Post-war agenda and reserve.

The major activity of the Board during the next fiscal year will be preparation for meeting whatever situation may confront the Nation after the war. A number of the projects previously undertaken or currently under way will contribute to this major purpose.

All past experience points to the inevitability of profund change and readjustment following war in Europe and Asia and necessary preparations here. The lines of attack upon these developments are partly marked out by past experience and congressional policy. The publications of the Board-and the last report on National Resources Development which the President transmitted to Congress last January-outline a series of problems and lines of action for immediate and intensive study. We are exploring these lines and endeavoring to find additional means of national stabilization and development for such use by the President and the Congress as they may deem appropriate.

To provide the President and the Congress with materials for long-range planning of both wartime needs and for the post-war situation, which the Board should be in a position to supply and which is contemplated in the organization of the Executive Office of the President, some of the major items of a program of work can be agreed upon in advance. Such a program will presumably grow out of existing activities and from periodic review of those emerging problems on which planning studies may help solution.

However, it is well-nigh impossible to predict what "bottlenecks" or "troubleshooting" problems may require action and service from the Board in the next few months. Some have already developed on which the Board has been able to help. The only safe assumption to make in setting up the program for the next fiscal year is that others will arise and that funds should be available to cover these unforeseeable requirements.

Public works programming.

With the closing out of the Work Projects Administration and the abandonment of the Work Projects Administration project known as the Public Work Reserve, there is an especially heavy demand from State and local governments for consulting assistance on programming of public works. The Board has provided such assistance in the past on a very limited scale, advising not on the content of municipal and State programs but rather on the technical procedures for arranging projects in an orderly manner related to the ability of the community to pay for them.

The demand for this kind of assistance seems certain to increase since a growing number of cities and States are establishing "post-war reserves,' to be expended after the war on public improvement projects.

The Board has always maintained that it was desirable for local governments and States to make their own programs of public works with the expectation that they would pay for the construction of the projects out of their own revenues. If it appears desirable to increase the amount of money expended in any one year the Federal Government could then make it possible for several years' work already in the program to be undertaken in the first year. There is obviously a greater assurance of the value of the projects if the government concerned expects to pay for them itself.

These programs taken together with the 6-year programs of Federal agencies constitute the "post-war shelf of public works" which the President has indicated should be in readiness in case of emergency.

Planned procedures for budgeting capital improvements on a carefully worked out schedule have become a fact in 7 States and about 60 cities and counties. To these figures will be added at least 3 more States and from 10 to 20 cities within the next month or two. The cities vary in size from quite small to some of the largest in the country. Partly by design these cities are spotted geographically from Maine to California. It is believed that this widespread inauguration of programming will lead many communities to imitate their neighbors and thus reach sections which the size of our staff now effectually prevents.

Area planning projects and assistance to war communities.

The National Resources Planning Board has provided planning assistance to communities and areas disrupted by war activities in a number of ways:

1. Through planning consultants assigned through State planning agencies to advise with local officials on planning and zoning, on needed community facilities, etc., resulting in memoranda to agencies concerned and reports on individual communities or areas. The list of communities thus aided is shown in appendix

A. Outstanding examples are the planning proposals developed in reports for Mobile, Ala., Ogden, Utah, Charleston, S. Ĉ., and for solution of the critical water-supply problem at Hampton Roads.

2. Through joint reports prepared in our field offices with the Office of Defense Health and Welfare Services on a series of war centers and their planning problems and programs. The list of communities in appendix A includes those given this type of joint assistance. Perhaps the most interesting examples are the reports for Baltimore, Md., northern New Jersey, Richmond, Calif., and Spokane, Wash.

3. Through advice to the Federal Works Agency, National Housing Agency, and the War Production Board on community facilities projects, housing proposals, and industrial facility expansion, based in part on field reports from the areas involved.

4. Through urban demonstration planning projects in Tacoma, Salt Lake City, and Corpus Christi, and development of new progressive planning techniques. 5. Through area planning projects sponsored jointly by State and local officials with this Board serving as channel for participation of various Federal agencies in each case. The purpose of these projects is to secure the agreement by as many agencies as possible on plans for adjustments to war needs ard to peacetime development at the end of the war. The Arkansas Valley Report recently transmitted to the Preside it is a typical example. Work is now under way on such projects for Puget Sound, Wasatch front, Denver metropolitan area, Niagara frontier, the Pend Oreille are, and the North Pacific. Progress reports or outlines on these projects are available.

For the completion of these projects, demonstrations, and assistance, and to enable the Board to undertake further intensive work in such areas as the San Francisco Bay region, Detroit-Windsor, Coosa Valley, Texas coastal area, southern Illinois, Baltimore, lower Connecticut Valley, Hampton Roads, Mobile, Los Angeles, etc., additional funds are needed.

The typical "area planning project" has been initiated by a meeting in an area which faces major war and post-war problems such as the conference in Governor Maw's office in Salt Lake City last August-where State, local, and Federal officials, industrial and labor leaders, and citizen organizations reviewed the situation and agreed to pool their energies in seeking solutions to their common problems.

The projects have been set up with local sponsorship and on a short-term basis. The purpose is not research but rather, in a short period of 6 or 8 months, to develop a plan or program of action on the basis of existing data. A special group, composed of the city and State planning commissions, the university, and the Board's field office, sponsors the Denver project; the State development commission is operating the project on the Wasatch front; the Puget Sound Regional Planning Commission runs the project there.

The National Resources Planning Board has contributed the services of its field officers and consultants to bring together those concerned for the initial meeting; to secure agreement on outlines, content, and methods of procedure; to channel assistance from various field agencies; and to provide materials and suggestions in special fields.

Thus, in Denver, for example, an industrial engineer consultant of the Board has worked with the Remington Arms organization on conversion possibilities of the war plant there. A Board official has worked with Dr. Mahoney of the University of Utah and the Columbia Steel Corporation on the future of the great steel works at Provo. Consultants of the Board have been made available on urban development, housing and community facilities, programming of public improvements, water problems, economic trends, etc., according to the special situation and requirements of each project.

A principal part of the Board's work on these projects is the assistance we can arrange from other Federal agencies in the field and in Washington, and from the Board's own staff in Washington. The cost to the Board of these activities varies widely for different area planning projects, according to our relative success in getting local and State participation and assistance from other Federal agencies. We hope to demonstrate in selected areas the possibilities of cooperative planning, so that more communities will undertake this work on their own.

The Federal Government, through various activities, has been the chief cause of disruption of many communities (although often at the urgings of local officials) through construction and operation of war plants and facilities. The Federal Government is interested in seeking solutions to the problems thus created, both for the more effective prosecution of the war effort and to secure the largest return from heavy Federal investments in these areas after the war.

The completion of current planning projects and compliance with requests for similar assistance from other areas are economical and useful means of discharging part of the Federal Government's obligation and of furthering the war effort.

SALARIES AND EXPENSES

Mr. WOODRUM. We will now take up the items in The first item is for salaries and expenses.

(The item is as follows:)

your estimate.

Salaries and expenses: For expenses necessary for the work of the National Resources Planning Board, to perform the functions transferred to said Board on July 1, 1939, including personal services in the District of Columbia and elsewhere; acceptance and utilization of voluntary and uncompensated services, and employment of State, county, or municipal officers and employees, with or without compensation; contract stenographic reporting services; purchase of books of reference and periodicals; expenses of attendance at meetings concerned with development, conservation, and use of the resources of the Nation; traveling expenses not to exceed $50,000; payment of actual transportation and other necessary expenses and not to exceed $10 per diem in lieu of subsistence of persons serving, while away from their homes without other compensation from the United States, in an advisory capacity to the Board; and not to exceed $50,000 for temporary employment of persons or organizations by contract or otherwise without regard to section 3709, of the Revised Statutes, or classification laws, $650,000.

Mr. WOODRUM. You show an increase for 1944 of $382,578, and that includes the right to use the remainder of a Presidential allotment amounting to $243,000.

Mr. ELIOT. Which will all be used this year.

Mr. WOODRUM. It will all be used this

year.

Mr. ELIOT. Yes. We are running very close right now.

Mr. WOODRUM. So that over and above your 1943 appropriation the amount here asked for is $625,578?

Mr. ELIOT. We are asking for next year, $1,400,000. We had approximately $774,000 for this year.

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. Plus an allotment from the President's emergency fund of $243,000?

Mr. ELIOT. Which is the balance left over from the previous year, and will be used in this year. That makes about $1,000,000 that we received, and we are asking for next year an appropriation of about $1,400,000.

Mr. WOODRUM. $625,578 is the increase in the amount you are talking about.

Mr. ELIOT. Yes.

Mr. DIRKSEN. And do you anticipate receiving anything from the President's emergency fund for 1944?

Mr. ELIOT. We have not asked for anything, no.

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. That is over what you have already received. Mr. ELIOT. You refer to a previous allotment.

Mr. FITZPATRICK. It all depends on how much is appropriated? Mr. ELIOT. It depends, Mr. Fitzpatrick, on what the President asks the Board to do. We are his servants, and if he asks us to do a job and we do not have the money, of course we will have to tell him. If he sees fit to ask for a supplemental appropriation or if he sees fit to make an allotment for the work we will do it.

Mr. WOODRUM. As you see your program now, if the Congress appropriates the amount of money you have requested it will carry you through without additional requests, with your present allotment.

Mr. ELIOT. For 1944-we think so.

Mr. YANTIS. We do not anticipate asking for any supplemental appropriation, or an allotment from the President for next year, but if there is a particular job he wishes the Board to do, and we do not have the funds we would have to ask for an allotment.

CHANGE IN LANGUAGE

USE OF VOLUNTARY AND UNCOMPENSATED SERVICES

(See p. 73)

Mr. WOODRUM. Will you tell us something about the reason for the change in language, or new language:

acceptance and utilization of voluntary and uncompensated services, and employment of State, county, or municipal officers and employees, with or without compensation.

Mr. ELIOT. As I have said, we deal constantly with State and local officers, and the question has arisen as to whether or not we were legally empowered to compensate them for such work as they do

for us.

The question came up specifically last winter when we asked for the help of a man employed by the State of Louisiana on a review of the manpower problem, under a special committee headed by Mr. Owen Young. The man came up and worked on that problem, and we were then faced with the question of whether we could compensate him. The Comptroller General ruled that we should pay for the services, but the suggestion was made at the time that perhaps we should ask for some clarifying language in the Appropriation Act itself.

Mr. WOODRUM. Was it a project on which the State of Louisiana was interested or benefited?

Mr. ELIOT. We do not think so. All they were supposed to do was to get together materials-this was before the Manpower Commission was set up as to what the requirements of the State governments. would be for civil-service employees. Louisiana's interest would be the same as that of any of the 48 States, and we wanted a civil-service expert from a State to tell us what their problem would be as far as their civil-service employees were concerned.

Mr. WOODRUM. If it is in the nature of a service to the State it ought to be on a reimbursable basis.

Mr. ELIOT. Yes.

Mr. WOODRUM. Is that the only case where you have had them? Mr. ELIOT. That is the only case where that service was used. Mr. WOODRUM. You think the instances would be few and far between in which you would ask them to furnish assistance?

Mr. ELIOT. I would, and personally, as the responsible executive, if the matter were left to me, I would lean over backward rather than employ a State official, but the question was raised as to whether or not we could pay them when they were employed.

Mr. WOODRUM. Because if the State is going to benefit there is no reason, it would seem, why the State should not contribute the services of its own officials and employees.

Mr. DIRKSEN. Was he on the State rolls, Mr. Eliot?

Mr. ELIOT. Yes; he was in the State civil service, full-time, regular man for Louisiana.

Mr. DIRKSEN. Was Federal compensation paid in addition to State compensation?

Mr. ELIOT. No; we reimbursed the State for his salary for the 3 or 4 weeks which he was here in Washington working on this special project.

Mr. FITZPATRICK. The money was not given to him?

Mr. ELIOT. He got nothing out of it.

SELECTION OF LOCATIONS FOR WAR PROJECTS

Mr. FITZPATRICK. There is one question I would like to ask right here. It is one very often asked throughout the country. In selecting certain territories for war projects where there is a shortage of labor, water, and housing facilities, why are they selected when we have close to our industrial sections the labor, the facilities, and everything necessary, yet they are not selected?

Mr. ELIOT. As New York City, for example?

Mr. FITZPATRICK. Absolutely. In New York, we have the facilities for shipbuilding, factories, we have the land and the labor. I would like to know why they are not selected.

Mr. ELIOT. I am afraid I cannot explain it. I can, perhaps, give you some of the reasons we have been told by people who make those decisions.

Mr. FITZPATRICK. I am asking you-have you recommended it; has your Planning Board recommended it?

Mr. ELIOT. As far as our record goes, I remember distinctly several times when the situation in New York was called to the attention of those who were selecting sites for a new industry as having a large supply of labor which could be used and presumably should be used at the earliest possible moment. At the same time, the Board has been faced with the directive which was given by the Army and Navy to keep war industries out of the so-called danger zone and put them in the so-called defense area behind the mountains.

Mr. FITZPATRICK. Let me ask you this: Do you think that defense plants located in New York would be in any more danger than the defense plants which are now located between Washington and Baltimore?

Mr. ELIOT. Personally, no.

Mr. FITZPATRICK. No; and that is what I would like to find outwhether or not you have recommended or sent in a report recommending where certain war projects could be located near the large industrial section, where they have a surplus of labor, have the facilities and everything else, waterways, transportation and everything; yet they do not seem to accept such locations but place new projects in some isolated section of our country?

Mr. YANTIS. Of course, Congressman, you understand that our Board makes no decision as to the final location. Matters are referred to it for the purpose of securing information or recommendations from the Board on the precise facts you mention-availability of labor, availability of transportation, availability of power, availability of water and housing facilities. And when the projects come in, a