Mr. MOYER. Any Government employee who is engaging in political activities is in violation.

Mr. DINGELL. Would that apply to schedule C or schedule A employees within the Federal Government?

Mr. MOYER. My recollection is

Mr. DINGELL. I am talking about schedule A or schedule C employees within the Federal Government approaching another Federal employee to participate in political activity; that is, if they were on a higher level.

Mr. MOYER. Schedule A employees-and I am one myself-are covered by the Hatch Act. As to the coverage of schedule C, I am not sure. I would have to defer.

Mr. DINGELL. Would you procure for us the judgment of the Civil Service Employment Commission on that particular point?

Mr. MOYER. Yes, sir.

Mr. DINGELL. Now, supposing with the approval of the individual superiors in Government, somewhere on up the chain of command inside the governmental structure, the individual concerned were to be approached for political activities in connection with a partisan political campaign, such as the one to reelect the President, now what would the provision of the Hatch Act, or how would the provisions of the Hatch Act apply to that?

Mr. MOYER. Well, I would like to submit that to our political activity section so that we could take a look at the particular situation and make a judgment.

Mr. DINGELL. Well, I would like to know in general terms your

answer.

Mr. MOYER. In general terms?

Mr. DINGELL. I will accept an answer saying that was probably a violation.

I am talking about a third person, not necessarily the individual's superior in Government, but in Government, if a third person were to solicit this Government employee for political activities, then—

Mr. MOYER. If a person in Government is soliciting someone for political activities, that is in violation of the Hatch Act.

Mr. DINGELL. A violation of the Hatch Act; correct? Now, supposing that some third person, outside the Government, but associated with folks inside the Government, were to solicit this individual for political activities, then what would be the situation?

Mr. MOYER. I know of no prohibition on someone attempting to get a Government employee to engage in political activities.

Mr. DINGELL. But, if one of the Government employee's superiors were to be directly or indirectly involved in that undertaking, what would be the situation?

Mr. MOYER. If the superior is engaged in this activity, is helping out, if he is engaging

Mr DINGELL. Would it probably be in violation of the Hatch Act? Mr. MOYER. Probably, it would be in violation of the Hatch Act. Mr. WARD. One more technical question. There is a Government personnel form, a C-171, or something. It has to be filled out by each employee. Are you familiar with that?

Mr. PARMENTER. The 171.

Mr. WARD. It is my understanding that that is only supposed to be released for official purposes.

Mr. MOYER. That is part of the personnel folder.

Mr. WARD. Can it be released for political purposes?

Mr. MOYER. I would have to check on that.

Mr. WARD. In other words, you could take the form and give it to a political campaign organization for consideration of using that person in a political campaign?

Mr. MOYER. Are you speaking

Mr. DINGELL. For purposes of soliciting them to participate in a political campaign.

Mr. MOYER. This is the form of some other person? Of course, the forms are readily available. People could fill out the forms and take them and use them for whatever purposes they wanted.

Mr. WARD. No; it is part of an official file of an agency and the administrator of that agency takes it and says to the political campaign unit, "Here is a guy you should consider for a political campaign position."

Mr. MOYER. They make the 171 form available to this political outfit?

Mr. WARD. Right.

Mr. MOYER. I will check with our Hatch Act people and we will submit that.

Mr. DINGELL. Advise us (a) what is the statutory law on those matters and (b) what are the civil service regulations on those matters. Mr. WARD. What is your guess as to what they are?

Mr. MOYER. I wouldn't want to hazard a guess in this area. As I said, the 171 forms are readily available. And if the employee himself were to give a form to someone with no restrictions on their use of it, I don't see any problem with any kind of abuse of it. But, if someone takes someone else's form, without their permission

Mr. DINGELL. You are talking about the individual giving his own form to some person and saying, "Here it is" and there would be no problem with that, right? But, supposing somebody else in Government were to take his form and pass it to a political organization, saying “Here is a great recruit for your attempt to reelect Joe Blow or to do something else," then what would be the situation under (a) civil service regulations and (b) under Federal statutory law? Mr. MOYER. We will submit that.

Mr. DINGELL. And you might submit to us the particular civil service regulation or statute.

Mr. MOYER. We will submit that material for the record. [Following letter submitted in answer to subcommittee inquiries:]

U.S. CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION,
Washington, D.C., December 22, 1975.

MICHAEL J. WARD, Esq.,
Counsel, Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, Committee on Small Busi-
ness, House of Representatives, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington,
D.C.

Dear Mr. WaRD: I am returning herewith the transcript of my testimony of December 5, 1975, in relation to the President's Commission on Personnel Interchange. I have made some minor changes in pencil to clarify my meaning in several spots.

In addition, there were questions from Mr. Dingell and you to which I proposed to submit more complete answers after conferring with attorneys in the Political Activity Section of this Office. I am accordingly submitting these further answers to the questions where more information was needed, as follows:

1. I stated that any government employee who is engaging in political activities is in violation of the Hatch Act. I should qualify this answer by citing section 7324(d) of title 5, United States Code, which lists exceptions to the prohibitions against political activities contained in section 7324(a) (2) as follows:

"(d) Subsection (a) (2) of this section does not apply to

"(1) an employee paid from the appropriation for the office of the President; "(2) the head or the assistant head of an Executive department or military department;

"(3) an employee appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, who determines policies to be pursued by the United States in its relations with foreign powers or in the nationwide administration of Federal laws;

"(4) the Mayor of the District of Columbia, the members of the Council of the District of Columbia, or the Chairman of the Council of the District of Columbia, as established by the District of Columbia Self-Government and Governmental Reorganization Act; or

"(5) the Recorder of Deeds of the District of Columbia."

This citation should also answer Mr. Dingell's immediately following questions respecting application of the Hatch Act to Schedule A and Schedule C employees. Subject to the exceptions cited, the Hatch Act applies to all executive branch employees, including Schedules A and C employees.

2. You and Mr. Dingell asked a series of questions concerning use of the government employment application form, Form 171, for political purposes. As I understand the questions, you want to know what statute or regulation governs the use of a Form 171 for a political purpose.

First, with respect to political activities, the Hatch Act is broad in its prohibition of political activities by Federal employees, by whatever means. Thus, if a Federal official uses an application form for the purpose of, or as an aid in, recruiting anyone to engage in partisan political activities, the official is in violation of the Hatch Act (section 7324 (a) (2) of title 5, United States Code). Second, with respect to use of a Form 171 for nonofficial purposes, such use without the consent of the individual would be prohibited by the Privacy Act (section 552a (b) of title 5, United States Code). Also, section 294.702 (a) of title 5 of the Code of Federal Regulations, referring to material in the Official Personnel Folder such as Form 171, provides as follows:

"S 294.702 Availability of information.

"(a) The name, present and past position titles, grades, salaries, and duty stations (which include room numbers, shop designations, or other identifying information regarding buildings or places of employment) of a Government employee is information available to the public, except when:

"(1) The release of that information is prohibited under law or Executive order in the interest of national defense or foreign policy;

"(2) The information is sought for the purpose of commercial or other solicitation; or

"(3) There is reason to believe that the information is sought for political purposes or purposes which may violate the political activity prohibitions in subchapter III of chapter 73 of title 5, United States Code, or which may violate other law."

I hope that the foregoing material is responsive to your questions.
Sincerely yours,

THOMAS F. MOYER,
Legislative Counsel,

Office of the General Counsel, Civil Service Commission.

Mr. WARD. OK, back to Mr. Parmenter.

Now, basically then, no one is supervising the appointment process?

You are the ultimate determiner?

Mr. PARMENTER. Yes, sir. The Deputy

Mr. WARD. In consultation with the

Mr. PARMENTER. The Deputy and I.

Mr. WARD. Are you aware that this was the practice in the past? Mr. PARMENTER. I believe it was.

Mr. WARD. So that it is important to understand how you view conflict of interest and how you define it. Are you aware of Mr. Bridges' case—well, not Mr. Bridges, but Mr. Bonin's case, the guy from Shell Pesticide Division?

Mr. PARMENTER. No, I am not.

Mr. WARD. Would you consider taking someone from Shell pesticide and putting them in EPA's pesticide?

Mr. PARMENTER. I would prefer not to answer that question, because I am not aware of all the circumstances.

Mr. WARD. All right, let us take a hypothetical.

Mr. DINGELL. Let me ask a hypothetical question.

Mr. PARMENTER. I think when I addressed you earlier. I indicated that we would not knowingly permit a conflict or an appearance of a conflict of interest.

Mr. WARD. Well, would that be an appearance?

Mr. PARMENTER. An appearance of conflict might be a person from a magazine subscription company at the Postal Service. For such a person to be at the Postal Rate Commission would probably be a conflict. So, we would probably not present that individual to anyone or either of these organizations.

Mr. WARD. But, I am trying to get at how deep you go before you decide there is an appearance. To my understanding, someone from

Mr. DINGELL. Well, let me ask this question. Let's just get right down to it. Let us take pesticide manufacturer A. as an employer, and he has employee B who goes or is assigned to the Environmental Protection Agency. Now, do we have a conflict of interest up to that point, or an appearance of conflict of interest up to that point? Mr. PARMENTER. There might be an appearance.

Mr. DINGELL. There might be?

Mr. PARMENTER. There might be.

Mr. DINGELL. Let's suppose then that this individual, when he gets to EPA

Mr. PARMENTER. Congressman

Mr. DINGELL. Yes?

Mr. PARMENTER. I would prefer not discussing the placement of executives in the Federal agency prior to the time that I became Executive Director.

Mr. DINGELL. I know you would.

Mr. PARMENTER. I think it is very hypothetical.

Mr. DINGELL. I know you would and I sympathize with you.

Mr. PARMENTER. Yes.

Mr. DINGELL. But, I very much want to discuss this matter.
Mr. PARMENTER. All right. I am happy to discuss it.

Mr. DINGELL. And I think we will let the record indicate you do so under protest and I am sure you do so out of (a) your responsibilities now and (b) a sensitivity toward the feelings of your predecessor, because I think you are a decent man.

Given those sets of circumstances—

Mr. PARMENTER. And I would also like to add another circumstance, and that is that we are talking about a period of time that has passed. The circumstances were different.

Mr. DINGELL. I am also talking about protection of the public interest, prevention of rascality, and seeing to it that the program continues to merit the trust of the people.

Mr. PARMENTER. Absolutely.

Mr. DINGELL. Now, let's take this hypothetical here. A fellow is assigned to a program in EPA that "developes approach methodology and implementation of project studies concerned with pesticide products and their impact on the environment."

His experience with his previous employer was in the "preparation, submission and control of all information submitted to the EPA in support of obtaining labels and establishing tolerances for all our agricultural chemical products and the evaluation of all current and pending legislation concerning restrictions, environmental impacts and interpretations of the new Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act."

Now, I am not going to ask you to tell me there was a conflict, but would you tell me that the appearances look good there insofar as conflict?

Mr. PARMENTER. I am afraid you are leading me.

Mr. DINGELL. I am leading you. You are correct. I intend to get an answer, too.

Mr. PARMENTER. I am very

reluctant to

Mr. DINGELL. I know you are.

Mr. PARMENTER [continuing]. To discuss that case, past cases. Mr. DINGELL. We established you are reluctant. Can you deny that there is appearances of conflict there?

Mr. PARMENTER. As you explained it, there may be an appearance of conflict. I might also add that when you investigate and look at these things, you must talk to the individual that was in the job, the superior of the individual that was in the job, and the general counsel that ruled on the situation at that particular time.

Mr. DINGELL. Well, let us ask you this question. Would you tolerate that kind of situation under your administration?

Mr. PARMENTER. I have told you previously that I would not tolerate an appearance or a conflict. I said that categorically.

Mr. DINGELL. All right. Thank you.

Mr. Ward?

Mr. WARD. Yes, it is not for the general-I mean, Executive Order 1122 was not designed so that the general counsel of an agency does not think there is an appearance of conflict; it is designed so that the public does not think there is a conflict. And while the legal restrictions may be very detailed, when they finally get down to determining it, the public is not going to look down five lines to see exactly what the guy did.

Mr. DINGELL. Most importantly, it is to give the folks at home an impression that the fox is not watching their hens for them. And I think, given that rather simple explanation, that if you are trying to comfort the folks back home, you aren't going to put somebody from a major pesticide manufacturer in charge of a particular part of a Federal pesticide program. Now, if I am in error, I would like to be informed, but I don't think I am.

Mr. PARMENTER. I appreciate what you are saying, Mr. Congressman. But I think that, you know, that-well, never mind.