It also has the merit that at least in some of these cases a lot of the work is going to be done at the local level, which is just terribly important.

Now, proceeding in this way I think that one will see the strengthening of institutions which in some cases will undoubtedly be universities that will be doing much of this work, in some cases not for profit firms, research firms by and large, perhaps some new organizations. I don't know what is going to happen, but I think this is a very good way to proceed, at least at this stage-to have the Federal agencies who are concerned with these programs, concerned with these areas of education, housing, and what have you, doing much more to stimulate analysis and research in the areas of their program interests.

I think other things might be done. At least one other approach is worth thinking about very seriously, which I think would be complementary in connection with this. This would be to provide the States, possibly the bigger cities as well, but certainly the States, with block grants-and this may be really what your bill is intended to dofor the purpose of giving the States some resources with which to work to this end. It is true that many of the funds they get are earmarked. They fall into traditional channels: They go to the State department of health, or the State department of education, where there isn't much of a research tradition to begin with.

Certainly the kind of planning that goes on for the most part is really pretty miserable; where the availability of funds to build some institutions either within the government or outside tied to the government are really very limited.

To go, as I did last year, to the State of Michigan, where there is great interest on the part of the State government in doing something comparable to what the Federal Government is doing, look at the resources they have available to delploy, build something in the Office of the Governor, say, or the budget bureau in the State of Michigan. It is just a very difficult situation. Most State governments are really strapped for money. They do not really have enough people who can be mobilized to form a research unit within the government. They do not have the resources to do it. It is an uphill struggle.

I think considering these obstacles they are doing very well, but it is not easy. I think this is true in many State governments. I think it is true in even as wealthy a government as the State of California. They are feeling rather pinched at the moment. They clearly have resources far above most State governments. Pushing money on people, as we know, does not solve problems and can lead to the money being wasted. But I think it can be done in a way that makes it very clear this is not money to be frittered away doing more of the same old dreary things, but is to be devoted to building some decent institutions, or converting institutions and making them better.

The former I am clear on, to have the Federal agencies with program responsibilities getting more, that is clear.

The second approach-which I gather is more nearly related to your bill and is, I think, worth serious consideration-might accelerate the rate at which all of this will happen.

One other observation I would like to make: I am struck by the difficulty that local government has, particularly the medium-sized

cities and smaller, and the smaller States for that matter, in having each independently to "discover the wheel." That is, each government, each jurisdiction, has to worry about not only extraordinarily difficult and subtle problems of what's the proper kind of educational system to have, how to design the city and make it a more livable place, but much easier problems, such as how to remove snow, how to collect garbage, how to keep the street clean.

If one looks at how these jurisdictions get at these problems, both the tough ones and the not so tough ones, one observes that by and large, except for the existence of professional societies and a certain amount of technical work that is gradually diffused, they have to operate pretty independently. There are not many places around the country where they can turn to and say, "By God, this is the best way you get snow removal."

It sounds like a trivial problem, though one knows it is not so trivial in the Midwest today. It is not a trivial problem. A lot of money goes to schools and housing-including public housing-and it is very tough for any jurisdiction in particular, if it is a small one, to figure out what is the best thing to do. It just doesn't have the staff people to do this sort of thing.

Last year I helped to encourage a group of students at MIT to work with the city government of Newton, Mass., to do some rather simple but very useful analyses of some of the problems in the community, with the idea that if they did good work it might have very general applicability for a large number of communities, say, of the population on the order of 100,000, which is the population of New

ton.

We do not have many institutions-rather we don't have any-to design work on problems, to work on solutions that might have wide applicability around the country. They needed to act as a focal point not only for getting the problem solved-to the extent it can be solved but also to develop somewhat better practices than we currently have, and get the word around.

Senator NELSON. Would it not be feasible in approaching this problem to create a national commission, of the right kind, I will not try to describe it, have that commission consult with a variety of profit and nonprofit groups who are engaged in systems approach to problems?

Mr. ROWEN. I think maybe it would.

Senator NELSON. And I will continue, and out of that identify with them a number of problems that are of significance and common to a number of jurisdictions of one kind or another.

You mentioned cities. Why would it not be feasible to identify a number of problems and then take groupings of cities in the 100,000 class, half a million class, each one of them has a different capacity to hire planning people, and then is it not probably true that you can identify a number of problems that are the same and the solution would be roughly the same for other cities their size around the country, whether it is snow removal or traffic management problems or whatever it may be, and then select cities of various sizes and then do a systems approach to this particular problem and then this knowledge becomes made available to all other communities of roughly the similar size with the same problem?

Would that have value?

Mr. RowEN. I think so, particularly if they were to concentrate on the question of the adequacy of our existing institutions and how it would be to make them more useful or to create some new ones. I do not think the principal problem is finding interesting problems that need to be solved.

The list is extraordinary long already, of researchable, important, public policy problems where a lot can be done. I think it would be worth their doing that simply perhaps to dramatize it but it would not take an enormous intellectual effort on their part to do this.

I think in a way the much more difficult problem is to figure out what kinds of institutions are needed. To what extent should one try to create academic centers? Some may exist. Should they be built up? Should resources be put into universities with the idea that the universities become the principals?

In my statement I said that there is no one approach. Even so, there may be some areas of emphasis that are more interesting than others. Should universities really become the principal focal point for work of this kind? Perhaps so. But if so, what is it going to take to make the universities more effective than they have been so far? This would be a useful thing for them to look into. If not universities, or if in addition to universities, what other kind of institution?

I am made conscious of this in going around the country. In the city of New York, for example, in the State of New York, in the State of California, the recurring problem is: Who can we turn to to get help? Who can we look to? We cannot do it in our Government right now because we don't have the people, we don't have the skills. Where can we find these skills? Who can we look to?

And if this were the major focus, or at least a major focus of such an institution, I think it might serve a useful purpose.

Senator NELSON. I think we can place some considerable emphasis on the fact that there is a shortage of expertise in the field we are talking about, but in drafting a piece of legislation it is not practicable, really, for a Congress to outline a detailed pattern of what ought to be done here. This was why I was suggesting that perhaps with a commission authorized to consult with all of the variety of experts there are in private and nonprofit organizations and universities to identify the best approach to take to make a useful contribution. Out of that I would assume that one of the first points that would be raised is that we have to train some people. Then where is the best place to train them? What is the best approach to do that? And, what is the most effective way to start transferring to the local level the capacity and the philosophy and the understanding of this concept.

Mr. ROWEN. That sounds like quite a good thing to do. Very sensible.

I

Senator NELSON. I appreciate very much your making this very fine contribution. If something occurs to you that you omitted to say that would be of value, I would hope you would send it to us. think everybody who has appeared agrees that the systems approach, properly used, is a very valuable device in solving many, many prob

lems, but the question is how do we most effectively expand its use and give other units of government capacity to use it and the understanding of its importance. That is what we are concerned with here. Mr. ROWEN. Very laudible. Thank you.

Senator NELSON. Thank you very much.

Our next witness is Prof. John Geyer, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.

Professor Geyer.

Professor Geyer, we appreciate very much your taking time to come over here and appear before us today. Senator Javits from New York and Senator Clark and Senator Dominick each had some requirements in other committee areas which made it not possible for them to be here, but we are pleased to have you come and if you have a prepeared text it will be printed in full in the record.

You may proceed to present your testimony as you wish.

STATEMENT OF PROF. JOHN C. GEYER, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, BALTIMORE, MD.

Mr. GEYER. Fine, thank you, Senator Nelson. Do you want me to identify myself?

Senator NELSON. Yes, for the record.

Mr. GEYER. I am John C. Geyer, professor of environment engineering at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. Senator NELSON. Go ahead.

Mr. GEYER. Fine.

Senator Nelson, my comments will be confined to matters related to your questions about the "systems approaches" to our most pressing domestic problems.

These questions are: (1) What is now being done? (2) What should be the role of the various governmental and private agencies and institutions? And (3) what new institutions are needed?

It is indeed a pleasure to endorse the types of programs which Senate bill S. 430 would make possible. This application of systems approaches using high speed computation and a variety of simulation devices, promises a giant step forward in the appreciation, the analysis and the solution of the great sociological and environmental problems of our times.

It is understood that these "systems analyses" will be supported by vastly increased programs for collection of basic data and for working out, also with the same computers, the interelationships between all the factors and phenomena at play.

In order to analyze these complex systems we will have to learn more about what goes on within them and how they respond to perturbations and changes. This process is another endless cycle, for one is never sure what questions to ask or what measurements to make until system is analyzed. But the analysis cannot be complete until the necessary data and understanding are in hand. Analysis and data gathering must proceed together. Usually, the getting of the facts and the understanding is going to be much more laborious, costly and time consuming than the making of the "systems analysis." The latter is the payoff following a lot of very hard work.

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In earlier testimony, when Dr. Culver was discussing the California waste management study made by Aeroject General Corp., he pointed out the difficulty and high cost of a feasibility study. This initial step in a systems approach to the environmental pollution problem was estimated to require 3 to 5 years and cost $8 million to $10 million. He pointed out that final costs and time spent on the feasibility study would depend upon other research and development programs being conducted by the State and Federal Governments to provide fundamental information to define the problem.

It is assumed that he includes in this step the research and development needed to understand the behavior and response of the systems involved and to develop the means for effectively controlling such behavior. This initial step must, according to Dr. Culver, be followed by a preliminary design, a detail design, an acquisition phase and then system operation. I would add another step, it would be a followup evaluation of performance and accomplishment so that future systems analyses can be based on much better information and understanding than we now have.

WHAT IS BEING DONE NOW

Most of the interest in and use of systems analysis approach in the areas named in the bill has been at educational institutions or in private agencies.

Through activities, primarily at Harvard, there have been significant advances in the application of systems approaches to water resources conservation and development. Studies of the Indus River in Pakistan and the Delaware River Basin followed the early work at Harvard.

In recent years, several educational institutions have begun to teach and do research in applications of systems analysis to environmental problems. Application of operations research techniques to civil engineering problems has grown rapidly.

In the sociological fields and in the area of urban problems, the two being almost synonymous, application of the systems technology appears to have been much slower. There are probably two reasons for this.

First, cities do not have the money or the personnel to undertake such studies and second, measurement, quantification and understanding of the forces at work in cases where human behavior is involved are many times more difficult than in the world of physical things.

There can be little doubt, however, that in all fields covered by S. 2662 there is a great deal to be gained by greatly expanding the application of systems approaches. The sooner that advantage is taken of this opportunity, the wiser will be the use of our money and resources.

ROLE AND RELATIONSHIPS

The Federal Government is certainly in a better position than anyone else to stimulate and support programs designed to mobilize and utilize the scientific and engineering manpower of the Nation. This is particularly true in the case of rapidly developing technologies such as the application of systems analysis approaches to complex social problems.