In addition to asking government officials about the extent and nature of coordination, we also asked them six questions. The questions and the aggregated responses follow.
Government agency officials report that most significant international activities being sponsored by their agencies take place under some kind of international agreement. In some cases, the referenced agreement is the bilateral framework agreement between the United States and another country (such as the U.S.-Japan Science and Technology Agreement); such agreements are quite broad in scope and have been in place for several decades. In a few cases, activities take place with long-standing partners; even in the absence of an agreement on a specific project, reference can be made to an older, established agreement.
In several key cases, notably France's ARGOS, Japan's Advanced Earth Observation System (ADEOS), and the International Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS), agreements are entered into by more than one U.S. agency, usually NOAA and NASA, but also by NASA and NSF and by NASA and USDA/USFS. Meetings and project-level activities are often handled through an exchange of letters.
The decision by an agency to enter into an international agreement in remote sensing varies by agency and by the nature of the activity. Across the board, agencies report that, when a commitment of funds is required or when countries exchange or agree to share hardware, they enter into an international agreement. The level of formality of that agreement is determined by one of several factors: (1) the "level of risk" to the U.S. government agency associated with this activity, (2) the request by the foreign partner to enter into a particular type of agreement, and (3) the novelty of the subject of cooperation. If the proposed topic has not been the subject of a previous agreement, the agency is more likely to enter into a new, formal agreement on that subject. In some cases, agencies have their own internal guidelines about how to enter into an agreement and what type of agreement to use; in other cases, agencies refer to guidelines associated with the Department of State Circular 175.
Agency officials report that they usually try to keep international cooperative agreements as informal as possible. If a letter of agreement will suffice, the agency will usually opt for this before engaging in a process to sign an MOU. Agency officials report that they avoid using the formal Circular 175 process whenever possible. This finding is borne out by the low percentage of agreements collected and reported by the Department of State. Each of the agencies contacted reported that the Circular 175 process is slow and cumbersome; unless formal government approval is judged to be needed to support an ISTA, the agencies seek less formal means of coordination and less formal agreements.
The officials interviewed believe the current procedures are adequate. As noted, despite the low level of formal coordination, agency officials frequently coordinate with their counterparts in other agencies when entering into an agreement. Except for the DoD (which tends to coordinate internally) the other agencies active in remote-sensing report checking with and coordinating with each other when a new opportunity for cooperation arises. The most active coordination goes on between NASA and NOAA--the two government agencies most actively involved in international remote-sensing activities. USDA and DOI/USGS also contact their counterparts in NASA and NOAA when entering into agreements relevant to these agencies. The contact generally takes place via telephone and e-mail. Agency officials often fax copies of proposed agreement language to each other for comment. Program officers know their counterparts in other agencies as a result of meetings, networking, and referrals.
An ISTA usually does not, in and of itself, directly influence the commitment of agency funds. The agreement is more likely to reflect the agency's priorities at the time. An agreement is not signed unless it supports a core mission, reports one agency, so that the mission, not the agreement, is what determines funding priorities. While an ISTA does little to influence the commitment of funds on the U.S. side, it often helps the foreign partner to influence the commitment of funds on its end, according to several government officials.