POSSIBLE EFFECT OF PATRON MAIL PROVISION ON COSTS

Mr. STEED. Under item No. 5, on franked envelopes and document franks, your estimate for fiscal 1963 is somewhat in line with prior years. Especially in the light of this, would it be reasonable to assume that the so-called patron mail impact will not be expected to make any appreciable change in the demand for these items? There has been some criticism of what Congress did in the bill last year to provide for patron or occupant mail. That has been interpreted by some critics to the extent they thought it was going to cause a deluge of abuse.

Mr. HARRISON. No appreciable change.

Mr. STEED. Under item No. 5 in the justifications sheet, the franked envelopes and document franks have leveled off fairly well and you did not, apparently, anticipate any excessive new demand over what it has been.

Mr. HARRISON. Yes, sir.

Mr. STEED. The point I was trying to make is that in your survey of the situation, you did not see anything to indicate there would be anything more than the normal situation this year?

Mr. HARRISON. No, sir.

Mr. STEED. That seems to indicate that the patron or occupant mail provision has yet failed to bear out what some of the critics said about it.

Off the record.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. HORAN. The only real use of this patron mail, aside from the official correspondence, in my office is for farm bulletins. I do use it for that purpose and that alone.

Mr. STEED. We had a rather unofficial survey of the work in the folding room. It has been my observation up to now that the most use that it has been put to is by Members who send a questionnaire out at the beginning of the year, or something of that type. Since many of them did that on very inefficient mailing lists before, the actual number of pieces handled has not changed a great deal. It is a different approach to the use of the same thing and, in my own experience, I have found it a lot more efficient that way than it was the other way. When I sent out material of that sort under a mailing list, I received back a very large number that could not be delivered. I think it costs the Post Office Department more money to collect all of those badly addressed ones than it does to cope with the "occupant" mail.

COMMITTEE CALENDARS

Mr. STEED. Under item No. 6, you estimate $730,000 for 65,000 pages of House and Senate committee calendars. Do you maintain a log or a record of this, so that it would indicate whether this was a normal trend, or what? What method do you use to arrive at this estimate? Mr. HUMPHREY. The estimate is based on the experience we have had in prior years.

Mr. STEED. Do the committees follow somewhat the same schedule as to how often they have their calendars printed?

Mr. HARRISON. No sir; it varies all over the lot. I attempted while I was with the joint committee to get some sort of unified method of

printing calendars and each committee wanted it the way it wanted it, So we gave up.

PENDING LEGISLATION-DEPOSITORY LIBRARIES

Mr. STEED. It is my understanding that a bill is pending in the other body dealing with depository libraries. How many do we have now?

Mr. BUCKLEY. 594.

Mr. STEED. What would the pending legislation do?

Mr. BUCKLEY. It would make it possible to increase that number by a maximum of 634 additional libraries.

Mr. STEED. How?

Mr. BUCKLEY. Provision would be made for increasing the number allotted to each congressional district to not more than two, so you would add another one for each congressional district that has only one presently designated.

Mr. HORAN. A depository library?

Mr. BUCKLEY. That is right. In addition, it would make possible the creation of additional depositories in Government agencies to the extent of the number of major bureaus or divisions.

Mr. STEED. Has anybody worked out any estimated cost of what the new legislation would involve, if adopted?

Mr. HARRISON. Yes, sir. We tried.

Mr. BUCKLEY. We made a very rough estimate, based on a number of assumptions that would have to be made in the absence of any positive figures, that it might cost the other Government agencies about $1 million a year. We estimated also that the additional cost to our Office could be over $1 million annually.

Mr. HARRISON. In addition, a more damaging section in this bill would be that, in the printing of depository copies of all Government publications in the 341 field plants of the Government throughout the world, a listing of those publications would have to be made and submitted to the depositories for their choice. Assuming that we at the Printing Office print $100 million worth of printing a year, I feel that the field plants of the Government print at least that much more so it could very easily double the amount of material that our Superintendent of Documents would have to handle, plus the fact that it would mean, in many small field plants where they print field printing as used in that geographical area, they may only print 300 copies for their use and they would have to print 1,500 extra for possible use of the depository library.

Mr. HORAN. For the record, what is the number of this bill and where is it?

Mr. HARRISON. H.R. 4141, and the Senate companion bill is S. 2029. Mr. HORAN. Where are these bills?

Mr. HARRISON. The House passed it and the Senate had a hearing on it last week.

Last Friday we appeared before the Senate Rules Committee where I objected to the inclusion of the two items in this bill which would cause us to include field publications and also facsimile reproduction of publications.

Mr. STEED. I can understand why there would be a case made for the first part of it, but what is the particular demand or interest to make it so broad as to include everything?

Mr. HARRISON. Mr. Steed, the librarians seem to have done a real lobbying job on this bill. The bill was originally started to increase the number of depositories in congressional districts.

Mr. HORAN. There will be an increased cost for service and if there are any fees connected with it, would you favorably entertain a study of this matter with the possible objective of increasing the Government's remuneration for this service?

Mr. HARRISON. So far as I know, the Government does not receive any remuneration from libraries for this.

Mr. BUCKLEY. The only remuneration the Government receives from the depository program at the present time is the requirement that the libraries pay the cost of the postage.

Mr. HARRISON. This new bill would strike that out.

Mr. BUCKLEY. This new bill, as Mr. Harrison said, would not only strike it out but this is one of the major items that the library associations and individual libraries have objected to ever since the charge was imposed. The one item in which the Government now gets remuneration would no longer be an item under the proposed new legislation.

Mr. HORAN. I have to go back to my original position. This is another item that can be argued on both sides, one that it is a public service and, therefore, gets information out to where it can be properly distributed and used and which is a proper function of the Federal Government and an advantage to the local areas that may have access to these depositories.

The other side of the argument is that the Federal Government alone can coin or issue money and, therefore, it is supposed to be a bottomless barrel of credit and the revenues and the availability of funds at the Federal level are bottomless. However, there are some disquieting facts before us now with regard to the national debt, deficits, and the balance of payments, and all that goes along to the point of weakening the dollar and lowering its purchasing power. Therefore, anyone serving on the Appropriations Committee has to resolve this, as I have said so many times, in favor of keeping the dollar stable and the Federal Government solvent. It is of immense importance to all of us, especially those living on fixed incomes, so that there will be an additional expense to the Federal Government if the bill is passed in its present form.

Do I understand that you, as the Public Printer, appeared before this Senate committee and that your testimony was in the direction of protecting the Federal Government from what might be called undue fiscal responsibilities in this matter?

Mr. HARRISON. Yes, sir; I did, Mr. Horan. I will admit that my objection was a compromise from objecting to the entire bill as it was, which I felt I should not. We agreed we could live with the first part of the bill provided, and I repeatedly said this in my testimony, provided the money to cover the additional costs was made available. We gave to the Senate Rules Committee an estimate of what it would cost if this were enacted. I strongly urged against the inclusion of field publications in the depository system because of what I think is the impossible effort that would have to be put forth to even try to get a listing of the field publications.

The librarians kept saying this would be a selection and that they would only select a few, but somebody would have to go through all