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Under the terms of the bill each State will have a period of 3 years in which to request the return of the funds to the State corporation, or a successor agency, or to permit them to go into a revolving fund under the Farmers Home Administration for use within the particular State. At the end of 3 years, the assets credited to those States which have taken no action, will be transferred to a special fund in the Farmers Home Administration for use within the respective States under the authority of titles I, II, and IV of the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act.

Section 1

ANALYSIS OF THE BILL

The amendment made by the committee changes from 5 years to 3 years, the period of time allowed for liquidation of the trusts.

Subsection (c): Lines 17 to 21 provide that the funds to be returned to the State corporations may be used only for such rural rehabilitation purposes permissible under the corporation charter as may be agreed upon by the corporation and Secretary. This will prevent duplication by State rehabilitation corporations of the activities of the Farmers Home Administration and assure that, where these funds are returned to the State corporations, they will be used for purposes which will supplement, rather than duplicate, the Federal programs. The section also prohibits any State corporation from spending more than 3 percent of the value of its assets in any year for administration, without the approval of the Secretary.

Subsection (e): This subsection has been amended by the committee to require the States to select, within 3 years, one of two alternatives for the disposal of these trust funds: (1) Return of the funds to the State rural rehabilitation corporation or its successor agency, pursuant to a proper application by the State; or, (2) transfer of the trust funds and assets to the Secretary of Agricuture as a revolving fund to be administered by the Farmers Home Administration and used within the State for the purposes of titles I, II, and IV of the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act. The State may release its funds immediately for administration by the FHA or, if it fails to take any affirmative action within 3 years, its assets will automatically be transferred in that

manner.

Section 3

Some of the properties previously owned by the State rural rehabilitation corporations and purchased with their funds, were transferred by Executive Order 9070 to the Federal Public Housing Administration under contractual arrangements which made FPHA accountable to the State corporations for the properties and the assets derived from them on their disposal. Some other properties, including some of the rural rehabilitation projects, were purchased with relief funds other than those granted directly to the rural rehabilitation corporations but were administered by the corporations and should be included in the corporation assets, as provided by the second sentence of this

section.

Section 4

This section provides (p. 5, lines 12 to 20) that the expenses of liquidating the trusts and returning the assets to the States, or into the special fund under the administration of the Farmers Home Administration, shall be charged to the trust funds involved. Section 5

Some of the assets of the corporations are in the form of loans to farmers. This section provides that none of the funds involved in this bill may be used by the Secretary after the effective date of this act except for purposes of liquidating the trust funds and for loans to be repaid prior to May 1, 1952, where loans are necessary to protect the corporate assets by supplementary credit to present borrowers. Section 6

This section makes the determination of the Secretary final with respect to the assets to be returned to each State or applied to its credit with the Farmers Home Administration, including the partition of jointly owned property and the liabilities applicable to such properties.

Section 7

This repeals a section of the Farmers Home Administration Act of 1946 which directs the Secretary of Agriculture to liquidate "as expeditiously as possible trusts under the transfer agreement with the various State rural rehabilitation corporations," but establishes no policy for the disposal of the funds when the trusts have been liquidated.

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FIXING THE UNITED STATES SHARE OF PROJECT COSTS, UNDER THE FEDERAL AIRPORT ACT, INVOLVED IN INSTALLATION OF HIGH-INTENSITY LIGHTING ON CAA-DESIGNATED INSTRUMENT-LANDING RUNWAYS

JULY 8, 1949.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union and ordered to be printed

Mr. HARRIS, from the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, submitted the following

REPORT

[To accompany S. 1278)

The Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, to whom was referred the bill (S. 1278) to fix the United States share of project costs, under the Federal Airport Act, involved in installation of highintensity lighting on CAA-designated instrument-landing runways, having considered the same, report favorably thereon without amendment and recommend that the bill do pass.

PURPOSE

The purpose of the bill is to authorize the United States to pay 75 percent instead of 50 percent of the cost of installing high-intensity airport runway lighting along instrument-landing runways on airport projects developed under the Federal Airport Act of 1946.

COST

The average cost of purchasing and installing a high-intensity airport runway lighting system is approximately $60,000. Under existing law the Federal Government pays half of this cost, or slightly more in the so-called public-land States, under section 10 of the act. S. 1278 would increase the Federal contribution to "not to exceed 75 per centum. Should the Administrator fix a percentage lower than 75 percent, it would necessarily be increased slightly by utilization of the area-population formula applicable to public-land States (act. sec. 10 (b)), but in no event would the Federal contribution for highintensity lighting exceed 75 percent of the cost thereof.

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As of April 26, 1949, 144 instrument-landing systems were completed or in process of completion under the Federal airport program. Each of them requires the installation of a high-intensity runway lighting system for its proper operation.

Total estimated cost of 144 installations...
Present 50-percent Federal contribution.
Proposed 75-percent Federal contribution.

Net increase in Federal contribution under S. 1278...

$8, 640, 000

4, 320, 000

6, 480, 000

2, 160, 000

Enactment of S. 1278 would result in no over-all increase in Federal expenditures under the Federal Airport Act, but would result in the construction of fewer airports under each annual appropriation due to the increased cost of each airport requiring high-intensity lighting.

JUSTIFICATION

In the committee's opinion, enactment of S. 1278 is amply justified because it would facilitate safer landings and take-offs in bad flying weather. The installation of instrument-landing systems to facilitate safer landings in foggy or bad weather is relatively ineffective unless supplemented by the installation of high-intensity runway lights. The cost of installation of low-intensity or normal runway lighting systems averages about $15,000 per installation, or one-fourth of the cost ($60,000) of a high-intensity lighting system. Many airport supervisors are financially unable or unwilling to make the additional investment required. S. 1278 would cause the Government to assume this additional financial burden by making an increased grant of 75 percent instead of 50 percent of the cost of installing a high-intensity runway lighting system as a part of an approved Federal airport project. The Federal grant payable on all other airport construction would remain at the present percentage of 50 percent. Essentially a military development, high-intensity airport runway lighting has assumed commercial importance only since the date of enactment of the Federal Airport Act of 1946; hence it was not separately considered by the draftsmen of the original act.

PATENT INFRINGEMENT

There is a possibility that municipalities which install high-intensity airport runway lighting systems may have to pay a royalty of $0.80 per runway foot for the use of a patented system of arranging runway lights. The lights themselves are not patented but the system of using them effectively is claimed to be patented. The basic patent is held by Bartow Beacon, Inc., of Bluebell, Pa., which has appointed the Wellsbach Corp. of Philadelphia, Pa., as its agent in the matter. The patent was issued in 1939 and runs until 1956. This patent system was little used before the war. but our military forces found it to be of great value. There is considerable possibility that the Bartow patent will become a subject of litigation in an effort to establish the contention that a substantially similar system was in use prior to the Bartow patent and hence that the latter patent is invalid. However, the Wellsbach Corp. has already submitted royalty claims at the rate of $0.80 per runway foot to the cities of Madison, Wis., and Buffalo, N. Y. It appears that the use of the Bartow

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