Mr. SHIPLEY. Mr. Gude, please proceed. You can either read your statement or highlight it.

GENERAL STATEMENT OF DIRECTOR

Mr. GUDE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I cannot tell you how much of a privilege and a pleasure it is to be with you today for the first time as Director of the Congressional Research Service. I am looking forward to coming back here and working with you in the years to come.

I was often impressed by the Service's capabilities during my 10 years as a Member of Congress. Moving across to the Library, I continue to be impressed. I am proud and honored to be associated with this organization because, in my opinion, the Congressional Research Service plays a key role in our democratic system, in which Congress is one of the three coequal branches of government, a branch that must have access to independent, nonpartisan, and objective information and research.

Our request this year is approximately 11 percent more than the adjusted appropriation for fiscal year 1977. I would call your attention to the fact that more than 80 percent of the requested increase is required merely to maintain the current level of services and to keep up with the very conservatively estimated growth in workload. Less than 20 percent of the increase will be dedicated to our continuing look at new ventures and expansion of service.

FIVE-YEAR EXPANSION PERIOD COMPLETED

I believe at this juncture this is a very prudent course. Last year CRS completed a 5-year period of expansion mandated by the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970.

With the strengthened resources granted by Congress, the Service steadily increased and deepened its analytical support of congressional committees as well as of individual Members. It also developed many new services and delivery techniques. Nevertheless, difficult management and administrative problems inevitably accompanied this rapid expansion of staff and widening variety of activities.

In my judgment, CRS must now review its procedures to insure the highest level of quality for its products and services. It must tighten up its management structure and practices to achieve maximum efficiency and effectiveness. And it must find new ways to achieve an even closer relationship with the individual Members of Congress. It is with this in mind that we in CRS have welcomed the studies of our services and organization produced during the last several years. This of course includes the recent report of the House Commission on Information and Facilities as well as other studies which, in whole or part, dealt with CRS. I have already taken several steps to tighten procedure and improve administration, and I anticipate others as I become even more intimately familiar with the problems and relate the findings of the several reports to them. Our emphasis will be

on slow, consolidating growth and more sharply focused responsive

ness.

I would be glad to enumerate some of the specific changes during the question and answer period.

One of the things I am looking forward to is a top-level liaison person in the Director's Office who will be primarily responsible for outreach between the Service and Congress, to look for ways we can do a better job, and to be particularly cognizant of the places where we may at times fail.

NEW DEVELOPMENT PHASE

As the Service moves into a new phase of its development, I hope the Congress will understand its critical role in determining how well we can carry out our mission. Without a reasonable growth in staff, CRS cannot keep up with the expanding workload Congress imposes upon us, much less maintain and improve the quality of its service. Furthermore, Congress must understand that there are certain tasks the Service cannot do well or should not do at all; it is my responsibility, for the good of the Congress and of the Service, to negotiate those matters with individual Members and staff. Finally, Congress must give us the tools and resources we need to make the most effective use of our unique capabilities.

CRS FUNCTIONS

I must confess that even as a Member of Congress I was not completely aware of the Service's broad clientele and the massive array of its services and products. CRS is the only support agency that provides analysis, research, and information to every element of the congressional community in virtually every area of public policy and subject interest. We work for all Members, all House and Senate committees of both Houses, most joint committees, most of the several hundred subcommittees of both Houses, and the staffs of all of these. We also serve the staffs of various other specialized groups in Congress and give substantial support to our sister agencies: GAO, OTA, and CBO.

The range of subject matter with which CRS deals is quite stupendous. It includes every area of legislative and public policy from abortion to zoning, from the most critical to the most trivial. Our scope is encyclopedic. And the expertise and experience of our staff is at least the equal of any research organization or university in the world.

I would like to call your attention to the pie chart in the material that was passed out to you. It has been suggested that CRS is not producing as much per researcher and staff member at present as it was in 1971. That is because, I believe you would say, CRS in that period of time moved from an organization that primarily provided fast and quick information with some research capability to an organization with much heavier research capability.

[The pie chart referred to follows:]

CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE

NUMBER OF INQUIRIES

In fiscal year 1976 we responded to more than 291,000 inquiries. That means an average of about 1,200 per day, 22 per minute, 1 every 24 seconds. The total in fiscal year 1976 was 19 percent more than the requests cleared the previous fiscal year. But these numbers tell only part of the story.

CRS PRODUCT CHANGES

In every year since 1970, members and committees have asked CRS not only for more work, but also for more analytical work. That kind of a job is far more time-consuming than the average factual information request. The pie chart shows that the 11 percent of our inquiries involving analytical work took 54 percent of our total research time in fiscal year 1976.

In other words, the product of CRS has changed. We continue to have a fast information capability, but our capability to deliver indepth research and analysis has been greatly enhanced due to the interest and concern of Congress in this area.

Furthermore, while CRS's work for committees has gone up significantly in recent years, we still spend more time on Members' than on committees' requests. The increased time devoted to committee service has also greatly enhanced our capability to supply both analysis and information to every Member of the House and Senate.

Mr. Chairman, I have one document here which I think illustrates the interplay between the committee work of CRS and the work for the individual Members. I think there is some tendency to try to play off committees against Members. But in this document, which was done on energy for a committee, we have made available to all Members of Congress some information which has been in demand. So our indepth work serves across the board. We find that one effort in our organization serves to complement the effort in another aspect of our organization.

Mr. Chairman, I am not going into any more of the detail which appears in my statement, but in the conclusion I make several points which I think are very important.

CRS SUBJECT DIVISION SUPPORT OF COMMITTEES/SUBCOMMITTEES

I would say that in our budget request we are making particularly strong requests in the area of economics. As you will see from the second graph (on p. 258) in the information we have handed out, the Economics Division in fiscal year 1976 dealt with more committees and subcommittees than any other division in CRS, except the American Law Division, which of course deals with all the committees across the board. Our projections for the Economics Division in the coming year are that it will indeed be involved with even more committees and subcommittees than any other division of CRS and that there will be a substantial increase in workload.

[The graph referred to follows:]

CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE

CRS Subject Division Support of Committees/Subcommittees, FY 76

Economics is so vitally involved in transportation, taxation, labor, energy, and other significant fields that we feel it is critical that we get this additional support for our economics division.

While continuing its complete spectrum of support to Members of Congress, CRS wants to continue to be on the cutting edge in developing and adapting new technology to serve Congress with greater speed and efficiency. Therefore, of the $440,000 that we request to fund newer ventures and expand existing services, I want to call your particular attention to our microfiche project.