Can changes be made to effect a savings? PUBLICATIONS IN SPECIAL SALES PROGRAM Mr. LABARRE. The Special Sales Program includes those publications which are in the sales program, but the price is not regulated by the Public Printer. They do not come under the pricing authority outlined in section 1708 of Title 44, U.S. Code. They include subscriptions to the Congressional Record, the Federal Register, the Federal Register Index and the List of CFR Sections Affected, and the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents. Also included are single sales of the Congressional Record, the Record Index, the Federal Register, and Index, the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, the Congressional Pictorial Directory, and the books entitled The Capitol, the Constitution, Eminent Americans, Our Flag, How Our Laws Are Made, and the Pledge of Allegiance. That is the total number of publications in the Special Sales Program. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD PRICE INCREASE However, as you can recognize, most of the money involved is for the Congressional Record and the Federal Register. I will have some savings in 1980 in the Special Sales Program because the Congressional Record price was increased from $45 to $75. It will take an entire year to realize the benefits of this increase, because each month as a subscription terminates, the subscriber is mailed a renewal card with the new price on it. In other words, the increase is staggered from January 1979, when it became effective, and will continue incrementally each month until December 1979. Mr. BENJAMIN. Do you anticipate loss of subscriptions as you phase in your new price? Mr. LABARRE. Well, sir, it wouldn't really make any difference. If the new price is responsible for a lost subscription, we would not lose the subsidized portion of the money in the Special Sales Program. So in either case it will reduce the money necessary for the Special Sales operation. I have noticed that subscriptions to the Congressional Record have gone down very slightly, however, since the new price was announced. In 1980 I estimate that the Special Sales Program will cost $120,000 less as a result of the Congressional Record being raised in price, but this is one of the rare opportunities we have to reduce the amount necessary for publications which are subsidized. PRICE INCREASES FOR OTHER SPECIAL SALES PUBLICATIONS Mr. BENJAMIN. Do you have any other recommendations? Mr. LABARRE. The only other recommendation would be, of course, to increase the prices for all publications in the Special Sales Program so we could break even and place them in the General Sales Program. Mr. BENJAMIN. What procedure would that involve? Mr. BOYLE. The major amount of money in the Special Sales Program is the losses we have on the Federal Register, and the subscription price of the Federal Register is set by the Administrative Committee of the Federal Register. The Administrative Com mittee of the Federal Register consists of the Archivist of the United States as chairman, a representative of the Attorney General, and the Public Printer. Mr. BENJAMIN. You are one third of that distinguished committee. ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEE OF FEDERAL REGISTER Mr. BOYLE. I am one third of the committee. For the past 3 years, in fact this past year, the GPO member of the committee has submitted a motion at a formal meeting of the Administrative Committee of the Federal Register to raise the price of the Federal Register and the vote has been 2 to 1. This year I submitted a motion to increase the subscription price of the Federal Register from $50 to $80 per year, from $5 to $7 per month, and from 75 cents to $1 a day. There was a vote to table my motion, to inquire whether this increase violated the President's inflation guidelines and by telephone yesterday I received word from the other two members of the committee that they will recommend to me that we turn the pricing problem over to our standing subcommittee to try and resolve it this year by possibly not raising the price totally to the subscriber but raising the cost to both the agency that publishes in the Federal Register and the subscriber, and I think that when we come back here next year, there won't be a Special Sales Program. I believe we can wipe it out. Mr. BENJAMIN. I thank you, Mr. Boyle, not only on this program but the other programs since you have become the Public Printer, I feel we have had a great improvement. I wonder if perhaps the leverage you might need is that we would withdraw any subsidy, and then you might have a three to nothing vote. Mr. BOYLE. I am not going to comment on that. Let's do this. If we can get from you information on each one of these items and the identity of controlling agency, we will follow up with a letter from this subcommittee suggesting to them in a friendly manner that we increase these prices, to something realistic. [Discussion off the record.] Mr. BENJAMIN. On the record. BY-LAW MAILING PROGRAM Mr. BENJAMIN. Explain your by-law mailing program. What costs are attributable to it? Can changes be made to effect a savings? [The information follows:] By-Law mailings are those performed by the Superintendent of Documents under provisions of law without reimbursement from the sponsoring agency. The program includes such activities as distribution of Department of Agriculture publications for Members of Congress as a result of constituent requests on Lists 1 and 3; distribution of free (to the recipient) copies of the Congressional Record, the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Soil Surveys, and the Code of Federal Regulations; distribution of the U.S. Code and Supplements, Deschler's Precedents, etc., to Members of Congress; handling of Congressional Book Exchange Accounts; and the distribution of certain Congressional publications to foreign legations. The costs for By-Law mailings include postage, personnel costs, computer services for mail label generation, receipt and storage charges, packaging and delivery activities and overhead expenses. It is expected total program costs will be reduced as a result of FY 1980 activity in the mechanization and automation of portions of the By-Law program. SUBSCRIBERS TO CONGRESSIONAL RECORD Mr. BENJAMIN. Last year we discussed the pricing of documents in considerable detail, some of which you have no control over, such as the Congressional Record and the Federal Register. Subscribers to the Congressional Record were receiving a subsidy of $116 per year. How many subscribers are receiving this subsidy? Where do we stand on pricing this year? [The information follows:] There are currently 5,460 subscriptions to the Daily Congressional Record. The Joint Committee on Printing authorized an increase in the price of a subscription from $45 to $75 for subscription renewals beginning January 1979. It will take approximately one year for all renewal subscriptions to be at the $75 price. CONGRESSIONAL RECORD SUBSCRIPTION PRICE Mr. BENJAMIN. Last year we asked you to work with the Joint Committee on Printing to set a realistic price on a subscription to the Congressional Record. Has this been done? Explain. [The information follows:] The Joint Committee on Printing, in conjunction with the Public Printer, has established a subscription price of $75.00 for the "Congressional Record," effective with the first issue published in the 96th Congress. PAGE COST OF CONGRESSIONAL RECORD Mr. BENJAMIN. Each year we ask what the cost is per page of the Congressional Record. What is the current projected cost in fiscal year 1980? [The information follows:] The page cost projected for the Congressional Record Program is, fiscal year 1978, $347.69; fiscal year 1979, $386.33; fiscal year 1980, $393.36. This page cost includes the typesetting, printing, and binding of 35,000 copies of the daily Congressional Record; indexing and printing of the biweekly Record and Indexes; storage, proofreading and correcting of the daily Record in order to print, bind and distribute the bound permanent Record. COPIES OF THE BOUND RECORD Mr. BENJAMIN. On page II-2 of the justifications you stated: After the close of each session, the daily proceedings are consolidated, indexed, and about 2,500 copies printed as the bound edition of the Record. About 1,500 of these sets are distributed to departments, depository libraries, public sales, and recipients other than Congress by law. What happened to the remaining 1,000 copies at the end of the second session of the 95th Congress? [The information follows:] Of the remaining 1,000 sets, approximately 700 sets were distributed to Congress. The Congressional Printing and Binding Appropriation is charged for these sets. The 300 additional sets were distributed to Government agencies and they were billed at the price added rate. DELAY IN DISTRIBUTING THE BOUND RECORD Mr. BENJAMIN. In February of this year, 1979, I received a copy of the bound Congressional Record for the period May 17, 1976 to May 24, 1976. Please explain the 22 year delay in printing. I don't know if it would be in the printing or the distribution. Mr. BoYLE. Yes, sir, it is a combination. When the daily Record is printed, the way we operate now, the type is stored and within 30 days the Members have the opportunity to make any changes, corrections, or additions that are not substantial. We get the copy from the Members, and make the corrections, and also move material around ourselves. Some material that didn't get in in time to print in the body of the Record and was printed in the extensions, moves into the body of the bound Record. We pick up the standing type. It is completely corrected; pages are completely re-made-up and proofread again, hopefully to get it as error free as possible. We also refolio it, put new page numbers on it, index it, and we go to press. It is about a 2-year elapsed period from the time when Congress adjourns at the end of a session before the Members receive the last volume containing the index for that session. Mr. DEVAUGHN. It is 33 volumes. Mr. BOYLE. It is a lot of printing, and it does not have top priority. It sometimes stops when the other congressional workload has higher priority. Really we have a special force that works on the Bound Record, reads it every day. But when we need those people to get out reports, bills and hearings for 8 a.m. meetings we stop work on it. I hate to use the word "fill in," but it is one of the jobs that we use to equalize the peak- and valley-workload, and it has traditionally taken that long. I don't think there is a statutory requirement that we have to have it done by any particular time. UNITED STATES CODE Mr. BENJAMIN. The United States Code is much the same vein, is it not? Mr. BoYLE. The United States Code is not the same thing. The United States Code is much more complicated than the Bound Record. We work with the Law Revision Counsel of the House in getting out the United States Code. We also work with Archives who takes copies of the enrolled bill and adds side notes and the legislative history. We receive this back as copy and then print the slip law. Copies of those slip laws go to West Publishing Company, via the Law Revision Counsel. West takes the slip law itself and puts it in the language that would go into the Code and finds a place in the Code where it would go, and that comes back as our copy for the U.S. Code. As we start on title 1, and get all of title 1, and I think title 1 and title 7 are printed in the same volume, when we get enough material totally completed, proofread and okayed by the Law Revision Counsel, we will go to press with that volume. When that volume is finished, I hope we have another volume. How many volumes of the 1976 have been completed? Mr. BOYLE. 16 volumes and 21,000 pages. It is a huge job. UNITED STATES CODE DATA BASE Mr. DEVAUGHN. It has been loaded electronically now. Mr. BOYLE. For the first time last year we converted the entire United States Code and put it in a computer data base. In the future all we have to do is take the changes that are published as Supplements and merge that data into the Code and address the material in the computer, pull it back out, and typeset it. We are going to sell tons of surplus metal used in this job. It is an entirely new process this year. Mr. BENJAMIN. What is the delay now? Mr. BOYLE. There is no delay now. The delay was due to the amount of time that it took to convert the entire Code to the new process. As I say, on the United States Code we have a pre-agreed upon schedule with the House Law Revision Counsel. Mr. BENJAMIN. I can appreciate that, but it was just recently that we received the 1976 edition. Mr. BOYLE. The 1976 edition. Mr. BENJAMIN. So we are talking of what, 3 years? Mr. BOYLE. The United States Code prints every 6 years, so the last edition was the 1970 edition. This is the 1976 edition. But now we are almost ready to print Supplement 1, which is all of the public laws that passed in the 95th Congress, 1st Session. Mr. DEVAUGHN. I would like to inject that West Publishing couldn't start working on the laws passed in the 94th Congress, 2nd Session until 1977, and it took them some time to codify. By the time we got copy, it was probably sometime in 1978. Mr. BOYLE. There is a 2-year production cycle built in after the adjournment of Congress. CODIFICATION BY WEST PUBLISHING Mr. BENJAMIN. It seems amazing that you have to go through a commercial enterprise like West Publishing. We do have a Law Revisions Counsel here. Mr. DEVAUGHN. These were arrangements made back in 1925. Mr. BOYLE. The House has the responsibility for furnishing the copy for the Code to the GPO. Mr. SONNTAG. The Law Revision Counsel is actually under the Speaker of the House. That is their contract with West Publishing Company. That is the way they handle it. Mr. BENJAMIN. So we had better take a look at that. Mr. SONNTAG. Yes, sir. Mr. BOYLE. I can't answer the question, Mr. Chairman, but I know there is a reciprocal agreement that- What is the title of the Code that West puts out? Mr. DEVAUGHN. Annotated. They would be doing this anyway, so I imagine the fee should be rather small. Mr. BOYLE. I would take a guess there are some benefits to the government the way it is handled now but I couldn't tell you what the costs are because there are two Codes. There is a commerciallyproduced Code by West and we have the United States Code produced by the Law Revision Counsel. |