14.AT HEARING BEFORE THE JOINT COMMITTEE ON ATOMIC ENERGY CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES IN EXECUTIVE SESSION EIGHTY-FIRST CONGRESS SECOND SESSION ON COMMUNITY POLICY 81:2 66474 APRIL 18, 1950 Printed for the use of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy SUB-BASEMENT UNITED STATES WASHINGTON: 1950 JOINT COMMITTEE ON ATOMIC ENERGY BRIEN MCMAHON, Connecticut, Chairman RICHARD B. RUSSELL, Georgia CHET HOLIFIELD, California JAMES E. VAN ZANDT, Pennsylvania WILLIAM L. BORDEN, Executive Director II U.S. Depository University of Southern California Library COMMUNITY POLICY TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 1950 CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, Washington, D. C. The joint committee met, pursuant to call, at 11:30 a. m., in room 48-G, United States Capitol Building, Senator Brien McMahon (chairman) presiding. Present: Senators McMahon (chairman) and Knowland; Representatives Durham, Holifield, Price, and Cole. Also present: Sumner T. Pike and Henry D. Smyth, Commissioners; Carroll Wilson, Manager; Carlton Shugg, Deputy Manager; Walter Williams, Production Manager; Joseph Volpe, General Counsel; Everett Hollis, and Brig. Gen. James McCormack, Director of Military Application, all of the Atomic Energy Commission. William L. Borden, executive director; Edward Heller, Walter Hamilton, William Bergin, and Kenneth Mansfield, all of the committee staff. Mr. DURHAM. The hearing will come to order. The Commission Mr. PIKE. And, I understand, the proposed action of the Senate Mr. DURHAM. You may proceed and tell us what problems it raises. In each of these we are trying to telescope the time element as much as possible, trying to save time in the one place to get into operation and, in the second place, to get to where we can make an experiment to see whether the H-bomb can be designed so as to work, and if it can, to get into production. Now, as to those two, the real centers of those efforts, although they will be spread somewhat, one will be at Oak Ridge and the other one at Los Alamos. Now, we have, as you know, a recommendation of the House Appropriations Committee that the fees paid to the community operators-I will use that for a short name at Los Alamos and at Oak Ridge be cut approximately in half beginning with this fiscal year 1 tov. DOC. 14. At 7/2: C73/pt. and approximately the same recommendation for the transportation system at Oak Ridge. Also the committee is aware that these towns were set up as auxiliaries to the laboratories and production facilities, and they are still obviously auxiliary plant facilities in the sense that if the plants or laboratories were not there, the towns would not exist. Almost as obviously, if the towns were bad towns, it would be another deterrent to the quality of the people we need to come to live in them. We feeel that to live with either the recommendation of the House Appropriations Committee or the recommendation which I understand is being considered by the Senate Appropriations Committee, would throw these community affairs into such a state of confusion at just the wrong moment that it might very well be the greatest deterrent to getting on with the H-bomb program that we have to contend with. We realize that we have been open to criticism, we have criticized ourselves, your committee has criticized us, both appropriations committees have criticized us for somewhat different things, and there is not much use of our going over back history. The fact is that, looking ahead, if we are forced into a major changeover in community operations in the next several months, looking, I am afraid, almost surely to direct Government operation, with its attendant waste, and I think almost obvious waste of Government money, we are going to be in real trouble. We take this very seriously. We have been attempting for a long while to work toward better communities, both from the point of view of economy and from the point of view of communities that make sense, as closely as possible to normal American communities. We have not gone along fast enough to suit you. We have a lot of outside help and advice. But we are inclined to think now that we ought not to have this thing shoved at us at this time. We are not doing this to ask for just time alone. We do think that very possibly if we can have an objective, disinterested survey made by a panel or group of people who would be above any suspicion of having interests in the situation, a group that would be satisfactory to you, do a job of coming up with a report we could all take seriously and study, it might give us an indicated course of action and that it would probably be very helpful. We have thought about this for some time. We had thought at first perhaps that it might be the sort of thing that the committee should do to avoid its being accused of self-interest or self-service. It looks as though perhaps that would not be too practical. You would know more about that than we would. Our recommendation is now, one, that this committee, through its membership, really try to convey to the Appropriations Committee the seriousness of this situation in its effect on the two really closeto-the-impossible jobs we are trying to do. Mr. DURHAM. Did you do that at the time you were having the hearing on the House side? Mr. PIKE. Yes, sir. We did not put up this particular problem. This occurred to us later. In the Senate we thought we had explained very clearly the close relationship of these communities to the actual management of these two very large jobs, but apparently we failed again. I do not think it was for want of trying. |