I think that is a little fuller answer to the question you it not?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Now, in the matter of encroachments by different bureaus of the Government, or department of the Government, on the prerogatives of another agency, as I understand it, the approval for questionnaires sent to citizens of the United States, business, industry, or in fact anyone, passes through the Division of Statistical Standards?

Dr. RICE. The Division of Statistical Standards, according to Budget Circular 360, is to receive from all Federal agencies the submission of proposed statistical plans, including questionnaires, before they are sent out. The function of the Division is to review these forms or questionnaires, whatever they may be; to consult other agencies which may have a concern with them-clear them around, in other words, and report to the committing agency in turn its suggestions as to improvements or changes of any sort, eliminations; possibly the addition of items, looking toward a simplification of these statistical activities of the Federal Government as a whole. Not infrequently, for example, two questionnaires on similar subjects may be combined, and one agency entrusted with the collection of the data, rather than two agencies.

Now, you used the term "approval," Mr. Chairman. I do not believe it has been clearly established just how far that reviewing process involves a legal approval or disapproval. We advise, we recommend to the agencies submitting forms to us, and the question has not arisen within the Bureau of the Budget as to how far those recommendations constitute approval in any legal sense.

The CHAIRMAN. I have in mind an agency of government that has an established frequency with which they gather statistical information. That agency has contacted me in opposition to this bill, and stated to me that if we could get the assurance of the Director of the Census, the Secretary of Commerce, that questionnaires encroaching on their prerogatives would be submitted to the Division of Statistical Standards and a limitation placed upon the powers granted to the Bureau of the Census for the duration of the existing emergency, with which the Office of Production Management is concerned, that Bureau would then be willing to withdraw its objection to the enactment of this legislation. However, I was contacted after Secretary Jones had been before the committee, and not wishing to recall him for assurance of that character I asked Mr. Capt, and he said he would not think of preparing a census questionnaire without it having the approval of the Division of Statistical Standards in the Bureau of the Budget. That being the case, how could you safeguard the interests of another one of the coordinated branches of the Government on their acquiescence to this legislation, under those circumstances, that it would not be encroached upon?

Dr. RICE. Let me say, Mr. Chairman, that the Bureau of the Budget has no objection to the addition of specifications in this bill requiring submission to the Bureau of the Budget of any statistical proposal. I believe that we have so advised at least two other Federal agencies which have proposed to send letters to you making that suggestion, and I suppose those letters have been sent to you. On the other hand, I think I can say that the Bureau, while offering no objection to the incorporation of such terminology in the bill, feels

that such incorporation would be unnecessary in the respect that the Bureau already has the power to require the submission to it of any such proposal. We maintain the expectation, as we so advised the Secretary of Commerce among others, that any plans developed which rested in any respect upon the bill before you, would, in fact, be submitted to the Bureau of the Budget for review. We, however, are quite ready, if the committee should so desire, to agree that it would not be out of order for such language to be put in the bill. However, we think it somewhat unnecessary. That is our position.

The CHAIRMAN. I assume that I have the letters from both departments, but the thing is this, and I would like to get this thought clear in your mind: If the Director of the Census prepares a questionnaire under authority vested in him through the Secretary of Commerce by this bill on its enactment, and that questionnaire should duplicate information previously sought, or regularly sought, and obtained by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Department of Labor, how would you check it up to prevent that?

Dr. RICE. We believe, sir, that if the Bureau of the Budget, having before it two statistical proposals which conflicted, we believe that we would be able to arrive at any one of several possible solutions. It might be that the Bureau of the Census should undertake the inquiry in the hypothetical case you suggest, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics abandon it. Possibly the Bureau of Labor Statistics should continue the inquiry and the Bureau of the Census withdraw its plans. Possibly the two could in some way be molded together and presented as one inquiry. We would regard it as our responsibility to work out a solution, whatever that solution might be, and to recommend that solution to the agencies affected, in the hypothetical case the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of the Census. We believe that the position of the Bureau of the Budget in respect to both agencies is such that they would give hearty acquiescence in our recommendation. I am not prepared to say, because I do not know-I think the question has never been asked what the result might be if for any reason an agency in such a situation should not accept the recommendations made to it.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, Dr. Rice, I am going to tell you from the standpoint of my experience gained in having been a member of this Census Committee ever since I came to Congress-Congressman Allen and myself came on this committee at the same time-I want to say to you that we have had repeated instances, and I know that all the members of the committee have had contacts from their constituencies, or if they have not from them, they have had from persons who have received questionnaires from some agency of Government-that irks them to work out the answers. Then there may be somebody else come along and ask them to do virtually the same thing, but with authority from some other branch of the Government. We get considerable murmurings. At the time former Congressman Bruce Barton was a member of this committee, he was very much irked at the attitude of the Central Statistical Board in contacting people who, in turn, contacted him and complained.

Dr. RICE. Mr. Chairman, could I interpose there?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. We hope you can give us a lot of information on that.

Dr. RICE. I would like to correct, if I can, what I think is probably a misunderstanding somewhere along the line in respect to either

Congressman Barton's understanding or yours of his. I had several conversations with Mr. Barton when he was a Member of the House and at the time I was chairman of the Central Statistical Board. The Central Statistical Board was an organization whose functions are now continued in the Division of Statistical Standards of the Bureau of the Budget, very largely unchanged. I was chairman of the Board, as I am now the Assistant Director of the Budget in charge of the Division of Statistical Standards, and it was not a function of the Board, as it is not now a function of the Division of Statistical Standards, to collect information other than information about the information-collecting activities of other agencies, if you will.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, you may be able to give us a lot of information that we would like to have.

Mr. KINZER. That is probably true.

Dr. RICE. Our task, in other words, was to attempt then as the Central Statistical Board, just as it is our task now to attempt as the Division of Statistical Standards, to simplify and reduce the number of duplicating investigations that were being made by Federal agencies. I feel no offense at any misunderstanding which has existed here, because there was a great deal of misunderstanding as to that function, and it was stated, I believe either in committee or possibly on the floor of one of the Houses of Congress at one time, that the Central Statistical Board was now here to add to the confusion, when its precise purpose was to reduce the confusion, and the effect, so far as possible, was to reduce the confusion, reduce the duplication to which you refer.

I wanted to make that correction, sir, if I might, for the record at this point.

The CHAIRMAN. I am glad you did, because the conversations that Congressman Barton had with you were some of the things that he probably brought back to the committee here.

Dr. RICE. Might I suggest that Congressman Barton may quite. readily have felt that we were not doing our job adequately, but, to the extent that our job was done adequately, we certainly helped to lessen this evil rather than to increase it.

Mr. KINZER. Do you have legal authority and is it part of your function to approve this method of gathering information? Because you use the expression "legal approval," and I was wondering I did not for a moment suppose you would approve it illegally.

Dr. RICE. No; I fear my words, Mr. Kinzer, were not too fortunate. Mr. KINZER. And that is why I am asking you the question, whether your approval is necessary under existing law.

Dr. RICE. Yes. Let me say I want to be just as candid and frank and complete in my submission of testimony and evidence here as I possibly can be, so my answer to that question, Mr. Kinzer, is that I frankly am not sure. I believe that the question has never been juridically decided as to the extent of authority that we would have to issue a mandate in respect to a questionnaire submitted to us.

We have this information, that when the President submitted to Congress General Reorganization Plan No. 1, in July 1939 if I am correct, the President included in that plan the transfer of the Central Statistical Board to the Bureau of the Budget. He was at that time advised by the Attorney General that the authority of the Budget and Accounting Act of 1922 included sufficient authority to cover

all of the powers which had been specifically vested by law in the Central Statistical Board. Now, the Central Statistical Board's powers were advisory. They were broad but shallow, shall I say, and we assume that within the Budget and Accounting Act, while the breadth was maintained, the depth has been increased-if I may speak in that figurative language. But as to the precise depth, I do not know. We have the experience, of course, that the Budget Bureau's opinion is regarded by the Federal agencies generally as the voice of the Chief Executive. It has that legal position in our Federal system at present, and consequently we issue advice, expecting that it will be observed, and by experience it is observed.

Mr. KINZER. That is because you are holding the purse strings. That is part of your function, your responsibility, and of course the purpose of the creation of the Bureau.

Dr. RICE. You probably point to the key to the situation here, which is that the control over the Budget does give a control over the expenditures made under the Budget.

Mr. KINZER. And properly so.

Mr. ALLEN. Well, the Central Statistical Board has no more authority now than it had before?

Dr. RICE. The Central Statistical Board no longer exists, Congress

man.

Mr. ALLEN. You have been transferred to the Bureau of the Budget?

Dr. RICE. Yes; but the Board has ceased, in the meantime to exist, as of July 25, 1940.

Mr. ALLEN. Whoever performs the function now has no more authority now than you had back yonder before 1939?

Dr. RICE. My impression is, sir, that we do, because we now exercise our functions no longer under the act which established the Central Statistical Board, which has ceased to exist, but under the Budget and Accounting Act, and under Executive orders of the President prescribing the duties of the Executive Office of which the Bureau of the Budget is now a part.

Mr. ALLEN. But where is the particular statutory authority that says that your group or any other group has the power of veto, say, on information that any department may want to gather? That is the point, I think, that Mr. Kinzer wanted to get.

Mr. KINZER. Yes. Of course, I realize that the Bureau of the Budget-that the purpose of that Bureau is sufficient authority to see that the administration of these different organizations, all of the organizations of the Government that are dependent for their life upon the appropriations that the Bureau of the Budget helps to provide for them that the responsibility is yours, finally.

Mr. ALLEN. But the point is this: Does even the Bureau of the Budget, with your Statistical Board transferred to it, does it now have the authority to say to the Labor Department or the Interior Department or any other Department of the Government that submits a request for certain data, that it wants to get, that it wants to send out an inquiry to get does the Bureau of the Budget now have the authority to say, "No, you cannot do this?"

Dr. RICE. My impression is that the Bureau of the Budget has the power to say: "Unless you make this withdrawal, we will see that the

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funds which you intended to spend for that purpose are impounded and are no longer made available to you."

Mr. ALLEN. You are talking about doing the thing now by indirect methods.

Dr. RICE. Yes.

Mr. ALLEN. That is an indirect method.

Dr. RICE. That is true.

Mr. ALLEN. If you stop a fellow's pay, that certainly interferes with his activities.

Dr. RICE. Exactly.

Mr. ALLEN. But do you have sufficient statutory authority to say yes or no when a request is submitted? I am asking purely for information. Do you have sufficient statutory authority?

Dr. RICE. Purely as a matter of opinion, sir, as I said to Mr. Kinzer, I do not know. I know the power is not specifically stated.

I am informed that the President received advice from the Department of Justice that very extensive authority was implicit in the Budget and Accounting Act.

Mr. ALLEN. You are operating on implied authority and not statutory authority?

Dr. RICE. Yes; with the effective instrument of enforcement, of course, as Mr. Kinzer says, the control which the Bureau has over funds.

Mr. ALLEN. Now, following that point, will this bill-ard I assume that you have studied this bill-will this bill have a tendency to increase or decrease duplication of efforts along the line we are talking about, getting information?

Dr. RICE. As the bill stands, my impression is that it will neither increase nor decrease duplication, per se. As it stands, we assume that any questionnaires proposed under this bill, if enacted, will be referred to us, and in the administrative process of clearing the proposal, adjustments will be made which we hope will avoid increased duplication.

Mr. ALLEN. Well, the object of this committee, I think, has always been to try to work out plans to stop duplication. We, frankly, do not see any necessity for various agencies of government going out here and getting information on the same question, and have you any suggestions as to what we might write into this bill to curtail that, to minimize it?

Dr. RICE. Speaking very candidly, sir, I do not see how the committee could enunciate easily in this bill, by additional amendment, anything which would reduce the general duplication of statistical work.

There is now pending in the Senate, in the Committee on Education and Labor, a bill introduced by Senator Mead on behalf of Senator Murray, for the Committee on Problems of Small Business Enterprises, a bill which would confer upon the Bureau of the Budget authority which is not now specifically given it. Waiving the question of whether authority is really added or not, it would give specific authority to the Bureau of the Budget to deal with this problem of duplicating questionnaires. That bill is before Congress, and I should assume that probably it would represent the channel through which any specific authority might be given, if given to the Budget Bureau. Mr. ALLEN. Do you think it would help the situation if we were to write in this bill a clause to the effect that all requests for information