I can only say this is important to small business and believe that it warrants your serious consideration for restoration. Sincerely yours, Senator MCKELLAR. Anything else? (No response.) MAURY MAVERICK, Chairman and General Manager. We are very much obliged to you and will give all this our best consideration. Mr. RICE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Senator MCKELLAR. I am sorry we did not have all the members here, to hear what you had to say, but we will see that they read the record. Mr. RICE. We appreciate your careful attention. PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE TUBERCULOSIS CONTROL Senator RUSSELL. Mr. Chairman, I will offer for the record the following telegrams on the item under the Public Health Service for tuberculosis control. (The telegrams referred to follow :) Hon. A. B. CHANDLER, COVINGTON, KY., December 11, 1944. United States Senate, Washington, D. C.: First supplemental appropriation bill; tuberculosis funds for control work omitted. Please restore. ANTITUBERCULOSIS LEAGUE OF KENTON COUNTY, Senator ALBERT B. CHANDLER, Washington, D. C.: LOUISVILLE, KY., December 9, 1944. As a director of the Kentucky Tuberculosis Association and a citizen of Kentucky I earnestly urge you to see that the Senate Appropriation Committee restores the $773,000 approved by the Public Health Service for tuberculosis control work before that bill is allowed to pass. This is vital to the tuberculosis control program in Kentucky. REV. GEORGE S. WATSON. LOUISVILLE, KY., December 9, 1944. Senator ALBERT B. CHANDLER, Washington, D. C.: As President of the Kentucky Tuberculosis Association and as a citizen and businessman of Kentucky I earnestly urge you to do all in your power to reinstate that $773,000 for the tuberculosis control work before that bill is allowed to proceed to the Senate. You know the tuberculosis situation in Kentucky and you know how important this is. Do not let our Congress economize at the cost of human lives. The people of Kentucky are looking to you. Do not let them down. M. O. HUGHES. LOUISVILLE, KY., December 11, 1944. Hon. A. B. CHANDLER, United States Senate: House committee omits item, $773,000 for tuberculosis control, from first supplemental appropriation bill, 1945. Respectfully request you urge Senate Appropriations Committee restore said item. P. E. BLACKERBY, M. D., Senator ALBERT B. CHANDLER, Washington, D. C.: LOUISVILLE, KY., December 9, 1944. As executive secretary of the Kentucky Tuberculosis Association and in behalf of the large tuberculosis group of our people I am urging you to see that the $773,000 be restored to the bill before it is allowed to pass that was approved by the Public Health Service to help us control tuberculosis, and you know how Kentucky needs that help. We are looking to you for this support. You know the tragedies of Tuberculosis. Don't let us down. Don't let us down. We should not economize at the expense of human lives. NATIONAL HOUSING AGENCY L. E. SMITH, M. D. (The following information was submitted by the National Housing Agency on request of the subcommittee:) (See p. 59) NATIONAL HOUSING AGENCY INVESTMENT IN AND NET RETURN ON PUBLICLY FINANCED WAR HOUSING The National Housing Agency's publicly financed war housing program consists of two parts: (1) the construction program under which new housing accommodations are constructed for war workers, and (2) the conversion program under which existing private housing is leased and converted to apartments for war workers. The construction of new war housing and its management has been principally a responsibility of the Federal Public Housing Authority, one of National Housing Agency's constituents. Responsibility for the construction phase of the conversion program has been the responsibility of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, another National Housing Agency constituent, but responsibility for the management of publicly financed conversions was transferred from the Home Owners' Loan Corporation to the Federal Public Housing Authority on July 31, 1944. Figures given below for publicly financed war housing include only those projects financed from appropriated funds and constructed and managed by the National Housing Agency. They do not include projects built under authority of the United States Housing Act and made available to war workers under the provisions of Public Law 671, or projects financed from appropriated funds which were assigned for construction or management to other Federal agencies. The National Housing Agency's investment in war housing at June 30, 1944, was as follows: New construction Conversion__ Total____ $1, 534, 119, 000 85, 102, 000 1, 619, 221, 000· In section 303 of the Lanham Act the Congress has provided that moneys derived from rental receipts "shall be available for expenses of operation and maintenance and expenses found necessary in the disposition of any such property or the removal of temporary housing by the Administrator, including the establishment of necessary reserves therefore and administrative expenses in connection therewith." Inasmuch as section 303 did not become operative until after the close of the fiscal year 1943, all of the net return from the operation of war housing prior to June 30, 1943, has been covered into the Treasury as miscellaneous receipts. Beginning with the fiscal year 1944 all of the net return is being reserved until the amount estimated to be required for disposition has been accumulated. Studies are now in process, including experiments. in dismantling temporary publicly financed projects, to determine a firm estimate of the amount required for the disposition of publicly financed war housing. Based on information presently available, the cost of disposition will exceed the net income actually realized in fiscal 1944 and that estimated for fiscal 1945. Therefore, provision has been made for crediting all net income for these 2 fiscal years to the reserve account. The net return on the National Housing Agency's investment in war housing, cumulative to June 30, 1943, for fiscal 1944, and estimated for fiscal 1945, and its disposition, is shown below. (Thereupon, at 1:30 p. m., the committee recessed until 10 o'clock tomorrow, Tuesday, December 12, 1944.) FIRST SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATION BILL 1945 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1944 UNITED STATES SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, Washington, D. C. The committee met at 10 a. m., Senator McKellar (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Senators McKellar, Hayden, Russell, Holman, Brooks, and Gurney. Present also: Senators White, Brewster, Johnson of Colorado, and Millikin. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY AND PLANT QUARANTINE STATEMENTS OF HON. WALLACE H. WHITE, JR., A UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MAINE; HON. RALPH 0. BREWSTER, A UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MAINE; E. I. KOTOK, FOREST SERVICE; AND P. M. ANNAND, BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY AND PLANT QUARANTINE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE WORK ON SPRUCE BUDWORM AMOUNT OF APPROPRIATION REQUESTED Senator WHITE. Mr. Chairman, I have to attend a meeting of the Committee on Foreign Relations. I expect my colleague, Mr. Brewster, to be here very shortly. This is a request on my part in which my colleague joins, that there may be included in the supplemental appropriation bill a supplemental item of $47,000 or $50,000, I am not sure which is the correct figure Senator MCKELLAR. What page is it? Senator WHITE. It is not in the bill at all. ERADICATION OF SPRUCE BUDWORMS When the last agricultural bill was before us there was included an item for the eradication of this budworm pest. I think there was $55,000 in the total amount available. Part of it went to the Bureau of Entomology and part to the Forest Service. This budworm is a recurring pest. It comes at unknown intervals, but there seem to be periods of recurring intensity and virulence. EXTENT OF DESTRUCTIVENESS OF SPRUCE BUDWORM The last real destruction by this pest was in 1910 to 1920, and during that period of time this budworm destroyed probably 30,000,000 cords of spruce, balsam, and fir in my State, and in the train of that devastation there followed the destruction of many other millions of cords of our wood. Senator MCKELLAR. How does it operate? Senator WHITE. I don't know that I can give you a technical description of it. You can get that from the forest experts. But I do know the budworm gets into the bark of these trees, fir, spruce, and balsam, and that its work is absolutely destructive. It totally destroys the trees and you will have absolute wreckage and devastation in the train of this budworm. Senator McKELLAR. It kills the trees? Senator WHITE. It kills the trees. It leaves them standing, but the trees are left standing stark naked. It leaves a condition which is a tremenduous encouragement to forest fires and the ruin which follows from fires. As I say, in the last real epidemic there were more than 30,000,000 cords of spruce, fir, and balsam destroyed in my own State, and in addition it brought great danger from fire and other insect pests. AREA COVERED BY THE SPRUCE BUDWORM Senator HOLMAN. That is in your own State. I would like to know how extensive is the area that is covered. Does it go out to the Pacific coast? Senator WHITE. I think that it does in some degree but it affects principally the eastern Province of Quebec and the States bordering on that part of the Canadian Provinces, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and the spruce and black wood forests of upper New York. I think that covers the situation. I ask now not a remedial appropriation, but a preventive appropriation. AMOUNT OF APPROPRIATION REQUESTED Senator MCKELLAR. How much? Senator WHITE. There is now impending a spread of this pest in its most virulent form, from the adjoining Province of Quebec into our northeastern tier of States. The forestry experts of these States have been in conference, and I think representatives of the Department have been associated with them, in their studies and in their work. Senator MCKELLAR. How much money are you asking for? Senator WHITE. We are asking for, immediately, a supplemental appropriation of $47,000. That is for this year. NEW METHOD OF ERADICATION These people interested in this problem have now reached the conclusion that the most effective way to deal with this problem is through spraying from airplanes, and spraying in other ways, and they want to begin on a 10,000-acre tract, and then to follow that up by spraying mile-square areas, 640 acres, from this 10,000-acre area on along this border where the pest is appearing in its most epedemic form. |