Mr. ROSENTHAL. I will hold on my question, Mr. Chairman. I do have it here, Mr. Chairman. Mr. BROOKS. The chairman recognizes Mr. Horton. Mr. HORTON. Mr. Chairman, I would like to come back to the question of including the Federal Power Commission. I think that, anytime you talk in terms of reorganization of the Federal Government, you are going to have to talk in terms of the various independent regulatory agencies. I am sure that there is a classic conflict here. In spite of what most people abroad feel, the President and the administration do not have control over the independent regulatory agencies; they are completely separate and apart. It is a very difficult thing to get a handle on. Previous Directors of OMB have been frustrated over the years because they cannot control them. I am the Chairman of the Paperwork Commission. We found that requests for new forms where regulatory agencies are involved, do not go through the OMB. They have to go through a different process. They go through GAO, and GAO does not have the same authority. So you have a classic conflict here with the administration: How do we get control of these regulatory agencies? I think the initial feeling of Congress when we set up these regulatory agencies was to make them independent. You are very familiar with the Atomic Energy Commission since you once served as its Chairman. You know that the licensing and regulatory functions were administered at one time in the AEC. When we were considering the creation of ERDA, we came to the conclusion that a new and independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission should be established. As a matter of fact, during the last couple of years, I have been able to point to the fact that the Commission was created to relieve some of the pressures that were being brought on ERDA in the nuclear field. We did have this independent Commission which could go out and take a look at these various sitings and problems that arose in the nuclear plants. I am buffeting you from both sides. You have not included the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the Department of Energy. Yet, you have included the Federal Power Commission. I think I will ask the question in a nasty way so that it will give you an opportunity to answer it. Is this an effort by the administration to take over independent regulatory agencies and thus to get rid of them? Mr. SCHLESINGER. It is not, sir. It is dealt with specifically on its merits. As you know, the executive branch urged that NRC be created. The boundary line between the executive branch and independent regulatory agencies should change over time because they become obsolescent. We have a set of circumstances now in which oil pricing is established by the FEA, and natural gas pricing is established by the FPC. That is, one is established by the executive branch and one by an independent regulatory agency; and both should be established in terms of the same general type of problems. We have allocations by the FPC of natural gas. Last winter, we had propane allocation, which was following around natural gas shortages, done by the FEA. We had very great difficulty with it. These authorities should be in one place. Mr. HORTON. Then it is your purpose to control the functions of the Federal Power Commission. Mr. SCHLESINGER. Sir, there are three questions that you raise. The first one was this: Was it the purpose of the executive branch to draw in independent regulatory authorities in general? The answer to that is no. This is a specific request for a specific purpose in dealing with a comprehensive national problem, namely energy; we have scattered these authorities, and we wish to bring them together. Those adjudicatory functions that must remain outside of the purview of the executive branch and be handled by a special adjudicatory process will be insulated within the Department. Mr. HORTON. If the goal of the reorganization is to consolidate regulatory functions, why could you not create a new energy regulatory administration which is totally separate from the Department of Energy? Mr. SCHLESINGER. Well, in that case, we certainly could create that. But we would create a divergence between policy and planning. The policy functions of the Department of Energy must be associated with the instruments for the implementation of policy. All of the instru |