CUSTOMARY PRICING UNITS INCLUDING MULTIPLE FOUR-DIGIT SIC CODES Substantial products whose prices were increased by 1.5% or more over the price lawfully in effect on January 10, 1973: Line 7-Tin mill products, 4.59% increase effective February 16, 1973. (a) Prenotification (b) Quarterly report (c) Other Public Disclosure..Required. Part 1.-Identification Data 1 (a) Name of parent or unconsolidated entity to which this form applies NATIONAL STEEL CORPORATION Part II.-Calculation of Base Period Profit Margin (Enter dollar amounts with 000 omitted and percentages to 2 decimal places.) 14 Base period profit margin (From Part II, item 12). Part III.-Calculation of Profit Variation (Enter dollar amounts with 000 omitted and percentages to 2 decimal places.) % Current Period $ 18 (a) Name and title of individual to be contacted for further information W.S. Schwoebel, Sr. Vice Pres.-Finance (b) Address (Number and street) (c) City or town, State and ZIP code 2800 Grant Building 19 You must maintain for possible inspection and audit, a record of all price changes subsequent to November 13, 1971. Give location of such records. D 2800 Grant Building, Pittsburgh, Penna. 15219 Part V.-Certification I certify that the information submitted on and with this form is factually correct, complete, and in accordance with Economic Stabilization Regulations (Title 6. Code of Federal Regulations) and instructions to Form CLC-2. Type name and title of the Chief Executive Officer of parent ar other authened Executive Officer and date of signing. NATIONAL STEEL CORPORATION WEIGHTED AVERAGE INCREASES IN SELLING PRICES OF SUBSTANTIAL PRODUCTS SINCE JANUARY 10, 1973 DEAR QUINCY: This letter sets out our response to the written questions propounded by Senator Hathaway at the October 10, 1973 hearings before the Subcommittee. 1. What procedures are being followed to ascertain whether all companies which are subject to the public disclosure requirement under the provisions of the Economic Stabilization Act are in fact complying with the requirement and submitting forms for public disclosure? As of November 1, the Council had received quarterly reports prepared for public disclosure from 208 companies with annual sales and revenues of $250 million or more. These reports are available in the files of the Cost of Living Council and may be reviewed by members of the public in our Public Reference Facility. We have taken a number of steps to insure full compliance with the public disclosure regulations. On November 8, 1973, the Council sent a letter to each firm with $250 million or more in annual sales and revenues reminding it of the public disclosure requirements, providing explicit guidance with respect to those requirements and requiring the submission of information from which compliance might readily be determined. A copy of the letter and the attachments is enclosed.1 The letter 1 See letter and attachments referred to on p. 393. was accompanied by the language of the public disclosure amendment, the language of the Phase IV regulations on public disclosure, a questionnaire concerning public disclosure and a new public disclosure certification requirement. The questionnaire required these firms to set forth the extent of their compliance with the public disclosure requirements. The returns we have received to this questionnaire are still being tabulated and are not available as of the date of this letter. The certification requirement establishes a new obligation on the part of companies with $250 million or more in annual sales and revenues, filing quarterly reports. Those which do not file reports prepared for public disclosure must certify that they are not subject to the public disclosure requirements. Finally, the Internal Revenue Service has instructed its staff to review compliance with the public disclosure requirements as a part of any audit which it conducts under Phase IV price regulations. 2. What procedures have been instituted to insure that companies which are subject to public disclosure reveal all of the information they are required to reveal under the CLC regulations? Forms subject to the public disclosure requirement are filed at the IRS Key District Office in which the company's headquarters are located. Upon receipt of such forms. Key District Office personnel review the form to insure proper submission. If a form is incomplete or improperly completed, the company will be so notified and required to resubmit a corrected form. 3. Accessibility of forms subject to public disclosure. Forms subject to public disclosure may be obtained from three places: the company, the IRS Key District Office in which the company headquarters are located, and from the Cost of Living Council. As indicated above, the forms subject to public disclosure are originally filed in the IRS Key District Office in which the company's headquarters are located. After review by IRS personnel, one copy is placed in a tile for public access at the Key District Office and two copies of the form are forwarded to the Cost of Living Council. This enables the Council to monitor public disclosure submissions and provides a central depository of forms subject to public disclosure. The IRS Key District Office also forwards the certification filed by companies which will also be accessible to the public. Both the forms subject to public disclosure and the certifications are maintained for public access in the CLC Reading Room and the IRS Key District Offices. Thus, interested members of the public will be able to determine the compliance of companies with $250 million or more in annual sales or revenues by reference to public files. 4. Requests received by the Council for forms subject to public disclosure. As of November 28, the Cost of Living Council Reading Room, located in Room B-120 of 2000 M Street, had 237 public disclosure submissions on file. The public is not required to sign in at this Reading Room and, therefore, the Council does not have an exact tally of the number of requests received to examine the forms. The supervisor of the Reading Room, however, estimates that in the last five months there have been approximately 8 requests a week for these forms. The Council provides free copying for those who want copies of a limited number of forms. In addition, the Council has answered several written requests by mailing out copies of the requested submissions. We hope these responses will be of assistance to you. We will be happy to provide any further information you may desire. Very truly yours, ROBERT E. BRADFORD, Enclosure. Senator MATHIAS. Just finally, as far as I am concerned, I would like to return to the question of the openness of the process, because I feel that is so enormously important to your success, as well as to the general welfare of the country. The openness of the process has got to be apparent, and I would submit that, not only from the limited testimony of yesterday, but from other indications, that that is not the case. In Fox Grocery v. United States, Mr. Moses, who at the time that he participated in that case was the Director of the Exceptions and Health division of the Cost of Living Council, testified that the Council had benchmark criteria standards which had not been published. And I will not attempt to summarize his testimony, but will include it as a part of the record. It is a typical kind of problem which arises again and again. [Excerpts from the testimony of Gregory Moses, Director of Exceptions and Health Division, in the civil action entitled Fox Grocery Co. v. CLC, No. 73-375, before the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania follow :] Q. Now, Mr. Moses, the Stabilization Act itself provides that the program shall provide for the making of exceptions to the normal regulations whenever it is necessary to foster orderly economic growth, prevent gross inequities. serious hardships, market disruptions, and several other factors that are related in the statute. Will you explain in general terms the manner in which this mandate of establishing exceptions procedures and the implementation of this has been implemented by the Price Commission and the Cost of Living Council? A. Well, we have established the Office of Exceptions Review, which is reponsible for processing all exceptions; and as a result, we prepared some preliminary types of cases which would-or types of criteria to be used in judging the statement serious hardship or gross inequity. We have for serious hardship, we made an awfully great deal of standard statistical accounting and statistical measures to measure a financial hardship: and under inequity, we have a series of benchmark situations and criteria that we take into recognition of just what is an inequity, and under all circumstances, and a hardship or an inequity must have been caused by the program. The program must cause that hardship or inequity. Q. What are the-In addition to the hardships and inequity, and these quantitative threshold criteria you have referred to, what are some of the non-quantitative factors that you all will consider in reference to an inequity, or in reference to a market disruption, or the effect on total overall economic growth? Mr. GERMAN. I object to this question and any succeeding questions on the basis that the government should be required to say what they did in the case at bar, and not what their regular practice is. The COURT. Well, I think he is perhaps, Mr. German, making background to bring into focus the facts in this case. But we will let him go ahead with this, and if he doesn't pinpoint this case, why, it will be ruled out. Mr. GERMAN. Thank you, Your Honor. The COURT. This will be heard, subject to Mr. German's objection. By Mr. MILLER: Q. My question, Mr. Moses, is, in addition to the quantitative factors, which we will refer to once we get into the litigation report, what are or the litigation report, it is not a litigation report, it is the administrative record. I have been in the Tort Section too long, where all we used to get is litigation reports from agencies. But what are some of the other factors considered in this process. A. Well, we would look at what the national goals are. What is the goal of the economy? One of the things that is in evidence now is that we want a reduction in food prices. The effect on the community, or are you going to create jobs lost? Is the plant going to close down or not? Other third-party effects. We would look at the whole economic basis of the company. What kind of market disruption might be caused as a result of our order? Are we causing the company to be selling product below its cost? You can apply for an exception to the regulation under any basis. So there were general criteria. Q. All right. Now, you referred to certain criteria, benchmark standards which your agency used in determining whether or not an exception from the base period profit margin rules should be granted or denied; is that correct? |