SUMMARY JUSTIFICATION DATA

Appropriations, 1949.

Transfer in 1950 estimates from "Printing and binding, Department of Agriculture”.

Base for 1950_

Budget estimate, 1950

$6, 000, 000

4, 500

6, 004, 500 10, 000, 000

Increase, 1950 (direct appropriation).

+3,995, 500

NOTE. Although an increased appropriation of $3,995,500 is requested for this item in 1950, it is estimated that there will be an increase of only $2,757,434 in total funds available due to availability of prior year balances of $1,238,066 in fiscal year 1949.

Summary of increases, 1950 (on the basis of available funds)
For preparing preliminary examination and survey reports.--
For installation of works of improvement on 11 authorized water-
sheds...

For transfer to Office of the Secretary for additional assistance in
connection with survey reports.

+ $290, 423

+2, 453, 495

+13, 516

Project statement (reflecting available funds) (amounts shown include Pay Act costs)

Mr. WHITTEN. We will turn now to flood control.
Who is designated as head of the flood-control work?

Mr. PHILLIPS. I have usually handled the item here. Mr. Will has a statement on the relationship of watershed improvement programs to comprehensive agricultural programs.

Mr. WHITTEN. I have raised some question as to the organizational set-up. It is my recollection heretofore in flood control we have dealt with Soil Conservation Service and the Forestry Department, and I understand this work has been turned over for approval to Mr. Will. And I just want to know what changes have been made in the Department and who is designated as head of it if there is any such designation.

My attention has further been called to the fact that some want to reorganize the Department and perhaps have a separate set-up on water. I presume Mr. Will would be in line to head that.

Mr. PHILLIPS. The set-up, as it stands today, under the Department regulations, calls for the Soil Conservation Service and the Forest Service to have responsibility for the program of work, the preliminary examinations and surveys and for works of improvement, and for the Office of the Secretary to have the responsibility for overall policy, interdepartmental coordination, correlation of all matters of that sort.

Mr. WHITTEN. Have there been any changes in the regulations for the last year?

Mr. PHILLIPS. One minor one, I believe, to provide for checking by the agencies responsible for preliminary examinations and surveys with the Production and Marketing Administration. That has been provided for in the Department regulations which set forth the arrangements under which flood control work is handled.

Mr. WHITTEN. Do you have a copy of that regulation?

Mr. PHILLIPS. I have a working copy here. It is the only one I have here. It is in the form of an amendment to the memorandum under which the administration of the flood-control program was set up following the war. Other than it, we use the regular Department regulations.

Mr. WHITTEN. That has been drawn up since the war. the approximate date of that?

Mr. PHILLIPS. June 27, 1946.

What was

Mr. WHITTEN. Am I correct in that the appropriations have been made to the Soil Conservation Service, and that the pay for yourself and others in your office have been withdrawals from the flood-control funds?

Mr. PHILLIPS. The flood control appropriations are made to the Secretary. Pay for myself and for any work in the Office of the Secretary is from funds appropriated to the Office of the Secretary, including a small transfer from this item to the Office of the Secretary.

Mr. WHITTEN. Do you head the office, Mr. Phillips?

Mr. PHILLIPS. I handle the work of the Office of the Secretary, except Mr. Will has responsibility now for the coordination and review of survey reports.

Mr. WHITTEN. Are you subordinate to Mr. Will?

Mr. PHILLIPS. We are all in the Office of the Secretary.

Mr. WHITTEN. The reason I ask this: throughout the hearings here Mr. Will has been designated as the head. I wonder why you are presenting the testimony rather than the head of the Department?

PROGRAM COORDINATION BY OFFICE OF SECRETARY

Mr. WILL. I might explain, Mr. Whitten, the flood-control work is a part of the broad conservation program of the Department. The way it is organized, it is a departmental program. The operations under flood control have been assigned by the Secretary to the Forest Service and the Soil Conservation Service. However, it being a departmental program, some direction and coordination is necessary, and for that purpose, the Secretary has a small staff of which I am the head, and in which Mr. Phillips is a staff member. We have some other staff people there, too.

Mr. WHITTEN. How long have you been with the Secretary in this. capacity, Mr. Will?

Mr. WILL. For about 3 years.

Mr. WHITTEN. Have you appeared before the committee in this capacity during that time?

Mr. WILL. No: I have not.

Mr. WHITTEN. You have had jurisdiction, you might say, of this particular field of work since then, have you not?

Mr. WILL. Yes; I have.

Mr. WHITTEN. But you did not appear before the committee? Mr. WILL. I did not appear before the committee on flood-control items.

Mr. WHITTEN. Has there been any particular reason for that? Mr. WILL. No particular reason, except that Mr. Phillips has represented our staff in the Secretary's Office heretofore. The particular reason I am here today, Mr. Whitten, is to follow up with respect to the matter that was discussed before this subcommittee the early part of the month in connection with the basin problems and programs, to make, if agreeable, a short statement indicating how the Department plans to operate, how the flood-control program does fit in, in an important way, to the general over-all resource and conservation program of the Department, along with other aspects of it.

About 2 weeks ago, I was here when we discussed particular items which had been recommended for the Missouri Basin. At that time, some statement was made about how flood-control work would fit in and complement and strengthen the general program.

Mr. WHITTEN. The reason I ask these questions, and I will be glad to have your answer, I have been on this committee for a number of years and have been very active in my support of the flood-control work. I believe I have come in more direct contact with it than some other members of the committee, to say the least. I feel that much fine work has been done.

This year, as you have pointed out, you have asked for funds for the work in the Missouri Basin on a rather expansive scale. Based on the suggested need of doing the work in advance of the completion of these projects, this year, for the first time, they are asking that many things be done that heretofore perhaps have not been done.

And further in view of the reports that have been made to me which I have never heard heretofore-every time I ask a question about it, they refer me to Mr. Will. And although you have been there 3 years that is the first time that experience has occurred so far as I am concerned.

I have talked to the budget officer as to what changes were made or are being made. Frankly, I am sympathetic to the problem you have in the Missouri Basin insofar as my own recommendations are concerned, and they will be that the committee take appropriate action to take care of those. But in the name of doing that, I am determined that the work that is being done in some areas not be retarded on the basis of putting a coordinator at the top of the heap. And it is extraordinary, to say the least, if you have been the head of this for 3 years, that for the first time you have come down to justify this appropriation.

And I do want to know if there have been any changes in the handling of the work that has been going on heretofore as a result of the projected work in the Missouri Basin.

Mr. WILL. Mr. Whitten, there have been no changes. I think the situation can be explained somewhat in this fashion:

The program under the Flood Control Act having been held up during the war is just getting well under way now. The last 2 or 3 years, it was resumed. It is just getting under way to the extent that some of the survey reports are now nearing completion and reaching the Secretary's office for consideration and review. It has been contemplated always that this is a departmental program, and that the Secretary would necessarily review the reports that are submitted to him by the Forest Service and the Soil Conservation Service, and that he is the responsible official under the law who transmits the reports and makes the recommendations.

Mr. WHITTEN. Has he not been doing that all along?

Mr. WILL. He has been doing that, but there has not been until recently actual review work involved because the work has been in the field. It is just recently that these reports have reached the stage where they are available to the Secretary for his consideration.

Mr. WHITTEN. We have been providing funds, Mr. Will, for several years for this work. Not on as large a scale as we are now being requested, though. Not only have we been providing funds for it, but the work has been going on.

Mr. WILL. That is correct.

Mr. WHITTEN. That is the point I wanted to know. In the name of coordinating these future plans and projected works, are you dragging in all this we spent a lot of time trying to get started delaying that as a result of bringing them in under you? That is the point I wish to know about.

Mr. WILL. No, sir, there is no delay, and there has been no change in the general plan of procedure. The Secretary being the responsible official has laid out the method and plan by which he wants the work handled, and it is being handled according to that plan. There has been no change at all in the method of operation. I am only a staff member acting for the Secretary.

Mr. WHITTEN. I wish you would give us for the record a complete roster of the staff in the Secretary's Office that has to do with this work, the date on which they were assigned to this work, their classification and duties, jurisdiction and authority. And I would like to know what experience they have had in this field.

First, I will begin with you. What is your background, Mr. Will? What experience have you had in flood-control work? Are you a graduate engineer?

Mr. WILL. No, sir. I am a graduate in agriculture. I have been in agricultural work in the Department of Agriculture for 28 years. In the Extension Service and Farm Security Administration. And I have been in land-development work in connection with the programs of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

I have been in the Secretary's office for the last 41⁄2 years on the resource programs.

Mr. WHITTEN. No special service in connection with flood control? Mr. WILL. I would like to say this, Mr. Chairman: Flood control, as we envision it in some of its important aspects, is a program of land treatment and agricultural use of land. It is only partially an engineering program, and one of the chief ways in which flood control is achieved is by agricultural programs in connection with the farmers, encouraging correct farming systems and proper land use.

Mr. WHITTEN. That is true. It should have some engineering basis or plan even when you come down to building terraces, however, should it not, Mr. Will?

Mr. WILL. That is correct, sir. And there are many angles to it. For example, there are agronomic and farm-management aspects to the problem.

Mr. WHITTEN. Who is directly under you now in the Secretary's Office? Who is next in line of authority to you in handling floodcontrol matters?

Mr. WILL. Mr. Phillips is handling flood-control matters with respect mainly to administrative aspects. Some of the technical review that is necessary is handled by other people on the staff who have, some of them, economic training, some engineering training. We have two engineers on the staff. Mr. Phillips, I do not think, is an engineer himself.

Mr. WHITTEN. You deal with the administrative end only, Mr. Phillips?

Mr. PHILLIPS. Yes.

Mr. WHITTEN. Who are these engineers on the technical staff and how long have they been there?

Mr. WILLS. The engineers are Howard Cook and Raymond Stevens.

Mr. WHITTEN. How long have they been in that capacity?

Mr. WILL. They have been on the staff there for a number of years, Mr. Whitten.

Mr. WHITTEN. Are they particularly assigned to review work in the field of flood control?

Mr. WILL. They are assigned to review work in the field of flood control and other aspects of departmental work as it affects resource conservation programs. We handle them all together.

Mr. WHITTEN. Are your decisions based on the reports of these engineers in this field? Just on what basis do you make your determination on whether you approve of what is being done by the Soil Conservation Service or what is being done by the Forestry Department? How do you arrive at a decision and what counts with you?

Mr. WILL. The counsel and advice of the staff people are considered. The recommendations of the bureaus of the Department whose programs are involved and affected are considered also.

Mr. WHITTEN. You will recall that a few days ago we did have the justification of the Missouri Valley. If my recollection is correct, at that time the funds were justified for work in that area, and it is in connection with that that the additional funds were justified for the Secretary's office to carry on this work. We find here today, and I believe I am correct in this, that under the guise of that it is a case of making certain changes in the over-all handling of the floodcontrol matters. Is that not true?

Mr. WILL. No; I do not believe it is exactly the case, Mr. Whitten. There is no change at all in what the Department wants to do with the flood-control program. It has always been the Department's view that the flood-control program must necessarily fit into and become a part of the conservation phase of the Department's work. In its very nature it is necessary that that be done. Because the flood-control program envisions a land-treatment phase which necessarily involves, in one way or another, many aspects of the Department's work.