because what this committee is trying to do parallels the indications that you have here in appendix 3. I think some of our questions to the agencies are markedly similar to some of the directions that your testimony has taken.

But let me ask you a question about exhibit A, here, where you mention that U.S.-flag ships carry 42 percent of our total foreign freights. Our Nation over the next decade or next 25 years hopefully will be the leading export/import nation in the world. That is an awfully small percentage of cargo to be carried in our own ships. It seems to me it is almost self-apparent that the national security, both military and economic, of the nation, that is importing and exporting as much as we are, depends on the ability to have the shipping capability of more than 6 percent of our exports and imports. You do not address that problem here. While the criticisms that you make and the questions that you raise are important, it seems far more important to me that this committee come out with what our policy should be, as to whether that percentage figure should not be 25 percent, 40 percent, or 50 percent.

This is the primary answer I am groping for as these hearings progress. I just would respectfully ask, if your policy board is meeting this weekend, that you address that question. Regardless of the subsidy program, the costs, and these other things that we are inquiring into, what should be the goal of the United States as to what proportion of its international trade should be carried in its ships? I think that is important.

Of secondary importance is the meaning of the national security aspect, and we are going to get into that before we are through.

The issue you raise about taxes, we are gonig to pursue, and I think the new laws, certainly as to campaign contributions, will insure that decisionmaking is out in the open. I think it is now.

This committee is concerned with the lobbying question, and I think it is a national issue. It affects all of us.

Let me hit you on your letter that you appended.

After reviewing those letters and as a member of the Government Information Subcommittee that hammered out these Freedom of Information Act amendments, it seems to me that the executive response to your request is probably accurate. In an executive branch matter that is under consideration, we did intend that the recommendations made to the President personally be excluded. If there were factual data in there-and apparently there is-what is your opinion on that as to the application of the act?

Are you going to appeal this decision that was made by the Council? Mr. COHEN. We did appeal it.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. You have?

Mr. COHEN. Yes.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. What is the status of that appeal?

Mr. COHEN. I think that appeal is pending internally.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. Internally you say? So you have not gone to the point of court action yet?

Mr. COHEN. No, not to the point of court action.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. We have asked for the same information from the administration on the interagency task force matter. We have done it on the basis that, really, it would be a cooperative effort rather

than a matter of right on our part. We want to know now, how the administration is proceeding rather than go through the traditional way where they proceed, reach a decision, and then bring it to us. Well, thank you very much.

Mr. DOWNING. The committee will recess for 10 minutes.

[Short recess.]

Mr. DOWNING. The subcommittee will come to order.

Mr. Emery?

Mr. EMERY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you very much for resuming the subcommittee's oversight hearings.

Mr. Cohen, I am very glad that Common Cause has taken an interest in maritime affairs. I do have a series of two or three questions that I would appreciate your response to. I have been very concerned about the influence of lobbying and finances from certain lobbying groups influencing legislation.

I was quite interested in the questions that you raised earlier this afternoon about unregistered individuals who either were working for lobbies for this committee or other committees.

Do you feel there is a loophole that ought to be looked at that permits individuals to conduct lobbying activities associated with lobbying that is not presently covered?

Mr. COHEN. That is right, we do. We think the present law has unfortunately had a law of nonenforcement and therefore a lot of practices have arisen in which-what would normally be considered lobbying activities, are not considered covered by many people who engage in these activities.

There is also very often a separation between the organization and the person employed by the organization and that is one of the reasons why you will often find Washington law firms representing clients and then if you want to go through the officers of the organization or the clients itself, you will find that you cannot find anything reported on it and so that is one major aspect.

But another important aspect is what constitutes lobbying? It happened yesterday as I was riding in a taxicab. I heard the Joseph McCaffrey program which happens to be sponsored by the National Maritime Council. I do not know whether the National Maritime Council is registered or not; but that program in its commercial messages, certainly, you certainly knew what side they were on in terms of the question.

I think they have a right to sponsor the program and a right to spend money on it, but I think they also have an obligation through the proper channels to tell what their expenses are; because that is a point of lobbying.

Mr. EMERY. Do you have specific legislation in mind to specify certain amendments along these lines?

Mr. COHEN. Yes; we do. And it is before the Flowers subcommittee. It is a comprehensive lobby bill that not only applies to the Congress but to the executive branch and the independent agencies as well. Its principal sponsors are Thomas Railsback and Robert Kastenmeier. Mr. EMERY. I have cosponsored that legislation as well.

The second question, if I might, Would Common Cause support a ban on contributions from organizations that have an interest in legislation before a committee that a member serves on?

I have been quite disturbed from time to time by seeing rather sizable contributions that members of certain congressional committees have received from organizations that either support or oppose legislation that appears regularly before these committees.

This appears to be a very gross, if not a violation of any law, it is at least a violation of what I think ought to be a very sound principle; that is, the separation of financial interests and individual responsibility allowing one to look at his responsibilities in an honest fashion.

Mr. COHEN. We have studied a lot of that and we feel that, first of all, we would like to see the dollar checkoff tax principle applied to congressional elections, House and Senate.

In addition, we believe in a mixed system of public, private financing, involving small private contributions and the present $5,000 limit which applies to what committees can give, is much too high and should be substantially reduced.

We do not favor banning interest-group giving. The question you raised about interest-group giving, and the subcommittees that members serve on is one we are puzzling over right now.

In addition, we are engaged in a study; it is far from complete; but on another question which we have a much more definite opinion about, and that is the accepting of honoraria from interest groups who have business before the member's committee, whether in the House or in the Senate. We think that kind of activity should be banned.

So I cannot give you a definite answer on your last-on your precise question; but I think if we overhaul the systems substantially and extend the dollar tax checkoff, at the same time, it would go a long way to meeting that problem, no matter what the answer.

Mr. EMERY. So your organization is presently assessing this situation?

Mr. COHEN. Absolutely. You have competing values and it is a question and that is what we are wrestling with.

Mr. EMERY. It is a very difficult question, I know.

Earlier in these hearings we have had several other matters before the subcommittee that were of great concern to me and to others who represent coastal districts with certain numbers of people who are engaged in maritime affairs.

One has been the question of increased Federal financial aid to students attending State maritime academies. I know for a fact that the $600 they call for, which is provided by the Federal Government helps. but it is a drop in the bucket compared to the expense that some of these students incur going to school and of course many of them are not financially able to spend a great deal on education.

I have been disturbed that some of the martime unions have been opposed to increasing this aid for one reason or another and I know at the same time that at least one of the unions has been closed to membership from maritime academy graduates since 1970 in what I guess would have to be called a closed shop.

It seems to me it is a continuing problem that the State maritime academies are facing.

Can you comment on that?

Mr. COHEN. Well, Congressman Emery, as I said at the outset, we do not appear as experts on maritime policy, because we are not. But

one of the things that I think that I would-that I feel, listening to your question, is that one of the functions of a review process of maritime policy is a question of making sure that the system itself is an open system and where it is not open there ought to be some compelling reasons as to why it ought not to be open.

There is a vast difference between a union shop and a closed shop. I do not know what the facts are in this instance and I do not know what the cost impact is of increasing Federal loans or grants to students; but it has to be considered a part of a total policy.

I am sorry that I cannot be more responsive than that.

Mr. EMERY. Just for the record, the cost, is an additional $1.1 million annually to increase the student subsidy which has not been changed, if my memory serves me correctly for 17 years. One final question.

Through these hearings this subcommittee is charged with establishing oversight policy and oversight procedure on maritime affairs. One of the things that Common Cause has suggested and others have suggested is that we should get a tighter reign on oversight or expenditures, loans guarantees and the general financial structure of the policy which has already been established. A couple of months ago, Congressman McCloskey asked many questions about some of our policies for guaranteed funds for ship construction.

One of the things we found was not only were we subsidizing in small ways and large ways construction of vessels in our shipyards, but we were also subsidizing some oil platforms and the equipment used in the manufacture and drilling of oil. To me this differs considerably from the intent of these guarantees. We have not yet resolved that question nor have we delved into it to any great extent.

Mr. COHEN. I hope you do.

Mr. EMERY. Yes. Thank you for your comments. We were successful, at least in bringing that out in the subcommittee and changing the numbers that appear in the authorization.

I would suggest that this might be an area that your organization might be interested in pursuing and assisting this committee.

Mr. COHEN. We will certainly weigh that.

If I may, Mr. Chairman, I would like to in part respond to your last part and your response, and the points of Mr. McCloskey's earlier points, about the percent of our overall shipping fleet in relation to the world; that clearly is the key question that you have to-that the committee has to come up with in terms of making policies.

I think the thing that we all have to recognize, those of us on the outside and those of you on the committee, is that for so long these policies have not been reviewed; that for an informed layman like myself, when I go through the GAO reports and the budget committee reports and the Jantsure reports, one of the things that comes through is that our policies are pretty sloppy over in the executive branch and that the Department of Defense does not spend very much time talking with the Maritime Administration.

The Secretary of Commerce does not seem to be in it at all and part of what I hope these hearings do is by taking us through the critical aspects and the negative aspects; you have to do that first in order to figure out how to not only come out with appropriate policies but come up with policies that people will accept; and that is why we have

that is our prime purpose in being here; and I am sure that those in the maritime industry and the maritime unions probably would be pretty critical of a lot of things Common Cause is saying.

But I think it is basic to building a set of policies that really are understood and that are accepted; that are believed in.

I also think it is pretty important to begin to shake some people up downtown who I think have gotten rather sloppy in their ways and really resulting in behavior and patterns that can be quite negligent and really grossly negligent in protecting the interest and the concerns of the American people, especially as it relates to defense.

Mr. EMERY. If I might, Mr. Chairman, one final question.

In line with some of the suggestions you made and, of course, also in line with responses to others of this committee, it might be a good idea for us to examine the effectiveness and functions of the Maritime Commission. Along with that, do you have any specific, appropriate comments that you care to make about the effectiveness of the Maritime Commission; and do you have any specific recommendations which you might care to make?

Mr. COHEN. I do, and they really relate to questions of accountability.

The Maritime Administration is not an open agency and it would be quite simple for that agency to do as other agencies of the Federal Government are now doing, such as the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Products Safety Commission, and begin to log the outside contacts that are made of it-contacts that are made by the White House, that are made by Congressmen and Senators, that are made by the people in the Maritime, that are made by Common Causeand begin to develop a simple system by regulation of seeing what the patterns of influence are.

In addition, it remains absent in that agency, a public financial disclosure and a public conflict of interest policy; and I think that is part of what those are first steps that could be taken to break things down.

I think it would be a healthy thing to conduct some of its meetings in the open. There is no reason why meetings such as these are held in the open and you deliberate quite well, why the bureaucracy should not do the same. No one interfered with the deliberateness of the markup. It was quite a deliberative markup.

The same thing can happen on greater than one-member decisions that are made by agencies downtown. I think that has to be part of it. So that people understand what some of the complexities of the questions are and also begin to have a sense that the decisions being made are based on the merits rather than on hidden influences.

Mr. EMERY. I thank you very much for your response to my questions.

I have no further questions and I would like to thank the chairman very much for conducting these hearings. He is doing a very good job and I appreciate the opportunity to bring some of these questions out. Mr. DOWNING. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Cohen. Your suggestions and recommendations will be given consideration.

The committee will adjourn until August 1.

[Whereupon, at 4 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned, to reconvene on Friday, August 1, 1975.]