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Mr. McCORMACK. Of course, you would have a very receptive field so far as your appropriation is assumed, with Congressman Fogarty, chairman of the subcommittee.

Mr. LUND. I do not think that is a major problem.

Mr. FOGARTY. May I say if that is a problem we will take care of it. If that is the only thing that is holding this thing up we will give you more help, if you will come before our committee next year and make the request or I will ask you the direct question so that you will be in position to answer it.

STATEMENT OF MANUEL B. HILLER, OFFICE OF THE GENERAL COUNSEL, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND

WELFARE

Mr. HILLER. Mr. Chairman, my name is Manuel B. Hiller, and I am in the Office of the General Counsel of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

I think that we should not ignore, or the Department feels that we should not ignore, the fact that we have been faced with a multitude of proposals for extension of eligibility, and a consideration of any single one of these proposals without reference to the others does not present an entirely equitable picture.

For that reason, I think it becomes of some value to note that there are many other public-interest activities which are not now eligible and with respect to which equity might seem to indicate an equal right to attain eligibility.

The inclusion of all of these other organizations and institutions would then present some rather fearful problems in the field of administration, and in the field of priority and conflict of interest for the same property, and the Department has pointed out in its report, which was delivered to the committee only this morning, reiterating what we had previously reported in connection with some of these other bills which had been considered by the committee last year.

Mr. McCORMACK. Well, the thought enters my mind that in your statement, assuming this bill was reported and became law, then you lessen the inequity by one?

Mr. HILLER. We may lessen it as to that one but increase it with respect to the others who have not been included.

Mr. MAY. Also, Mr. Chairman

Mr. McCORMACK. I am just probing, you understand my mind is

open.

Mr. MAY. I want to probe a little further.

Mr. McCORMACK. I want you to.

Mr. MAY. I would guess one of the basic reasons why all these kinds of bills have been opposed is that you hesitate to put one over the other or make a decision that would involve several others if you approved one, besides the other reasons that you gave.

Would not that be correct?

Mr. HILLER. That is one of the additional reasons that the Department has had in mind, and we had indicated in 1955, when it was proposed to extend eligibility for civil-defense purposes, that our approval of that proposal was motivated by the overriding interests of national security, that the civil-defense proposal represented.

Mr. McCORMACK. Well, don't fire fighters come within the same realm?

Mr. HILLER. Well, as Mr. Lund had pointed out, those fire-fighting organizations which now have been designated under State law in accordance with the provisions-current provisions of the act, and whose State plans have been approved by the State civil-defense director or State civil-defense organizations are now eligible to receive property for such civil-defense training or operational readiness programs as the fire-fighting organizations may have developed.

Mr. McCORMACK. Well, has any of them been approved?
Mr. HILLER. I think so, yes.

Mr. McCORMACK. Do you have evidence of how many?

Mr. LUND. No, I could get it for the record if that be your pleasure,. but I do not recall.

But there are a considerable number of the States that have those approved.

Mr. MAY. As Mr. Fogarty said, the volunteer fire-fighting organizations in many cases are much better than the civilian defense units and usually are the ones called upon in the area of disasters.

Mr. FOGARTY. Also may I add just one more thing that I think was a mistake when you considered civil defense, because it was not organized on a local level as it should have been, and never has been, and much of the property that has been distributed to civil-defense groups in States have gone to wrack and ruin because of the maintenance costs that were involved and they did not have the sufficient funds to maintain the equipment that was given to them.

And in many areas, some of this equipment was given to fire departments because they just could not handle it, did not have the organization to handle it and did not have the funds to properly maintain the equipment that was given to these civil-defense units.

I think if there is an area that should be investigated it should be what has happened to this surplus property that has been given to the civil-defense units because then I think that would be all the more reason why you should take into consideration these bills that have been introduced.

That part of the program has not worked out well.

The health, education, and welfare programs have, but this one, I think, might turn out to be a disgrace.

Mr. McCORMACK. Mr. Nimtz, do you want to ask any questions? Mr. NIмTZ. No, Mr. Chairman; I want to concur in what Mr. Fogarty said that the role of civil defense should be investigated but I also want to say a word of praise and commendation to these gentlemen. I am active in the Boy Scouts and Salvation Army in South Bend and we have seen the wonderful results of this program in these two fields. We have developed a new Boy Scout camp for our council although we go up into Michigan to do our camping. We have developed an excellent camp through the surplus property such as plates and silverware, tents, tools, and things such as that that our Scout executives have been able to locate in the Midwest from your program. You and your department have done a marvelous, effective job for organizations such as the Boy Scouts.

My only plea is there are a lot of tarpaulins, lanterns, floodlights, pickaxes, generators, and other things that these fire fighters could use. Yes, the civil defense, might have it in the community but when

the emergency arises and these volunteers jump on their trucks or get in their car and put on the blue light and head for the fire, when they arrive there, they may be 7 or 10 miles from that equipment and cannot get it there in an emergency. It has to be on the spot and readily available or it is no good to you.

Mr. McCORMACK. If you have the fire fighters established with the Boy Scouts you have a real preferential status over even what the schools, colleges, and hospitals have under the law.

In other words, all you have got to do is go to the Secretary of Defense and persuade him that it comes within the accepted category of the existing law just like the Boy Scouts were and then you have a real preference.

Mr. NIMTZ. If Mr. Fogarty would join me with his eloquence I would be glad to go over to the Secretary of Defense and join in that. But we want to make sure that volunteer fire-fighting organizations come within the act. I know it is a difficult decision to make in light of the Department's unfavorable recommendation, but the committee with their broad shoulders, I know could make the decision and stand by it and help these dedicated people who compose these volunteer fire-fighting organizations.

Thank you, sir.

Mr. McCORMACK. It seems to me the fire fighters ought to be entitled to a favorable decision more than the Boy Scouts and some of the other organizations, not that I have not got a very high regard for them for I have.

But that decision has disturbed the members of this select subcommittee and disturbed me as the author of the Donable Property Act. You see the Donable Property Act came about because the Defense Department, through an erroneous interpretation of the law, in my opinion, had declared that property was no longer needed in stockfund operations, was not surplus, and could not be donated.

Now, if they declared it surplus, then it had to go down to the General Services and then to the Health, Education, and Welfare; did it not?

But by declaring it excess for stock-fund purposes only, it did not become surplus and they sold it and they were getting on an average of about 6 cents on the acquisition dollar selling this property which was in fact surplus, and putting the receipts back into the stock fund. Since 95 percent of your surplus property comes from the Defense Department, the result was that the existing law was defeated through the clever operation of the Defense Department in surplus property excess rather than surplus, and we had to meet that situation.

Now, in the old law, when it was wide open, an awful lot of abuses arose, and one of the problems facing this committee is that we are in no way deciding against the fine intentions of every organization seeking legislation, that if you open it wide then these abuses come back on the part of a few. It is always happening in life and then it defeats the whole program because when you pick up this abuse where some organization got it or some group got it and then sold it, as happened some years ago, not used it for themselves, but under the guise of being a beneficiary under the law, they got certain surplus property, then they sold it, is that right, Mr. Lund, they sold it? Mr. LUND. That is right.

Mr. McCORMACK. It only takes a few abuses like that to create a wave of public opinion and then the whole law is defeated. Ninetyeight percent of the groups who were beneficiaries and who conform with the law have to suffer for 1 or 2 percent who abuse it and we have had that history, and that is what you have got to be very careful not to extend it too far, impugning nobody's motives but knowing human nature on the part of a small group, and the effect upon the whole law itself, and that is one of the reasons why, main reasons why you have to be, the committee has to be awfully careful because we know it is only a matter of time when the effectiveness of the whole law will be impaired, if not defeated, and one has to be cautious and it is in no way impugning anybody's motives but we know what happened before. Those remarks are not addressed against any particular bill pending before the committee but is a broad statement.

Let me ask you, Mr. Lund, is the Education, Health, and Civil Defense now getting the maximum available surplus property?

Mr. LUND. No, I think they are not for several reasons.

One is this is a cooperative arrangement between the States and the Federal Government, and we have problems, of course, in transportation, screening, and costs. Because of the fact that you have to screen the property, you have to evaluate it and it would not be advantageous to take all of it and place it out, some of it is not applicable.

For example, in certain types of tools, the school cannot use it advantageously, it is either not properly powered, overpowered, or maybe in such condition that the transportation cost is too high.

We have continued to encourage the States, and we have ourselves attempted to expand our screening, and we think that it is generally becoming better and better, but I would say, in answer, that I think we are getting the majority that is suitable for this purpose, but a hundred percent, no.

We can still improve in that area.

Mr. MAY. Apparently some of the volunteer fire-fighting units did not realize they could get their property through civilian defense. Mr. LUND. We would be perfectly willing to give any volunteer fire department that writes for information and assistance on how to proceed in any way possible.

This of course comes under the civil-defense setup, the arrangements between our department and the Civil Defense Administrator generally provide that the rules and regulations are under the jurisdiction of Civil Defense and they do require State approved plans.

But we have not run into any serious difficulty. Currently as far as we can make the observation, we have more requests for this kind of item than the screeners are able to locate.

But we will continue to make inquiry into this area to see what the potential is.

Mr. McCORMACK. Mr. Nimtz?

Mr. NIмTZ. Mr. Chairman, if I may make one other statement. These gentlemen can speak for themselves as typical fire-fighting companies but from my experience in Indiana I have found a reluctance on the part of volunteer fire departments to come within the jurisdiction or framework of the civil defense organization.

These volunteer firemen are willing to cooperate and render service at any time, but when you get into the question of jurisdiction and you are working with a township trustee or a board of county super

visors or county commissioners, you find a realm of chain of command and of supervision that they may not want to complicate by coming within the structure and hierarchy of the civil defense organizations. I have found a reluctance by these volunteer firemen to come within that particular orbit or realm of command there. They want to stay within their own particular jurisdiction.

Mr. MAY. Mr. Chairman, on that, I think I would have to make a statement, too.

From analyzing this bill and talking to many volunteer fire-fighting units in Connecticut, I would say the same thing. They are always ready to volunteer and work hard in the various disasters. In my town, which happens to be the oldest town in Connecticut, I think they have the oldest volunteer fire department in existence in the United States, in continuous existence, and I know that they are ready, willing, and able to help the State in emergencies but they have their own interests, and they run their own drives and in their own ways as do all the other towns in the State and are very well organized but they do not like to be under the jurisdiction of any other organization, but are always ready to tie right in when the occasion comes up and that may be, plus lack of knowledge of this other thing, the reason why many of them have not participated in the program. Mr. McCORMACK. Well, we will call you again, Mr. Lund.

We have these other gentlemen who have come here.

Mr. Williams J. Thomas III.

Is Mr. Thomas here?

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir.

Mr. McCORMACK. Will you give us your address, Mr. Thomas? And whom you represent?

STATEMENT OF W. J. THOMAS III, PRESIDENT, SANDY SPRING VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT, INC., MONTGOMERY COUNTY,

MD.

Mr. THOMAS. Yes, sir. I am, as you know, W. J. Thomas III, the president of the Sandy Spring Volunteer Fire Department, Inc., and the chairman of the public relations committee of the Montgomery County Association of Volunteer Firemen.

I also served last year as the chairman of the Montgomery County Fire Board, which is a semiofficial unit of the Montgomery County government, and I was asked to come here in a hurry, so, as has been stated, I have no prepared statement.

Mr. McCORMACK. You go right ahead.

Mr. THOMAS. I would like very much to speak in favor-would you I was prejudiced if I used Representative Hyde's bill?

say

Mr. McCORMACK. Go ahead.

Mr. THOMAS. He is my Representative, you know.

Mr. McCORMACK. Go right ahead.

Mr. THOMAS. We have in Montgomery County more than 1,200 volunteer firemen, and we serve an area of about 524 square miles and I think probably we have a large percentage of the House of Representatives who have homes in that area.

So some of them are familiar with what we do, and so are you.
However, we always are hard put to it to find equipment.

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