Mr. WHITTEN. That is a special task assigned to you by reason of the rural development program?

Mr. WILLIAMS. That is correct. I believe the total on that is $565,000 going into that activity.

Mr. WHITTEN. I believe that is all.

Mr. Marshall?

BUDGET BUREAU RESERVES

Mr. MARSHALL. Mr. Secretary, last fall we heard quite a little bit about the Bureau of the Budget imposing a ceiling on expenditures. They were doing it on a quarterly basis.

How did that affect each one of these categories of conservation authorizations that you have listed here?

Mr. PETERSON. I will have to ask Mr. Dorny to give you the details. Before he does that, I can describe the operation generally in this manner: Our allotments from any appropriation are made on a quarterly basis, approved by the Bureau of the Budget. The Bureau of the Budget asked us to set in reserve certain amounts of funds and the final amount resulted from negotiations with the Bureau of the Budget. That fund set aside in reserve was excluded from being considered in the quarterly allotments. The only way we could get release of that fund was by a special action of the Bureau of the Budget in response to a request by the Secretary with justifications

therefor.

I will have to ask Mr. Dorny to give you details as to the figures. Mr. DORNY. Under the "Conservation operations" item a total of $184,000 was placed in budget reserve.

Mr. MARSHALL. Was this for how long a period?

Mr. DORNY. This is up to date. Under the "Watershed protection" item $10,839,000 is now in budget reserve, but only $50,000 of that was placed in reserve as a result of the apportionment policy of placing savings in reserve. Under "Flood prevention," there is $27,500 in reserve. Under the "Great Plains program," we have $200,000 in reserve. Under the "Conservation reserve program allotment, we placed in reserve $29,500. The total is $11,280,000.

From that figure we should deduct $10,789,000 of the $10,839,000 of Watershed Protection funds proposed to carry over to 1959. That gives us $491,000 of savings which we placed in budget reserve. Mr. MARSHALL. Of this $491,000 that was placed in reserve, will the Budget Bureau release any of that before June 30?

Mr. DORNY. I presume that if we had an emergency and presented our justification, that consideration would be given to it.

Mr. MARSHALL. If you do not have any emergency and if the program continued just as it is, there would be no part of that released? Mr. DORNY. No, sir.

Mr. MARSHALL. When the Budget Bureau considers these funds, do they consider them by category?

Mr. DORNY. Yes, sir.

Mr. MARSHALL. Can you shift around?

Mr. DORNY. No; each appropriation is apportioned separately. We cannot shift between them.

Mr. MARSHALL. On that kind of operation, you might have quite a lot of demand in soil-conservation operations but you could not make any shift because of the imposition of the Bureau of the Budget?

Mr. DORNY. Each appropriation is apportioned separately and the facts considered separately in connection with each. We do have a particular problem in our agency of having our work unit and field staffs and other field staffs, financed from 2, 3, 4, or 5 appropriations. This requires that we program their time and apportion it in accordance with that estimate. If the call on our employees' services does not follow that program, then we have to go through the process of trying to get approval for a shift in the approved apportionment of funds.

Mr. MARSHALL. This action of the Bureau of the Budget has imposed upon you an additional amount of work as far as bookkeeping is concerned?

APPORTIONMENT FOR PERSONAL SERVICES

Mr. DORNY. The apportionment of funds is not a new process. That has been in effect for many years. The split between personal services and nonpersonal services this year is a new apportionment step that we have had for the first time.

Mr. MARSHALL. I fully understand that in your regular apportionment work it is necessary that you apportion; but in addition to that, if I get the picture correctly from what you are telling me, you have to put in additional bookkeeping operations in order to stay within the requirements of the Bureau of the Budget?

Mr. DORNY. That is right. The total appropriation is split actually into 2 separate appropriations for apportionment purposes. Mr. MARSHALL. Have you ever made any estimate as to how much the additional work you are required to do has cost?

Mr. DORNY. In total dollars, no. It is rather difficult to estimate but it does cause us additional work. The greatest cost, I think, is in mental anguish. We have the problem, under pressure of time, of going through all of the steps necessary to find out from all allottees what shifts are necessary and to total the budgets and apportionments of all of the organizational units of the Service into a single total for each fund for each quarter to see what adjustments can be made internally within apportionments we have. We must then justify a request for changes if those adjustments cannot be made within the apportionment that we have. Since apportionments must be correlated with program plans, an increased amount of our technicians' time has had to be devoted to administrative work.

Mr. MARSHALL. All of this mental anguish and all of the additional work that you have to do in connection with getting allotments straightened out, does not put 1 penny of conservation on the land, does it?

Mr. DORNY. I would say not.

Mr. PETERSON. Obviously the answer is "No," Mr. Marshall.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I would like to supplement that statement, Mr. Marshall.

We have had to add a few additional bookkeepers and accountants as necessary in order to keep the records on this. In some cases, however, particularly in some of our State offices, it was not a matter of adding additional personnel. It would be a matter of providing for some overtime work or placing priority on jobs that needed to be done. It is difficult to determine an exact dollar figure on the cost.

RELATIONSHIP OF THE AGRICULTURAL CONSERVATION PROGRAM AND SOIL CONSERVATION PROGRAM

Mr. MARSHALL. Last fall I picked up a leading farm paper in our area, Mr. Secretary, the St. Paul Farmer. The St. Paul Farmer had quite a lot to say about the fact that you were changing the administration policies by placing ACP under the Soil Conservation Service. Do you contemplate making any change in the administration of the agricultural conservation program in this fiscal year?

Mr. PETERSON. We have had no such plans before us. We have tried to review constantly all of our conservation activities, to try to put together a total conservation plan where one part would be supporting the other and not operating independently of the other.

Mr. MARSHALL. The St. Paul Farmer is considered to be one of the most reputable farm magazines covering our area. Would you have any idea where they may have gotten such a misleading impression or misleading information?

Mr. PETERSON. I have an idea, Mr. Marshall-I cannot prove it and unless you press me-I would therefore rather not present it. Mr. MARSHALL. Your answer then is no, that you are not going to make any change in the administration of the agriculture conservation program as it relates to its operation with the soil conservation program.

If that be true, it would seem to me that people ought to quit gossiping about it.

Mr. PETERSON. We have made statements, both publicly and to various Members of the Congress, Mr. Marshall, in response to that rumor in which part of what I have just said to you was covered. We do not have presently before us for consideration any plans for such a change. When and if any changes are made in the administrative structure of the Department, there is a procedure for it under the terms of Reorganization Plan No. 2. Most certainly, if we do contemplate a change, we would want to inform the members of this committee and of the substantive committee what we were doing and why we were doing it. We would want to tell them if we intend to do so.

I would not want to say that there would never be a change. Certainly we appraise these programs continuously.

Mr. MARSHALL. But as far as you are concerned do you have a plan

now.

Mr. PETERSON. There are no current plans before the Secretary or before me envisioning any change.

Mr. WHITTEN. May I interrupt at this point and ask in that connection that pages 202, and 206 through 229 be inserted at this point in the record on the subject of watershed protection.

(The pages referred to follow :)

NOTE. Although a decrease of $11,500,000 is proposed in the appropriation for 1959, total obligations will increase $3,028,218 above those for the fiscal year 1958. Thus, total obligations in 1959 are estimated at $24,839,000 compared with obligations of $21,810,782 in the fiscal year 1958. This increase in the program level is made possible by the carryover of $10,839,000 from the fiscal year 1958 to the fiscal year 1959.

Summary of increases and decreases, 1959 (on basis of available funds) Decrease in rate of project investigations and development of watershed plans--

Increase in the Federal share of the cost of installing watershed works of improvement_.

Project statement (on basis of available funds)

-$800,000

+3, 828, 218

The Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act (Public Law 566, 83d Cong.), as amended, provides for cooperation between the Federal Government and the States and their political subdivisions in a program to prevent erosion, floodwater, and sediment damages in the watersheds of rivers and streams and to further the conservation, development, utilization, and disposal of water. The work of the Department under this item consists of the following:

1. Investigations and surveys of proposed small watershed projects upon application by local sponsoring organizations and collaboration with them in the preparation of project work plans. These plans outline the proposed works of improvement to be installed and include the estimated costs, a cost-benefit analysis, cost-sharing and maintenance arrangements, a proposed schedule of operations, and other facts needed to determine whether Federal participation in the cooperative project should be approved.

2. Participation in the installation of works of improvement in approved watershed projects. Detailed construction plans and specifications are prepared for specific flood prevention and agricultural water management features of the project. The Federal Government bears all of the construction cost of the flood prevention and related features except easement and rights-of-way, and an equitable part of the cost of construction of the agricultural water management features. Local organizations must pay all other costs. Funds are provided to local organizations for the Federal share of the cost of contracts they award for installation of works of improvement on other than Federal lands. The Federal