by journalists to conduct that scrutiny with an eye to information as much as sensation.

That is, I realize, a broad and imprecise prescription. While we are trying various means to fill it, I would only urge, in addition, that we explore the other option: that of finding new ways to inform the people directly, without intermediaries, of our activities. Obviously, television is the only medium that can carry such a message for us effectively.

Equally, obviously, the use of television by Congress to present itself more fully to the public raises a number of questions. I cannot answer them, but I can and do urge that your committee give them thorough study.

From the practical point of view, we need to be able to estimate the cost of televising floor debates either continuously or optionally, according to the importance of the issues under discussion. We need to know what staff would be required for such an undertaking. We need to examine the cost-and value-of a congressional service covering committee hearings and markup sessions, either to offer videotape footage to the commercial networks or for use in preparing programs the Congress itself sponsors as legislation comes to the House or Senate floor for decision.

I can imagine programs, properly supervised, which would give viewers the essential background on important bills, present excerpts of actual debates and even make the chief sponsors and opponents of such legislation available as a panel to answer telephoned questions from all over the country about the issues involved. I can conceive, even, of a public television network controlled by Congress offering nothing but views of Congress at work.

I cannot, however, begin to estimate the cost of such an undertaking. I can only wonder aloud what agreements between the majority and minority parties in each House and between the Houseswould be necessary to control such programing. And I have to ask, quite frankly what audience we might reach with daytime broadcasts of the proceedings on Capitol Hill.

I do not, however, put these questions forward as extravagant fantasies. If such broadcasts such a network, perhaps could perform a truly informational role, the considerable cost of establishing it should be weighed against the price we now pay for public ignorance. Frankly, Mr. Chairman, as I talk to my own constituents these days about their pressing problems and particularly the two most visible ones that are visible to all of us, I find that what confuses them most is the lack of understanding of the options available to deal with each of these problems and of the suggestions that are put forward by interested and disinterested parties to respond to the problems and complaints of the citizenry who feel the Government has failed to operate in their interests. I guess that brings us finally to the point that Congressman Cleveland raised-that if communications are to serve us well, we must have something to communicate. That something has to be the way in which we perform.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate this opportunity to present these views at the outset of your hearings. I hope they are useful.

Chairman METCALF. Certainly, Senator Muskie, you have already made a significant contribution in the activities of the Intergovernmental Relations Committee which you chair.

This Congress has taken a long step forward in opening committee markup sessions to the public.

It used to be that such sessions were all in closed executive meetings. You and I participated in developing and marking up the budget bill, which you referred to in your testimony, and yet during day after day of important and significant discussion, which was all open to the public, we had no press coverage, none at all. And there probably would not have been any general public interest or concern, even had we had television coverage, because we were talking about such a complex subject.

Senator MUSKIE. We would have had more press coverage, Mr. Chairman, if we had closed the doors to the press.

They would have been present outside the doors.

Chairman METCALF. I think we discovered that in our conference on energy legislation, where for the first time a conference committee was open to the press. Initially this conference was closed, and the press was outside the doors with cameras and notebooks and so forth, and we all went out and made statements, and we had a crowd. Then we opened the conference committee to the press, and we had only a handful of people, mostly lobbyists, as you point out.

Do you find, or do you believe that Congress would behave any differently if we had more television coverage of committee activities? We have heard it said that such coverage would delay markup, and everybody would want to make a speech and so forth.

Do you think if we opened up more committee activities to television, or our floor debates to television, we would see different behavior on the part of the Members of Congress?

Senator MUSKIE. There might be some of that tendency, but I would make one point, from the experience of our Intergovernmental Relations Subcommittee. I think that as a result of opening up these hearings, we were put on our best behavior, and that by and large the proceedings were more orderly, there was less tendency to filibuster or delay, and there was a greater readiness after debate to reach a vote. And of course the public was conscious of the attendance of committee members, which and I think promoted better attendance. So I think from that one experience, which of course is not all embracing, that all of the changes-in terms of the performance of the committee-were a plus.

I think the same would be true of floor debates. The public is shocked, when it comes to Washington and visits the galleries, to note the sparse attendance on the floor. You can explain until the cows come home, and they still do not fully understand why their Senators or their Congressmen aren't there participating in the process of legislation.

Yesterday in the Senate, in debating the emergency energy bill, over which we have been frustrated for 2 months, there was a time set for the vote, and yet 30 minutes in advance of the vote I do not think there were 15 Senators on the floor.

Had television cameras been present the speeches might have been better, the debate might have been sharper. I really think that after

some experience in this kind of forum, with the public watching over our shoulder, our performance would improve.

Of course there would be those who are long winded by nature who would still be long winded with television and might tend to abuse it. But I think we are learning as politicians that when the public has a chance to look at us closely, the public is pretty perceptive, and it can separate the phonies from the real thing. I think maybe that is why there is a reluctance to move in this direction. And I do not mean wallto-wall coverage. I would agree, I think, with what Jack Brooks said, that if you have gavel-to-gavel coverage of floor debates and of all committee hearings, the public would get bored and turned off.

I am talking about significant debates. When you come to judge what is significant, you cannot leave that to the press, because their view of what is significant is different from the public view and different from ours. We have to find ways of presenting our view of what is significant.

Chairman METCALF. I think you have raised many of the questions that should be raised and this of course is the purpose of our hearings. This committee has no legislative authority, and our scope is to try to identify and discuss problem areas and, perhaps, to make recommendations concerning them. You have made an outstanding contribution to our inquiry.

Congressman Brooks?

Representative BROOKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator Muskie, I would like to say very sincerely, I have enjoyed your statement, I found it very thought provoking, and I think it is a real contribution to our hearing.

I was particularly pleased in your opening remarks that you stated you had no quick answers to dilemmas, which you then proceeded to outline dramatically, and I just would like to suggest to you, maybe one of the problems with Congress is that we have too many quick answers, and perhaps this is part of the problem.

Would you like to comment on that?

Senator MUSKIE. I think that is true. I think government as a whole is perceived, as operating increasingly in response to crises which reflect a lack of foresight, rather than with a plan and a program of action aimed at problems foreseen.

We get so trapped in dealing with these crises that they overwhelm us after a while. We reach for instant action. We do not give the necessary time to come up with alternatives, so I think we are subject to that criticism. This brings us to the point that I made at the close of my prepared statement, and that is that the public does not perceive of us as a deliberative body moving in an intelligent planned direction to deal with problems that were anticipated sufficiently far in advance. The result is that when we find an answer, it does not deal with the real problem as they see it.

Representative BROOKS. Of course, while we are addressing the problem, we should recognize the fact that if there is a problem, there are certainly many culprits, and I am sure the individual Members of Congress, certainly myself included, when we make statements about legislation, we certainly do not say anything that would put us in a poor light, the so-called self-serving political statement I am sure is part of the problem, and I think that while we are talking

about this problem, we should recognize that there is a tendency to shift the blame.

I could not help but think in your very telling testimony about the fact that while most of the media was concentrating on hearings about a problem, there was very little media at hearings that attempted to cope with solutions to the problems.

On the other hand, in the House at least, I get back to my point about the fact that there are so many committees addressing the energy problem, in the whole Congress about 17. So in fairness to the media, I suppose you could say with so many committees addressing the problem, and with so many of them meeting at the same time, that perhaps to address the problem we have to get back to some of the nuts and bolts of the performance aspects of it, and more rigidly address our hearings so that some of the major problems being addressed are not being addressed elsewhere at the same time.

Senator MUSKIE. I agree with that, particularly in regard to the energy problem. I think we ought to reorganize ourselves to concentrate our efforts and our attention on that problem in its overall dimension.

I hope we move in that direction. I could not agree with you more. Incidentally, there is another problem tied to your first question as well. At the same time we are subject to the above criticism, the most prevalent criticism of the public is that we drag our feet so much. It is an interesting dilemma. But I think that with respect to the energy crisis, the basic reason for the declining confidence in Congress is the fear we are not on top of the problem, that we are dragging our feet, and that we cannot seem to make any decisions.

Representative BROOKS. That is a good point, but I suppose we then have a duty to remind the public that maybe the solution to the problem is perhaps it is there again a problem of communication. I would like to have your comment on the following point. We are proposing more access to the media, especially television, to the Congress.

In this regard, do you not think we have to distinguish and do this quite carefully between coverage of individual Members of the Senate or the House, and the Senate and the Congress as an institution?

This is tough, but I would like to have your comment on it.

Senator MUSKIE. I should have made that point, because we have to avoid the appearance of establishing our own propaganda machine. That is a real danger.

That is why I emphasize the need for including both Houses. This must be an information outlet, and not a propaganda outlet.

Representative BROOKS. I would like to have your comment on one other point. I think those polls, you had taken for your Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations have been very significant, and we owe you a debt of gratitude for having done it.

You recall that there is a lack of confidence of institutions, I wonder you would comment on the fact that in the last three sessions, that 96 percent of the incumbents were elected.

if

It would appear to be there on the surface some contradiction between the polls, that expressed dissatisfaction and the statistics that 96 percent of the incumbents seeking reelection were reelected. Would you like to comment on that?

Senator MUSKIE. You have to put that fact in the context of the overall study: that every institution in our society has similarly lost confidence, and that the only two that have gained confidence since 1966 are the writing press and television press. All others have dropped.

This includes churches, as Congressman Giaimo pointed out. It includes lawyers and doctors. Even though doctors still have a confidence rating of more than 50 percent, they have dropped from 75. It includes every institution.

What the public is reacting to is the failure of its institutions to have relevance to daily problems.

It includes the Congress, but I do not think the polls indicate that the Congress has fallen at a faster rate, or is distinguishable for any particular reason.

The poll identifies as the chief criticism of politicians of all parties the feeling that they make promises they never keep.

This has prompted me to say over and over again since last fall that the elections ahead are going to find all incumbents vulnerable, whoever they are.

We have all overpromised, whether we be Members of Congress or lawyers or doctors or trash collectors.

Representative BROOKS. I concur with that view, and as I say, it is difficult for the politician not to overpromise, and you know of the problems.

Senator MUSKIE. Sometimes I think that is the only way to get yourself heard by a reporter.

Representative BROOKS. In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the time you have given me. I was very taken with your remarks on page 6 of your statement, when you introduced Mr. Harris, Lou Harris.

You spoke about the restoration of confidence of Congress and other institutions, and I was very taken with the remark that said to restore it, it would take a change of manners, not laws, on both sides. I just wanted to stress that and compliment you on that remark, because part of the problem as I see it is that we promise the people if we pass this law or that law or this law, that there will be a solution, and I guess we have to recognize that in some areas the law will not be the solution, and certainly the one we are dealing with today.

Thank you very much.

Senator MUSKIE. I wonder if I might offer further statistics out of the study that might be useful.

The poll discloses some statistics indicating that the actual contact between citizens and government at all levels is discouragingly low. What I did not add is that among those who have had contact with the Government, in the sense of going to it for help, the proportion of those who feel that they were treated decently is encouragingly high.

I do not know what that proves. For instance, with respect to the Federal level, 11 percent of the citizenry had gone to the Government with a problem. A high percentage of those, 75 percent, felt they were treated well. This positive response indicates again the importance of communication and broadening our contact and exposure.