarly, the content and application of patentable new scientific and technological discoveries fall under Theme 2, but the protection of the rights to this intellectual property - an important National asset – equally makes these programs candidates for Theme 3.

Under the Secretary's leadership, the Department of Commerce will use the Strategic Plan to establish a context for the future and will use the FY 1999 budget to take important steps toward that future.

To pursue the Commerce mission, and to ensure the success of the three Strategic Themes, we need new insights, new information, and application of new technology, all brought together in a unique way. As America moves into the 21st century, the capabilities and services delivered by the Department will be key to our domestic security and global competitiveness. Commerce is the only Federal department whose structure encourages the integration of economics, trade and business development, environmental stewardship, technology and information. The integrated whole is greater, and far more powerful on behalf of the Nation, than the sum of these separate parts.

The Themes within the Commerce Strategic Plan create a setting for identifying and capitalizing on relationships among bureaus, and on partnerships with other agencies and external groups. The Plan supports the concept that strong working relationships will serve to strengthen the effectiveness of the Department as a whole, as well as demonstrate how individual bureaus logically and critically support the core mission of the Department. Ultimately, the overall performance of the Commerce Department must be measured in terms of the contributions of its component bureaus.

The Commerce Strategic Plan provides the framework for strengthening existing (and for developing new) relationships among bureaus and with external partners. Success for Commerce programs in the changing technological world and global economy will depend increasingly on alliances with business and industry, universities, State and local governments, and international parties.

confined to domestic or international trade, as comprehensive as that mandate may be. Commerce's true focus is on the Nation's economic infrastructure - the farms, factories, small- and medium-size businesses, and universities that make up our economy and provide jobs for millions of Americans. Commerce programs combine to result directly in job creation and economic efficiency – through promoting trade, developing and protecting technological advances in production and communication -- and in supporting the ways, even the places, where those jobs are created by leveraging capital and other resources, and providing needed information, physical resources, and environmental prediction.

Each Commerce goal is a medium - to long-term effort which we will pursue through shorter-term, measurable objectives. Progress in meeting these objectives will be shown in specific annual accomplishments (or performance measures).

A sample of Theme 1's more extensive discussion of goals and performance measures includes:

GOAL

efforts.

MEASURE

IMPLEMENTING THEME 2: SUPPORT FOR THE NATION'S SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND INFORMATION INITIATIVES

The issues underlying Theme 2 Science/ Technology/Information - have grown in importance as science and technology have become increasingly pervasive in our society. Under Theme 2, we set national policy and examine issues of technological development and innovation, conduct the scientific studies and data analysis leading to longer-range environmental predictions, provide information-based support to domestic business/research and international trade (ranging from the decennial census to specific market analysis), focus on the radio frequency spectrum and technological ways in which broadcasting is conducted, and conduct scientific and technical research in support of national needs.

work in concert to carry out this strategy and, in so doing, support the Departmental mission in promoting job creation, economic growth, sustainable development, and improved living standards for all Americans.

Promoting the application of cutting-edge science and technology by American businesses in their daily operation is critical to strengthening the international competitive position of American firms. Commerce programs: support R&D and promote the application of innovative technologies to commercialization of business processes; ensure protection of intellectual property; expand opportunities in international markets through export licensing: provide management and technical support to small- and medium-sized businesses and to economically distressed areas, and, collect and disseminate economic data and environmental information used by private and public sector policy makers and to measure our Nation's economic well-being.

At the same time, this Theme focuses on areas where global competition is the most fierce, and the Administration recognizes that in order to succeed as a Nation, we must thrive in the face of that competition. Nothing has influenced human culture more in the last century than technology. Every industrialized nation, and virtually every major corporation, recognizes the fundamental impacts of technology. Technology and the drive to invent more of it are so much a part of the American culture that the concept is contained in our Constitution. Within the Federal government, Commerce clearly leads the Nation in technology development, and we have been working with States and localities to find ways of