an appropriation for 90%1⁄2 man-years, according to the recommendations made to Congress, that is the way the appropriation should be used. There is also a provision in title 31 of section 665 of the Code, which says: No executive department or other Government establishment of the United States shall expend, in any one fiscal year, any sum in excess of appropriations made by Congress for that fiscal year. So, it would seem to me that this section would apply in making you divide your appropriation by 12, and then Congress would have a definite idea as to how the money is being spent. I call those provisions to your attention for your information. How many employees do you have engaged in personnel management, as described on page 6 of your justifications? Dr. SEARS. There are 10 positions paid from this appropriation, engaged in what would be called personnel management. Mr. JONES. What is involved in personnel management? Dr. SEARS. Everything in the way of recruitment, appointments, and all the changes of status of employees, efficiency ratings, separations, changes in grades, transfers of headquarters, and so forth. The number of such actions has increased from 854 in the calendar year 1940 to 2,459 in the calendar year 1944. It also involves all matters of deferments, and the preparing of special personnel-statistical reports required by the Civil Service Commission, or by the Budget Bureau for the establishment of quarterly ceilings, or called for by committees or members of Congress. Mr. JONES. Are these the same duties and functions of employees' relations officers? Dr. SEARS. We have only one employee relations officer. Her function is to consider any complaints the employees may have; to try to help them; to hold-as required by the Civil Service Commission-what are known as exit interviews with employees who are proposing to leave so as to find out whether they have any causes of dissatisfaction which can be removed, in order that we may not lose employees and then suffer the expense of trying to replace them by teaching new employees all over again. Mr. JONES. Have you encouraged any counseling of employees in regard to outside affairs? Dr. SEARS. There is practically nothing of that sort. However, if an employee comes to our employee relations officer and asks about some personal problem, I suppose she would give the best advice she could, especially if it has a bearing on the employee's state of mind for official duties. Mr. JONES. You do not propose any increase that would comprehend the hiring of a psychiatrist, like some departments propose, to go into matters outside of departmental relations? Dr. SEARS. No, we have no such intention. Mr. JONES. When was the Geological Survey created? Dr. SEARS. In 1879. Mr. JONES. It is still gowing? Dr. SEARS. It has been growing very rapidly during the war years, because we have been assigned a number of important war tasks. Mr. JONES. What about those other, larger authorities and responsibilities described on page 6, delegated to the Geological Survey by the Department of the Interior for 1945 and 1946? Dr. SEARS. You are referring to personnel functions rather than to the general investigations of a technical nature carried out by our branches? Mr. JONES. You say in your justification: The constantly increasing requirements of personnel management for more effective conduct of the operations of the growing bureau, together with the Department's delegation to the bureaus of larger authorities and responsibilities in all phases of personnel work, have made necessary the immediate strengthening of the Survey's personnel-management group by the addition of a minimum of five positions. I take it from that that your entire department is expanding also. Dr. SEARS. That is quite true, but the delegation referred to at this point was in connection with personnel management duties from the department. The department has given us the duty to make more definite studies of job classifications, to get positions classified in the proper grades, to study them and discuss them directly with the Civil Service Commission's investigators in their classification studies, rather than to go to the department and have them restudied and set up in detail before releasing them to the Civil Service Commission. This particular work is intended to make for greater efficiency and time saving. So we now have a classification examiner, discussed in the last part of this program, and an assistant to him, and he has been making very intensive studies of a number of Survey groups. For example, we have a big unit stationed in Clarendon for topographic mapping from air photographs by multiplex machines. There was much doubt and confusion as to whether those people were in proper grades for their work, and they had gotten one of the locals of one of the unions to complain that we were paying different rates for the same kind of work. Mr. JONES. Your employees belong to unions in the department? Dr. SEARS. That is right. Mr. JONES. They all belong to a union? Dr. SEARS. Not all, but a number of them in that group had joined one of the locals and they were complaining of the salary schedules, saying that they were all out of line. This classification examiner became available, and that was the first assignment we gave him, and he made an intensive study of the job assignments at Clarendon to put them on an orderly basis, so that the employees would be put into proper grades with proper pay. Mr. JONES. Does not the Civil Service Commission describe the jobs so that that would not be necessary? Dr. SEARS. They do for the departmental service, but these jobs are in the field service, not under the direct authority of the Civil Service Commission. Although the Civil Service Commission has recently undertaken the task of reviewing the allocation of all jobs in the field service, that very large task is just beginning. Mr. JONES. Why is it necessary for you to have personnel to do the same thing? Dr. SEARS. The Civil Service Commission has no way of making a study of the personnel of all of our jobs existing every day. We have 1,500 or 1,600 jobs in the field service which have to be carefully studied and analyzed in accordance with the classification laws and practices and allocated to proper grades with proper salaries if our day-by-day field work is to proceed. Mr. JONES. Have you described all of the increased functions which the Secretary's office gave the personnel service in the department? If not, I wish you would do that and put that information in the record. Dr. SEARS. Yes; I will be glad to do that. (The information requested is as follows:) In addition to the tasks of job-classification studies and employee relations, already discussed, the assignment included the following matters: (a) The establishment and maintenance of appropriate records affecting employees; (b) the review of personnel for suitable placement in positions that become vacant by separations or transfers, including the review of records of men in the armed forces to insure their advancement to higher jobs they might otherwise miss; (c) possibilities of in-service training for the improvement of the service; (d) immediate reinstatement of former employees upon discharge from military or naval service; (e) studies and recommendations for procedure in connection with wage-hour employees; and (f) review of necessary material and make-up of Ramspeck promotions. INFORMATION SERVICE Mr. JONES. In connection with the section on current information, is that engaged in publicity work? Dr. SEARS. There is no such section at present. That is something we are asking to have authorized for next year. Mr. JONES. You do not have it at all now? Dr. SEARS. No, sir. We have explained briefly, and we hope convincingly, in the justifications our reasons for thinking it will be more effective, by centralizing it in one place, rather than having it scattered around in different places, to perform any of the tasks listed there, which are not propaganda tasks. They are compiling and furnishing to various groups certain kinds of information which we are called upon frequently to furnish. Mr. JONES. You will not establish this unit unless Congress appropriates money for these positions? Dr. SEARS. No, sir. Mr. JONES. As I get it from reading your justification, this information service will be a feeder for the departmental information service as a whole? Dr. SEARS. We will be subject to their general supervision, but the service would be something different and broader than that alone. As explained in our justification, this section would also prepare much technical and semitechnical material that we now have to prepare and supply in response to many calls from congressional committees, from organizations and individuals, for many purposes. It can be more efficiently and economically done by a group having that as a specialty, rather than as at present by having it done by our already busy administrative and technical men. Mr. JONES. What would the cost be per annum for the entire information section, how many positions would there be, and what other expenses do you propose? Dr. SEARS. As stated on page 7 of our justification, there are three positions involved, one at $4,600, one at $2,000, and one at $1,620. Mr. JONES. Will any other expenses be provided for? Dr. SEARS. There are no other expenses, except items like stationery, which any of our employees use now in writing or preparing statements. Mr. JONES. So far as the Geological Survey is concerned, I have never heard one word of criticism, and you have apparently gotten along fine without a publicity staff, and I cannot understand why it is, if your work is satisfactory and you are doing a good job, which you apparently are why you are making a request for this increase and why you need a publicity agent in any year. Dr. WRATHER. This staff is not designed for publicity in the sense of propaganda. It is for the preparation of the innumerable reports on a great variety of subjects that we are called upon to supply to the public. The public looks to the Geological Survey for a wide variety of technical and scientific information. Mr. JONES. It looks to me like it is going to be a matter of publicity because it provides for furnishing photographs, both technical and popular. That popular business is one of the things that specialists all exploit. Dr. WRATHER. In the matter of photographs, the Survey has accumulated through many years an enormous amount of photography on geologic and engineering subjects of great value in illustrating textbooks. Since the beginning of the Survey in 1879, there has been a demand for information of that sort. Since we do not have a staff to assemble and prepare such data, technical men must be taken away from the work for which they are employed to do this sort of thing. We think it will be a matter of economy and efficiency to have a small unit for this particular purpose. Mr. JONES. What authority do you have for furnishing this type of material to newspapers and magazines? Dr. WRATHER. Do you mean photographs? Mr. JONES. All technical material. Why could not they get it from your annual reports to Congress? Dr. SEARS. There is legislation, Mr. Jones, not only authorizing but directing the Survey to furnish photographs to persons or organizations in the interest of education and the dissemination of knowledge. Mr. JONES. Would you cite that section? Dr. SEARS. I would be glad to do that: U. S. C., title 43, sec. 45, provides that The Director of the Geological Survey shall furnish to any person, concern, or institution, in the interest of education and the dissemination of knowledge, that shall pay in advance the whole cost of material and services thereof, copies of any photographs or lantern slides in the possession of the United States Geological Survey, and the moneys received by the director for the same shall be deposited in the United States Treasury. Under this provision we do not attempt to drum up trade, for the more requests we receive and the more photographs we furnish, the poorer we become, because we have to pay for making the copies but the money received goes into miscellaneous receipts. I know of no comparable law requiring us to furnish text material, but we respond to legitimate requests as a public service. Mr. JONES. It would seem to me that your employees, your technical experts, would be the best judges of what should be given out, rather than to have some men in the newspaper business, or some writer come in and work with the Geological Survey, because you do not need them; you are doing good work, apparently. LETTER OF LAYNE-WESTERN CO., WATER CONTRACTORS (See p. 639) Mr. JENSEN. Mr. Chairman, I have received a letter from Congressman Walter H. Judd, of Minnesota, in which he encloses a letter from the Layne-Western Co., water contractors of Minneapolis, Minn. Mr. Judd says, in his letter to me: CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, The Honorable BEN F. JENSEN, Member of Congress, DEAR BEN: Enclosed is a letter received recently from a firm in my district saying uncomplimentary things about the plans of the United States Geological Survey to use the public money for some purposes which he believes can be handled better by private company. This will be under your subcommittee and I pass it on for what it is worth. Sincerely yours, WALTER H. JUDD. The letter which Mr. Judd sent to me I will read, and then I would like to have you comment on it. It says: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Washington, D. C. (Attention: Mr. Walter C. Judd) LAYNE-WESTERN Co., Minneapolis, Minn., February 26, 1945. DEAR MR. JUDD: I am writing you relative to the proposed appropriation for the United States Geological Survey, which I understand, comes under the Department of Interior, and would be broken down into a subcommittee of the House and Senate, under appropriations. The United States Geological Survey has been in existence for many years, and has done some very commendable work. It seems now that they have plans under way for a great expansion of their activity, and in certain phases it is directly competitive with private industry. My remarks will be confined entirely to the surveys that they make with respect to underground water supplies, which is our business. Practically all of the information that they have concerns such as ourselves, and others, who give them logs of wells that have been drilled in the development of water supplies. In recent years, however, they have seen fit to purchase, or lease, State-owned machines, in certain cases to do their own drilling. On the reports of the jobs that I have seen, it would probably be safely estimated that they spend $5 for each $1 that a private concern such as ourselves would charge for doing the same work. Upon completion, they submit a report of the underground conditions, whereas we, for example, guarantee a customer a certain quantity of water. We follow the job through to completion and make it available. The plan is that they send out their representatives to municipalities, and tell them that they will spend $3 for each $1 the municipality spends, running a survey on their underground water conditions, which is, in a great many cases, competitive with private industry. Their men go in the role of salesmen to convince the customer that here is a chance to obtain something for almost nothing. As a matter of fact, the over-all cost would easily run five times what it would do if it were done by organizations that have been in existence for many years, and who have developed all of the ground water supplies used by industries and municipalities in this and foreign countries. It would therefore be greatly appreciated if you could give us the names of the people on the subcommittee that have direct influence with this appropriation, as it is our thought that either through our own Representatives, such as yourself, or perhaps electing someone to speak for us to make known the facts to these committees before the appropriations are acted upon. We are attaching a reprint taken from Engineering News Record, January 11, 1945, which shows the extent to which they plan to expand, and we should like to |