agencies as a means of preventing the agencies themselves from buying new ones.

Senator MUSKIE. Well, I think it is clear to you gentlemen the point I am pursuing. There is a general classification of property that is useful for many purposes and many causes and many agencies that presumably are not in short supply, but in a supply which is so limited that it might be inequitable to broaden the list of recipients of such property. But there may also be surplus property that has particular value for general purposes or special agencies, including wildlife, and that is the point I would like to pursue a little bit.

Mr. CALLISON. Well, Senator Muskie, I think you may be entirely right. There may be certain types of equipment in the construction category that would be peculiarly fitted to the needs of fish and wildlife conservation agencies, but which would not be useful in a public roads program. I think that may be likely.

Now, this gentleman said that in the educational category, things like cameras, motion-picture projectors, things of that kind, would be useful in the educational programs of the conservation agencies also. But I can see there would be keen competition in that field.

There is a growing need for electronic equipment of various types in fisheries and wildlife research, particularly in fisheries research. And I would just guess that there may be considerable of that equipment becoming surplus to the needs of the defense agencies-maybe I should use the word "excess"-rather than surplus to the Federal agencies, that could be used by the State game and fish agencies in their research programs.

Senator MUSKIE. Well, have you ever gotten together with these GSA people to discuss the possibilities of equipment or property that might be particularly useful to wildlife and conservation purposes?

Mr. CALLISON. I don't know that we have, sir. It is an excellent suggestion.

Senator MUSKIE. It may be they would have nothing that would be of interest to you.

Mr. CALLISON. That is correct.

Senator GRUENING. Have you anything further to say, Mr. Callison?

Mr. CALLISON. No, thank you, Senator.

Senator GRUENING. Thank you very much.

Mr. J. Wendell Gray, Chief, Division of Surplus Property Utilization, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

STATEMENT OF J. WENDELL GRAY, CHIEF, DIVISION OF SURPLUS PROPERTY UTILIZATION, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE

Mr. GRAY. Mr. Chairman, my name is Wendell Gray. I am the Chief of the Surplus Property Utilization Division, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

We are very pleased to have this opportunity to present our views on the various bills which would admit new groups as eligible for donation of Federal surplus property.

44978-59--4

Senator GRUENING. Have you a prepared statement?

Mr. GRAY. I do not have a prepared statement. The Secretary has provided your committee with a detailed statement 15 on four of the bills that is, S. 1018, S. 1210, S. 1365, and S. 1766. We believe that the position expressed in that statement would be applicable to all of the other bills which propose to extend eligibility.

We have commented adversely on these bills generally for the same reasons that were expressed to you earlier by the General Services Administration and which have been summarized by your staff, I think, in very excellent fashion. These bills would reduce the amount of available property for the present eligible groups. They would, in all probability, require the establishment of a priority system which has been tried out at one time and became almost impossible administratively. It would delay the distribution of the property, and by reason of that create additional administrative costs. For if not all, of the groups seeking eligibility, we do not question the worthiness of their activities, but are faced with the extreme problemWhere do you draw the line? Do you admit all of them, or do you try to be selective about it? And if you try to be selective about it, on what basis can you judge which has more merit than the other?

many,

There is another point that is important in some of the bills, which would set up a parallel administrative structure by vesting the administrative responsibility in other agencies of Government. At the present time the donation program is handled by a single State agency in each State, and they get guidance from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, on the health and education side by the terms of the legislation, on the civil defense side by delegation of the distributing functions by the Director of the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization.

Since the question was raised earlier-I think it probably has been adequately clarified-but I might stress the fact that the determination of need and usability of property for civil defense purposes is made by the Administrator of OCDM. That function was not delegated to our department. Also, the enforcement of compliance with terms and conditions of the transfer on property donated for civil defense purposes was retained by the Administrator of OCDM. Senator GRUENING. Mr. Gray, does the department keep any statistics as to the amounts donated, and to which agency they are donated?

Mr. GRAY. We do not have complete statistics on the amounts donated by the agency in all instances. Since civil defense came into the picture, OCDM has set up a centralized system utilizing IBM equipment, so that they are able to segregate completely the donations. for civil defense. During fiscal year 1958, 10.9 percent of the total property allocated for donation was distributed to civil-defense organizations. On the health and education side, we have never required reports from the States breaking down donations between health and education. There have been spot checks made in a number of States. Some States do have IBM equipment and are able to accumulate that information. But nationally it would be an estimated figure insofar as the breakdown between health and education is concerned.

15 Incorporated into staff memorandum 86-1-42 dated July 20, 1959, p. 20.

Education is quite definitely the large user. We estimate that the split between health and education is roughly 80 percent to education and 20 percent to health.

Senator GRUENING. Could you give us some of the principal commodities, types of surplus, which go to education?

Mr. GRAY. Well, as Mr. Garvey indicated, they utilize most everything that becomes available. I might just mention a few of the major categories of property. One of them, for example, is maintenance supplies. They use very large amounts of everything that you use in the maintenance of a school plant-electrical equipment and fixtures and wire, plumbing equipment, cleaning equipment, and all of that sort of thing. And then, of course, one of the major categories is furniture-desks, chairs, file cases, book shelves, and all that sort of thing.

The schools also are heavy users of machine tools in their vocational education programs, and particularly also universities-the technical colleges, engineering schools, and so forth.

But they use all kinds of standard supplies which do become available. They just run the gamut of what the Federal Government uses. I might comment on that score also, on one point which we think is very important.

The schools are unique in that they are able to get a double utilization out of much of this property. They are able to take, let's say, an automobile that is in such poor condition no one else would want it, but they put it into their vocational training shop and the students, as a part of their learning process, rebuild this vehicle. They use in their machine shop training a great deal of the raw material that they process on their lathes and milling machines and cutters and grinders, metal and material much of which would otherwise be sold as scrap and they are able to utilize it in their training programs.

Senator GRUENING. Mr. Gray, would you care to comment on some of the other bills that are not included in the Secretary's memorandum? Mr. GRAY. Well, Mr. Chairman, I think our comments on the four bills would be applicable to all of them. As a matter of fact, we had commented on the companion bill to S. 155 in the House, and our comment was the same on that as it is on these four bills.

Senator GRUENING. In other words, you would be opposed to all of these bills?

Mr. GRAY. That is correct.

Senator GRUENING. On the ground that there is not enough to go around. That is the basic ground.

Mr. GRAY. That and the complications that would result from any substantial enlargement of the program. The problem that if you have more requirements for property than you are able to meet, you are faced with the necessity for determining who shall get the property, which involves priorities, and that sort of thing.

Senator MUSKIE. I have one question I would like to ask. Is there any substantial amount of surplus property, or are there any categories of surplus property that are of no use to the current eligible users?

Mr. GRAY. Well, I might point out that on the school and health side, of course, the use of heavy construction equipment is pretty limited, although large school systems do have a continuing need for

certain types of construction equipment-graders to keep their athletic fields in condition, and that sort of thing. They are not real large users. But again, as Mr. Garvey has indicated, those materials are not in long supply.

Your question raises another point which I think I probably should comment on. I am sure the Department of Defense representatives will be able to give you more information on this. There is a very substantial amount of property that becomes excess. The disposal rate was estimated in this last fiscal year at about $8 billion. I don't know whether that was met or not. Now, that $8 billion of excess property includes a great deal of the material which is strictly in the weapons field. And we are talking about acquisition cost here.

For the donation program, as we review our past record, we only find about 4 to 5 percent of that total excess to be the types of property that are usable and needed for the purposes of the donation program. And those boil down pretty much to the common-use types of property, with some exceptions.

Senator MUSKIE. Of that $8 billion, excess property-this is annual-this is 1 year?

Mr. GRAY. Yes.

Senator MUSKIE. Of that, are there some categories of propertythis may not be information that you have, but the representatives of GSA do-are there some categories of properties that might be useful to some of these agencies mentioned in the pending bills, but not useful to the current eligible users?

Mr. GRAY. Well, I am not sure that I could give you a factual answer to that. We do utilize the common use type of property. There could be some very highly specialized property. But I don't know enough about the needs of all of these various groups seeking eligibility to tell you whether there are any specialized items that they could use that we could not use. I would doubt there is any substantial amount of it. Because particularly the schools are able to utilize such a wide variety of property.

Senator MUSKIE. I think I would be inclined to agree with you.. But I think the question ought to be asked and answered for the record.

Mr. GRAY. Yes.

Senator MUSKIE. Perhaps a representative of GSA would be willing to comment on that question.

Mr. GRAY. Well, I certainly would need to know more about the special requirements of the groups that are seeking eligibility. I am not well enough informed as to whether or not they have special requirements. Our impression has been, and we have talked with some of them, that by and large they are seeking the common-use type of property.

Senator MUSKIE. Do you think we have wrung most of the water out of the towel, Mr. Garvey?

Mr. GARVEY. Senator, included in the $8 billion declared excess this last fiscal year there is a great deal of it made up of military hardware, weapons and scrap. This constitutes the greatest proportion of the property, you see. Then, of course, there is this specialized equipment. And then there is the common-use stuff at the other end. Now, the common-use items, and some of the specialized equipment, is of

great interest to the people who are representing the eligible donees. I would like to point out that in addition, it is also true that the Federal Government has great use for much of the specialized equipment, and much of the common-use items as well. Before the property became surplus, we took out of it this year a little more than $140 million for the purpose of the Federal Government. We hope to take out of it even more in the fiscal year 1960. We have promised Congress that we would utilize in the Federal Government somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 million or more before it becomes eligible for donation.

Senator MUSKIE. Well, to sum up your position, do you think that you make maximum use of all surplus property that would conceivably be useful to anyone?

Mr. GARVEY. We believe that the wide expressed need of surplus property by the eligible donees would take the bulk of the property that most organizations would be interested in.

Now, there may be some isolated need on the part of one of the groups covered by the legislation with which we would not be familiar, and similarly an item of that kind might become surplus. But we know at this point of no broad category of surplus property which would not be required by the State agencies for surplus property for the purposes of donation, which are going by the board and could be made available to one of the groups that is represented in the legislation being considered.

Senator MUSKIE. You think it might be useful to have some form of legislation that would make it possible for you to make use of these tag-end deals, tag-end needs? I don't know how it would be phrased?

Mr. GARVEY. I am not sure, sir. I think this is one of the things that GSA should study. We have been looking into this subject, and incidentally the legislation which was described by Mr. Macomber that we were working on had in mind that new eligible organizations would be restricted by type of property.

Senator GRUENING. Have you any information how much surplus is piled up in State agency warehouses?

Mr. GARVEY. I have not, sir.

Senator GRUENING. Have you any thought that there may be a good deal?

Mr. GARVEY. Mr. Chairman, I think probably the representative from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare could give you a better answer than I could on that particular point.

Senator GRUENING. Have you any information on that subject? Mr. GRAY. Well, I couldn't offhand estimate the dollar value of property in State agency warehouses. I would like to comment that the turnover of property in State agency warehouses is quite rapid. Senator GRUENING. So you think that that does not constitute a serious problem, namely, that a great deal is being stored there and not utilized?

Mr. GRAY. No, sir, we do not believe that that is a problem. As a matter of fact, we police that situation. We require that property which has been in a State agency warehouse for more than a year be reported to us, and we go in and have a look at it. If it appears that they are not going to utilize it, we first attempt to transfer it to another State which can use it, and failing that, we authorize the