The civil penalty would be enforced by civil action pursuant to 28 USC 2461, 2462. The action would be commenced in a U.S. district court. Appeals would be taken from its decision to the appropriate U.S. Court of Appeals.

13. What happens to the penalties collected by the Secretary under section 8(a)?

All penalties collected under section 8 would be deposited in the Treasury as miscellaneous receipts.

14. What means is provided for judicial review of the action of the Secretary under section 8(a)?

None, other than a refusal to pay and action for enforcement by the Secretary and Attorney General, at which time the court would decide the matter.

15. Will the functions authorized by this bill be subject to the administrative Procedure Act (5 U.S.C. 1002)? If not, why?

Yes, particularly with respect to the bill's functions relating to public information and rule-making.

16. Does the term "a person.

designated by him" as used in section 5 include a publisher with whom the Secretary has contracted to "publish" and “sell” the data?

The term "a person designated by him" as used in section 5 is intended to include a publisher with whom the Secretary had contracted to "publish" and "sell" the data compilations produced in the program.

(a) Does this section give a publisher the right to set the price? If not, who would set the price?

The arrangements for setting the price for a particular volume would be included in the contract. Although the details have not yet been worked out, the procedure for entering into a contract with a publisher would probably be something like the following: After a manuscript was completed the publisher who had indicated an interest in publishing the particular work would be invited to a bidders conference to examine the manuscript. After the examination of

The

the manuscript the publishers who wish to submit a proposal would do so. proposal would contain such information as publishing schedule, price of the published work to the public, number of free copies to be given to the National Bureau of Standards, portion of the sales price that would be returned to the National Bureau of Standards, and related information. During the bidders conference the NBS would have the responsibility for cooperating with the publishers in estimating the size of the user public that a particular work would serve and would also inform the potential bidders how much of the cost of the production of the work the Bureau might wish to recover.

(a) Would a publisher be given the right to copyright the publication in his own name?

It is our intent to have the authority to give the publisher the right to copyright the publication in his own name, with a royalty-free use by the government guaranteed. This copyright would also protect the document from being reproduced and sold in other countries around the world without reimbursement to the National Bureau of Standards.

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD TO DR. J. HERBERT HOLLOMON BY REPRESENTATIVE JOE D. WAGGONER, JR.

1. What evidence is there to suggest that the critical evaluation of standard reference data by National Bureau of Standards will result in a more accurate measured value for a particular property than that obtained by the original researcher or by another organization performing a similar function?

First, we do not think that the National Bureau of Standards has any monopoly on ability to perform critical evaluation of data. In fact under our projected plans less than one-fourth of the total compilation work would be done within NBS and the remaining three-fourths would be done at our request by others outside NBS-the most highly qualified specialists we can find who are willing to undertake the work. Even so, other equally qualified scientists, working independently of our program, might indeed do just as good a job as NBS-sponsored evaluators. If their products satisfy general criteria for critical evaluation, we would recommend the use of those results to our audience.

Second, as to the question of critically evaluated data being better than the original researcher's measurements, we feel that critical evaluation by a second party should lead to greater reliability than the original measurement, for several reasons. There frequently are disagreements among published research reports as to the correct numerical values for physical properties. Critical evaluation resolves such disagreements by analyzing the original results for possible errors, for use of materials of inadequate purity, for assessment of experimental techniques used, and apparatus employed. The man who does the evaluation must be as good at the work as the scientists whose work he is evaluating.

Further, he is in a position to apply his judgment with greater impartial attention to all the factors involved. He can go back to early work, done by experimentalists of outstanding capability, and adjust their results to take into account more recent values for atomic weights, fundamental constants, temperature scales and so on. Finally, the program of the Standard Reference Data System will provide for systematic, continuing projects by which regular updating of results will be emphasized, so that the whole network of data will be self-consistent and uniformly reliable.

2. On page 4 of your prepared statement you speak of duplicating the work that has already been done as being "undesirable." Isn't it a fact that it is this duplication which provides the basic data which the Bureau will evaluate, and if such duplication results in two researchers independently obtaining the same value for a particular property, it would tend to prove the reliability of that value?

Duplication of experimental measurements is unavoidable to a certain extent, and as you suggest, duplication does provide the basic data which the Bureau will evaluate. However, when a new measurement is made merely because the presently available results do not agree, or because it requires too much searching of the literature to find those results, then, I feel, that the new measurement is indeed undesirable duplication.

Duplication of critical evaluation efforts is also undesirable. One of the responsibilities of the NBS Office of Standard Reference Data is to make itself aware of all critical compilation projects which are active or contemplated within the Federal Government and elsewhere, and to advise the sponsors of any new project about possible duplication of an already active project.

Voluntary cooperation by privately sponsored compilation projects will allow NBS to advise such sponsors of possible duplication as well, although of course there would be no attempt made by NBS to require any private concern to refrain from doing as they saw fit.

3. On page 3 of your prepared statement you mention the necessity for updating standard reference data. After the Bureau's program becomes fully operational,

how often will the published material be updated, and what percentage of the overall effort will be devoted to such activities?

Compilations of standard reference data will be updated as frequently as the appearance of a significant quantity of improved experimental results and users' demands for more precise information require it. The time scale will not be uniform. In some cases it might be within six months and in others it might not be for five years or more. Some fields of science are moving very rapidly and frequent updating would be in order. This is especially true where expanding technological interest and more extreme demands lead to the development of new materials, higher or lower temperatures of operation and the like. Updating a compilation means adding completely new numbers, as well as changing existing numbers. In other fields progress is much slower, experimental techniques are not changing, and results of two years ago are just as reliable as those measured last month. Modern data and information handling capabilities will ensure that updated material can be inserted into a computer-based storage system, so that the whole file can be modified as promptly as important new results appear which call for an addition. When the program becomes fully operational, that is, when there are ongoing projects taking care of 90% to 95% of the high priority needs, we anticipate that 1⁄4 to 1⁄2 of the overall effort will involve updating of published material. It should be realized that in many cases the data in a particular area are so interrelated that any substantial amount of new material will call for a reassessment of an even larger amount of old material.

4. In his prepared statement Dr. Astin referred to the system as the "National Standard Reference Data System." You referred to it in your testimony as the "Standard Reference Data System." What will the system be called, and is there some reason why you omitted the word "National"?

We are talking about the same system. Dr. Astin, as Director of the National Bureau of Standards, was given certain administrative responsibility by the Federal Council for Science and Technology under a Federal Policy Statement which specifically referred to the National Standard Reference Data System. The end product of our own efforts will be Standard Reference Data, and the numbers themselves and their use will know no national boundaries. That is why H.R. 15638 is called the "Standard Reference Data Act." The system which Dr. Astin will continue to administer is appropriately entitled the National Standard Reference Data System, but in the broader sense, the total effort cannot be confined to a single nation.

5. On page 10 of your prepared statement you state that "identifiable customer groups should be required to bear the costs of specialized Federal services provided in their behalf."

(a) In effect, aren't all government services specialized, and since the taxpayer pays for the cost anyway, why should he be required to pay an additional cost?

He should be required to pay an additional charge because he is receiving a service from the Government which is of more benefit to him than to the taxpayer who does not receive the service. The principle that the user of special Government services should pay for them is set forth explicitly in Title V of the Independent Offices Appropriation Act of 1952 (5 U.S.C. 140). It is official executive branch policy. Bureau of the Budget Circular No. A-25 provides that user charges should be imposed to "cover all Federal activities which convey special benefits to recipients above and beyond those accruing to the public at large." This certainly applies to the specialized services which are provided to the well-defined select group of users to whom standard reference data are a matter of day-to-day concern.

(b) You further state that the Secretary would apply the above principle to "certain specialized information services that we propose to provide.” Does this indicate that additional charges would not apply to a publication such as NSRDS-NBS4 but that it would apply if an organization requested, for example, the information on a special computer tape? Why wouldn't the service charge authorized by 15 U.S.C. 275a cover this type of situation? We believe user charges should be applied to all products of the Standard Reference Data System, since all such services convey a special benefit to the user. Due to cost and value differences, the charges would necessarily vary

for providing different information or for providing the same information in a form which is more adaptable to the needs of the particular user.

In the case of primary publications, such as NSRDS-NBS4, the additional charge would usually be minimal; designed primarily to recover editorial, composition, printing, announcement and distribution costs.

In the case of secondary publications (which involve the reorganization or extraction of material already available as primary publications to serve the special needs of particular user groups), we would attempt to recover the costs mentioned above plus those associated with the selection of material and any additional evaluation that might be required.

With regard to special custom services, such as answers to specific inquiries or special print-out of computer stored data, we would normally expect to recover the full cost of providing the additional service. In most instances this could be done under the authority provided through 15 U.S.C. 275a since the end product would not be a publication.

6. On page 10 of your prepared statement you state that the "symbol will stand as a signpost of quality." (a) Does this infer that any material without the proposed symbol is of inferior quality?

Use of the symbol as a signpost of quality is a positive matter only. There will always be a great deal of very valuable numerical information on physical properties which will not carry the proposed symbol. Some of that information will be completely outside the scope of the Standard Reference Data System, while some will simply not have been subjected to the evaluation process. No one should infer that the absence of the symbol means inferior quality, in the general case. There will be certain circumstances in which a more recent publication carrying the proposed symbol would supersede and clearly replace an earlier compilation. In such circumstances it is indeed true that the absence of the symbol on the older material and its presence on the newer, should convey to the user a warning that a better source of data is available.

(b) Since the symbol will stand for a definable standard of quality, why not just print the words on each publication instead of using a symbol since there then will be no question of misunderstanding?

The use of a phrase or sentence to be printed on each publication would perform the same function as the symbol; however, the use of the symbol permits more immediate identification, particularly when the average page of data is filled with printed words and numbers already.

7. How many additional personnel will the National Bureau of Standards require to carry out the functions envisioned in H.R. 15638?

At full operation, the National Bureau of Standards will require about 110 additional people to carry out the functions envisioned. Fifty of these would be concerned with the Information Services described on page four of Dr. Astin's statement and which we hope to provide within the Office of Standard Reference Data. Ten additional staff members will be needed in managing the technical area programs. In addition 50 new people will be employed doing in-house compilation work in areas where the National Bureau of Standards has obvious responsibility and an already developed competence to do the work: another 50 present employees might be reassigned as some current programs now supported by funds transferred from other agencies are phased out.

(a) If additional facilities are needed, what are they and what is their estimated cost?

The major additional facility needed at the National Bureau of Standards will be a large capacity automated system for the storage, retrieval, and analysis of data which will be developed under the various individual projects. Such a system will probably cost $1.5 to $2 million.

(b) Please provide a detailed breakdown of how you arrived at the estimated $20 million annual cost of the program?

Tables I and II attached provide a breakdown of the present and estimated annual cost of a fully operational program. Also attached is a statement of the basic assumptions that were made in the development of these estimates. It should be noted that these recent estimates assume the availability of authority to impose user charges. As a consequence, the amount shown for Information Services Operation is substantially less than indicated in earlier estimates.

(c) Would it be agreeable if section 10 of the bill limited the authorization to not more than $20 million per annum? If not, why?

The projected level of activities of the Standard Reference Data System could be operated quite satisfactorily for the next few years under such a ceiling. However, in view of the numerous uncertainties associated with a new program of this magnitude and the constantly rising costs of scientific endeavors, it might be simpler from an administrative point of view if no dollar ceiling were explicitly stated.

Whether or not any dollar ceiling is authorized, we would welcome the opportunity to report frequently to the Congress on the general progress of the Standard Reference Data System and on its financial status.

8. Will the standards of quality which you intend to publish in the Federal Register in any way require that in order to meet the quality standards for standard reference data, the experiments or other calculations will have to be performed with equipment calibrated by the National Bureau of Standards?

No such requirements for calibration will be made because, as a practical matter, it can't be done. As a matter of practice, most scientific experimenters who concern themselves with high precision measurements use techniques, instruments and materials which can be traced back (usually in a very direct maner) to some aspect of the traditional services of the National Bureau of Standards for standards, calibration, standard reference materials and measurement methodology. However the Standard Reference Data System is primarily concerned with proper processing (collection, evaluation, and dissemination) of experimental results after they have been reported in the scientific literature. For the operations of the system, therefore, such requirements are not needed. 9. Could the functions envisioned by this bill simply imply an effort on the part of the National Bureau of Standards to enlarge its domain and field of bureaucratic influence?

The proposed bill is intended to clarify the role of the Department of Commerce in providing the standard reference data needed by our nation's scientific and technological community. It clearly will recognize the responsibilities of the Secretary of Commerce by directing him to provide national coordination and integration of standard reference data activities through the establishment of standards and criteria for the preparation and publication of these data.

The bill represents no particular enlargement of the types of activities to be performed by the Department since the National Bureau of Standards has a long history of involvement in this field. It is because of this existing competence that NBS has been selected, with the recommendation of the Federal Council for Science and Technology, to administer the increased responsibilities the bill will place on the Secretary for coordination of a national standard reference data system.