Mr. FITZPATRICK. The Department of Labor is represented and the Office of Defense Mobilization.

Mr. PHILLIPS. Not the Department of Commerce?

Any

Mr. THOMAS. The Department of Commerce is not in that? way, there are some eight or nine agencies, and that committee has been functioning. It is known as the Kaul committee and it has been in existence some 6 or 7 or 8 months. Is that about right?

Mr. FITZPATRICK. It has been in existence since April or March, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. THOMAS. Of this year?

Mr. FITZPATRICK. Yes, sir.

Mr. THOMAS. That would make how many months, then-six? Mr. FITZPATRICK. That is right, sir.

Mr. THOMAS. What is the need then for this large amount of money, and some 264 employees to do this work which I presume has been fairly well developed by another committee? Can you give me a quick answer to that?

Mr. FITZPATRICK. Yes, Mr. Chairman. The committee to which you have referred has been known as Interagency Committee on Critical Defense Housing Areas. The general procedures which have been developed in the Committee, it is perfectly true, are similar in a general way to the procedures that will be followed in connection with the activities under title I of the Defense Housing Act.

Quite frankly, however, the standards which are specified in the new act are drawn partly from types of things which that committee was not called upon to find. Now, I think there are two major items in the work of any committee under the new act which are quite substantially different from the work of the committee previously established. The only tool that we have had for encouraging or channeling housing into these defense areas is through the relaxation of credit controls. The type of information which is needed for that amounts to not much more than rather rough approximations of what the needs are and what can be done for meeting them through the relaxation of credit controls alone.

For example, in the FHA Act, in title II, the concept of economic soundness limits quite materially, I think, the FHA insurance that may be made available. The whole purpose of the new title IX of the National Housing Act is to permit the FHA, in its evaluations of the market in defense areas, to depart somewhat from the concept of economic soundness toward the concept of acceptable risks——

Mr. THOMAS. Well, Mr. Fitzpatrick, if I may interrupt you there, aren't you attempting to set up another little unit? What difference does it make about words here? After all, the area is either critical in respect to housing or it isn't critical.

Of course the act is none too helpful. Housing and community facilities should be handled by the same agency. Certainly the people who build the housing ought to build the community facilities or vice versa. It ought not to be in the hands of two separate and distinct agencies.

We all have lived long enough and operated in Government long enough to know that you are going to have two competing agencies and you are not going to be able to get along. The community facilities people are not going to agree with the housing people, and

vice versa; and the upshot of it is that there are going to be more committees, more red tape, more of this, that and the other.

Now what are you going to know that the Kaul committee does not know and has not been able to develop?

NUMBER OF CRITICAL AREAS

Mr. FITZPATRICK. The Kaul committee has had before it a total of about two hundred and thirty- or two hundred and forty-odd areas. There are 132 still awaiting consideration. About 40 areas have been certified. About 40 areas have been denied. Again, as I said, that is on the basis of only a rough approximation of what the actual needs are in the areas.

Our current estimate is that under the new act something in the neighborhood of 800 localities will come up for consideration, of which about 600 will have to be considered, resulting in about 400 that will be certified.

Mr. THOMAS. I notice you gave some figures of 400 and 600.

Mr. FITZPATRICK. Four hundred to be certified and six hundred to be actually considered.

Mr. THOMAS. Where did you get that figure of 400, and where did you get that figure of 600? You did not take that out of thin air? Mr. FITZPATRICK. No, Mr. Chairman. I can give you an indication what the military alone has indicated in their judgment are problem areas to them.

Mr. THOMAS. This is a good time to get that in the record. In how many places has the military alone indicated areas are to be declared critical?

Mr. FITZPATRICK. Mr. Chairman, this is not totaled up, but it is a list of eight pages of areas, organized on a State and locality basis. Mr. THOMAS. Can you estimate it right quickly?

Mr. FRANTZ. In the neighborhood of 200.

(NOTE. The list actually includes 326 individual cities.)

Mr. THOMAS. In the neighborhood of 200 that the military alone estimated should be declared critical areas; is that correct?

Mr. FRANTZ. Yes.

Mr. THOMAS. What part of the 132 that has been under investigation by the Kaul committee is included in the 200 recommended by the military?

Mr. FITZPATRICK. We can supply that for the record, after a cross check of the lists.

Mr. THOMAS. Yes.

I think it would be well to insert that list of places recommended by the military at this point in the record.

(The list referred to is as follows:)

In response to the chairman's question the following is submitted: Of the 326 individual communities listed below, an examination of the cases pending and handled by the committee shows that 185 of these communities have not been considered by the committee and are not now included in the cases pending before the committee.

Jefferson.
Lawrence.
Newport

South Bend..

Burlington.

Cedar Rapids. Davenport..