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increase, $59,000 is to cover the increased costs of testing, selecting and releasing plant species for commercial production and $400,000 is to replace unserviceable equipment and to repair facilities.

In the table we have made available summarizing the budget proposals for all of our appropriations, it shows that this is the one area that has a program increase.

RESOURCE APPRAISAL AND PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT

For resource appraisal and program development, the budget proposes $5,797,000. This is $192,000 more than fiscal 1981 and we would use the increase to offset increased operating costs related to the process.

RIVER BASIN SURVEYS AND INVESTIGATIONS

The second appropriation item is river basin surveys and investigations. The budget proposes an appropriation of $16,165,000. This is a decrease of $2,158,000 from fiscal 1981. This will support a reduced level for USDA cooperative studies and in interagency coordination and program formulation activities.

The budget proposes to reduce the rate of completion of salinity studies in the Colorado River Basin because studies are significantly ahead of project implementation.

WATERSHED PLANNING

The budget for watershed planning includes $6,690,000. This is a net program decrease of $4,123,000 from fiscal year 1981. No new planning starts are proposed for 1982.

WATERSHED AND FLOOD PREVENTION OPERATIONS

The budget proposes a total appropriation of $162,045,000 for watershed and flood prevention operations. This is a net decrease of $30,479,000 from fiscal year 1981. We fund three activities under this appropriation.

For flood prevention operations authorized by Public Law 534, the budget proposes $18,434,000 for the eleven authorized flood prevention projects. This is a net decrease of $5,066,000 from fiscal year 1981 and this will support a generally reduced level of program activity for this coming fiscal year.

We are also at the point where we need to plan the future direction of this program. Congress has requested a review of all flood prevention projects and that is underway to determine how best to finish the remaining workload.

The budget proposes $10 million for emergency watershed protection operations which is the same funding level as in fiscal year 1981.

The budget proposes $133,611,000 for Public Law 566 small watershed projects. This is a net decrease of $25,413,000 from fiscal year 1981. It will support a generally reduced level of program activity that would allow us to complete about twenty projects in

1982.

No new construction starts are proposed for the coming fiscal year

We are continuing to emphasize accelerated conservation land treatment in approved watersheds. This provides for more conservation land treatment in the tributary areas above dams and is a very significant portion of our watershed protection and flood prevention operations.

GREAT PLAINS CONSERVATION PROGRAM

The budget proposes an appropriation of $22,288,000 for the Great Plains Conservation Program. This is an increase of $1,624,000 from fiscal 1981. The added funds will cover increased operating and construction costs for conservation practices installed under the Great Plains contracts.

For many years the Great Plains region has been plagued with drought and severe wind erosion problems, most recently last year, and the evidence at hand is not encouraging for this coming spring season. To help solve these problems, we would plan to fund about 1,000 new contracts covering 3 million additional acres in the coming fiscal year.

Since 1956 with the inception of this program, farmers and ranchers have received about $232 million in cost-share payments. Your Committee has been instrumental in supporting that appropriation. A total of 110 million acres have been protected through 58,000 cost-share contracts in these Plains States. We anticipate that about 5,000 applications will await contracts as of the end of 1982 and there are more people waiting for help.

Public Law 96-263 enacted in 1980 extended this program to September 30, 1991.

RESOURCE CONSERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT

The budget proposes an appropriation of $26,812,000 for the resource conservation and development program which is $7,234,000 less than in 1981. This is commonly called the RC&D program.

We have 194 authorized RC&D areas. USDA through the SCS provides planning and coordination assistance to local sponsors and they in turn obtain the needed improvements they feel will help their local community.

The 1982 budget requests no new RC&D area authorizations and proposes to complete the program phaseout by the end of fiscal 1982. Emphasis will be placed on completing those measures on which work is already underway.

We will provide coordination and major planning assistance in 1981 in full accordance with the congressional direction including the four new areas authorized by the 1981 Appropriation Act.

LONG-TERM IMPACT OF CONSERVATION WORK

In summary, Mr. Chairman, the work performed under the Soil and Water Resources Conservation Act has helped the Department of Agriculture including my agency and the states, and this is important, to examine conservation work accomplished over the past 45 years.

We found that controlling erosion, maintaining soil productivity, retaining prime farmlands, reducing upstream flood damage, improving water quality and conservation and conserving energy are

very high priorities for national goals assuming more importance than ever before if we are to produce sufficient agricultural products for ourselves and for export while at the same time protecting our increasingly valuable soil and water base.

I also have with me Clete Gillman who is the Deputy Chief for State and Local Operations; Joe Haas, Deputy Chief for Natural Resource Projects including watershed and flood prevention work; Ralph McCracken who heads our Resource Assessment area, and Paul Newcombe who is the Director of our Financial Management activity.

We are pleased to be available for any questions the Committee may have at this point.

SCS STAFFING

Mr. WHITTEN. Thank you very much.

How many technicians do you have for the current year?
Mr. BERG. Presently we are permitted to have 13,320.

Mr. WHITTEN. How close to the ceiling are you?

Mr. BERG. We are right at what is proposed for this year.

Mr. WHITTEN. Is that your ceiling on total number of people? Mr. BERG. We are going to move into a new way of counting in that we will have a staff year equivalency that we will have to observe as we move towards how many people are actually drawing salaries.

Mr. WHITTEN. I realize that at certain times of the year you can do much more work than at other times due to the weather. You need some temporary people-that is, people to work during the active season. How many temporaries do you have?

Mr. BERG. This fiscal year we are allowed to have slightly over 1,500 staff years that we would consider temporary.

Mr. WHITTEN. There have been increases in salaries over the years, although I would not say they have kept up with inflation. Have you been having to absorb those? Have you had the funds to keep the number of people up to your limit?

Mr. BERG. Mr. Chairman, I think this is a very difficult problem for an administrator of an agency. This year because of the increased pay cost that came in October of last year, we will need an additional $32 million to fully fund that additional pay. The proposal for the supplemental is $20 million.

We have partially absorbed that through the reductions we mentioned earlier in terms of the employment freeze, and reductions in travel and procurement.

Mr. WHITTEN. Have you had an issuance from the Office of Budget and Management on employment ceilings?

Mr. BERG. Yes. A year ago this month we were under an order from the previous Administration to fill only four out of the ten vacancies that occurred. Over my experience we have always had employee ceiling limitations.

Mr. WHITTEN. Have you had the law cited to you whereby the Executive Branch imposes ceilings on personnel, or do they just notify you of your limitation?

Mr. BERG. This is something that is assigned primarily to the Department and from there the Department makes the allocations to the agencies.

Mr. Dewhurst and his people have to give us the guidance as to how that is implemented.

Mr. WHITTEN. Mr. Dewhurst cannot issue checks but he can tell us what happens to the money. Who gets the money, Mr. Dewhurst?

Mr. DEWHURST. What happens is when the President submits his proposal to Congress for more money to pay salaries, he shows agency by agency how much of the cost is being absorbed and where that money will be taken from.

This year, the Department will absorb about 40 percent of the additional cost of the pay raise of last October and it is shown. agency by agency.

Mr. WHITTEN. You are referring to the supplemental request? Mr. DEWHURST. Yes, sir.

Mr. WHITTEN. When you and others get a salary increase, it comes at the expense of another fellow's job. That is one way of putting it.

Mr. MYERS. Maybe we ought to do that here. [Laughter.]

Mr. WHITTEN. Last year we on this side voted to earmark so much for personnel and so much for expenses. We yielded in conference; we did not intend to carry it through. But if this problem of redirecting funds becomes too prevalent, Congress may have to appropriate for salaries separately from administrative expenses so that you cannot take funding meant for personnel and spend it for hotel bills and other things.

Years ago the Department of Agriculture was appropriated so much for each individual employee and so much for each item. I have a copy of the Appropriations Act for 1916. think it would be instructive to put a portion of it in the record.

[The document follows:]

AGRICULTURAL APPROPRIATION ACT

[PUBLIC-NO. 293-63D CONGRESS]

[H.R. 20415]

By the Act Making appropriations for the Department of Agriculture for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, nineteen hundred and sixteen, approved March 4, 1915.

Be it enacted by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States of American in Congress assembled, That the following sums be, and they are hereby, appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury of the United States not otherwise appropriated, in full compensation for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, nineteen hundred and sixteen, for the purposes and objects hereinafter expressed, namely:

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

BUREAU OF SOILS

SALARIES, BUREAU OF SOILS: One soil physicist, who shall be chief of bureau, $4,000; one chief clerk, $2,000; one executive assistant, $2,000; four clerks, class four; two clerks, class three; five clerks, class two; one clerk, $1,260; eight clerks, class one; five clerks, at $1,000 each; three clerks, at $900 each; one soil cartographer, $1,800; one chief draftsman, $1,600; one soil bibliographer or draftsman, $1,400; one photographer, $1,200; five draftsmen, at $1,200 each; one clerk-draftsman, $1,200; one draftsman, $1,000; one messenger, $840; three messengers, messenger boys, or laborers, at $480 each; two laborers, at $600 each; one laborer, $300; one charwoman or laborer, $480; in all $62,420.

GENERAL EXPENSES, BUREAU OF SOILS: For all necessary expenses connected with the investigations and experiments hereinafter authorized, including the employment of investigators, local and special agents, assistants, experts, clerks, draftsmen, and labor in the city of Washington and elsewhere; official traveling expenses, materials, tools, instruments, apparatus, repairs to apparatus, chemicals, furniture, office fixtures, stationery, gas, electric current, telegraph and telephone service, express and freight charges, rent outside of the District of Columbia, and for all other necessary supplies and expenses, as follows:

For chemical investigations of soil types, soil composition and soil minerals, the soil solution, solubility of soil and all chemical properties of soils in their relation to soil formation, soil texture, and soil productivity, including all routine chemical work in connection with the soil survey, $22,350;

For physical investigations of the important properties of soil which determine productivity, such as moisture relations, aeration, heat conductivity, texture, and other physical investigations of the various soil classes and soil types, $15,265; For exploration and investigation within the United States to determine possible sources of supply of potash, nitrates, and other natural fertilizers, $36,500;

For the investigation of soils, in cooperation with other branches of the Department of Agriculture, other departments of the Government, State agricultural experiment stations, and other State institutions, and for indicating upon maps and plats, by coloring or otherwise, the results of such investigations, $168,200;

For the examination and classification of agricultural lands in forest reserves, in cooperation with the Forest Service, $20,000;

For general administrative expenses connected with the above-mentioned lines of investigation, $3,200;

In all, for general expenses $265,515.
Total for Bureau of Soils, $327,935.

Mr. WHITTEN. Congress has not in recent years appropriated by item to that degree. The time may come when we will have to appropriate by item to get the job done, but in the meantime we can separate personnel and expenses so that an increase in one will not cripple the other.

CONSERVATION OPERATIONS

For conservation operations you are showing a decrease of $3.3 million in technical assistance. You state that direct technical assistance to the Nation's conservation district cooperators would be reduced by about 137 staff-years below the 1981 level. How was this reduction determined?

Mr. BERG. This reduction simply reflects the need to restrain federal spending in addressing the national economic situation and was not based on any specific policy determination. The reduction in staff-years is based on the historical relationship of dollars and people for this program.

Mr. WHITTEN. How many permanent full-time employees are curently funded out of the conservation operations account?

Mr. BERG. For 1981 we have 10,106 permanent full-time staffyears funded out of the conservation operations account with 10,118 projected for fiscal year 1982.

Mr. WHITTEN. How many employees were funded out of the conservation operations account five years ago, ten years ago, and fifteen years ago?

Mr. BERG. Permanent full-time staff-years funded out of the conservation operations account were 9,990 in fiscal year 1977, 10,273 in fiscal year 1972, and 11,051 in fiscal year 1967.

Mr. WHITTEN. What was permanent SCS employment five years ago, ten years ago, and fifteen years ago?

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