CONGRESSIONAL RECORD -- SENATE

January 25, 1967

Page 1504

NATIONAL INTERGOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS COUNCIL

Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I introduce for appropriate reference a bill to establish a National Intergovernmental Affairs Council in the Executive Office of the President to coordinate Federal aid programs and policy, and to develop a closer liaison between the Chief Executive and State and local officials.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill remain at the desk for 10 days to give other Senators an opportunity to join as cosponsors.

This bill is identical to S. 3509 which I introduced on June 15, 1966, and has been the subject of hearings by the Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations during this past November. It is the first in a package of proposals I shall introduce to improve the implementation of Federal assistance to States and localities and to develop a more cooperative relationship among our several levels of Government.

It is also my intention to suggest once again an Intergovernmental Cooperation Act which, among other things, would provide a policy of coordinating Federal programs affecting urban areas in accordance with local planning objectives. This legislation will contain a dynamic new proposal to permit the President to submit plans for consolidating existing grant programs within broad functional areas subject to the type of congressional veto provisions that govern executive reorganization plans. This would place on the Chief Executive broad responsibility for modernizing the Federal aid system.

Shortly thereafter, I shall introduce a new Intergovernmental Personnel Act which would provide a comprehensive Federal assistance program to improve State and local personnel and training programs. This will focus on four prime problem areas: merit systems, personnel management, in-service training, and interchange of Federal, State, and local employees.

These three areas -- program coordination, grant-in-aid modernization, and improved manpower -- present critical challenges for our American Federal system in the years ahead.

The accelerating demands of a growing citizenry are beginning to spill over in public tension and violence. More and more people are asking the hard questions about our Federal system: As the country grows, will it be capable of meeting the needs of all our citizens? Where in the machinery of Government -- Federal, State, and local -- must repairs be made, and new methods introduced? How can available public and private resources be joined to solve the problems of a viable America and get the best mileage for the dollar spent?

More and more we hear talk in the Congress, in the administration, in academic circles, and among State and local leaders about a "new federalism" -- one that will provide a working partnership between the Federal Government and the States and localities to help them coordinate their resources and plan their public development. This has been called cooperative federalism, creative federalism, even dynamic federalism, but it all adds up to the same thing: better government at all levels through modern management techniques, more professional manpower, and more money.

During the past six sessions, Congress has concentrated on the substance of new programs designed to help State and local governments solve their social and economic problems. It has appropriated more Federal-aid money than in all the previous Congresses going back to 1789.

Now the spotlight must be shifted to the procedure of intergovernmental administration. We must take a new, hard look at our Federal-aid system, and develop a new approach toward helping State and local governments apply their resources to solve public problems. We must develop a "creative federalism" based on coordination and cooperation among governments, not conflict and confusion as too often has developed in the past.

The success of the Federal effort can only be as good as the machinery that carries it to the people. The heaviest burden of managing the Great Society falls on the States and localities. They are on the firing line. They are the first to feel the heat of public dissatisfaction.

Through a comprehensive questionnaire survey of Federal, State, and local officials, from 4 years of testimony from witnesses knowledgeable in State and local administration, and from other informational sources, the Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations has received a pretty thorough picture of the tensions and problems of State and local officials who are trying to implement Federal programs with their own efforts. It has found that these officials face an incredible numbers game in seeking and administering Federal assistance, which is leaving them confused and discouraged.

Federal aid expenditures have moved from less than a billion dollars in 1946 to nearly $15 billion for this fiscal year. By 1975, it is expected that this figure will quadruple.

There are now on the books over 220 major Federal aid programs, enmeshed in some 400 authorizations.

Federal aid is presently being administered by 21 Federal agencies, with over 150 major bureaus and offices in Washington alone; and by some 400 regional and subregional offices in the field.

There are 2.6 million Federal employees involved in our domestic assistance activities.

There are over 75 different programs requiring planning as a condition of grants. Such requirements range from plans for specific functions or projects, to area wide comprehensive plans.

There are project grants and apportioned grants, formula grants and open-ended grants, shared revenues, loans, and technical assistance. Some Federal programs are processed through State agencies; others go directly to local governments. Some require the approval of planning bodies; some do not; and they all combine to provide a barrage of differing requirements and conditions which often conflict with State and local procedures, making effective use of Federal aid extremely difficult and, in many cases, impossible. One local official explained it to me this way recently:

We spend an enormous amount of time running down the available programs, doing the planning, satisfying the requirements, cutting through red tape, and coming up with the matching money. Then when we finally get the project intact, what happens? The Federal money has run out. It's our biggest headache.

But no where in the Federal Government can State and local officials take their problems in a package, and get an across-the-board analysis of what they need, what they are entitled to, and what planning must be done to get the full benefit of available Federal aid. There is no effective policy of putting programs together and funding them on a coordinated development basis. In fact, the subcommittee survey disclosed all too clearly that when State and local administrators attempt to develop their own broad plans for public development, they run smack into the traditional hostility of Federal bureaucrats toward program coordination and comprehensive planning.

These two general problems -- program fragmentation and the "tunnel vision" of Federal administrators -- are creating the biggest threat to our Federal aid system today. We must get out of the rut of functionalism, and look at public problems and solutions on a comprehensive,

area wide basis. Merely piling new Federal programs upon old ones, and scattering more Federal money in diverse directions are not going to help community development. We must consolidate what we have, and focus on the priority areas in line with comprehensive planning at the local level. Federal aid must be made more flexible and more adaptable in order to get to the people in the fastest and most effective way.

A first step in this direction is the establishment of a coordinating agency at the right hand of the President to pull the Federal establishment together and promote comprehensive planning at State and local levels.

In the next few days, I shall introduce legislation which would further assist the Chief Executive in carrying out this important task.

The complexity and fragmentation of Federal grants not only inhibits a coordinated approach to solving community problems, it reduces the control of Governors and mayors over their budgets.

Decisions on grants are made between individual Washington bureaus and State and local agencies, frequently bypassing State and local chief executives. And information to these executives is usually very limited.

The overall system of grants is not related to State and local needs. Too much money is available for some purposes, too little for others. The extraordinary differences in terms, conditions, and matching requirements tend to tempt administrators, as the Director of the Bureau of the Budget, Mr. Schultze, testified recently, "to go after the easy money -- to maximize the intake of available Federal funds -- at the expense of meeting priorities and creating a balanced development program."

Narrow categorical grants create a host of bookkeeping and auditing problems. Furthermore, there is no rational pattern of matching requirements, even within the same agency or same function. Varying requirements and lack of sound criteria have resulted in shopping around for Federal programs and a diversion of local resources from one program to another without any basic adherence to priorities.

Of particular importance is the lack of my consistent pattern of equalization provisions, a means by which more funds are allocated to the poorer States incapable of having the fiscal capacity to meet their urgent needs. As of January 1966, only 31 of our Federal programs had equalization factors. Furthermore, we have not developed any valid or consistent indexes of State fiscal capacity or tax effort for use in determining the equitable apportionment of funds to the States.

Federal planning requirements are duplicative and confusing.

This duplication, testified the Budget Bureau Director --

can defeat the very purpose for which planning is sought.... In some areas we may be over planning, while serious planning gaps exist elsewhere.

There are project plans, function plans, general plans, area wide plans, multifunction plans, and comprehensive planning. This has put an inordinate pressure on governments with limited resources, and in some cases they have had to forgo the Federal aid because they could not afford to do the planning or set up the required planning agency.

Physical boundaries of State and local planning entities that have been developed and recognized by Federal agencies vary unnecessarily, and the situation has become sufficiently acute to cause the President to issue a special memorandum to departments involved, calling for "common and consistent planning bases," in accord with established State planning districts and regions. The shortage of qualified planning personnel is severe, according to the Budget Bureau, and this is aggravated by the multiplicity of planning requirements and inadequate coordination among the agencies.

The Budget Bureau recently completed a series of fact-finding surveys in major cities in some five States to identify the nature of the problems that Governors and local officials were having in doing business with the Federal Government. One of the problems it found was the need to improve the cooperation of Federal agencies at the regional level. Variations in boundaries and office locations caused confusion, in many instances resulting in a tendency to deal directly with Washington. Some western regions are too large. There is not sufficient delegation of authority at field levels to deal with interagency and intergovernmental conflicts. There are too many levels of application review, often leaving State and local officials in the dark as to the status of their projects. The Bureau found that there is great uncertainty regarding the availability and timing of Federal funds, causing widespread criticism of the Federal grant program. Delays in funding, for whatever reason, have caused funds to be rejected, wasted, or to lie unused; made advance program planning and orderly recruiting at State and local levels impossible; and created difficulties for State legislatures in respect to matching funds.

In too many instances, Federal actions are taken and regulations prescribed without sufficient consideration of State and local laws, government structure, and financial and administrative capabilities. State and local officials say they are contacted seldom, if ever, for comments on Federal regulations in draft. A number of Washington-established standards and guidelines are unrealistic for implementing programs, especially in small towns and rural areas.

The developing problems in the administration of Federal assistance to State and local governments can only increase as the programs proliferate, and the bureaucratic labyrinth expands. Much of the blame for the confusion and fragmentation can be laid at the door of Congress. But at the same time, the executive branch, with its traditional budgetary emphasis on functionalism and its built-in hostility toward coordination, is also at fault.

Our studies over the past 3 years have underscored the need for coordination and management reform in Federal aid. Governors' conferences have complained about the problem, mayors have called for reform, county and rural area representatives have called attention to the plight of local officials trying to find their way through a maze of Federal programs and requirements. The best programs in the world will only be as good as their implementation. We must do everything we can to insure effective implementation of the programs we have enacted.

People have been studying these problems for years. Unfortunately, their studies have been buried too long in academic treatises and lengthy reports. But we now know the problems and we cannot afford further time to look backward. We must start now -- in this Congress, in this session -- to put the Federal house in order, and develop a simpler, more flexible approach to helping State and local governments.

The legislation I am suggesting today would establish a new and centralized mechanism at the right hand of the President to assess these Federal assistance problems, and to develop policies of coordination and consolidation, with a special concern for the interests of State and local officials who are administering the assistance.

The National Intergovernmental Affairs Council would be chaired by the President and composed of the Vice President and those Cabinet officials and agency heads whose programs have a major impact on State and local government. It would be -- and I emphasize this -- a "working" organization both to advise the President and to see that agreed-upon administrative procedures are carried out and made effective. It would have a top-flight Executive Secretary in direct contact with the President. The Council's secretariat would be composed of experts independently selected and directly responsible to the Executive Secretary and to the President. This secretariat would be assisted by top-level policy officials -- no lower than assistant secretaries or equivalent -- from the departments and agencies specially designated to handle program coordination and intergovernmental relations.

The role of the NIAC is expected to be a broad one. It would go far beyond the staff responsibilities of the Bureau of the Budget and the Council of Economic Advisers, but nevertheless would utilize the resources of these offices. It would be a staff and operating arm of the President -- a forum for determining administrative policies for domestic program coordination, and a mechanism for overseeing their implementation. At the same time, it could be the President's ombudsman, a watchdog for domestic crisis, a central source of information on programs and needs, and a monitor of program effectiveness. It would be concerned with both urban and rural development -- as a multi departmental responsibility involving education, housing, transportation, public facilities, law enforcement, civil rights, and other issues.

It would play a strategic role in national long-range planning, and assist State and local governments in their own developmental efforts.

The Council is an entirely different concept from a Cabinet committee. It would be actively run by the President; its Executive Secretary would speak for the President in developing policy by which departments and agencies are to be coordinated and intergovernmental conflicts resolved.

Cabinet members and agency heads would be, in essence, advisers to the Executive Secretary in developing policy for Presidential approval. After policy decisions are made, the operating departments would be responsible for carrying them out, but the Council's Executive Secretary would be directly responsible to the President for seeing that the job is done in a timely and effective manner. As members of the Council, department heads could, of course, appeal to the President those recommendations of the Executive Secretary and his staff with which they disagree, but it is hoped that most of the controversies would be resolved before reaching the President.

A National Intergovernmental Affairs Council, as its name implies, would be essentially oriented toward helping States and local communities develop all available resources to better meet their expanding public needs. Through NIAC's offices, the President would have the opportunity to be constantly informed about any area in the country as to its problems and requirements. The President would have the means of developing flexible and more direct relationships with State and local leaders. And the States and localities, in turn, could be secure in knowing that "someone up there" in the complex of the Washington bureaucracy was concerned with their problems.

In this respect, NIAC could also provide the leadership and the organization for calling conferences of governors, mayors, and other leaders for a review of national and regional problems and for the development of new approaches to meet intergovernmental needs. Such conferences and special meetings with the Council's secretariat would be helpful to the Federal Government in getting an up-to-date assessment of regional, State, and local problems. They would be helpful to the States and local governments because they would provide a form for the airing of complaints and the discussion of new proposals.

The main point is that the President would have a special assistant and an institution through which he could pull the Federal Establishment together and direct smoother intergovernmental implementation of Federal aid programs.

The subcommittee heard testimony on this proposal to establish a Council, and on problems of managing Federal aid programs, from the Secretaries of HUD, Labor, HEW, Interior, Commerce, the Deputy Director of OEO, and the Director of the Bureau of the Budget. These officials were frank in admitting that our Federal aid system was in urgent need of consolidation and coordination at the Washington level and in the field, and that communication and cooperation between the Federal Government and State and local administrators was inadequate. Most agreed that something has to be done about this situation at the top executive level, and that, in fact, efforts were already underway to resolve these problems.

I have examined these efforts toward better coordination and intergovernmental cooperation, and I am frank to say that I find them inadequate. They seem to be more of an effort to get around the problems than going to the heart and solving them.

The executive branch has devised what is called a convener authority in the Secretary of HUD and in the Secretary of Agriculture to develop interagency coordination in their respective fields of urban and rural affairs. But when we look behind the fine print, we find that this is merely an authority of a Cabinet officer of equal, if not lesser, rank with other Cabinet officials, to call special meetings for the purpose of discussing coordination problems and obtaining advice on cooperating with State and local agencies. This is nothing but another interagency committee, and merely a discussion group, at that -- the very thing we must avoid. There is no provision for leadership, no power in the convener to hammer out intergovernmental policies subject to appeal to the President. There is no provision for a working secretariat either to develop the agenda or monitor the implementation and effectiveness of coordination policy, if any such policy comes out of the meetings. Nor is there any established machinery for carrying out convener decisions at regional, State, and local levels, where coordination is most needed. Further, there is no real mandate from the President to department and agency heads to cooperate with the convener; the order just says that they shall "participate in meetings convened." Finally, there have been few, if any, meetings attended by Cabinet officials, and there does not appear to be any requirement that an overall agreed-upon plan of coordination and intergovernmental cooperation be worked out and sent to the President within a stated time.

When we asked about the merits of the convener policy, we were told: "Give us time to experiment with this new idea." I submit that there is not very much time left to bring order out of the confusion of Federal aid administration, and that experiments such as this may only add to the confusion rather than alleviate it.

Witnesses referred to another coordinating device in the urban field -- that of the Office of Urban Program Coordination, which Congress specifically established directly under the Secretary of HUD to assist him in obtaining maximum coordination of Federal programs affecting urban development. It was expected that the Secretary would have a full-time, high-level staff of sufficient power to exact cooperation from the other agencies, but on inspection we find that, instead of sitting at the Secretary's right hand as Congress intended, the director of this office is tucked away as one of three sub-level officials under an assistant secretary, which leaves serious doubt in my mind whether he will ever be able to get an effective accommodation in his own department, let alone someone else's. If he does not get that cooperation, the whole demonstration cities program could well break down. When we get to the issue of developing effective machinery for maximum Federal grant coordination at the regional, State, and local levels, the HUD picture becomes even more confused.

In the anti-poverty area, we were told of the Economic Opportunity Council, whose mandate was to marshal all Federal resources in the war on poverty. But, again, on inspection we find that this, too, is just another interagency committee. It has met only eight times this year, and a half-dozen times last year. It has no real staffing; it is headed, again, by an official of lesser Cabinet rank. It has no mechanism for monitoring the effectiveness of the few coordination "treaties" that OEO has worked out with other agencies. Its meetings have been generally attended by subordinate officials with little decision making power.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, with a full-time staff, meet weekly and perhaps more frequently on the Vietnam conflict, yet the overall coordinating council in the war on poverty meets eight times a year, and has no permanent staff. This gives me special concern as, indeed, it should every Member of Congress.

We were referred to the device of interagency committees and task forces with responsibilities for resolving conflicts between two or more functions within and between departments. The subcommittee is making a comprehensive assessment of these interagency groups, and the orders and agreements which have emanated from them. We have already counted over 100 of them. Most have had few, if any, meetings during the past year; most have no permanent staffing; nearly all are attended primarily by officials below assistant secretary rank. And the treaties they work out are more directed to keeping one agency out of another's function than putting the functions together in an effective package. As for monitoring coordination policy in the field, only the President's Committee on Manpower appears to have developed any meaningful activity.

Speaking of the interagency committee device, Secretary Gardner said: "Most of them are monumentally ineffective."

The Office of Management and Organization of the Bureau of the Budget is supposed to have an overall responsibility for agency coordination and liaison capacity for dealing with State and local leaders, but when it comes to developing and implementing broad policies of interdepartmental coordination and planning keyed to solving overall problems on a multi-functional basis, it has not been effective. By nature, and by history, the Bureau is not sufficiently oriented to this kind of management responsibility; it has been concerned primarily with budgeting, economy, and functional performance rather than promoting program

flexibility and new approaches. Nor has the Bureau developed any effective machinery for dealing with State and local leaders in understanding their major problems, and working out across-the-board solutions. It has only a few professional employees assigned to intergovernmental problems, whose main liaison has been with the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations and with State budget officers, rather than with State and local administrators in the field.

The one encouraging piece of testimony in the hearings was Secretary Gardner's description of his recent reorganization of policy positions at HEW. First, he considers himself to be the chief coordinator; then he has separated his management arm from his budgeting people, and on the management side he has set up three substantive assistant secretaries whose prime responsibilities are to coordinate programs in the fields of health, education, and individual and family services, respectively. Five additional assistant secretaries deal with separate functional fields.

Further, Secretary Gardner has strengthened the coordinating role of HEW regional directors, whose responsibility it is to develop better intergovernmental relations. These regional directors represent the Secretary in the field. Further he has a special Office of Intergovernmental Relations in Washington, and a Director of Field Coordination who handles all of the field office problems.

Indeed, the HEW model, with its separation of management coordination from budget activities, and with its direct application of coordination and intergovernmental cooperation at regional levels, is precisely the same idea behind my proposed NIAC for modernizing the total Federal aid administration.

Recently -- in fact, during the course of preparation for our hearings on this legislation -- the President took three specific actions which underscored his commitment to improve coordination, policy direction, and management of national programs affecting State and local governments.

On November 11 he instructed his Cabinet officers to cooperate with State and local officials to make Federal aid programs more workable at the point of impact.

On November 17 he directed Federal departments and agencies to make more effective use of the planning-programing-budgeting system.

On the same day he issued an Executive order establishing Operation TAP -- Talent for America's Progress -- a program for improving the talent pool for top management responsibility.

I am impressed with these actions, as I am with the steps Secretary of HEW Gardner has taken to coordinate the sprawling responsibilities of his Department.

But all this is not enough.

There are many talented men in President Johnson's administration. They have made an honest effort to reduce the problem of coordination and management in their own departments. But I must observe that, on the subject of overall coordination, all they are offering the President is a patchwork of proposals, none of which goes to the heart of the problem.

As I see it, there are three roads we can travel to solve our crisis in coordination and management:

First. We can combine Federal programs to reduce the proliferation which confuses State and local administrators;

Second. We can reorganize the executive branch to concentrate programs under fewer agencies; and

Third. We can develop an effective and flexible method of policy coordination in Washington and in the field.

I suspect we shall have to travel all three roads at once. No one proposal and no one technique will be adequate.

My mind is still open on the most effective approach to the problem. But, on the basis of our November hearings, it is evident that the interagency committees and the convener authorities fall far short of the standards we must achieve. Single agencies or departments, acting under delegated authority or in concert, are not adequate to the task. The final answer, or answers, must rest in the Executive Office of the President. The coordination must have a broader base than budget considerations, a deeper significance than effective operations, and a bigger goal than day-to-day management.

Quite frankly, I feel that the proposed National Intergovernmental Affairs Council is closest to the mark.

I ask unanimous consent that the bill remain at the desk for 10 days to give other Senators an opportunity to join as cosponsors, and I also ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the RECORD at this point.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The bill will be received and appropriately referred; and, without objection, the bill will lie at the desk as requested and will be printed in the RECORD.

The bill (S. 671) to establish a National Intergovernmental Affairs Council, introduced by Mr. MUSKIE (for himself and Mr. CLARK), was received, read twice by its title, referred to the Committee on Government Operations, and ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows: