The said sums, respectively, for any fiscal year, shall be apportioned among the several States in the manner now provided by law and in accordance with the formulas set forth in section 4 of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944 approved December 20, 1944.

Any sums apportioned to any State under the provisions of this section shall be available for expenditure in that State for three fiscal years after the close of the fiscal year for which such sums are authorized, and any amount so apportioned remaining unexpended at the end of such period shall elapse: Provided, That such funds shall be deemed to have been expended if covered by formal agreement with the Commissioner of Public Roads for the improvement of a specific project as provided by this Act.

SEC. 2. For the purpose of carrying out the provisions of section 23 of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1921 (42 Stat. 218), as amended and supplemented, there is hereby authorized to be appropriated the sum of $25,000,000 for forest highways for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1950, a like sum for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1951, and a like sum for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1952; and there is hereby authorized to be appropriated the sum of $12,500,000 for forest development roads and trails for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1950, a like sum for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1951, and a like sum for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1952, subject to the proviso in section 9 of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944 respecting the apportionment for forest highways in Alaska. SEC. 3. (a) For the construction, reconstruction, improvement, and maintenance of roads and trails, inclusive of necessary bridges, in national parks, monuments, and other areas administered by the National Park Service, including areas authorized to be established as national parks and monuments, and national park and monument approach roads authorized by the Act of January 31, 1931 (46 Stat. 1053), as amended, there is hereby authorized to be appropriated the sum of $4,250,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1950, a like sum for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1951, and a like sum for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1952. (b) For the construction and maintenance of parkways, to give access to national parks and national monuments, or to become connecting sections of a national parkway plan, over lands to which title has been transferred to the United States by the States or by private individuals, there is hereby authorized to be appropriated the sum of $10,000,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1950, a like sum for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1951, and a like sum for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1952.

(c) For the construction, improvement, and maintenance of Indian reservation roads and bridges and roads and bridges to provide access to Indian reservations and Indian lands under the provisions of the Act approved May 26, 1928 (45 Stat. 750), there is hereby authorized to be appropriated the sum of $6,000,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1950, a like sum for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1951, and a like sum for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1952: Provided, That the location, type, and design of all roads and bridges constructed shall be approved by the Public Roads Administration before any expenditures are made thereon, and all such construction shall be under the general supervision of the Public Roads Administration.

SEC. 4. All provisions of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944, approved December 20, 1944 (58 Stat. 838), not inconsistent with this Act, shall remain in full force and effect.

SEC. 5. This Act may be cited as the "Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1948”.

O

80TH CONGRESS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 2d Session

{

REPORT No. 1595

DIRECTING ALL EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO MAKE AVAILABLE TO ANY AND ALL STANDING, SPECIAL, OR SELECT COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND THE SENATE, INFORMATION WHICH MAY BE DEEMED NECESSARY TO ENABLE THEM TO PROPERLY PERFORM THE DUTIES DELEGATED TO THEM BY THE CONGRESS

MARCH 22, 1948.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union and ordered to be printed

Mr. HOFFMAN, from the Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments, submitted the following

REPORT

[To accompany H. J. Res. 342]

The Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments, to whom was referred the joint resolution (H. J. Res. 342) directing all executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government to make available to any and all standing, special, or select committees of the House of Representatives and the Senate, information which may be deemed necessary to enable them to properly perform the duties delegated to them by the Congress, having considered the same, report favorably thereon with amendments and recommend that the joint resolution, as amended, do pass.

The amendments are as follows:

Page 1, line 4, after the word "Government", strike out the comma and add the words "created by the Congress,".

Page 3, line 1, strike out figure "2" and insert figure "3"; line 3, strike out figure "3" and insert figure "4".

Insert new section 2, as follows:

SEC. 2. When, by virtue of section 1, any committee of the Congress shall have received information, books, records, or memoranda from any of the departments, agencies, Secretaries, or individuals in pursuance of a request made under the authority of said section, it shall forthwith, by majority vote of the membership of said committee, determine what, if any, part of such information shall be made public and what part shall be deemed to be confidential, and it shall thereafter be unlawful for any member of said committee or any employee thereof or any other individual obtaining knowledge of such information because of the disclosure of such information to said committee, to divulge or to make known in any manner whatever not provided by law to any person any part of the informa

tion so disclosed to said committee and which has by said committee been declared to be confidential; and any offense against the foregoing provision shall be a misdemeanor and shall be punished by a fine not exceeding $1,000 or by imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both, at the discretion of the court; and, if the offender be an employee of the United States, he shall be dismissed from office or discharged from employment.

March 17, 1948, the Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments had before it for consideration House Joint Resolution 342, directing all executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government to make available to any and all standing, special, or select committees of the House of Representatives and the Senate, information which may be deemed necessary to enable them to properly perform the duties delegated to them by the Congress.

After full consideration of the joint resolution and of the amendments proposed thereto, the committee approved and ordered reported to the House of Representatives the resolution, as amended, and the chairman of said committee was directed to transmit a copy of the report to the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Partial background

PURPOSE OF THE RESOLUTION

To enable it to legislate effectively and in the interests of the public welfare, the Congress, through its committees, has sought information from the executive branch of the Government, its departments, officers, and employees.

Speaking generally, the right to such information has not been challenged either by the executive branch of the Government or by the courts. In fact, the various departments of the Government, when favoring legislation proposed by the administration in power, have been quick to assert the right to have their representatives appear and testify before congressional committees.

Occasionally, opposing some action thought to be contemplated by the Congress, the President or his subordinates have challenged the right of Congress to certain specific information either on the ground that the activity challenged was one exclusively within the authority of the Executive or that the information sought was confidential, and that to reveal it might result in giving it publicity which would injuriously affect the public welfare.

Action on the part of the Executive or the head of some Department, challenging the right of the Congress to specified information has never been confined to the representative or representatives of either political party. It has been a policy followed by the Executive who at the moment was in power.

Nor is the proposed legislation aimed at the acts of the present Executive and his subordinates, for he and they are but following in a greater or a lesser degree a position taken by the Executive of all parties. It is aimed at a practice or policy.

The issue is one between the executive and the legislative branches of the Government, regardless of political affiliations.

The practice of the Executive in denying to congressional committees information sought by those committees has gradually widened in scope. Today, committees of both the Senate and the House of Representatives find their efforts to ascertain how money appropriated by Congress is being spent, how the laws are being interpreted and

administered, whether certain legislation is effective or ineffective, are being hindered or delayed by the refusal of various officials and departments of the executive branch to make available information sought by congressional committees.

Recently a subcommittee of the Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments, charged with ascertaining the propriety of paroles granted to four members of the underworld, convicted of a conspiracy to extort a million dollars from the motion-picture industry, was by the Department of Justice denied information deemed relevant and material to its inquiry and collected by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, even though the subcommittee expressly stated that the source of the information was not requested.

To another subcommittee of the same committee, the Civil Service Commission admitted that certain derogatory information reflecting upon Senators and Congressmen had been collected and was retained without authority and without the knowledge of the members of the Commission. The CSC promised to destroy the cards carrying such information but refused to permit an agent of the Congress to ascertain whether such cards had actually been destroyed. Later and after further consideration the Commission changed its position and wrote the committee it would permit members of the committee to inspect the files.

It should be noted that in this case the members of the CSC each testified that such information had been collected or was being preserved in the CSC files. The subcommittee in this instance thought that, inasmuch as the CSC did not know the information had been collected, it might not know whether it had been destroyed.

A subcommittee of the Committee on Education and Labor of the House of Representatives, charged with making an inquiry into the manner in which the Taft-Hartley law was being administered, whether the Taft-Hartley Act was aiding and correcting the conditions which it was enacted to improve, caused subpenas to be served upon John R. Steelman, directing him to appear before the subcommittee on two separate occasions.

Mr. Steelman failed to appear on either occasion, though personally served; returned the subpenas to the chairman of the subcommittee with a letter stating, among other things, that "in each instance the President directed me, in view of my duties as his assistant, not to appear before your subcommittee."

Last October, the Civil Service Commission advised a subcommittee of this committee that it had been directed by the President not to submit a so-called "key loyalty list" which had been requested by the subcommittee.

March 13, last, the President issued a directive to all officers and employees in the executive branch of the Government, which is as follows:

The efficient and just administration of the employee loyalty program, under Executive Order No. 9835 of March 21, 1947, requires that reports, records, and files relative to the program be preserved in strict confidence. This is necessary in the interest of our national security and welfare, to preserve the confidential character and sources of information furnished, and to protect Government personnel against the dissemination of unfounded or disproved allegations. It is necessary also in order to insure the fair and just disposition of loyalty cases. For these reasons, and in accordance with the long-established policy that reports rendered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other investigative

agencies of the executive branch are to be regarded as confidential, all reports, records, and files relative to the loyalty of employees or prospective employees (including reports of such investigative agencies) shall be maintained in confidence and shall not be transmitted or disclosed except as required in the efficient conduct of business.

Any subpena or demand or request for information, reports, or files of the nature described, received from sources other than those persons in the executive branch of the Government who are entitled thereto by reason of their officia! duties, shall be respectfully declined, on the basis of this directive, and the subpena or demand or other request shall be referred to the Office of the President for such response as the President may determine to be in the public interest in the particular case. There shall be no relaxation of the provisions of this directive except with my express authority.

This directive shall be published in the Federal Register.

THE WHITE HOUSE, March 13, 1948.

HARRY S. TRUMAN.

To a congressional committee, the Committee on Un-American Activities, the Secretary of Commerce has recently refused to give certain information requested by that committee.

The issue

The issue raised by this resolution is clear and basic. No claim is made that the Congress has the right to challenge the actions of the executive or of the judiciary while acting within the scope of the authority given by the Constitution. Those departments of the Government are created by the Constitution, and congressional power over them is limited to removal from office through constitutional procedure.

It is the claim of the proponents of this resolution that, inasmuch as the Congress is charged with the authority to create-and it has created various executive departments and agencies, and as it is charged with the duty of appropriating funds and enacting legislation for the proper and effective activities of those agencies, it not only has the right but the duty to seek and obtain from every agency created by it and which, for its existence, depends upon appropriations by Congress, all relevant, needed information necessary to the enactment of proper legislation.

The issue then is: Shall the Congress insist that departments created by it, dependent upon its will for existence, give to its committees the information necessary to enable it to act intelligently and wisely, or shall it permit its creatures to arbitrarily determine what information the Congress shall or shall not have?

The remedy

Inasmuch as both Senate and House committees find their legitimate activities sometimes impeded and occasionally thwarted by the action of the executive departments, the proper remedy would seem to be not special legislation enacted to meet a particular situation but over-all legislation by the Congress which, subject to court decision, will settle the question as to the authority of the Congress to demand information from the executive departments.

It is recognized that there may, on occasion, be information in the possession of the executive departments, publicity of which would injuriously affect the national welfare. This so-called confidential information is, in the first instance, in the hands of an executive branch of the Government. There have in the past been, not one but several, occasions when, for example, the State Department or