CHANGES IN EXISTING LAW

In compliance with paragraph 2a of rule XIII of the Rules of the House of Representatives, changes in the second and third sentences of section 9 of the act of July 3, 1926, entitled "An act to readjust the commissioned personnel of the Coast Guard, and for other purposes.", made by the bill are shown as follows (existing law proposed to be omitted is enclosed in black brackets; new matter is printed in italics; existing law in which no changes is proposed is shown in roman):

SEC. 9. That the title "district superintendent" is hereby changed to "district commander," and all laws applicable to district superintendents shall apply to district commanders except as modified by the provisions of this section. [A district commander of less than ten years' commissioned service shall have the rank, pay, and allowances of a lieutenant, and, after ten years' commissioned service, shall have the rank, pay, and allowances of a lieutenant commander. An original appointment as district commander shall be made under regulations prescribed by the President from the warrant or chief petty officers of the Coast Guard: Provided, That the proviso "That the district superintendents shall be chief officers and first in authority in their respective districts, subject to the authority of the captain commandant," contained in section 4 of the Act approved January 28, 1915, is hereby repealed.]

All officers in the grades of district_commander and constructor on active duty are hereby transferred to the line of the Coast Guard and shall be commissioned in the grades of commander, lieutenant commander, and lieutenant, according to the ranks held by them on the date of such transfer, and shall when so transferred and commissioned take precedence (1) with each other in their respective grades, according to length of commissioned service as district commander or constructor, as the case may be, (2) with other line officers in such grades, according to length of service in the ranks held by them on the date of such transfer, and (3) in higher grades to which they may br promoted, according to the dates of commissions in such higher grades: Provided, That the President is hereby authorized to appoint Charles Walker to the grade of lieutenant commander with precedence next after Irwin B. Steele. Each officer commissioned pursuant to this section shall be an extra number in his grade and in the grades to which he may be promoted, and shall be eligible for promotion, if otherwise qualified, whenever the officer in a regular number in line of promotion next above him on the seniority list becomes eligible for promotion; or if there be no such officer in his grade, he shall be eligible for promotion, if otherwise qualified, when a vacancy occurs in the next higher grade. Any officer commissioned pursuant to this section shall be assigned to duty in his specialty and the professional examination of such officer for promotion shall embrace only those subjects pertaining to such specialty.

SEC. 2. Each vacancy existing in the grade of constructor and in the grade of district commander on the date of the approval of this Act, and each vacancy which shall hereafter occur in the extra number of officers commissioned pursuant to this Act, shall operate to increase by one the total number of line officers in the Coast Guard authorized by section 1 of the Act of March 2, 1929 (45 Stat. 1533), as amended.

SEC. 3. No officer commissioned pursuant to this Act shall suffer any reduction in rank, pay, or allowances, by reason of the provisions of this Act, or lose any right to promotion which he would have had but for the enactment of this Act.

SEC. 4. The grades of district commander and constructor on the active list in the Coast Guard are hereby abolished and all provisions of law in conflict with this Act are hereby repealed.

Section 1 of the act of March 2, 1929 (45 Stat. 1533), as amended, referred to in section 2 is herewith set out for the information of the House:

SEC. 1. That on and after July 1, 1929, the total number of commissioned officers on the active list, regular and temporary combined (exclusive of the commandant and commissioned warrant officers and additional numbers that have been authorized by law), authorized in the Coast Guard shall be five hundred and eighty-eight, consisting of five hundred and twenty-six line officers distributed in the proportion of four in the grade of captain, to eight in the grade of commander, to fifteen in the grade of lieutenant commander, to thirty in the grade of lieutenant, to forty-three in the grades of lieutenant (junior grade) and ensign,

inclusive; and of one engineer in chief, eight captains (engineering), sixteen commanders (engineering), and eighteen lieutenant commanders (engineering), and of five constructors, and fourteen district commanders: Provided, That the number of temporary commissioned officers, not above the rank of lieutenant, within the total of commissioned officers herein authorized shall be as the President shall determine: And provided further, That notwithstanding the number of officers herein authorized in the grades of captain (engineering) and commander (engineering), respectively, an engineer officer may be promoted, subject to examination as provided by law, to either of these grades at the same time as a line officer of the same length of total service in the Coast Guard is promoted to either of the corresponding grades in the line.

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CONSENTING TO AN INTERSTATE OIL COMPACT TO CONSERVE OIL AND GAS

JUNE 30, 1939.-Committee to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed

Mr. COLE of Maryland, from the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, submitted the following

REPORT

[To accompany H. J. Res. 329]

The Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, to whom were referred the joint resolutions (H. J. Res. 329 and H. J. Res. 330, identical resolutions, introduced on the same day by Congressman Boren and Congressman Lea, respectively), consenting to an interstate oil compact to conserve oil and gas, having considered the same, report thereon with the recommendation that House Joint Resolution 329 pass.

This is a renewal of the original oil compact which was approved by Congress on August 27, 1935, and which was extended for an additional 2 years on August 10, 1937, the latter extension expiring on September 1, 1939.

To the compact of 1935, New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma, Illinois, Colorado, and Texas were signatory States, and the same States in 1937 requested a renewal of the compact in practically identical language. At this time the compact before us is from the same States, with the exception of Illinois and the addition of the State of Michigan, so that this resolution ratifies the request of the States of New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Texas, and Michigan.

In 1934, following an investigation of the petroleum industry which your committee conducted in response to a House resolution, the committee filed a report and subsequently, on July 14, 1935, filed an additional report, accompanying H. R. 9053, in which is found the following statement:

As the initial report of the subcommittee will disclose, they gave, during the investigation, considerable encouragement to the formation of the interstate compact and are glad to state in this report that which is known to many Members of the House, that through the efforts of many progressive Governors of a number of the oil-producing States, and we feel to some extent as a result of the encouragement of the subcommittee, such a compact has been entered into.