Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation and Oceanography developed information in joint hearings in April and May of 1970, which I think will be useful to you and your subcommittee. In a series of letters dated January and February, 1970, addressed to my Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, the director of the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries (now known as the National Marine Fisheries Service) announced that BCF was in the process of sharply reducing its research capabilities in an effort to meet the fiscal year 1971 budget requirements. According to these letters and supplemental information obtained by the Committee, four research vessels were to be deactivated and four laboratories were to be closed or their research capabilities sharply reduced. During the hearings, the Committee discovered that funds appropriated by the Congress and earmarked for research activities were impounded and subsequently diverted to other uses. The Department of Interior and Related Agencies Appropriation Act for fiscal year 1970 (P.L. 91-98) included the addons over and above BCF's request in the amount of $2,320,000. Of this amount, $877.000 was designated for specific research projects or activities. The Committee learned that OMB impounded $627,000 of the research add-ons and used them to cover, in part, the cost of pay raises. The Committee also learned that for fiscal year 1971 OMB impounded $737,000 of BCF's appropriations and again intended to use these funds to cover, in part, the cost of pay raises. The $737,000 is the total amount of the congressional add-ons for the operation of the research laboratories at Milford, Connecticut and Ann Arbor, Michigan. After co-ordinated efforts of the Members of my Committee and other Members of the House, OMB finally released the funds for operation of the Milford and Ann Arbor laboratories, the purpose for which they were originally intended. I might point out that it was documented at the Committee hearings that not only members of my two subcommittees, but also members of the Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies expressed great concern over OMB's impounding of funds appropriated by the Congress which, in turn, were utilized for purposes other than for which they were appropriated. Since it does not appear I will be able to testify at your subcommittee hearings in March, I would appreciate your including this letter in the printed record of your subcommittee hearings. Should you find that additional information is needed on the examples I have given, please feel free to get in touch with me or my committee staff. Sincerely, EDWARD A. GARMATZ, Chairman. Hon. SAM J. ERVIN, Jr., GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION, Chairman, Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.O. DEAR SENATOR ERVIN: This is with respect to your letter of February 5, 1969, requesting information on those instances since 1945 in which appropriated funds have been withheld from this agency by the Bureau of the Budget. The delay in responding to your letter was due to the need to research records that had been retired. Beginning with fiscal year 1950, the year when General Services Administration was established, a review of all available records has now been completed. This review reveals only one instance of a withholding of funds, and it is reportable within category three of your letter. The specifics of this event are: "An appropriation reserve of $21 million was established in fiscal year 1951 in the appropriation 'Sites and Planning, Public Buildings outside the District of Columbia,' pursuant to Section 1214 of the General Appropriation Act, 1951 (Public Law 759, 81st Cong.). Subsequently, appropriation rescission of these funds was accomplished by Chapter XII of the Supplemental Appropriation Act, 1952 (Public Law 253, 82d Cong.)." Although not specifically asked for in your letter, we are reporting that during fiscal year 1969 savings have generated as a result of Section 201 of the Revenue and Expenditure Control Act of 1968 (Public Law 90-364). They total $922,296, and are presently in an apportionment reserve. However, the President has proposed the release of these reserves in House Document No. 91-50 in order that they can be applied toward financing the costs of the second phase of the Federal Salary Act of 1967 and increases to wage board employees. It is hoped that this information meets your requirements. DEAR SENATOR ERVIN: Thank you so much for your letter of March 9. Due to our fuzzy schedule in the House of Representatives, we are having difficulties deciding what any of us are going to do on a given date so I may not be able to be personally present at your hearing on the 23rd, 24th, or 25th. However, I would like to put together some statistics and put them in the record and I am also going to mark parts of my own hearing record for the past couple of years on this retention of funds by our deep freeze agency, the Bureau of the Budget, and send it to you. The Bureau of the Budget is decreeing and authorizing through their holdbacks our entire national policy. I will get the material over to you as soon as I can but I would appreciate your holding the record open. I have a feeling if we don't put an end to the Executive line item veto by freezing that Congress might as well go out of the appropriations business. With my warmest personal regards, I am Yours most sincerely, Hon. SAM J. ERVIN, Jr., JULIA BUTLER HANSEN, M.C. CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, HOUSE OF REPRESENATAIVES, U.S. Senator, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR ERVIN: I am enclosing a self-explanatory copy of an editorial in THE OREGONIAN and a self-explanatory letter from myself to THE OREGONIAN. I think the entire subject of the separation of powers and where power is residing is finally beginning to come through to the people of the United States. I will also send you marked copies of our hearings when they are published. With my warmest personal regards, I am, Yours most sincerely, JULIA BUTLER HANSEN, M.C. CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, Mr. HERBERT LUNDY, Editor, Editorial Page, The Oregonian, DEAR MR. LUNDY: Congratulations on your editorial of Friday, March 19. I particularly want to express my appreciation for your bringing to the attention of the people in the Northwest the decision-making operation of the OMB which was formerly the Bureau of the Budget. What people have no idea about is that many second-rate bureaucrats are determining the economic policies of the United States. For example, today in a hearing of the Geological Survey which handles the details of all funding of oil exploration, knowledge, and knowhow for guidance on leasing policies on millions of acres of off-shore oil land, I was told by the Director of the Geological Survey, Dr. Pecora, that although the government has received $6 billion in direct payments to the Treasury, which has gone into the fiscal life of the United States, only $10 million has been spent in the management by the Department for surveys, et cetera, and this figure is only as large as it is because during the last few years I have placed in the record of hearings some rather scalding remarks about the Bureau of the Budget providing sufficient money to safeguard the public's interest in the field of oil leasing. It is unconscionable that this nation is denied the proper economic fruits and the proper management of its own resources because of prejudiced persons, some prejudiced against certain areas or are biased for certain other areas and who can, for all I know, be prejudiced pro or con in the industrial world. This year for example the research amounts for Forest Service are miserably small in spite of the fact that increasing research is the answer to some of our timber management and recreation use problems. Ours is the most short-sighted nation in the world to allow a Civil Service bureaucracy with no responsibility to the electorate at all to manage affairs that may well decide the life or death of this nation or areas of this nation. I have been appalled in the eight years that I have been on the Interior Committee of Appropriations at our shortsightedness and for five years I have fought a battle against this kind of fiscal dice shaking. In another category: there are pronouncements, statements, and rhetoric about bettering the conditions of Indians, yet the Bureau of the Budget repeatedly denies funds that will benefit their economic lives through betterment of their natural resource picture. Through my own personal struggle I have succeeded in building a fish hatchery for the Quinaults, which is of major importance to their economy and to all fishermen in the Northwest. Warm Springs has a fish hatchery, waiting for funding. Nothing is in the current budget. When I add money to appropriations bills the Bureau of the Budget places these items in the "deep freeze". In other words, they give it a line item veto. Mr. Lundy, the situation is so grave that some of us fear the Bureau of the Budget can well be our total national undoing. I hate to be so blunt, and I am not bitter, but I am disturbed and any thoughtful, rational person can't help but be concerned, so I do appreciate your editorial. With my warmest personal regards, I am, Yours most sincerely, JULIA BUTLER HANSEN, M.C. [From The Oregonian, Mar. 19, 1971] BACKROOM SABOTAGE The counter-proposal of the Office of Management and Budget to the regional group headed by Gov. Dan Evans of Washington for resuming operation of the dual-purpose, plutonium-and-power system at Hanford is clearly unacceptable. 60-337-71-32 It would require every contract customer of the Bonneville Power Administration to agree to a wholesale power rate increase of from 20 to 25 per cent to get the 800,000-kilowatt production of the Hanford nuclear plant back into the power pool, where it is shared 50-50 by publicly owned and privately owned utilities. This is beyond the realm of imagination. Why, for example, should a small public utility district or municipal system which has "preference and priority" in federal power be forced to pass on to its consumer members a big rate increase ordered by an arbitrary federal bureau? There would be other "no" answers, as well. The OMB didn't do its homework before rejecting Gov. Evans' offer, on behalf of the sponsors of the Hanford nuclear power plant, of $15 million a year for the steam which is a by-product of plutonium production and demanding approximately $31 million. The larger sum, OMB figured, could be obtained by the simple procedure of a rate increase by BPA. But BPA is required by law to open its contracts for rate increases no oftener than every five years, and the next opening is in 1974. The Federal Power Commission is required by law to approve or disapprove BPA rate changes. In other words, BPA cannot require its customers to pay more than their contracts call for whether or not Hanford generation is resumed. And if it can't raise rates it would run into a deficit. Its net earnings last year were about $5 million. The OMB's order to the Atomic Energy Commission to shut down the Nreactor at Hanford made no sense in the first place, inasmuch as the government will continue to produce plutonium at other sites-and without the revenue from surplus steam. Besides being a policy-making decision by a bookkeeping office which threatens an entire region with a worse power shortage than already in sight, the order violated the contract AEC signed with the Washington Public Power Supply System. This required adequate notice to WPPSS before any suspension of the steam supply. The over-night cancellation also countermanded the decision of Congress authorizing the public-private-federal partnership project. The order is not, however, inconsistent with the past performance of OMB under its former name, the Bureau of the Budget. For years a second-level, decision-making structure of the budget makers has sought by every tricky device it can dream up to force higher electric power rates in the Pacific Northwest. Just why this is true is difficult to find out. But the industry knows it and so does every member of Congress from the Northwest who has taken the time and trouble to fight destructive budget gimmicks. In plain words, the Office of Management and Budget has long been engaged and is increasingly engaged in policy making for the executive branch which does not even hesitate to subvert congressional decisions. It's a ridiculous and a nasty situation. It is beyond our understanding why the President does not correct this usurpation of power which is done under his name and often without his knowledge. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE, Hon. SAM J. ERVIN, Jr., OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, Washington, D.C., August 4, 1969. DEAR SENATOR ERVIN: In accordance with the Secretary's interim response of March 3, we are submitting the following report pertaining to your request for information concerning Presidential or executive impoundment of appropriated funds. In developing a response to your inquiry, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare has made a comprehensive search of its apportionment records dating back to its inception in 1953. As a general rule, reserves which were established during the period 1953-1969 fall in one of the following categories: 1. Temporary reserves to assure that funds would be available when needed for such things as individual construction projects or the initiation or enlargement of a given program or activity. 2. Reserves to comply with a specific requirement in law, notably reserves established for fiscal years 1968 and 1969 to fulfill requirements of H.J.R. 888 and Public Law 90-364. 3. Reserves established by the Department in its apportionment requests to comply with Presidential directives to reduce costs, combat inflation, etc. The President's program to combat inflation conducted in fiscal year 1967 would fall within the last category. Under this program, the Department placed $277,135,000 in reserve in its apportionment requests. Since this action was taken in compliance with Presidential directives, these reserves might be considered appropriate for inclusion under category (1) of your request: reserves established by the Bureau of the Budget, in the name of the President, which affected specific programs or projects. However, we would emphasize that the selection of the specific programs and projects and determinations of the individual amounts involved were made by the Department and not by the Bureau of the Budget. Otherwise, on its own initiative, the Bureau of the Budget put no funds in reserve in connection with this particular anti-inflationary effort. We would be happy to furnish a detailed listing of these reserves if you so desire. Our review reveals one instance involving the National Cancer Institute where funds were placed in reserve in fiscal year 1957 contrary to the wishes of the Department. The Bureau of the Budget, acting under the authority of the Anti-Deficiency Act, established a reserve of $29,800,000 against the National Cancer Institute's initial apportionment request of $48,432,000. This action only allowed apportionment of funds for the first two quarters of the fiscal year. Through subsequent actions, including approval of additional_apportionment requests by the National Cancer Institute, the Bureau of the Budget reduced the reserve to a final amount of $5,573,000 on June 14, 1957. I hope this information is sufficiently responsive to the question you have raised. If I may be of further assistance in this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Sincerely yours, JAMES F. KELLY, Assistant Secretary, Comptroller. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, Washington, D.C., July 8, 1969. SAM J. ERVIN, Jr., Chairman, Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR ERVIN: This has further reference to your letter of February 3, 1969, and our reply thereto of February 14, 1969, regarding budgetary reserves established by the Bureau of the Budget against Department of the Interior appropriations since 1945. There is enclosed for your information statements prepared by the various bureaus of the Department showing budget reserves established against certain funds under their control for the fiscal year indicated on the reports. It will be noted that our reports do not include information for the entire period 1945 to 1969. Even with information obtained from Federal Record Centers we are unable to furnish data relating to reserves for certain periods because pertinent agency records are no longer available. Such records were disposed of pursuant to authority from the General Services Administration issued under the Record Disposal Act (44 U.S.C. 369). With respect to the reserves established under your categories 1 and 2 we believe that you will realize that it is difficult and not always possible for us |