authority therefor. The classification of the public lands from the standpoint of grazing and agricultural use is also an important function of this division.

PETROLEUM ADMINISTRATIVE BOARD

The Board is engaged in promoting sound principles of petroleum production whereby the maximum of oil will be produced in each field. Testimony presented at hearings under House Resolution 441 indicates that in some cases twice as much oil may be recovered under rapid, wasteful methods. Efficiency demands the full utilization of the gas energy and water drive within a pool and this can be accomplished only when gas is saved underground, when wells are properly spaced and properly located in the pool, and when withdrawals are reasonably slow. The engineering staff of the Petroleum Administrative Board is endeavoring, under the new pool regulations, to enforce the most efficient spacing nad location of wells, to conserve gas energy, and to promote equitable slow withdrawals of oil among the operators.

The economics program of conservation is designed to limit the monthly production of crude oil to the current monthly market demands, since overproduction and attendant slumping prices cause two definite forms of waste. Recoverable petroleum underground is wasted when small wells are abandoned, as they must be when oil is selling at distress prices. Oil is wasted aboveground when its low price allows it to usurp the place of other fuels which cannot in turn serve the purposes of petroleum, in short, when price permits inferior uses. Thus conservation of oil is being acheived through economic channels which encourage its most efficient use.

STATEMENT OF HON. HENRY A. WALLACE, SECRETARY OF AGRI

CULTURE

Secretary WALLACE. The impression seems to have gotten abroad that I had no objections to this bill or that the letter which I had submitted to the House committee and to the Senate committee did not represent my views. I wish to state that the letter does represent my views. I do not know whether the gentlemen of the committee have read the letter which I submitted at that time or not and I do not know whether they care to ask any questions with regard to the views presented there.

Mr. GASQUE. I will add for your information that Mr. Silcox, who appeared before the committee, representing the Department, made the statement that the only objection that the Department of Agriculture had was to the name, if I am correct.

Secretary WALLACE. Of course, I would assume that the intention of the name would be apparent. The Department of Agriculture is interested because it deals with farmers and farm activities. Farmers deal with growing things, growing plants, growing animals, growing trees. They live on the land. The farmers in their activities are of necessity more engaged in the conservation of natural resources than any other people because they occupy the land.

It might be assumed under certain conditions the Forestry Service is a conservation activity, the Biological Survey is a conservation activity. Farmers are greatly concerned with conservation. The matter might be cleared up if the Secretary of the Interior would indicate the representation which he intends to make to the President with regard to what, if any, bureaus he would propose to have transferred from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of the Interior, or the renamed department which is now Interior.

Mr. MCKEOUGH. This bill, as I understand it, is this, in the language of section 2, which I quote as follows:

Whenever the President, after investigation, shall find and declare that any transfer of any commission, independent establishment, board, bureau, division,

} ervice, or office in the executive branch of the Government engaged in conserving the natural resources or in carrying on public-works activities in the United States, its territories or possessions, will reduce governmental expenditures, increase efficiency, and coordinate the functions of the Department of Conservation and Works, he may, by Executive order, transfer the whole or any part of such agency or agencies and the functions thereof to the jurisdiction and control of the said Department, and whenever the President, after investigation, shall find and declare that any transfer of any commission, board, bureau, division, service, or office under the jurisdiction and control of the Department of Conservation and Works, and not engaged in conserving the natural resources or in carrying on public-works activities in the United States, its territories or possessions, will further accomplish the above purposes, he may by Executive order transfer the whole or any part of any such agency or agencies and the functions thereof to the jurisdiction and control of any other executive department:

The bill also provides, as I understand it, that upon the President's recommendation, it comes to the Congress and Congress has 60 days in which to decide whether or not it cares to approve of the recommendation. No change in departments can be made except when Congress is in session. Certainly, from the face of that there could be no objection, as I see it, to permitting the President to have that investigation made with a view to bringing about the purposes set out in the section I have just read. If there be any overlapping or duplication, certainly the Department of Agriculture, or any of the other executive departments represented by Cabinet officials, would have no objection, for they would have their day in court during the period of investigation to set up their objections to anything the President might have recommended.

Secretary WALLACE. I would say specifically in reply to that statement that Congress would signify by the name, changing the name of the Department of the Interior, that it was just the place in the Government where everything that had to do with conservation would be located. That is Mr. Silcox' statement. Frankly, agriculture has so much to do with conservation that from the purely logical point of view it might mean transferring practically all of the Department of Agriculture over to the new Department of Conservation. For instance, the President has just got through transferring the Soil Conservation Service from Interior to Agriculture. With that kind of a name for the Department of the Interior there would presumably be a mandate to Congress to transfer Soil Conservation back again to the Department of Conservation because it is a conservation activity. Mr. MCKEOUGH. I would say not, because this bill provides, first, that the President shall make the recommendation to Congress. Congress is not making it.

Secretary WALLACE. Why would Congress set up a Department of Conservation if all the conservation activities were not to be in the new department?

Mr. MCKEOUGH. I would not say that this particular use of the word "conservation" would impose on either Congress or the President that all conservation activities be centered in this particular department, because the language indicates that an investigation must first be made and a recommendation must be entered into. Let us assume that he wants to transfer a department over to you. As I understand the language of the bill the President makes an investigation. Obviously, that investigation would relate to the Secretary of Agriculture Department or the Secretary of the Interior. They can both have their day in court with the President.

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Secretary WALLACE. Congress would already have indicated its intent that the conservation activities should be in one department. Mr. MCKEOUGH. I think that is an opinion rather than a fact, because it sets up here that the President must determine by an investigation whether any particular bureau or section or activity should be in your department or another department; and if we call it by any other name we would not change the set-up of the bill. Let us assume we call it the Department of Cooperative Agriculture Conservation or any other name, it would not make any difference as to the machinery provided in section 2.

Secretary WALLACE. I think that the name combined with the statements that have thus far been made would indicate very clearly that the intent of this bill would be to put in one place all the conservation activities.

.

Mr. MCKEOUGH. It is limited to conservation of natural resources. Conservation is broad enough to cover other things than natural

resources.

Secretary WALLACE. So far as agriculture is concerned it is the natural resurces we are concerned with primarily.

Mr. MCKEOUGH. Would raising livestock be considered a natural resource?

Secretary WALLACE. The crops are grown on the land, which is a natural resource.. I am not sure how it would be interpreted. The livestock resources in the forests and upon the public lands are both natural resources. Livestock grazing is very pronounced in its effect on the conservation of natural resources.

Mr. MCKEOUGH. That broad interpretation of natural resurces would cover everything in human kind, all out of the land, and your Department would have control of all of it, if that broad interpretation were placed on it.

Secretary WALLACE. Our Department is not reaching out for other bureaus or services.

Mr. MCKEOUGH. I do not thnk the other Department is either. Frankly, we are sitting here in review of the particular combination of words that set up certain activities to be suggested, and that, I think, fundamentally is a very constructive suggestion. I think that if the Government can save money by the elimination of duplication and overlapping a close technical description or definition of a word should not stand in the way of a recommendation that becomes responsibility of Congress to action.

Secretary WALLACE. I do not know what the mandatory savings would be under this. I would rather suspect that there would be more expenditures than less.

Mr. MCKEOUGH. More?

Secretary WALLACE. Yes.

Mr. MCKEOUGH. When we start out to eliminate duplication we would not assume that we are going to spend more money. I do not quite follow that reasoning.

Secretary WALLACE. Take a specific example. Suppose that the Forestry Service was transferred to the newly created department. Suppose it was said that the grazing in the forests is a purely agricultural matter; therefore that will be left in the Department of Agriculture. You then have two different groups of men working in the forest, one having to do with the regulation of grazing, which you

say is a purely agricultural function, and the other having to do with the forest, which you say, for purposes of illustration, is a conservation activity; both groups of men working in the same place. This would be a more expensive set-up than the present one?

Mr. MCKEOUGH. What is the present one?

Secretary WALLACE. In the present one we have both the forestry and livestock grazing in the forests in the Department of Agriculture. Grazing on public lands is in the Department of the Interior.

Mr. MCKEOUGH. Would not the purpose be better served if all those very similar activities were under one head?

Secretary WALLACE. I think if the Forest Service had charge of the grazing activities it would be more economical.

Mr. MCKEOUGH. That is what the Secretary of the Interior for Public Works has in mind. Certainly the bill would indicate that. Secretary WALLACE. However, we are engaged in a great program of agricultural adjustment. We are concerned with the livestock situation. It is part of the broad agricultural program. We have in the Department of Agriculture the scientists whose life work it is to study the insects of the forest as well as the insects of our plants. We have the scientists whose life work it is to study the habits and growth of grass. There was a tendency when the Soil Conservation Service was in the Interior to set up a complete Department of Agriculture.

Mr. MCKEOUGH. Would any particular scientists in that group do less efficient work if he happened to be working in a department called Conservation or Agriculture or Interior?

Secretary WALLACE. I would say simply that if services having to do with growing things for the proper administration of which it is necessary to have scientific knowledge of insects, plants, and soil, are located in another Department than the Department of Agriculture the expense is likely to be greater, because the tendency will be to hire scientists who are doing the same exact or very similar tasks to those which are done in Agriculture.

Mr. MCKEOUGH. This bill, as I understand it, has for its purpose the curing of the very thing you speak of. It sets up that the President initiate an investigation. If you have some scientists in your Department in connection with the activity you have just referred to, and the Secretary of Conservation and Works has similar activities, certainly between the President, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the secretary of the new set-up, by whatever name you call it, a conclusion could easily be arrived at-because you sit around a table and agree among yourselves as to the most efficient, common-sense application of the problems before you-regarding these groups of scientists. As I understand it, that is all that the bill proposes. The word "conservation" seems to set up a lot of straw men in the eyes of certain of the interests involved, that are merely phantoms as against the machinery set up in the bill. I have no particular affection for Agriculture as against the Interior or Conservation and Works. What I seek to do as a member of the committee is to bring what intelligence I may possess to pass on a suggestion that certainly on the face of it looks like a meritorious one.

Secretary WALLACE. We have not evidence indicating that any money would be saved in consolidating all the conservation activities in one department.

Mr. MCKEOUGH. I do not know that either, but you would not object to a preliminary study to reach a conclusion about it?

Secretary WALLACE. A study would be excellent, but to pass a bill through Congress presumably would make it mandatory on the President to put everything that would be called conservation in one department. It just seems that the Department of Conservation would conserve over there, over there, and over there, and the farmers would be continually in an uproar about it.

Mr. HULL. Could not we put in Conservation and Public Works the public defense and save the War and Navy Department?

Secretary WALLACE. What is that?

Mr. HULL. Put public defense, the Army and Navy, in Public Works. If you are going to have one department run the whole Government, why not put it all in one place and do it all at once instead of piecemeal. You have a forestry division in your department. There has been feeling between you and the Interior Department for many years about the jurisdiction of the forestry department. That is the whole nub of the situation.

Secretary WALLACE. Yes; that is true.

Mr. GOODWIN. Is there any record of duplication of work in the various departments that would necessitate the setting up of this method?

Mr. GASQUE. We have a number of reports. The bill provides that the President do just that kind of work, make an investigation to see if there is duplication, and if there is that he be authorized to correct it.

Mr. MCKEOUGH. Subject to the approval of Congress.

Secretary WALLACE. If that is the object why not make it in general form and have it apply to all departments?

Mr. MCKEOUGH. I have no objection to that.

Mr. HAMLIN. You speak of the mandatory powers of the President here. Under this bill as I understand it, and I am very glad that the President's name was brought in here so many times, it says, whenever the President after investigation shall find that is, after investigation it may be mandatory, after he decides, if he shall find these things, but it is not mandatory that he has got to find them. It is up to him to find out about it.

Moreover, as to the name here, of course, we say, "what is in a name?" We do not think that the name of itself may indicate so much only as, perhaps, it indicates it is going to be called the Department of Conservation and Works. Is it not true, Mr. Secretary, that in addition to what we have had coming under the department of the Secretary of the Interior, that we have had a vast amount of new work on new things to be done, relief works, all of which has been necessary, as we believe, but is it not true that the Department of Agriculture would have this forest and conservation work that you are suggesting be kept in the Department of Agriculture, and would you not have more to do than you already had before, at least, some time before, although perhaps not a year or two before?

Secretary WALLACE. You say, is it not true that we have more work to do if the Forest Service was kept with the Department of Agriculture? Is that the point of your question?

Mr. HAMLIN. I asked if it is not true that you are having more to do in your Agriculture Department than you have had before, or at least some years before?