TITLE 50.-WAR AND NATIONAL DEFENSE

APPENDIX

DEFENSE PRODUCTION ACT OF 1950

Title VII.-GENERAL PROVISIONS

[691] § 2162. Joint Committee on Defense Production.

[691.1]

[691.2]

[691.3]

(a) There is established a joint congressional committee to be known as the Joint Committee on Defense Production (hereinafter referred to as the committee), to be composed of ten members as follows:

(1) Five members who are members of the Committee on Banking and Currency of the Senate, three from the majority and two from the minority party, to be appointed by the chairman of the committee; and

(2) Five members who are members of the Committee on Banking and Currency of the House of Representatives, three from the majority and two from the minority party, to be appointed by the chairman of the committee.

A vacancy in the membership of the committee shall be filled in the same manner as the original selection. The committee shall elect a chairman and a vice chairman from among its members, one of whom shall be a member of the Senate and the other a member of the House of Representatives.

(b) It shall be the function of the committee to make a continuous study of the programs and of the fairness to consumers of the prices authorized by this Act [sections 2061-2166 of this Appendix] and to review the progress achieved in the execution and administration thereof. Upon request, the committee shall aid the standing committees of the Congress having legislative jurisdiction over any part of the programs authorized by this Act [said sections]; and it shall make a report to the Senate and the House of Representatives, from time to time, concerning the results of its studies, together with such recommendations as it may deem desirable. Any department, official, or agency administering any of such programs shall, at the request of the committee, consult with the committee, from time to time, with respect to their activities under this Act [said sections].

(c) The committee, or any duly authorized subcommittee thereof, is authorized to hold such hearings, to sit and act at such times

and places, to require by subpena (to be issued under the signature of the chairman or vice chairman of the committee) or otherwise the attendance of such witnesses and the production of such books, papers, and documents, to administer such oaths, to take such testimony, to procure such printing and binding, and to make such expenditures as it deems advisable. The cost of stenographic services to report such hearings shall not be in excess of 40 cents per hundred words. The provisions of sections 102 to 104, inclusive, of the Revised Statutes [sections 192-194 of Title 21 shall apply in case of any failure of any witness to comply with any subpena or to testify when summoned under authority of this subsection.

(d) The committee is authorized to appoint and, without regard [691.4] to the Classification Act of 1949, as amended [sections 1071-1153 of Title 51, fix the compensation of such experts, consultants, technicians, and organizations thereof, and clerical and stenographic assistants as it deems necessary and advisable.

(e) The expenses of the committee under this section, which [691.5] shall not exceed $65,000 in any fiscal year, shall be paid from the contingent fund of the House of Representatives upon vouchers signed by the Chairman or Vice Chairman.

(f) The Secretary of Commerce shall make a special investiga- [691.6] tion and study of the production, allocation, distribution, use of nickel, of its resale as scrap, and of other aspects of the current situation with respect to supply and marketing of nickel, with particular attention to, among other things, the adequacy of the present system of nickel allocation between defense and civilian users. The Secretary of Commerce shall consult with the Joint Committee on Defense Production during the course of such investigation and study with respect to the progress achieved and the results of the investigation and study, and shall make an interim report on the results of the investigation and study on or before August 15, 1956, and shall, on or before December 31, 1956, make a final report on the results of such investigation and study, together with such recommendations as the Secretary of Commerce deems advisable. Such reports shall be made to the Senate (or to the Secretary of the Senate if the Senate is not in session) and to the House of Representatives (or to the Clerk of the House of Representatives if the House is not in session). (As amended June 30, 1952, ch. 530, Title I, § 119, 69 Stat. 306; Aug. 9, 1955, ch. 655, § 9, 69 Stat. 583; June 29, 1956, ch. 474, §§ 3, 5, 70 Stat. 408.)

[700]

JEFFERSON'S MANUAL1

OF PARLIAMENTARY PRACTICE

WITH REFERENCES TO ANALOGOUS SENATE RULES

PREFACE

The Constitution of the United States, establishing a legislature for the Union under certain forms, authorizes each branch of it "to determine the rules of its own proceedings." The Senate has accordingly formed some rules for its own government; but these going only to few cases, it has referred to the decision of its President, without debate and without appeal, all questions of order arising either under its own rules or where it has provided none. This places under the discretion of the President a very extensive field of decision, and one which, irregularly exercised, would have a powerful effect on the proceedings and determinations of the House. The President must feel, weightily and seriously, this confidence in his discretion, and the necessity of recurring, for its government, to some known system of rules, that he may neither leave himself free to indulge caprice or passion nor open to the imputation of them. But to what system of rules is he to recur, as supplementary to those of the Senate? To this there can be but one answer. To the system of regulations adopted for the government of some one of the parliamentary bodies within these States, or of that which has served as a prototype to most of them. This last is the model which we have all studied, while we are little acquainted with the modifications of it in our several States. It is deposited, too, in publications possessed by many and open to all. Its rules are probably as wisely constructed for governing the debates of a deliberative body, and obtaining its true sense, as any which can become known to us; and the acquiescence of the Senate, hitherto, under the references to them, has given them the sanction of its approbation.

Considering, therefore, the law of proceedings in the Senate as composed of the precepts of the Constitution, the regulations of the Senate, and, where these are silent, of the rules of Parliament, I have here en

1 Compiled by Thomas Jefferson during the time he served as Vice President of the United States and President of the Senate, 1797 to 1801.

deavored to collect and digest so much of these as is called for in ordinary practice, collating the Parliamentary with the Senatorial rules, both where they agree and where they vary. I have done this as well to have them at hand for my own government as to deposit with the Senate the standard by which I judge and am willing to be judged. I could not doubt the necessity of quoting the sources of my information, among which Mr. Hatsel's most valuable book is preeminent; but as he has only treated some general heads, I have been obliged to recur to other authorities in support of a number of common rules of practice to which his plan did not descend. Sometimes each authority cited supports the whole passage. Sometimes it rests on all taken together. Sometimes the authority goes only to a part of the text, the residue being inferred from known rules and principles. For some of the most familiar forms no written authority is or can be quoted; no writer having supposed it necessary to repeat what all were presumed to know. The statement of these must rest on their notoriety.

I am aware that authorities can often be produced in opposition to the rules which I lay down as Parliamentary. An attention to dates will generally remove their weight. The proceedings of Parliament in ancient times, and for a long while, were crude, multiform, and embarrassing. They have been, however, constantly advancing toward uniformity and accuracy, and have now attained a degree of aptitude to their object beyond which little is to be desired or expected. Yet I am far from the presumption of believing that I may not have mistaken the Parliamentary practice in some cases, and especially in those minor forms, which, being practiced daily, are supposed known to everybody, and therefore have not been committed to writing. Our resources in this quarter of the globe for obtaining information on that part of the subject are not perfect. But I have begun a sketch, which those who come after me will successively correct and fill up till a code of rules shall be formed for the use of the Senate, the effects of which may be accuracy in business, economy of time, order, uniformity, and impartiality.