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the issue here is to consider a strategy that may have substantial impact upon problems confronted by older persons, not simply to strengthen and enrich the domains of bureaucrats and professionals like myself.

Professionals in gerontology have provided pioneering leadership in helping us to recognize the tremendous range and depth of issues affecting persons as they grow older in America. The first stage of issue recognition, fleshed out through the Older Americans Act and other legislation, is drawing to a close. Not every issue that has been identified can or necessarily should be resolved through federal intervention. It is time to shift gears to a second stage in which some hard choices will have to be made among the many issues and programmatic possibilities that have been set forth. And those choices can be made with reasonable effectiveness in local communities, because a network of mechanisms for local decisions affecting older Americans is now in place. If we use that network for program priority decisions rather than for consumer-participation window dressing I suspect we will get some sound decisions and some services that have impact. I don't say this out of some sort of pious Populism. I have generally found, and I am sure that you have, too, that people and communities with problems that are severe enough to require governmental help usually have little trouble in sorting out their priorities.

Thank you for this opportunity to outline some of my perspectives on Older Americans Act programs. I will be happy to elaborate, or to deal with related issues as best I can in response to any questions you may

have.

Senator EAGLETON. We are pleased now to have with us the distinguished Senator from New Mexico, Senator Domenici. Welcome, Senator, You may proceed.

STATEMENT OF HON. PETE V. DOMENICI, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO

Senator DOMENICI. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. May I say at the outset that I know you have had many serious responsibilities since you came to the Senate, but I don't think there is any more important task than the one what we do this year with the Older Americans Act. I personally am delighted that you are chairing the subcommittee that will redraft and reauthorize the Older Americans Act.

Also I would like to say-as you well know, Mr. Chairman, that there is a Special Committee on Aging in the Senate, and I am privileged to be the Ranking Minority Member of that committee. I want to say to you and to your staff that we have held a number of hearings around the country and here in Washington during the last year on the Older Americans Act. Therefore I hope that, as you proceed through mark-up on this bill, you will call upon us to be of whatever assistance we can be. Our staff is also available to assist your staff and discuss with them our findings.

Some of the members of the Special Committee on Aging will soon introduce, Mr. Chairman-a proposed bill extending and expanding the Older Americans Act of 1965. We understand the grave responsibility you have to come up with the best bill possible and our bill is designed to show you what we have found and what we recommend. It in no way indicates that we have any special lock on solutions to these problems. Having said that, let me ask that you make my entire statement, which is my best efforts to summarize what I think should be in the bill part of the hearing record.

Mr. Chairman, I want to say at the outset that we have been discussing now, for a couple of years, the impact of inflation and the added costs of energy on older Americans. There is no question that the senior citizens in this country are the group most affected by increasing energy costs.

Senator EAGLETON. Yet I note, with a degree of sadness, that the Carter budget cuts back from 65 million to 10 million in this area of energy-I am talking about the emergency program. Anyway, it's shuffed around, what have you. But go ahead, Senator.

Senator DOMENICI. Mr. Chairman, the point I would like to stress is the need to strengthen the Commissioner on Aging. We must move AOA up in the hierarchy of authority where it will get more attention. A more visible AOA will, in my opinion, have a better chance of impacting on the right policy makers in the executive branch and in Congress. For the institutional integrity of the Administration on Aging, the legislation that I will propose will move AOA out of the Office of Human Development Services and make the Commissioner on Aging directly responsible to the Secretary of HEW. This action is designated to strengthen the Administration on Aging and undo some of the damage that I believe has been done by the recent restructuring of OHDS.

Just a minute on the national clearinghouse. I have gone into greater detail on it in my prepared remarks. I believe the educational process and the availability of information to senior citizens across this land, which was envisioned to be forthcoming through the national clearinghouse, has not occurred. We recommend strengthening the clearinghouse so that it will place valuable information directly in the hands of older Americans.

The Federal Council on Aging-suffice it to say, Mr. Chairman, was greatly needed when it was first established. Circumstance have changed greatly over the last 5 years and we are going to recommend that the Council go out of existence as of September 30, 1978. With the institutional strengthening that we just recommended, by mov ing the Commission on Aging into the Office of the Secretary of HEW, we can phase out the Federal Council without harming in any way the delivery of services to the elderly. I have explained this recommendation in far greater detail in my prepared statement.

The paperwork burden-Mr. Chairman, I have heard you on many occasions take the floor and talk about your desire to lessen Federal paperwork. Now we have a brand-new approach. The Older Americans Act is not an old bill, yet we hear as much about the paper burden there as we do in larger and older programs. We have some specific suggestions with reference to eliminating paperwork and making the burden of "Red Tape" easier.

We recommend the consolidation of titles III and V with regard to the major grant programs to the States. We propose that the title III, social services, and the title V, senior centers, be consolidated into a single title. We would nonetheless want to make sure that these two components would never receive less funding than the amount they receive in fiscal 1978.

Senator EAGLETON. I am going to ask you a later question. Senator, on consolidation, but specifically on consolidating III and V. why don't you also put nutrition in there?

Senator DOMENICI. I don't know that I would resist such a sug gestion violently. As I indicated, I am for consolidation as much as possible. On the other hand, Mr. Chairman, I have found that the nutrition program is working well and is vitally needed. I guess if I had to decide right now I would say let's "single-shot" it and make sure that the States use a maximum amount of money for it. I like flexibility, but in this case we are not going to do enough, in any event, to meet the nutritional needs of disadvantaged older persons.

The expansion of social services-the definition of "social serv ices," in my opinion, should be expanded to include preretirement and second-career counseling and health screening. By the latter change we are seeking to involve the aging network in a nationwide effort to prevent, detect and/or treat those illnesses, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and glaucoma, which needlessly disable or kill tens of thousands each year. So we would hope that this would be added to the list of services which can be provided at the State and local level. The local aging units could then coordinate this undertaking with existing community-based organizations-Red

Cross, Heart Association, et cetera-at what we think would be a relatively small cost for the potential scope and success.

The State and AAA distribution formula-our suggestion would be that we require the States to publicize the formula by which they distribute older Americans funds to their triple A's and other subdivisions. A similar provision will be made regarding to the way area agencies distribute their funds to the general-purpose local governments within their planning and service areas. I have found that the more we talk with senior citizen groups and go to their meetings and centers, the more complaints we hear about the way the distribution is occurring. I think the first step to curing this problem is to make those who are making the fund distribution publicly responsible, early on, to support the way they are doing it. It is for that reason that we make this recommendation.

Excluding title V, which was only recently funded, the 1973 and 1975 amendments to the Older Americans Act did not clearly state the role of senior centers in the overall aging network. We suggest that this should be corrected by incorporating senior centers, where feasible and desirable, into this service delivery mechanism at the community level.

Mr. Chairman, the declining birthrate has had a significant impact on school enrollment. In most parts of the country many schools, especially elementary schools, are being closed, while others have surplus capacity. Under-utilized schools could become potential sites for senior centers. We believe that a maximum effort should be made to convert excess public facilities in particular, classroom capacity, into community centers that will help meet the needs of the elderly and other segments of society.

On that score, Mr. Chairman, I woud just tell you of the specific thing that prompted this. In my State we have the Navaho Nation— as you are aware, it is a kind of autonomous reservation. The Bureau of Indian Affairs in the last 10 years has built a number of brand-new boarding schools. They missed the mark on expected enrollment because we were simultaneously engaged in a national policy of having our Indian children go to public schools. We now have sitting out on various reservations beautiful facilities, including boarding facilities that are totally underutilized. In fact, we have them, to borrow a word from the military, literally "mothballed." They are protected so nothing will happen to them.

We have a problem now whether there is authority to convert some of these facilities into nursing homes, community centers, senior citizen centers, and so forth. That prompted me to take the approach in this bill of trying to utilize these existing facilities. We wanted to make it legal to make expenditures, contracts, and arrangements so we can convert these buildings to other uses. Our bill will make specific recommendations regarding use of these Indian facilities.

A controversial issue is the role of the larger municipalities in the aging network. This has caused me grave concern, and our bill will propose that we permit cities with a population of 250,000 or over the option to operate as separate planning and service areas. appears to me that the more we can use existing institutions to build our program on, and the more we can persuade existing

It

institutions to deal with the problems of senior citizens, the better off we are. Therefore, if we let a municipality become its own planning and service area, the more chance we have of getting broader support from that institution for older American programs.

We will have some suggestions on a model project in long-term care which I explain in greater detail in my prepared text.

In the area of training and research, we see a need to place greater emphasis on short-term in-service training so as to strengthen the aging network. We were disturbed by the recent decision to withhold 15 percent of AoA's research funds for use at the departmental level. We believe we must preserve the Commissioner's control over research funds and prohibit the skimming off of this money by higher officials in the Department.

Multi-purpose senior citizen centers-as I indicated earlier, most of title V should be consolidated with title III. The grants for acquisition, alteration, renovation, and initial staffing would be distributed to the States under a formula. Limited construction authority would be granted to centers in rural areas where no suitable structure is available. From time to time, the Special Committee on Aging has received testimony indicating that the 10-year lease requirement for senior citizen centers is creating an almost insurmountable obstacle for many communities. We recommend that this requirement be moderated in instances where Federal funding for renovation and rehabilitation and equipment is not substantial.

Mr. Chairman, I would give you an example. In my State, in many small communities the only buildings available belong to a church-and they are very reluctant to lease for 10 years a portion of their facility, a rectory or a community room. As a result they find there is no building available to be rented. We believe that some latitude, to allow less than 10-year leases, should be given if we are not going to put a lot of permanent improvements into the building. We ought to be made shorter leases available legal rather than continue this prohibition which is causing significant problems.

The volunteer programs-when it was originally established, pursuant to the enactment of the Older Americans Act, the Administration on Aging was expected to serve as a focal point for most Federal aging programs. In our opinion, if it is going to fulfill this mandate, we must from time to time transfer programs from other agencies to it. Our bill would repeal title II of the Domestic Volun teer Service Act, reenact it as part of the Older Americans Act, and transfer those programs to the Administration on Aging. This transfer, much like the previous question you asked me, will certainly have two sides to it. But it appears to me that, to have the compre hensive approach, we ought to have move the Older Americans Volunteer programs to AoA. If this bill is going to create a new sense of vigor at the top, that the man who runs these programs has the authority to address important national concerns, then I think we should move the Senior Volunteer programs from ACTION to the jurisdiction of the Commissioner on Aging.

The nutrition program-We are going to recommend that the program be enlarged by adding an expanded home-delivered meal component. In the past, by guideline, use of title VII funds has been discouraged for home-delivered meals. We believe that the determi