Senator CASE. Mr. Chairman, I think that I had reserved the right to object to the introduction of the first letter although I stated that I was not going to object. I withdraw the reservation of objection and have no objection to the incorporation of these other letters. I do think we should have some statement as to why this request to the committee was not submitted to the committee, was not brought to the attention of the committee. Senator GORE. I shall be glad to accommodate the Senator in that regard. Senator NEUBERGER. May I ask a question on a point of information? As a new member some of this I do not understand. What remedy does a committee have when it calls for a report by a Government department and it does not come in? It is new to me. Senator GORE. Congress is not without remedies. However, I think it should be said in fairness to the Secretary of Commerce that the load which the Congress placed upon him and the responsibilities in this regard were heavy. I have no reason to doubt that he has undertaken reasonably to comply with the law. I doubt if it will be necessary for Congress to seek to remedy. I believe Mr. du Pont will have a statement on this that may satisfy the committee. As one member of the committee I would like to have the studies as quickly as possible. But to answer your question directly, I do not know all of the sources of action to which the Congress might resort. Senator CASE. Mr. Chairman, I think the committee slept on its rights, probably. If this letter was in the hands of the committee and it was not brought to the attention of the committee, the delay has come about not necessarily by the circumstances or the problems which the Department encountered. If we do not have the report and there was pending in the committee files a request for an extension of time and the members of the committee were given no opportunity to act upon it, then probably the responsibility of that is the committee's rather than that of the Department. But it does seem to me a little strange that where we specifically set forth two requests for reports and both of them on the basis of problems which were presented to the committee during the hearings last year and presented by the Department, particularly the one on the recodification of their laws, that the committee, if it had a letter from the Department calling for an extension of time from the committee, did not have that brought to its attention. Senator GORE. This morning when the clerk handed me the letter is the first time that I had seen it. The letter bears the date of January 31. The law requires that the reports be submitted on or before February 1. I do not know that the committee could possibly have acted when the letter was mailed on January 31; and the law required the report to be submitted the next day. I am not sure that the committee could have done anything in that regard. Senator CASE. When did the House act? Senator GORE. I do not know. I will be glad to contact the chairman of the committee and find out just when the letter was received. Does the clerk know when this letter was referred to the committee? Mr. SNEED. Just a day or two later. Probably February 2. Senator GORE. Do you know when the House acted to give its approval to the extension? Mr. SNEED. No, sir. Senator MARTIN. How much time did the House grant? Senator CASE. Mr. Chairman, my reason, frankly, for raising this question is that the chairman said, very properly, at the outset of this hearing that in the consideration of highway legislation we should try to avoid the development of politics or political considerations. It has been said to me that the delay in these reports has been followed by the introduction of a bill which tended to throw the whole question of highway development into politics. I think that is an unfair charge. I know the chairman of this subcommittee. I have worked with him a great many years and I do not think he wants highways thrown into politics. But you do have a situation where the delay in the presentation of these reports, for whatever reason it may have been, has made it possible to introduce another bill here. We are starting hearings on that bill before we have hearings on the recommendations which the President may make, whatever they may be. Unfortunately in some quarters it is getting a political interpretation. I thought if we could find out why there was a delay in the presentation of the reports or why there was a delay in the presentation to the committee of the request for delay, it would perhaps tend to answer these suggestions. Senator GORE. I believe that the commitee, when it hears Mr. du Pont, will have a reference to this in his statements. Senator Martin? Senator MARTIN. I think it is very importatnt that we have some explanation of it. Of course you will recall that those were conclusions that were written into the law pretty largely by the committee. Senator Case and Senator Chavez and I were all very much interested in this larger road program that we enacted last year. One of the things we thought we ought to have was a pretty careful study of financing and of the road situation of our country. It would seem to me that there ought to be some explanation because there was a definite date set-on or before February 1. I want to say this: I have great confidence in Mr. du Pont. I think the country is most fortunate to have a man of his business ability and his long experience in charge of the roadbuilding of one of the very important States of the Union. We are fortunate to have a man of that type to head the Bureau. Senator GORE. I seem to be in the unusual role of being Secretary Weeks' defender. I think that Mr. du Pont will have an explanation that will be satisfactory to the committee. Senator MCNAMARA. Mr. Chairman? Senator GORE. Senator McNamara. Senator MCNAMARA. I want to comment on the business of politics in the road program. I think it is a little late to talk about keeping politics out of it. I know that in my campaign the chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, who happened to be my opponent, made this his No. 1 point in the campaign. I do not know how you can make it nonpolitical at this point. Senator GORE. I hope this committee can make it nonpolitical. Last year the committee received all the help and suggestions that it could obtain. I believe I am correct in saying that after receiving all the help possible from all sources possible we closed the door and the committee wrote the bill, and when it was introduced on the floor, I believe it bore the signatures of every member of the committee, Republican and Democrat. It would be my hope that we would follow that same pattern this time. I, too, deplore any move to make our highway program political. I think it should be noted that the report of General Clay makes reference to having had available the studies of the Department of Commerce for its benefit. That was one reason that prompted me to ask that they be forwarded on to this committee promptly. I thought we deserved the benefit of those studies and I am sure we will soon have the benefit of those studies. Senator CASE. My understanding is that you are eminently correct, that the studies which the Bureau was directed to make and did make through the State highway departments provided the facts and the figures upon which the Clay report was largely based. Senator GORE. I am sure that they will soon be furnished. Senator MARTIN. I would like to make this suggestion. With the exception of Senator Chavez, I am the senior member of this committee, and I guess I am about as partisan as anybody on the committee, but I have never known politics in any of our work, rivers and harbors, roadbuilding, and so on. It has always been on its merits. In the bill which we had last year, which was the largest road bill in the history of America, everyone on the committee sponsored the bill with the proviso that the formula for the distribution you would have a right to debate on the floor, which we did. When we got it on the floor one of the strongest advocates of the formula, as it was finally enacted into law, was the present chairman of the Appropriations Committee, the senior Senator from Arizona, and his State probably got less out of it than any other State in the Union; but I think it was entirely nonpartisan. While this committee has been presided over by both Democrats and Republicans, I think we have been nonpartisan. I wanted to bring that up. I know of course that we all use these things. Anything that is good, each party wants to claim that that is its project. Senator MCNAMARA. Mr. Chairman, there was some reference made to section 11, relocation of utilities, to be put in the record. I do not know what the section spells out, or is it important at this time? Does it make the responsibility of relocating the utilities the Government's or the utility companies'? Senator GORE. That section authorizes and directs the Secretary of Commerce to make studies and submit reports to the committee. Senator MCNAMARA. That is all that section 11 does? Senator GORE. Yes. Without objection the committee will now hear the former Commissioner of Public Roads, and now special assistant to Secretary of Commerce, Sinclair Weeks, Mr. Francis V. du Pont. Mr. du Pont, you have been before this committee before and I think you are not in need of further introduction. Senator CASE. Mr. Chairman, Mr. du Pont is coming to us in a new capacity. I think at the outset of his remarks he should explain to us what that capacity is, whether he is a Federal employee now, and if so on what basis, or whatever his status is. I understand that there is considerable change in his status. Senator GORE. Before you start your formal statement, will you include a response to the inquiry of Senator Case? STATEMENT OF FRANCIS V. DU PONT, SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE SECRETARY OF COMMERCE Mr. DU PONT. Senator Gore, members of the committee, in replying to the questions of Senator Case, I feel sure that I can give you some background as to why this transfer seemed to be expedient. The responsibilities of the Commissioner of Public Roads have been increased continually since 1916. There are many prescribed responsibilities as you well know. His time is pretty well filled with discharging those duties and adjusting problems that come up in the States through delegations calling, and so forth. With the Nixon speech the interest in the highway picture grew tremendously. There were a great many inquiries from all over the country. In fact from foreign countries. Senator GORE. What speech was that? What is the date of the speech? Mr. DU PONT. It was July 12, 1954, at Bolton Landing, N. Y. Mr. DU PONT. Yes. The speech actually was given by Vice President Nixon due to the death of the President's sister-in-law, which precluded his presence. Of course there was no specific program announced at that conference. But it did stimulate and trigger questions beyond your imagination, not only from many of the States and Members of Congress but from foreign countries. It became our responsibility of course to reply, to the extent of our ability. Shortly after this announcement we had the formation of a committee by Governor Kennon known as the Governors Advisory Committee on Highways. That was followed by the appointment of the President's committee which is chaired by Gen. Lucius Clay. Both committees immediately, individually and jointly, commenced to ask for factual data. We were directed to staff the President's committee under General Clay, and we did assign one of my assistants, Mr. Turner, to fill in that capacity and supplement his work by other members of the staff. Those men had to come primarily from the research organization who were collecting the data. I shall now refer back to the three prescribed reports. (1) The report covering a consolidated highway act was assigned to the legal division of the Bureau. The other two reports were handled by the research division under Mr. Fairbank. Mr. Fairbank has been in the Bureau many years. He is highly regarded I think by all segments of highway construction research. He has not been too well. He went abroad about a month ago and came back and got into this problem. I want you to understand that in a research organization you do not have an organization such as you do in the Bureau's engineering division where you have understudies and other assistants. An indi |