use such as aircraft, tanks, ships, weapons, and ammunition, and technical and standard stock items carried in inventories. The regulations which are required to be issued by the Secretary of Defense will define the point at which items are no longer to be carried in inventory, but are to be considered as items of consumption in the hands of troops. The Secretary of Defense is required to report such records annually to the President and the Congress. Other sections of the title require the submission of reports on inventories of supplies and material carried under working-capital stock funds. It is contemplated that the regulations issued by the Secretary of Defense will provide that such reports may be considered as adequate property records for the purposes of this section. Repeal of conflicting laws and saving provisions (sec. 413 of the new title) This section repeals all laws, orders, and regulations inconsistent with provisions of this title so far as they affect any of the provisions, functions, activities, etc., enacted by the title. It preserves the powers, duties, and responsibilities of other Government offices, agencies, and departments in budgetary. fiscal, accounting, and reporting matters applicable to the Government generally. Thus, while the Congress in this title prescribes specific procedures for the Department of Defense, the execution of those procedures is intended to remain subject to the normal Government-wide controls exercised by the President, the Bureau of the Budget, the General Accounting Office, and, in some instances, by the Treasury Department. Section 11. Miscellaneous and technical amendments and saving provision This section contains the amendments to the National Security Act of 1947 which are necessary from the technical point of view to reflect the policy changes which have been made in the preceding sections of the proposal. Each of the subsections of section 11 is believed to be self-explanatory and requires no detailed explanation. The purpose of the last two sentences of subsection (f) is to clarify the fact that the changing of the Under Secretary of Defense to Deputy Secretary of Defense does not create a new office but changes the title of an existing office, and that change shall not require the resubmitting by the President of the name of the present incumbent for confirmation as Deputy Secretary of Defense. It should be noted that subsection (g) of section 10 of the bill specifically provides that functions heretofore vested in any officer, department, or establishment by law, order, or regulation, shall be deemed to be vested in the officer, department, or establishment succeeding the officer, department, or establishment in which such function was vested. With specific reference to the Secretaries of the three military departments, this means that those Secretaries will continue to be vested with the statutory authority which was vested in them when they enjoyed the status of secretaries of executive departments. The authority will, however, under the terms of section 202 of the National Security Act of 1947, as amended by the bill, be exercised subject to the direction, authority, and control of the Secretary of Defense. |