to the act, sir, but simply as a clarification. I have cited also, in my little statement, reference to a statement that was made before the Appropriations Committee by Senator Stennis on this very question when you took up the independent offices bill earlier this year. He said that the Council staff should be exempt from the Classification Act and the civil service laws. I believe that to be a reasonable expression of the intent of Congress when the Space Council was established. It would help us a lot to have it so considered. FARMERS HOME ADMINISTRATION Senator MAGNUSON. Senator Carroll, of Colorado, had intended to appear before the committee in support of the additional loan authorization requested by the President for soil and water loans. I am inserting his statement in the record at this point. (The statement referred to follows:) STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHN A. CARROLL ON SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS The President in his supplemental appropriation message of August 8 asked for authority for Farmers Home Administration to use a portion of the Department of Agriculture's contingency fund. The House limited this to $8 million. Since these contingency funds were intended for operating loans the committee may decide to provide necessary water loan funds in another manner. Therefore, I will not today recommend any particular method for providing FHA with the additional needed credit authority. FHA had had an unexpectedly heavy demand for credit assistance from farmers who need to develop supplies of potable water. It is my understanding that the demands amount to $20 million. However, the Agriculture Appropriation Act of 1962 allowed FHA only $3 million for water loans. The President's request in his supplemental message has particular significance to Colorado, and I wish to call this to the attention of the Senate Appropriations Committee. An area of Colorado embracing a portion of Boulder and Weld Counties is afflicted with concentrated brackish underground water. The farm families in this area have been forced to abandon their own water supplies and haul water by truck for domestic use. Over a year ago five contiguous rural groups in the affected Boulder-Weld area applied to the Farmers Home Administration for soil and water conservation loans of $250,000 each to construct domestic water systems which would have a common source of water and a common treatment plant. The efforts of the five groups in Colorado make an interesting story and vividly illustrate the need for expansion of this program. The particular area of which I speak is within 50 miles of Denver. It has never had a domestic water supply system. The contemplated system would serve Beech Aircraft Corp., located about 6 miles north of Boulder; Bureau of Standards located on Table Mesa north of Boulder; seven school buildings located in a newly reorganized district, comprising all of northern Boulder County and a portion of Weld County; the small town of Niwot which has about 60 families; plus approximately 650 farm families in the northern part of Boulder County and a part of Weld County. This is a rich agricultural area devoted to livestock feeding and dairying. As I said before, this area has never had a domestic water supply. The well water is not of good quality even for livestock use and the domestic water has to be hauled many miles from the city of Longmont and stored in cisterns on the farms. In the mid-20th century this situation to me is incredible. My colleagues can readily understand why these people ask the Government to help them to get clean, filtered, and piped water. They are not asking the Government to bear all the burden. They want to help themselves. Nearly 600 families have indicated their desire and initiative by depositing $260 each nearly $156,000-with the officers elected to the nonprofit organization which was formed some 18 months ago. All organizational work was donated and technical advice came from the Farmers Home Administration. The group has purchased 1,000 units of Colorado-Big Thompson project water, acquired land for reservoir and filter sites. Nearly $40,000 has been spent for engineering services. These large community systems can only be built if suitable long-term credit is available, and that credit is not now available in rural areas. The credit can be made available to these Colorado rural families if the Appropriations Committee will approve the President's request for additional credit authority for the Farmers Home Administration. The application by the Colorado groups in the Niwot area has, I think, high priority in FHA and I am hopeful that as soon as the Congress passes this bill the Niwot area loan will be approved and the water supply project initiated. Mr. Chairman, when the saline water bill was up for consideration in the Interior Committee and again on the floor of the Senate, I called attention to an increasingly troublesome water problem in the West. That is the problem of brackish well water on our farms. I recommended that the Farmers Home Administration look into the possibility of making loans to farmers for installation of small water conversion units. These small units, which would furnish about 20 gallons a day to a farm family for domestic use, would purify well water that is now unfit for drinking. Pilot plants of the type I have mentioned are already being operated on farms in Colorado and other States by the Bureau of Reclamation. As soon as an economical purification system is perfected it is my hope that the Farmers Home Administration will promptly apply its credit authority to development of small on-the-farm saline or brackish water conversion units. I am confident that if the Bureau of Reclamation experiments develop a small system that can cheaply purify ground water, farmers all over the West will want to install such units. I hope the Farmers Home Administration will consider the critical needs of these farmers who are burdened with brackish, undrinkable well water and cooperate with the Bureau of Reclamation in development of a program to provide western rural areas with potable water. 75285-61-34 For obligation, Sept. 9, 1961 ($900,000); Jan. 1, 1962 ($300,000). 12. Estimated expenditures from supplemental: In current fiscal year. In next fiscal year.. Total... 13. Actual obligations last 3 months... In budget 76, 350 75, 150 1, 200 Revised $1, 130 70 1, 200 EXPLANATION OF ESTIMATED 1962 Cost of CARRYING OUT PROVISIONS OF PUBLIC LAW 87-132 Public Law 87-132, approved August 10, 1961, will reduce the available dutyfree exemptions for returning U.S. residents from the present maximum of $500 The legislation becomes effective 30 days after enactment per person to $100. or on September 9, 1961. This short preparatory period lends great urgency to this proposed supplemental appropriation estimate. While the total value of purchases abroad by U.S. residents will be reduced (this is the basic purpose of the legislation), the number of dutiable baggage declarations at all ports will be greatly increased. We expect that the reduction in personal exemptions will result in three times the number of dutiable baggage declarations being filed at our seaports, airports, and border ports than would have been the case without Public Law 87-132. The reduction of the maximum allowable exemption from $500 to $100 generally will require a much more careful, detailed and time-consuming examination of returning residents' baggage declarations and of the items actually acquired abroad, so as to protect the interests of both the Government and of the returning resident. On the average, it is believed that an additional 3 minutes of inspectional time per nondutiable declaration filed at airports and seaports is a very conservative estimate. * * * * Lowering the maximum personal exemption will also inevitably lead to a larger number of attempts to smuggle and to misdeclare or undervalue merchandise, with a directly resulting need for additional enforcement staff to combat such attempts and to conduct the necessary investigations into actual and alleged law infringement situations. In summary, 112 additional positions of customs inspector, 21 clerical positions, and 21 enforcement positions are requested for fiscal year 1962, together with directly related expenses. The detailed estimates of fiscal year 1962 costs for nearly 10 months, September 9, 1961, through June 30, 1962, for these positions, totaling $900,000, are attached. Details of additional 1962 costs of carrying out provisions of Public Law 87-132 (September 1961-June 1962) Part-time and temporary employees: 42 inspectors, w.a.e. seasonal, GS-7, $5,366, for 2 months, September 1961 and June 1962... Part-time and temporary employees: 3 clerks, w.a.e., seasonal, GS-5, $4,347, for 2 months, September 1961 and June 1962. |