in all redevelopment areas. We did not even give our field men an office. We are putting them in State redevelopment agency offices in free space to keep our overhead down.

We are avoiding the regional office trap-we hope we can-and are having our regional office located right here in Washington. We are trying to keep our operating costs down to rock bottom.

We feel that we may have been modest in our figures, and did not staff our agency as we might have to in the future. The demands on our field people are enormous.

We have held 190 meetings already, to explain our program to areawide or State groups. For instance, we put on a meeting in Oklahoma. Senator Monroney was there, and probably knows more about this than I do, but we got all the agencies of Government that are part of this program and at one fell swoop we told them everything that was available to help the communities get back on their feet. That meeting was organized by the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce.

SUCCESS OF MEETINGS

Senator MONRONEY. Registration before the meeting opened was 800, and actually 1,200 people, from all over the State attended. To answer Senator Smith's question: These people came in with problems. that no single agency could have solved. Perhaps it was a question of a Hill-Burton hospital, a highway program, construction of recreational facilities, new industry, and so forth.

The programs were very thoroughly explained, I thought.

Mr. BATT. And I think something like 1,200 people paid $4 apiece to come and hear this story all day long and to get answers to some of their specific problems, a kind of clinic. And we, of course, put the finger on the agencies to come, and it cost them all money to come and to have people there to explain how their program tied in with ours. Senator KEFAUVER. How did it cost the $4 apiece?

Mr. BATT. To feed them a box lunch, I think.

Senator MONRONEY. It was not worth the $4, the lunch wasn't. Mr. BATT. The $4 fee to me indicated a fairly serious interest. Senator MONRONEY. It was serious money. Those people didn't come to talk. They came because they were very interested, and the leading citizens of every community were there.

Senator SMITH. You thought it was worthwhile, then?

Senator MONRONEY. Very much worthwhile, and it showed me the great appeal of an indigenous effort to help themselves. They realized this was not free Government money; that these were matching programs into which they hoped to dovetail their efforts.

ESTIMATES ADJUDGED LOW

Senator SMITH. Mr. Batt, you had some experience as you appeared before the House. Do you feel that that experience has helped you clarify the requirements of the funds that you are asking for?

Mr. BATT. Yes, we think it has, Senator Smith. We think we are on the low side. We do not think we are on the high side anywhere. But our experience obviously is too limited to say for sure what our requirements will be exactly. We will know a lot more by the middle of next year.

CONGRESSIONAL INTENT

Senator SMITH. Before you were interrupted a while ago, you were saying that you were trying to carry out the orders of the Congress; is that correct?

Mr. BATT. Yes; this is the way we interpret the will of Congress. The requirements of many of these areas are highly specialized. The people in American Samoa have requirements for technical assistance that relate entirely to agricultural expertise. It seems to us to make sense to get such help from Agriculture and if necessary reimburse them, rather than to hire some agriculture experts over in Commerce. Senator SMITH. Sounds like good business to me, if it is followed through and all the duplication and overlapping is cut out.

Mr. BATT. I will not guarantee perfection, but we are getting great cooperation from the agencies concerned.

Senator HOLLAND. The way you would surprise us most pleasantly would be not to come back for a supplemental request.

Senator Long has been waiting quite a while. I ask that we just suspend the hearing on area redevelopment momentarily so that he may be heard on a Small Business Administration matter.

SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

STATEMENT OF HON. RUSSELL B. LONG, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA

DISASTER LOANS-RESTORATION REQUESTED

Senator LONG. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

The Small Business Administration will be before you later on in the day. They have a request in for $130 million for the SBA revolving fund. That includes both the business loans and the disaster loans.

Now, I understand that the overall program has about $35 billion for the disaster loan portion of it, and that was made up before Hurricane Carla hit in the gulf area.

My guess is that the demand for the disaster loans, in the heavy damage done there, will probably exceed that which is available in the program.

Just to speak of the Louisiana area, our rice crop appears to have been destroyed, and a great percentage of our sugarcane has been destroyed, and in addition to that, of course, large areas in Louisiana have been under 6 feet of water, which as you know does tremendous amounts of damage. That is just Louisiana. I imagine Senator Yarborough will tell you of situations that are similar over there in Texas.

So with the tremendous damage that has been done by this one hurricane, my guess is that you are going to have a very heavy burden just for the disaster loan portion.

And you have another big hurricane heading up here now.

I would hope that this program would not have to either retrench or make much more rigid standards than planned, because funds are not available; and the supplemental request before you, as I understand it, is based on the requirement of displaced business by urban

renewal and Federal projects and the greater SBA maximums for loans to small business investing companies and local investment companies.

So the disaster portion of it, my guess is, will be pretty much used up, unless there is a very severe retrenchment, or they want an additional requirement of rigidity placed on the program to try to make it fit within that which is already available.

So I would hope that there will be adequate funds made available by the committee to meet the disaster part of it.

I do not know about the needs of the other part of the program. Bob Sykes is here to testify on that, and the SBA will testify about it, but I do know that as far as the disaster portion of it is concerned, we will require a lot of it in Louisiana and Texas. And in order to have some available for whoever else might be struck by disaster this year, the committee should make additional funds available.

HOUSE COMMENT

Senator KEFAUVER. Did not the House cut it to start with, Senator Long?

Senator HOLLAND. No; the House has not cut it. And their report, which was made up, I believe, after the Carla experience, reads as follows:

Although the increase was justified for the Small Business Loan and the Investment and Development Company assistance programs, the committee anticipates that additional funds will be needed for disaster loans. This is a revolving fund, and the committee suggests that whatever funds are required be used for such disaster loans, and that the administration seek more funds for Small Businesses next year if needed at that time.

That remark is apropos of the fact that the full $130 million budget estimate for increased capital for the revolving funds was allowed by the committee.

I can assure the Senator that the committee will very carefully look into this subject, and if there is any question about the adequency of the funds provided to take care of the disaster, I am sure that the committee would want to meet that question by making additional funds available.

Senator LONG. I certainly appreciate that, and I appreciate the view of the House committee that the disaster should be given a priority over the business loans.

I would hope, however, that where you have a clear need of these disaster funds, all the other programs would not have to suffer because of the disaster we have had in our area.

I thank the Chairman and the committee very much.

AREA REDEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION

NEED FOR COORDINATING AGENCY

Senator MONRONEY. I would like to associate myself with the remarks of Senator Kefauver about Mr. Batt's presentation and past experience in this situation.

As I mentioned before, I saw, firsthand, the need for a coordinating agency when we had all of these 1,200 people there, each with a part of a program, but not knowing how to put the mosaic together.

But this, I think, while it will be improved with experience, one of the important things they achieved, was made clear that multicounty, multicity development was necessary if the area was to redevelop. The normal town and city rivalries could be detrimental, unless they both went into the same series of projects with divided goals.

For that reason I think the disaster funds and whatever additional will be asked for the cooperating agencies will probably have to follow in other appropriation bills.

That is as I understand. Is that correct?

COVERAGE OF FUNDS REQUEST

Mr. BATT. No; we have put in $2,955,000 for ARA, and the balance of the $62 million, about $32 million more, is for Agriculture, Labor, Interior, and HHFA. In addition to the $6.5 million we plan to get funds for servicing loans from our revolving fund. This will reimburse SBA and HHFA.

Senator MONRONEY. I think you are going to give these other agencies some money. However, I do hope that you will be Scotch with them, because every new bit of workload does not necessarily include a lot of personnel. This is what they are funded to do. And if we can hold that amount-I think you are reasonable in your initial request, but I hope it does not grow to the point where this is considered a new source of funds to empire build in these other agencies. Mr. BATT. Senator, we have been so scotch with them that we are terribly unpopular with them.

Senator MONRONEY. I hope you will remain so.

Mr. BATT. The Budget Bureau thinks very well of us.

BITUMINOUS AREA REHABILITATION

Senator MONRONEY. I read in this morning's paper, and I have been studying the problem for a number of years, about the opportunity to rehabilitate the bituminous coal areas. You have had experience with that in Pennsylvania?

Mr. BATT. Yes, sir.

Senator MONRONEY. More than half, and perhaps two-thirds, of these depressed areas owe their depression to the fact that they were coal mining areas. Industry has passed them by largely because of the expense of moving coal to the markets. They substitute liquid fuels for gas, which comes from my State, and we appreciate the business. But we also regret the continued, habitual, and worsening areas of depression in these coalfields.

This suggestion by Secretary Udall seems to me to perhaps fit into and could be a major part of your rehabilitation program. Industry could take the generators to the coal mines, instead of moving the coal to the generators, half way across the continent.

NATIONWIDE POWER GRID

The breakthroughs that have been made, first by the Russians, and now by ourselves, indicate we can transfer electricity a thousand miles without an unusual loss of potential. It seems by gridding these depressed areas into a nationwide grid in cooperation with private industry, you could almost transform the generating capabilities of our

national electrical system and revive these depressed areas, because it is the transportation of the coal that is so costly; it is not the cost of the coal itself.

Do you have anybody working on that with you?

Mr. BATT. This is one of the things we would hope to be into. Of course, without duplicating Interior's work, we would like to help. Senator MONRONEY. This is going to be a part of the Area Redevelopment?

Mr. BATT. Yes. This is the type of breakthrough we hope to be able to make with the help of the technical assistance funds. That is why I hope we are not cut short on this work, since the $41⁄2 million of technical assistance could be more significant than all the loan money put together.

Senator MONRONEY. That is right; because this is basic economics. With the technical know-how available, we could test this theory of moving electricity for a thousand miles

PRESENT POWER GRIDS

Mr. BATT. It is not only tested. I was talking about this at the meeting of utilities operating in the Virginias on Friday. The president of Pepco tells we that this is now being done; that power is moving from Appalachia into the eastern grid, which runs all the way from the New York City line down to Washington.

I know that in my own State, in the town of Clearfield, which has been a depressed coal town, one of the private utilities has a new plant that feeds power into this grid using these new methods of high voltage transmission. This has brought quite a revival of coal employment in that area, within 50 miles of that plant.

I think it has enormous potential that we have not begun to touch. Although you of course realize that one of the big factors in the decline of the soft coal industry has been the fact that we are taking out the same amount of coal with fewer people, because of the enormous automation factor.

NEED FOR EMPHASIS ON PROGRAM

Senator MONRONEY. If you take out a lot more coal, you lose more people. That is axiomatic. It seems to me this program does need the emphasis, the speed, that Area Redevelopment can give it; because I have discussed it with four or five agencies, and none of them seems to know what the other agencies are doing about it.

"ONE-STOP" SERVICE

Mr. BATT. Congress made a great point of this, as you know, Senator, in the legislative history. They called it one-stop service. They make the point that communities get frustrated when they come to town and are shunted from one agency to another. We have tried to put that into effect, already.

One county came in from Ohio, and we brought all the agencies concerned with their problems into one office there in the Commerce Department. These problems went all the way from hospitals to sewer and water systems. And as a matter of fact, I do not think any

75285-61--6