June 8, 19 71
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U.S. SENATE,
COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC WORKS,
Washington, D.C.,
June 7, 1971.
DEAR SENATOR: Every Senator has received a letter of June 3, 1971 from our colleague John Sherman Cooper regarding the Conference Report on S. 575. Senator Cooper is very much concerned and rightly so with the impact of clause 3 of House Rule XXVIII, which has the effect of denying the Senate an opportunity to secure changes in House language not appearing in an original Senate enactment. As Senate Conferees on the bill, we share this concern and are disturbed by the impact of this rule on the conference process. Something should and must be done to remove this impediment to a properly functioning legislative process. We do not agree. however, that the way to do, this is by rejecting the Conference Report. We disagree both procedurally and substantively.
It is not this Conference Report or its adoption that accomplishes the acquiescence to the House revision nor does adoption of the report establish the precedent. The change in Rule XXVIII was approved by Senate agreement to the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970. It is imperative that the House be prevailed upon to change its rule, which it may do without Senate concurrence, and we believe the Senate should formally make its views known to the House so that they can respond.
Senator Cooper has served his colleagues well by raising the issue but his suggested attack on the implementation of the House Rule would not serve that purpose or the Nation. Rejection of the Conference Report would disrupt and jeopardize the Appalachian Regional Development Program. It would disrupt and jeopardize the Public Works and Economic Development Act and the programs of grants and loans which it authorizes as well as the regional commissions which have been established under it. It is a rejection of the revitalization of the Accelerated Public Works Act. It was this House-passed language, which we were effectively barred from modifying, that raised the point initially.
The Senate Conferees had carefully considered and developed an alternative with broader reach. into the National unemployment crisis: We can still pursue that approach in subsequent legislation.
If unemployment nationally were not on the rise, the latest report is that we are now experiencing a 6.2% unemployment rate, which means that 5.2 million people are now unable to secure work, and if it did not mean a halt or severe delay in the prosecution of the Appalachian Regional Development program, which has reached its most productive and effective level after six years of painstaking effort to secure its proper implementation and results and if it did not mean that the Title V Commissions also engaged in important economic revitalization activities would come to a grinding halt, we would join him in seeking a modification of the House Rule. This is not a time, we respectfully suggest, for a contrast over differences of opinion as to how the conference procedure should be implemented.
Too many people stand to lose too much. We would hope that our colleagues, while accepting the warning sounded by Senator Cooper, would reject this proposed method of achieving an understanding with our colleagues in the House. We earnestly recommend that the Senate adopt the Conference Report on S. 575 which will mean much to millions of people all over the United States.
Sincerely,
JENNINGS RANDOLPH.
EDMUND S. MUSKIE.
JOSEPH M. MONTOYA.
THOMAS F. EAGLETON.