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Transcript for America\'s New Frontier, segment 02 of 11
March tenth, nineteen eighty-three, Washington, D. C. President Ronald Reagan joined the leaders of other coastal nations and declared an exclusive economic zone, or E. E. Z. This extended American borders to include the ocean and seabed within two hundred nautical miles of all coastal states and territories. It more than doubled the size of the United States, adding three million square nautical miles to the national domain. With it came responsibility for the wise management of all living and nonliving resources within the two hundred nautical mile limit. What's on the ocean floor in this huge area? An existing patchwork of studies gave an incomplete picture. There was a need for a systematic reconnaissance survey of the entire region.