Senator GARN. The subcommittee will stand in recess until March 10 at 9:30 a.m. when we will receive testimony from the National Institute of Building Science, Federal Home Loan Bank Board, National Credit Union Administration and Treasury, Office of Revenue Sharing and New York City Loan Guaranty. Thank you very much.

[Whereupon, at 11:13 a.m. Tuesday, March 3, the subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, March 10.]

DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT-INDEPENDENT AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR FISCAL YEAR 1982

TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 1981

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met at 9:30 a.m. in room 1224, Everett McKinley Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Jake Garn (chairman) presiding. Present: Senators Garn, D'Amato, and Specter.

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF BUILDING SCIENCES

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH NEWMAN, CHAIRMAN, BOARD OF DIRECTORS
ACCOMPANIED BY:

GENE BREWER, PRESIDENT

WILLIAM FLOYD III, VICE CHAIRMAN, BOARD OF DIRECTORS
ROBERT DILLON, EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT

BUDGET REQUEST

Senator GARN. The subcommittee will come to order. I am happy to welcome Mr. Newman, Mr. Brewer, and your associates this morning. I am pleased to have you present your testimony before us today. According to the authorization for the Institute, this will be the last time that you will be appearing before us to request appropriated funds.

To date, the Institute will have received $3,113,000 for the first 4 years of the 5-year authorization. With this last budget request of $500,000, the Institute will have requested a total of $3,613,000 out of an authorized total of $10 million. The basic mission of the Institute is to foster the development of a housing and building regulatory system throughout the Nation and to create the means for more rapid assimilation of beneficial technologies within the housing and building community. In particular, the Institute is charged with developing, promulgating, and maintaining nationally recognized performance criteria, standards, and other technical provisions suitable for adoption by building regulating jurisdictions and agencies.

To carry out its responsibilities, the Institute was to establish a consultative council membership consisting of representatives of private trade, professional, labor organizations, code and testing bodies, public regulatory agencies, and consumer groups.

It was hoped that the Institute would act as a catalyst to encourage

the acceptance of various technical, procedural, and regulatory changes that would increase the availability of affordable housing to the U.S. public.

PREPARED STATEMENT AND BIOGRAPHIES

I see that you have an 11-page opening statement. We would appreciate it if you could summarize that statement. Your entire statement will be included in the record. In addition, I appreciated the opportunity of visiting with you a few weeks ago and being brought up to date on the activities of NIBS.

[The statement and biographical sketches follow:]

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH H. NEWMAN

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:

My name is Joseph H. Newman, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Institute of Building Sciences. With me today is William F. Floyd, Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors, Gene C. Brewer, President of the Institute, and Robert M. Dillon, Executive Assistant to the President.

Before I begin our presentation, I would like to present each of you with a copy of our fiscal year 1980 Report to the President of the United States. I realize that a copy of this report has been transmitted to the Congress by the President, but I would like to refer to portions of that Report during my presentation.

We appreciate this opportunity to appear before the Subcommittee and present the Institute's fiscal year 1982 budget request for capital funds. This request is for $500,000--the amount we were authorized to request by President Carter's Office of Management and Budget. This is a 20 percent decrease from last year's request, and an 18 percent decrease from the actual fiscal year 1981 appropriation after the Institute sustained a 2 percent cut by OMB.

Public Law 93-383 authorized Congressional appropriations totalling $10 million and subsequent reauthorizations established the period during which appropriations could be requested as fiscal years 1978 through 1982. After fiscal year 1982, the Institute is intended to be self-sustaining.

As you have seen in our written submission, if this budget request is granted, the Institute will have received appropriations totalling only $3,613,000 over the five-year period, or slightly less than 37 percent of the $10 million authorized. As it became more and more apparent that the lion's share of the authorized capital funds would not be made available, and, in fact, appropriations would decline year-to-year, the Institute had to drastically alter and cut the program and services it planned to have in place by the beginning of fiscal year 1983. Unfortunately, this has impaired the ability of the Institute to position itself by 1983 to do as much as should be done to achieve fully the objectives established by the Congress. Much of what had been planned is still being held in abeyance, particularly the creation of a solid criteria, standards, and regulations data base, and the development of performance standards.

Nevertheless, we have made sound progress on our mission tasks and have positioned ourselves to undertake several major and timely initiatives that are vital to achieving our reason for being. Our Report to the President and the Congress, and our written submission, deals in considerable detail with our accomplishments, and with plans for the 1982 fiscal year. Therefore, I would like to focus on just two new initiatives that we believe merit priority attention and your support. They are: (1) to expand the Institute's cognizance sufficiently to deal with those aspects of land development and environmental regulations and regulatory processes that directly impact the cost and quality of housing and building; and (2) to pursue our January 15, 1981, publicly announced program that includes a recommendation that there be a one-year moratorium on all new Federal regulatory initiatives that will further constrain housing and building, and, during the period of that moratorium, that there be a