concern expressed on different points. I am going to pursue a line of questioning this morning which is intended to clarify some of these points on the written record.

Secretary FLEMMING. Yes, sir.

Representative HOLIFIELD. The first thing that I want to bring up is that in the statute, the President was given the power to appoint certain members and such other members as should be appointed, as you know.

Secretary FLEMMING. Yes.

Representative HOLIFIELD. The question has come up frequently and from some of the witnesses as to why there have not been other designees appointed, with the exception of the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Commerce, and the Secretary of Labor. In other words, why have no representatives of public interest groups such as the Council of State Governments or the municipalities, been appointed?

Secretary FLEMMING. Mr. Chairman, I understand Mr. Staats, the Deputy Director of the Budget, also addressed himself to this problem. As I understand it, in connection with the Executive order that was issued prior to the time that Congress passed the law dealing with the Council, it was the thought that the President might decide from time to time that he would like to add to the membership of the Council the heads of other agencies. For example, it is clear from the discussion we have had with Senator Aiken that at various points the Department of Agriculture has a very real interest in some of these issues.

Addressing myself to that first, consideration has been given from time to time as to whether we should make recommendation to the President to add to the membership in terms of heads of other departments. Up to now, we have felt that we could deal adequately with the interests of the other departments by inviting them to participate when specific matters affecting those departments were considered. This matter involving bran, for example, that I referred to in my opening statement, is a good illustration. During our discussion of that, the Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, Mr. Peterson, participated in it throughout.

However, we do not have any closed minds on that at all. We really have been trying to get some experience to see whether or not we should make a recommendation for additional members. As far as membership from outside of the Government is concerned, I think Mr. Staats reflected rather accurately our thinking up to the present time.

Take for example the normal contacts of the Department of Labor with certain segments of the population. It was felt and hoped that a representative of the Department of Labor would be available at any time to discuss these matters with those segments of population. He would not only be available, but would also take the initiative in discussing with them some of the issues that we were considering, and that their views would in turn be reflected in his participation in meetings of the Council.

Personally, I do not have any dogmatic feeling regarding this at all. I just recognize that if you started moving in the direction of appointing representatives from the outside, it might become a rather

large body. You will appreciate better than I do that there is hardly any segment of our population that does not have some interest in this particular problem.

Representative HOLIFIELD. The committee has no position on this, of course, as you know.

Secretary FLEMMING. That is right.

Representative HOLIFIELD. And the language was permissive and not mandatory.

Secretary FLEMMING. That is right.

Representative HOLIFIELD. But it has been a matter that has been explored.

I would like to go into some questions in regard to just what the Council actually proposes to do.

Do you consider that this is completely advisory in nature?

Secretary FLEMMING. Mr. Chairman, it is my interpretation of the law that the Council is advisory to the President.

Representative HOLIFIELD. Does it draft formal recommendations of policy which are referred to the President for approval and then become, in effect, almost as authoritative as a Presidential directive? Secretary FLEMMING. That is my feeling as to the proper way to proceed under the law. In other words, the document that the President approved a few days ago and that he directed be published in the Federal Register, I think, is a good illustration of the statement that you have made. In other words, as I see it, the Council in this

has a relationship to the President that is very comparable to the relationship of the National Security Council to the President. It advises the President, the President then acts on the advice, and communicates his decision in an appropriate manner.

I would like to say that I feel we have a responsibility as a council to determine, not for ourselves, but for him, how the advice or the instructions that he issues are being followed, and that we have a responsibility to prepare for him periodically a statement as to what the various agencies are doing under his instruction. If we feel that some of the agencies are not, let us say, properly following his instruction, we have a responsibility to make a recommendation to him as to action that he might decide to take; but it would be up to him to decide whether or not he was going to do that action.

Representative HOLIFIELD. As we understand it, you have a very limited staff. Dr. Chadwick, I believe, is what would correspond to an executive secretary of the group.

Secretary FLEMMING. That is correct.

Representative HOLIFIELD. We understand that there are no other professional employees. I assume you must have a secretary to write his letters for him.

Secretary FLEMMING. That is right.

Representative HOLIFIELD. And we also understand that the Council is only meeting about once a month, and that in most instances the Cabinet officers have not attended but they have designated subordinates to attend. If that is not correct, please correct the record.

Secretary FLEMMING. Mr. Chairman, I think that is a fair statement. As far as the attendance of the Cabinet officers is concerned, I personally have attended all of the meetings.

Representative HOLIFIELD. I was not pinpointing or criticizing. Secretary FLEMMING. No; I know.

Representative HOLIFIELD. I recognize that you have many other

duties.

Secretary FLEMMING. Yes.

Representative HOLIFIELD. But it comes back to the point that designees, in most instances, are preparing these policy recommendations. I recognize that you have the right of scrutiny or approval or disapproval or modification.

In exploring during the past several days memorandum No. 1 so called, we found quite a bit of ambiguity in it. We found that, for instance, in part 7, if you have it before you, there was language which to us, at least, and to many of the scientists who testified, was quite ambiguous. It says that—

the Federal agencies apply these radiation protection guides with judgment and discretion to assure that reasonable probability is achieved in the attainment of the desired goal of protecting man from the undesirable effects of radiation. The guides may be exceeded only after the Federal agency having jurisdiction over the matter has carefully considered the reason for doing so in the light of the recommendations in this paper.

The practical effect of that seems to be that you have established a so-called guide area, maximum and minimum recommendations, and within this area the agencies are supposed to follow them.

Then you go on with the last sentence and you provide an escape clause there, which may be necessary, but as far as the recommendation is concerned, it seemed to have the effect that if an agency gives careful consideration for exceeding, let us say, the maximum exposure limit, they may do so. Nowhere in this recommendation, as such, do we find any real control on the part of the Federal Radiation Council over this exceeding the bracket of permissible exposure, nor do we find any requirement for a hearing, a justification before the Federal Radiation Council, the final approval or disapproval of the Radiation Council. Therefore, it seems to us, after hearing the testimony and reading part No. 7, that it is a pretty innocuous provision. It could be a pretty innocuous provision if an agency deemed it advisable. Would you comment on that?

Secretary FLEMMING. Mr. Chairman, I would be very happy to. And just before I comment on the specific point that you have raised, may I just make a comment on the question of staff and the attendance at the meetings of the Council, as just a further observation.

You are correct, of course, in your statement relative to the size of the staff. I know it has been brought out to the members of the committee that we have been leaning rather heavily, first of all, on a working group; and then, in addition to that, on what has been referred to as "temporary staff." For example, a temporary staff gave full time over a period of time to work on this particular document; as you know, another temporary staff has now been set up in order to take the next step that we feel needs to be taken in order to discharge the responsibility.

Representative HOSMER. Will you detail what that is, what the next step is?

Secretary FLEMMING. Yes. That was in my testimony of May 25, Congressman Hosmer. I included in it a memorandum that was ad

dressed to me from the chairman of the working group of the Federal Radiation Council, and which was entitled "Further Work of the Council Staff."

Representative HOSMER. You do not have to read it. Just tell us about it.

Secretary FLEMMING. It is very brief.

In accordance with your request, the working group has prepared the following memorandum indicating the direction of further work of the staff of the Federal Radiation Council. No specific numerical recommendations for radioactivity concentration guides are provided at this time. There is, therefore, an important need for guidance to the Federal agencies on environmental contamination with radioactive materials, particularly those which represent an internal radiation hazard. Action has been initiated, directed toward the development of such additional guides for radiation protection. A second temporary full-time staff began work May 2, 1960.

And then we identified the members of that temporary staff.

Working plans for the development of additional guides are currently being formulated. It is expected, however, that the general approach will be similar to that followed in the development of the initial staff report of the Federal Radiation Council.

Then, Mr. Chairman, just one comment on attendance at Council meetings.

We did provide the staff, I think, with a list of attendance at each meeting of the Council. If you run down through that, you will notice that Secretary Mueller and Secretary Mitchell have participated at various times, as has Chairman McCone of the Atomic Energy Commission. It is certainly true that in most of the meetings the Atomic Energy Commission was represented by Commissioner Floberg, and I understand that Chairman McCone asked him to specialize as far as work on the Council was concerned.

I am sure you also noticed that all but one of the meetings were attended by Dr. Kistiakowsky, who is the President's scientific adviser, as you know.

You and I both appreciate the fact that when you set up an interagencies' committee of this kind, the head of the agency will sometimes ask one of his top people to specialize in the area and participate in most of the meetings.

As far as the specific question that you raise is concerned, I can certainly understand why this question has been raised before the committee. I think that it has undoubtedly been called to your attention that in our report to the President, we stated right after recommendaion 7 that

The Council will follow the activities of the Federal agencies in this area and will promote the necessary coordination to achieve an effective Federal program. back to an earlier comment that I made.

This goes

The President having accepted these recommendations and formally approved them, they do constitute a policy direction for the various departments and agencies of the Government. He did decide, acting on our recommendation, to make provision for an exception in the language to which you have called attention. As I indicated earlier, I definitely feel that it is the responsibility of the Council to obtain reports from the agencies relative to the actions that they take under this policy guidance from the President. I think it is our responsi

bility to evaluate those actions. If, in our judgment, those actions are in any manner inconsistent with the policy guidance of the President, it is our responsibility to so advise the President. It will be up to the President, of course, to take action.

Also, there is no question in my mind at all but that if the reports from the agencies indicate that the exceptions that are being taken are being taken too frequently or without proper documentation, proper consultation, and so on, we might very well decide that we should recommend to the President a tightening up of the language of that exception. I think experience will demonstrate whether this was a wise thing to give the departments this much leeway or not.

Representative HOLIFIELD. I think that is a proper attitude for you to take, and it is in the spirit of having an effective control. Secretary FLEMMING. That is right.

Representative HOLIFIELD. However, we did notice that under the guides, different agencies could, theoretically at least, exceed, let us say, their portion of the overall maximum permissible exposure, unless there is a body—and we were hopeful that FRC was the body— that would exercise an overall clearinghouse type of operation and would say, "Well, now, there is a certain amount of exposure in this field under this agency's activities. There is also a certain amount in this field, and we find when we add them all together that there is more than the maximum permissible allowed in the guides, and that it exceeds it enough to warrant attention and possible reduction of quotas." I am using these words in the common, ordinary acceptance of the terms,

Secretary FLEMMING. Yes, that is right.

Mr. Chairman, I agree with you completely, and it seems to me that if, as a result of the operations of the Council, it becomes clear to us that a particular agency is going beyond what you and I might feel was a reasonable quota in a particular activity, then it seems to me that there would be a responsibility resting on us to suggest to the agency that we did feel that way about it. We would have to make it perfectly clear to the agency that all we were doing was making a suggestion. If, however, it became rather clear that the agency did not intend to follow that suggestion, then we would have an obligation to make a report to the President with a recommendation. It would be up to the President to determine whether or not he was going to issue a directive to that agency. In other words, the Council, in my judgment, should never attempt to issue a directive; but I think that the Council should never hesitate to recommend to the President that he issue a directive if, in our judgment, that is the thing that is necessary in order to accomplish his overall objectives.

Representative HOLIFIELD. I have two questions to ask you on that

What recourse does the public have to make a protest in case there is a public awareness of this and there seems to be no action taken on the part of a particular agency? Maybe it is a scientific group like the NCRP that has cognizance of this matter. What formal lines of protest, if any, exist, other than an appeal to an individual agency?

Secretary FLEMMING. Mr. Chairman, we have not formalized any lines of protest. Let me take the NCRP first as an illustration.