[1] Its mission was to unify and oversee the meteorological, climatological, hydrographic, and geodetic operations of the United States.

Committee members included the Director of the United States Weather Bureau, Dr. Robert M. White (1923–2015); the Director of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, Rear Admiral Henry Arnold Karo (1903–1986) of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps; the Director of the National Bureau of Standards, Allen V. Astin (1904–1984); and a panel of scientists from industry and academia.

[6] To tackle scientific and technological problems related to understanding the global environment,[7] ESSA created the Institutes for Environmental Research, based in Boulder, Colorado.

In 1966, ESSA transferred the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey's Seismology Data Centers to Asheville, North Carolina, where they merged with the U.S.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) began weather satellite programs in 1958, and ESSA inherited these upon its creation in 1965.

[7] Under the 1965 reorganization, the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, whose history dated to 1807, was subordinated to ESSA.

Like the Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps before it, the ESSA Corps was responsible for providing commissioned officers to operate the Coast and Geodetic Survey's ships, fly aircraft, support peacetime defense requirements and purely civilian scientific projects, and provide a ready source of technically skilled officers which could be incorporated into the United States armed forces in time of war, and was one of the uniformed services of the United States.

In June 1966, the U.S. Congress passed the Marine Resources and Engineering Development Act,[13] which declared that it was U.S. Government policy to: ...develop, encourage, and maintain a coordinated, comprehensive, and long-range national program in marine science for the benefit of mankind, to assist in protection of health and property, enhancement of commerce, transportation, and national security, rehabilitation of our commercial fisheries, and increased utilization of these and other resources.

[13]The act created a Commission on Marine Science, Engineering, and Resources – which came to be known informally as the "Stratton Commission" – and gave it the responsibility to review ongoing and planned U.S. Government marine science activities and recommend a national oceanographic program and a reorganization of the U.S. Government to carry out the program.

President Lyndon Johnson appointed 15 members to the commission; Ford Foundation chairman Julius A. Stratton chaired it, and its members included attorney Leon Jaworski, Dean of the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island John Knauss, ESSA Administrator Robert M. White, and other representatives of U.S. Government agencies, U.S. state governments, industry, academia, and other institutions with programs or interest in marine science and technology; it also included four U.S. Congressional advisors, including former U.S.

[13] The Commission determined that "because of the importance of the seas to this Nation and the world, our Federal organization of marine affairs must be put in order," and that fulfilling the U.S. ocean policy declared in the 1966 act and making "full and wise use of the marine environment" required the study of both the ocean and the atmosphere and their interactions with one another.

[13] Soon after the Commission published the report, the U.S. Congress began to deliberate action on it, as did the Advisory Council on Executive Organization created by President Richard Nixon in 1969.

Nixon decided to side with Stans, as well as to incorporate some of the Stratton Commission's and Advisory Council's recommendations, and in early July 1970 submitted Department of Commerce Reorganization Plan No.

It proposed the creation in 90 days within the Department of Commerce of the new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), consisting of ESSA; the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries and the marine sport fishing program of the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife; the Office of Sea Grant Programs from the National Science Foundation; the mapping, charting, and research functions of the U.S. Army's U.S. Lake Survey; the U.S. Navy's National Oceanographic Data Center; the Marine Minerals Technology Center from the Department of the Interior's United States Bureau of Mines; the U.S. Navy's National Oceanographic Instrumentation Center; and the Department of Transportation's National Data Buoy Project,[13] although it did not follow the Stratton Commission's recommendation to include the U.S. Coast Guard in NOAA.

The Bureau of Commercial Fisheries of the United States Department of the Interior′s United States Fish and Wildlife Service was transferred to NOAA, and its fisheries science and oceanographic research ships joined the hydrographic survey ships of the former Coast and Geodetic Survey fleet to form the new NOAA fleet.