Mr. WIDNALL. I am sorry to hear that. But I don't think that this was concerned with hospitalization.

Mr. SLAYTON. My only point is that I haven't had a chance to check into this as to its recent status.

Mr. WIDNALL. One other thing: H.R. 13064 was introduced on February 24, 1966. It contains 38 pages. And to the best of my knowledge the bill itself was not available until this morning. There was a committee report available as of Friday. It is the longest bill that we have before us. It is extremely important. And I think that to do ourselves justice in the committee, we certainly should have the opportunity in the future to go into proposals that are in this bill, in the new section. We haven't had much opportunity to date. Secretary WEAVER. I think that I would like to add

Mr. BARRETT. Doctor, I wonder if the gentleman would yield to me? At the conclusion of today's hearings we are going to ask you and vour staff to be on a standby basis. The subcommittee may want to bring you back at a later date, and at that time we would have an opportunity to ask further questions on the bills.

Secretary WEAVER. May I point out one thing in connection with what Congressman Widnall says, that 30 pages of the bill are devoted entirely to conforming the existing legislation to the new situation due to the existence of the Department, and it is therefore a technical matter, not substantive.

Mr. BARRETT. The standby position, Mr. Secretary, is agreeable with you, is it not?

Secretary WEAVER. Certainly.

Mr. BARRETT. Mr. St Germain.

Mr. ST GERMAIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I would like to say that we are happy to see Mr. Slayton back on his feet. And it would be nice to get him on the other end of the line when we call his office. And we want to thank the Secretary for his help and his patience in answering our questions today. The concluding question was this, Mr. Secretary: First, in section 4 we have a comprehensive city demonstration program, the requirements for eligibility; and then in section 5, we have got the national assistance for planning comprehensive city demonstration programs. I am a little confused here as to which is the buggy and which is the horse. How does a city begin to get recognition to a point where they can be given financial assistance? Because, let's be realistic in our conversation, Mr. Chairman, I feel that the applications that are submitted by the cities that would like to be considered as demonstration cities are going to be rather lengthy and costly to prepare. It is not going to be an easy method.

Secretary WEAVER. I think the procedure will probably answer both of your questions. The procedure we contemplate is that the cities which are interested in this will come in with a general proposal. Not a detailed plan but a proposal which will indicate what they hope to accomplish, and in general the methodology that they will use, and, also, some indication of what resources they have as far as getting the necessary cooperation, et cetera, to do this.

Then on the basis of this, there will be the selection of cities which will receive planning money to perfect this. And the planning comes

in after the general proposal has come in. And that is where we have allocated the money for planning and a period of a year's time for the detailed planning.

We realize that these cities cannot, without financial assistance, come up with a detailed, finished plan. They can come up with a proposal. Mr. ST GERMAIN. Where the city is submitting its proposal, its initial proposal, prior to that time it will have the supplemental guidelines from the Secretary and his department as to what is being sought after by the potential applicant?

Secretary WEAVER. Yes. These will be a spelling out of the criteria that is set here, not guidelines as to how they do it, but guidelines as to what they are to accomplish.

Mr. ST GERMAIN. And secondly, the cities that are then granted funds for planning over a period of a year, because of the detail required, does the Secretary here mean that these are the cities that will be successful, or these will be the contestants, let us say, who will be considered?

Secretary WEAVER. I would say and this is something that is still formative but my guess would be that if we were going to ask the cities to put in a year of planning that they have got to have a pretty good idea that if their plans meet the criteria in detail that have been set, that they would then be eligible to participate. I don't think you are going to have a group of cities come in with final plans and then throw them out.

Mr. ST GERMAIN. That being the case, this initial submission, then, would be of the utmost importance, because it is actually the controlling submission on which the ultimate decision is made?

Secretary WEAVER. I don't see how you can do it otherwise. I think it is quite unfair to have a city come in and go through all of this a lot of particulars, and a lot of agreements and then say, "Well, look, it is very nice but you ain't' good enough," if they didn't meet the criteria.

Mr. ST GERMAIN. And I repeat, Mr. Secretary, that it would be most important to those potential initial applicants to know exactly what HUD is looking for from them.

Secretary WEAVER. Certainly.

Mr. ST GERMAIN. And perhaps these suggestions or guidelines, or whatever you might like to call them, will be ready in the near future? Secretary WEAVER. As near in the future as we can get them ready. But I think we have a problem here. It would be rather premature for us to write these guidelines in detail until after the Congress has written the legislation in detail, because the Congress may change the law.

Mr. ST GERMAIN. Mr. Secretary, that is the end of my questioning. But that was my point, the last time I was questioning you about these details. We are writing the law and we are called upon to vote on the law. I think that this is one of the most important parts of the implementation of the law. And that is what will be the guidelines these cities will have to follow.

Secretary WEAVER. Our proposed guidelines are set forth in this proposed legislation-the only thing more that will be done, if this bill were to be passed in its present form, with every period and

comma, and so forth, in it, would be to elaborate these guidelines— not to create other major guidelines.

Mr. BARRETT. On behalf of both sides of the committee, I want to thank you and your staff for a splendid presentation here today. We will adjourn until 10 a.m. tomorrow morning.

(Whereupon, at 5:10 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned to reconvene at 10 a.m., Tuesday, March 1, 1966.)

DEMONSTRATION CITIES AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT

TUESDAY, MARCH 1, 1966

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOUSING OF THE

COMMITTEE ON BANKING AND CURRENCY,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 10 a.m., in room 2128, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. William A. Barrett (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Barrett, Mrs. Sullivan, Ashley, Moorhead, Stephens, St Germain, Gonzalez, Widnall, and Fino.

tee.

Also present: Representatives Minish and Mize of the full commit

Mr. BARRETT. The committee will come to order.

This morning we are happy to have as our first witness, Mr. Wilbur J. Cohen, Under Secretary, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, accompanied by Philip Brownstein, Assistant Secretary for Mortgage Credit, Department of Housing and Urban Development. Mr. Cohen, do you desire to read your statement? If you wish to read it, we will let you complete it before we ask questions.

But first I want to state that we are very pleased to have you this morning, and we hope you make yourself feel at home.

You may proceed.

STATEMENT OF HON. WILBUR J. COHEN, UNDER SECRETARY OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE; ACCOMPANIED BY DR. PHILIP LEE, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR HEALTH AND SCIENTIFIC AFFAIRS; AND DR. HARALD GRANING, PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Chairman, I am also accompanied by Dr. Philip Lee, the Assistant Secretary for Health and Scientific Affairs of the Department, and Dr. Harald Graning of the Public Health Service.

It is a pleasure to appear before this committee today to express the Department's strong support for H.R. 9256 introduced by the distinguished chairman, Mr. Patman, and an identical bill introduced by Mr. Gonzalez.

This bill would amend the National Housing Act to provide mortgage insurance and authorize direct loans by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to provide financial assistance for constructing and equipping facilities for the group practice of medicine. Assistant Secretary Philip Brownstein of the Department of Housing and Urban Development is also here today. He will speak to the financing aspects of the bill.