September 20, 1973
Page 30645
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I must oppose the conference report on S. 1636, a bill authorizing funds for the President's Council on International Economic Policy and giving the Council broad new authority. The conference report, while providing for Senate confirmation of all future nominees to the position of Executive Director of the Council, exempts the present Executive Director from this requirement. This is contrary to the position taken by the Senate last May, in a bill which passed this body by a vote of 72-21, and it is contrary to the position taken by the four Senate committees – Finance, Foreign Relations, Government Operations and Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs – to which this bill was referred.
So the Senate's position on this issue is clear. Yet in July, four of the seven Senate conferees agreed to abandon the provision requiring confirmation of the present Executive Director – before the conferees from the House even made known their views on the issue. Rejection of the conference report would at least assure that the Senate's position in this matter receives a full hearing in conference.
Requiring confirmation of the current Executive Director is essential. The bill before us would more than double the size of the CIEP staff, making it larger than the Council on Environmental Quality, Domestic Council or Council of Economic Advisers. Moreover, if S. 1636 is enacted, CIEP would be granted new policymaking power in the area of international trade and monetary policy. The Office of Special Trade Representative would be absorbed by the Council. In effect, we would be giving the Executive Director of CIEP authority over negotiators with the rank of ambassador, and giving him new policymaking authority as well.
In fact, the current Executive Director was recently in Japan engaging in multilateral discussions on trade and tariff, with our most important trading partners. Yet in the Senate we have not had an opportunity to consider his qualifications to represent our country in these talks.
No one denies the President's right to have personal advisers, in the area of international economic policy as well as in domestic policy or foreign relations. But with the passage of this bill, the Director of CIEP would be able to play a key role in the execution of policy as well as in its formulation. It is our responsibility to judge his qualifications for that role.
At the same time, I wish to make clear that my vote should not be construed as a vote against the current Director. Nor is it intended to affect the relationship between the President and his personal staff who assist him in the performance of his White House duties. Rather, it is designed to reassert the senatorial power of confirmation.
The Senate's right to advise and consent in the appointment of officers of the United States is stated in article 2, section 2 of the Constitution. The meaning of the Constitution in this regard is clear – important officers of our Government are to be appointed subject to the advice and consent of the Senate; "inferior officers" need not be. In no way could the present Executive Director of the Council on International Economic Policy be considered an "inferior officer."
This has been recognized not only by the full Senate but by the conferees who have provided that all future Executive Directors of the Council be subject to Senate confirmation.
The Special Trade Representative and his two deputies all presently hold the rank of Ambassador and have been confirmed by the Senate. Yet, these three men will be working under the direction of the Executive Director of the Council who is not subject to Senate confirmation.
This seems to me to be both bad policy and a mockery of the senatorial power of confirmation. If the Senate has the responsibility to confirm such officials as Assistant Directors of the Office of Emergency Planning and the Office of Economic Opportunity, it should certainly have the power to confirm a powerful policymaker like the Executive Director of the Council on International Economic Policy.
The present Executive Director of the Council must be subject to Senate confirmation – as the Senate has decisively recommended. We must reject this conference report and insist that the will of the Senate prevails in the conference.