State courts.

It was very difficult at times to collect the fee for endless work. So there is an attorney's point of view on this. Mr. WIER. I knew there was.

Mr. MCCAULEY. Yes.

Mr. WIER. I have not seen a bill pass the Congress where the attorneys have not a point of interest.

Mr. MCCAULEY. If the bill is otherwise favorably considered, Mr. Chairman, we feel there should be some provisions that would permit us to prescribe the terms of the lien and how it is to be liquidated so that it will prevent a situation arising where the attorney could collect all of the accrued compensation and leave the man with nothing. In that situation you will probably want to provide that the lien, 50 percent of the fee would be paid from the accrued compensation and the rest paid as a further compensation.

Mr. WIER. You give us a report on that.

Mr. MCCAULEY. I will.

Mr. WIER. If there are no further questions by the committee members here on behalf of the committee I want to thank you, Mr. McCauley, and the members of your staff for appearing here and enlightening us and making a contribution that will make it easier for us to deliberate on these bills. You will follow through on furnishing us a report on each one of these bills?

Mr. MCCAULEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. WIER. We will place H.R. 9765 in the record. (H.R. 9765 follows:)

[H.R. 9765, 86th Cong., 2d sess.]

A BILL To provide for liberalized benefits under the Federal Employees Compensation Act for certain emergency workers and their survivors

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That (a) clause (a) of the second proviso contained in the first section of the Act of February 15, 1934, as amended (5 U.S.C. 796) is amended by striking out "$100" and inserting in lieu thereof "$125".

(b) Clause (b) of the second proviso contained in the first section of such Act of February 15, 1934, as amended (5 U.S.C. 796), is amended by striking out "$75" and inserting in lieu thereof "$187.50".

SEC. 2. The amendments made by the first section of this Act shall apply with respect to any case coming within the purview of the Act of February 15, 1934 (5 U.S.C. 796), before or after the date of enactment of this Act, but no compensation, with respect to any case of injury or death occurring before the date of enactment of this Act, shall accrue or be increased by reason of the amendments made by the first section of this Act for any period prior to the first day of the first month which begins after the date of enactment of this Act.

Mr. WIER. At the moment that is all of the bills.

Mr. MCCAULEY. You are not going to write us on each individual bill?

Mr. WIER. Your what?

Mr. MCCAULEY. On these, each individual bill.

Mrs. BOSONE. One letter will cover all of it.

Mr. MCCAULEY. That will be all right.

Mr. WIER. Yes. At least we would like to have an indication from you as to the feasibility of further consideration of these bills.

Mr. MCCAULEY. All right, sir. We will proceed immediately to start working on this and then speed it up some anyhow.

Mr. WIER. Again our thanks and appreciation, and if there are any questions we want, I imagine you will be available or your counsel.

Mr. MCCAULEY. We are always glad.

Mr. WIER. That is your counsel there?

Mr. MCCAULEY. Yes, Mr. Miller.

Mr. WIER. We will adjourn the meeting now.

(Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., Wednesday, February 10, 1960, the meeting was adjourned subject to call.)

AMENDMENTS TO FEDERAL EMPLOYEES'

COMPENSATION ACT

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1960

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SAFETY AND COMPENSATION

OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR,

Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 10:15 a.m., pursuant to call, in room 1301, New House Office Building, Hon. Roy W. Wier (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Wier, O'Hara, Frelinghuysen, and Goodell.

Present also: Reva Beck Bosone, legal counsel.

Mr. WIER. I think we had better get started because of the number of witnesses. I now call Subcommittee No. 5 of the Education and Labor Committee to order so that we may hear the witnesses that are present to speak on behalf of the legislation that they have introduced. This is the second meeting of this subcommittee. At our first meeting we had the Administrator of the Federal Employees' Compensation Bureau here to give us his opinions on the 19 bills that are offered as amendments. He went completely through the bills, making some report on each as to the Department's view of the bill more or less. This morning and tomorrow morning we are hearing the Members of Congress or others who have bills in this subcommittee. They may present their points of view and probably answer questions regarding their legislation.

As customary, Members who have bills can either appear before the committee personally or they can submit a statement.

I already have a couple of statements here this morning. I notice that we have as the first witness, Mr. Baldwin of California, who introduced H.R. 698.

Mr. Baldwin, you may proceed in any way that you choose.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN F. BALDWIN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Mr. BALDWIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity of coming before you this morning and testifying on H.R. 698. This bill is a bill which is quite simple in its intention. Its objective is to increase the mininum rate of compensation for paraplegics from the present minimum of $112.50 per month to a minimum of $150 per month and to increase the amount provided for the compensation of an attendant for such paraplegics from the present minimum of $75 per month to a minimum of $100 per month.

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Let me say, Mr. Chairman, that the reason I became interested in this subject is that I have in my district a young man, who was young not too long ago, who was injured in the CCC back in 1938. The injury caused him to become a paraplegic, and because the rate of compensation of the CCC was very low, he falls in the minimum group. That is, he gets $112.50 per month and $75 for an attendent.

I have talked with this man and it is just impossible for a paraplegic to endeavor to live and employ an attendant when he only gets $112.50 for himself and an allowance of $75 for an attendant.

I do not know where in the United States a person could live and have an attendant on that kind of minimum. He can certainly not do it in the bay area of California.

To show the contrast in our veterans schedule, a veteran paraplegic whose injury was incurred in wartime receives $450 per month, and even a peacetime veteran, a man who just served completely in peacetime, if he suffered an injury and became a paraplegic, receives 80 percent of what a wartime service-connected veteran gets, or approximately $360 per month.

As I say, the purpose of this bill is simply to increase the minimum for paraplegics from $112.50 to $150 per month and to increase the minimum for the attendants for them from $75 to $100 per month.

I have read Mr. McCauley's testimony on this bill. Mr. McCauley made two objections: (1) He said the definition of paraplegic was too narrow, because on page 2 of the bill my definition says, and I had this bill drawn up by the legislative counsel of the House of Representatives:

The term "paraplegic" means an individual the lower half of whose body is paralyzed on both sides by reason of an injury to the spine.

Mr. McCauley objected because he said this would limit it only to paraplegics that had spinal injuries as compared to some other type of injury.

As far as I am concerned, I have no desire to have this limited to only one kind of injury. This "to the spine" was put in by the legislative counsel and I would be glad to recommend right now, Mr. Chairman, that your subcommittee strike out the words "to the spine" which would then leave the definition of paraplegic:

The term "paraplegic" means an individual the lower half of whose body is paralyzed on both sides by reason of an injury.

So that I am perfectly willing to go along to eliminate that one of Mr. McCauley's objections.

Mr. WIER. If I see that correctly, that would mean strike out "to the spine" with a period after "injury."

Mr. BALDWIN. Just strike out the words "to the spine" and put a period after "injury."

That leaves one remaining objection on the part of Mr. McCauley. His objection was that this would set up a classification that would receive a higher minimum than others receive. All I can say is this: I think all of you gentlemen who are on this committee know the problems that paraplegics have. There are the most complicated problems from the standpoint of taking care of them of perhaps any kind of injury that you can find.

I would be delighted if the committee would increase the minimum for all people who are completely disabled to $150 and increase the