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I only wanted to point out that there is a basic cleavage in viewpoint and belief: Those who believe that it can be done through a Corporation and therefore, does not have to reflect itself as a basic liability against the Federal debt, and those who believe the opposite. Senator KUCHEL. Mr. Chairman, let me say that I doubt very much that there is any cleavage in the committee with respect to this question of the national debt-any partisan cleavage-because it seems to me whether or not the Congress were actually to adopt legislation. creating a new Corporation empowered to issue revenue bonds, I for one want the question of the debt considered every time an appropriation is made or every time the right is given to raise money to a new Corporation in any fashion.

I point out I have not had an opportunity yet to read this long and interesting report of the Comptroller General, but to the extent we have obligations now, they do not, strictly speaking, fall within the limits; I think it is wrong.

I doubt very much that there is a cleavage in the committee on this, and as far as my questions are concerned, I have wanted to get out on the table all these questions with respect to the Clay report because whatever we do in this committee, I want the indebtedness, whatever form it may take, to be acknowledged completely on the table with every other obligation that our Government has.

Senator SYMINGTON. I used the word "cleavage," as it was my feeling, for example, that the senior member of the committee on the other side was for S. 1160; I was not thinking of any bipartisan cleavage here.

My guess would be that inasmuch as Senator Case has introduced a totally new and refreshing approach to the problem, that he thinks the bill could be improved, and he is not completely for it.

I know that Senator Byrd has come before the committee and I believe he said it was the first time in his career in the Congress that he has ever come before a committee protesting so emphatically as he did against this bill.

I personally believe that Senator Gore's bill is a very fine approach to the problem. I do not think there is anything bipartisan about it at all, but I do think there is a great deal of difference of opinion as to what the bill should be. That is healthy.

I am very much impressed with the statement that has been made by the Comptroller General. I would say that his analysis of the bill reflects very clearly some of the thinking that I have been able to develop on it during these hearings.

Senator CASE. Mr. Chairman, I think possibly someone present at the time that I presented, in behalf of Senator Martin the bill S. 1160 on the floor of the Senate, will remember, that at that time I stated that I was presenting it because he was not able to be there, that Senator Chavez and I were also putting our names on it with reservations, that I had just read the bill and did not write it.

I made that statement at the first meeting of the committee, and I said then I had read the bill, and I not only have reservations, but I had very serious questions about the bill.

My questioning has gone along this same line, of issuing the general obligation and having a Treasury liability for them and retiring them through the revenue of a specific tax.

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Senator NEUBERGER. May I ask Senator Case a question?
Senator SYMINGTON. Surely.

Senator NEUBERGER. I was interested in your mileage or distance tax on trucks. Does that contemplate that that would be an additional tax on top of the State taxes already imposed, for the weight and distance?

Senator CASE. No; it would be a flat license permit fee, and would be entirely independent of whatever the States may to do in that regard.

Might I illustrate it this way: If you want to hunt, you purchase a license from your State in order to hunt. If you want to hunt migratory waterfowl, you buy a duck stamp and put it on your license.

My suggestion is if a truck weighing more than 20,000 pounds was on the Interstate System, that it have a duck stamp, so to speak, to pay for that travel.

Senator NEUBERGER. Does that suggest the weight and distance?

Senator CASE. No; I put it entirely on the basis of the weight. It was suggested that we put on the miles, but I thought that was not necessary. I think there would be enough revenue without it.

Senator NEUBERGER. The reason I asked it is my State happens to have a high weight and distance tax, one of the highest, and I was just wondering how much they could carry in a State like mine.

Senator CASE. I do not want to argue too much, but I will just say this: That the alternatives are to increase the gasoline tax and have the general motorist and the user of gasoline who is not using it even for highway purposes lay down an Interstate System of highways which are built to the standards that will support the 20,000-pound-trucks, or over, of gross weight, or whether that heavyweight truck traffic itself should make the extra contribution rather than the general motorist and the nonhighway user of gasoline.

Senator NEUBERGER. In other words, you exempt the nonhighway user of gasoline.

Senator SYMINGTON. Gentlemen, as far as I know, nobody here has seen this bill except the distinguished junior Senator from South Dakota. I am sure we are all interested in studying it; but I would suggest that inasmuch as we have another witness, and I think that Senator Case mentioned the fact that he was going to present this bill to the Senate today, that it might be well to proceed with the next witness.

Senator CASE. I expect to introduce it today. I did send a copy of it to all the members of the committee.

Senator SYMINGTON. If it would meet with your approval then, we would like to get on with the present hearing.

Thank you very much, Mr. Campbell.

The next witness is the distinguished citizen of the State of the junior Senator from South Carolina. I will ask Senator Thurmond to introduce him to the committee.

Senator THURMOND. Mr. Chairman, and gentlemen of the committee, it is a great pleasure for us to have here with us today a great American, a man who has spent his life in road construction.

He served 24 years as a State highway engineer; about 7 years of which he served as chief State highway engineer; and for the past 8 years he has served as the chief highway commissioner. That is the

top position in the South Carolina Highway Department. He has held many positions of honor and trust in the State and National road associations, and is held in high esteem among those who are engaged in road building.

It is a great pleasure for me to present to the committee the chief commissioner of the South Carolina Highway Department, Hon. C. R. McMillan, and incidentally, a brother to Congressman John L. McMillan, one of our colleagues.

Senator SYMINGTON. Mr. McMillan, the committee is honored to have you with us today.

STATEMENT OF HON. C. R. MCMILLAN, CHIEF COMMISSIONER, SOUTH CAROLINA STATE HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT

Mr. MCMILLAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is C. R. McMillan. I am chief highway commissioner of South Carolina and I appear before you in this capacity today.

I am here at the invitation of the committee and will try to answer your questions to the best of my ability. I have studied both Federalaid road bills--the so-called administration bill, S. 1160, and the Gore bill, S. 1048-and from my knowledge of Federal-aid for highways, I think an unwise course would be charted if S. 1160 were passed in its present form.

I have spent my entire working life in highway work in South Carolina, where I was an engineer for the State highway department from 1923 until 1947, when I was promoted through the ranks to the administrative head of the department.

In my capacity as an engineer and as a highway administrator for 32 years, I have had an opportunity to follow very closely many details regarding Federal-aid road matters and to observe the long range effects of Federal-aid to States, and the development of our system of highways.

From reports I have had about these hearings, there seems to be general acceptance of the idea that we need an accelerated highway construction program to modernize our highways. South Carolina will welcome an expanded program.

I have expressed my preference for legislation following the plan of S. 1048, although actually South Carolina would get more Federalaid under S. 1160 than it would under S. 1048. I want to make it clear at the outset that I would be shortsighted indeed, as would any other State highway administrator, to favor any plan merely because it provides greater Federal aid.

What especially disturbs me about S. 1160 in its present form is the emphasis placed on the early completion of the Interstate System. In my opinion, this emphasis is all out of proportion to the importance of the Interstate System in the overall highway transportation picture, particularly since this proposed expansion would be at the expense of other important highways. Much stress has been placed upon the estimates that the Interstate System of 37,600 miles, constituting only 1.2 percent of the Nation's total road mileage, will carry a seventh of all traffic. I have no quarrel to make about these estimates. I think they are accurate.

What I do want to point out, however, is that there are many, many miles of other primary routes which need modernizing which carry more traffic, mile-for-mile, than the Interstate System. If we should select the sections of highways in the Nation, without respect to classified systems, which are potentially the heaviest volume carrying sections, and list these sections in the descending order of their traffic volume potentialities, we would find that we could provide for the same one-seventh of the total traffic with considerably less than 37,600 miles of improved highways.

The Interstate System makes a beautiful picture on the map of the United States of a supersystem of connected highways. However, it neglects sections of other highways which are of greater importance than some sections of the Interstate System.

I think that whatever Federal-aid legislation is passed for an accelerated program should be flexible enough to provide the most urgently needed road sections first, working all along toward the ultimate goal of having a connected system of interstate highways by the time the potential traffic on each section of the Interstate System justifies it.

Under S. 1160, many States will find themselves building sections of the Interstate System to million-dollar standards out to the south or east of cities and to the north or west skimping in costs on the design of highways carrying many times the traffic of the interstate sections.

This sort of a situation may look good on map drawing boards, but it just does not look the same to the motorist on the road.

No fixed formula is provided in S. 1160 for apportioning interstate Federal-aid funds. I consider this to be a serious deficiency. The lack of a distribution formula specifically stated in the law will encourage estimate padding and pressure tactics among the States to get the most funds they can.

The windfall advantages to States having already built toll roads seem to me to have been poorly thought out. Senator Byrd stressed this in his statement before this committee on March 18. In my judgment he has sized up the situation as well as anybody I know could have done.

I also endorse Senator Byrd's statement that he thought it fantastic that there would be no need for road development on the Interstate System during the 22 year period after initial construction is completed and before the bonds issued to pay for the program are retired.

We in South Carolina went through the same sort of thinking in 1929. We thought then that we could complete a whole system of roads first and look ahead only to maintaining the highways built. We completed that system of highways in about 1935 and we are still completing it.

As a matter of fact, it seems that every year we make up estimates of what our needs are, they surpass all prior years' estimates, although since 1929 we have spent on permanent improvements five times what our estimates were in 1929 to complete the system.

Senate bill S. 1048 provides for a continuation of the traditional policy of Federal-aid to States for an expanded program commen

surate with the highway needs, and on a basis of a fixed formula for the apportionment of the funds among the States.

I believe S. 1048 will provide for a well-balanced, accelerated Federal-aid highway construction program which the States can administer with public support. For those States which have greater demands for the immediate construction of the Interstate System more urgent than other roads on the Federal-aid primary system, they can apply their Federal-aid primary funds to projects on the Interstate System.

There is, however, one provision of S. 1058, which I earnestly believe this committee should give serious consideration to modifying. That is the one-third, two-thirds matching formula for projects on the Interstate System. In view of the extremely high standards. which will be required by the Federal Government, adding tremendously to the cost of these roads, it seems to me that the Federal Government should bear about 90 percent of the cost.

In conclusion, may I thank this committee for the opportunity afforded me to appear here today in support of legislation for an expanded highway construction program. The needs are real, and I sincerely hope that this committee will recommend legislation to meet these needs.

Thank you.

Senator SYMINGTON. Thank you, Mr. McMillan. Senator Case. Senator CASE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I think that is a very fine statement. I found it particularly attractive to me, Mr. McMillan, because I think it almost describes in several respects what you find in the bill which I propose to introduce today.

The bill which I propose to introduce today puts the matching on the interstate on a 90-10 percent basis, just as you suggested.

It also gives a formula for the apportionment of the interstate funds, and it steps up the secondary and the primary so as to make possible a more balanced completion of systems.

It also increases the transfer clause from 10 percent to 20 percent as between funds so that the State could be sure of balanced completion. I am not going to ask any questions. When I find a witness has laid such a nice basis for the bill which I am going to introduce, I have no questions.

Senator SYMINGTON. Senator Thurmond.

Senator THURMOND. Chief McMillan, I would like to ask you this question: Is there any doubt in your mind that we do need an expanded highway system?

Mr. MCMILLAN. No, sir. There is, I believe, no doubt in my mind. as far as my ability to know is concerned. I do not know all the United States, but I know our section of it.

Senator THURMOND. Unless we do begin construction of an expanded highway system, do you visualize within the next 10 years a tremendous, terrific traffic jam and congestion?

Mr. MCMILLAN. We have reached that stage now. As you know, Senator, when you were Governor of South Carolina, we expanded and emphasized a secondary road program to get the people out of the mud that had been in there a long time during the war, and we could not wait and under your administration we started that.

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