(d) Adequate legislative authority should be provided for the enforcement of the State courts' suspension orders in all other States. (e) Machinery should be devised so that the State courts, in determining the penalty in a particular case, will be able to ascertain whether the offender has any record of previous violations.

Finally, it appears to me that we should ascertain whether the States definitely want this legislation. Unless there is a clear demand on the part of the States the authority granted in the legislation is likely to be indifferently exercised, which would be worse than no legislation at all.

It would be understood that this statement has not been cleared with the Bureau of the Budget to determine whether it is in accord with the President's program.

Senator BREWSTER. Of course, I can appreciate the minute you introduce State activity, you get a wide variety of response. It was not my thought that this would be exclusive. That is not the contemplation of the bill, is it?

Mr. ELWELL. No, sir.

Senator BREWSTER. That Federal authority would be at all restricted?

Mr. ELWELL. No.

Senator BREWSTER. And I have no doubt that in the various States there would be a wide disparity of activity, so that in some cases you would have to do much more than you did in others.

But whatever the States did would be that much clear gain.

Mr. ELWELL. I agree, sir.

Senator BREWSTER. And up in our State I find that a good many of these local violations are responded to by the State very considerably. There is considerable concern, considerable activity, and real public opinion operating on it. And it would tend to relieve the Federal Government in some substantial measure of the burden.

Mr. ELWELL. I should add to that information the fact that a cooperative program has been going on now for 2 years with the States, and particularly through the representatives of the States, the NASAO.

Many States today are cooperating with the Federal Government in this enforcement program. The CAA has cooperated with the States' representatives, in assisting them in drafting a so-called model statute to prohibit reckless and hazardous operation of aircraft.

We have assisted in drafting a so-called enforcement guide. We have assisted in working out a curriculum for the training and indoctrination of State enforcement officials, and we have assisted in training them. That program, as I say, started over 2 years ago, and it is beginning to show excellent results now.

Senator BREWSTER. You will agree that the more that can be developed, the better it will be from all standpoints.

Mr. ELWELL. Precisely. We are in full accord with that basic principle. The more support we can get from the States, the better. Senator BREWSTER. This legislation was designed to encourage the moves in that direction by a somewhat more formal recognition. Mr. ELWELL. Yes.

In the Department's letter from the Acting Secretary dated May 7 to the chairman of this committee, we pointed out certain specific amendments which we believed should be made to this present bill.

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Senator BREWSTER. We will give this very careful consideration. Mr. ELWELL. Thank you very much.

Senator BREWSTER. Mr. Robert Ramspeck?

You are operating in relays today, sir.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT RAMSPECK, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, AIR TRANSPORT ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mr. RAMSPECK. Yes, sir; we were over before the House committee this morning.

Senator HAWKES. You have not found any process of being in two places at one time?

Mr. RAMSPECK. No, sir; not even when I was a Member of Congress could I do that.

Senator BREWSTER. We followed the procedure this morning of having the statements incorporated in the record, and then having summaries presented by the witnesses.

Have you considered whether that would be a practicable approach? Mr. RAMSPECK. Senator, I would be glad to undertake it, sir. Senator BREWSTER. The thought was that when, as, and if, we get to considering this, there are several other members of the committee who will have to go over it, if we have any argument with them, and this simply expedites the thing by getting the salient features before Senator Hawkes and myself.

Then, if we had to have some argument with our comrades, we would all have to take up the record in its entirety anyway.

Mr. RAMSPECK. Then, if I am to understand that the entire statement will go in the record, I shall proceed on that basis.

We also have a suggested rewrite of the bill to offer.

Senator BREWSTER. Has that been discussed with any of those interested?

Mr. RAMSPECK. No.

Senator BREWSTER. Then, in the course of your discussion of the bill, if you will indicate, as I presume you will, why these changes should be made, we would appreciate it.

Did you hear the earlier witnesses?

Mr. RAMSPECK. Yes, sir.

Senator BREWSTER. You know what their reactions are, then. Senator HAWKES. I think it would be well for Mr. Ramspeck to give us the principal things he has in there, summarizing as well as he can, and then discussing the suggested changes.

Senator BREWSTER. That is the quickest way of getting it in.

Mr. RAMSPECK. Senator, the bill as drafted deals only with safety regulations and enforcement of safety regulations.

As I understand it, it gives the States the absolute right to enforce certain regulations.

Senator BREWSTER. When you say "absolute," do you mean exclusive?

Mr. RAMSPECK. No. It gives the joint right for the Federal Government to enforce certain regulations. There are other regulations, however, which can be enforced only if the Civil Aeronautics Board delegates that authority to the States.

So I think that distinction should be kept in mind.

Senator BREWSTER. Do you approve of that?

Mr. RAMSPECK. Yes, sir. We support the part of the bill which vests exclusive jurisdiction in the Federal Government to promulgate the safety regulations.

Senator BREWSTER. That is in order to accomplish uniformity?

Mr. RAMSPECK. Yes, sir. We think it is absolutely essential to safety in air transportation, or in private flying, for that matter, that we have one set of rules covering the whole country.

Senator BREWSTER. That will be true both of private flying and of commercial flying. You could not change planes 48 times as you flew around the country.

Mr. RAMSPECK. That is certainly true, Senator Brewster.

Before you came in, Senator Hawkes made some comment about the variation in traffic rules applying to motor vehicles. While that is not dealt with in this bill, I think it illustrates the point.

Senator HAWKES. I might say that if I had my way about it, there are two things outside of this that would be standardized in the United States. One is traffic rules for motor vehicles, and the other is traffic rules for divorces. [Laughter.]

Mr. RAMSPECK. Using Senator Hawkes' illustration: In my own city of Atlanta, if you go to make a left-hand turn, you go beyond the center of the intersection before you make the turn. In Washington you turn before you get to the center. It is easy to visualize how many accidents that might cause among operators operating under different rules.

It is even more important in the air, because oftentimes you are operating blind.

Senator HAWKES. You do not have any time to think it over, either. Mr. RAMSPECK. No, sir. You are in overcast sometimes, and unless you are operating on the same rules, you do not know the other fellow is there.

So I cannot understand why anyone would object to exclusive authority in the Federal Government to promulgate the rules of the road, so to speak, in the air. Because unless you do have one system which everybody understands, you are not going to have safety.

We are very much in favor of that. There has been a suggestion made here with reference to permitting the States to penalize flyers who engage in reckless flying, or who fly while they are intoxicated.

I do not know whether the suggestion contemplated that that should be applied to the certificated air carriers, or the common carriers by air, or not. I think it would be pretty difficult to work out any different set of laws for the two; and yet I can visualize where such a criminal statute might involve a question of interference with the Federal safety regulations.

I do not want to pass judgment on that suggestion at the moment, but I just raise the question of whether or not going that far would interfere with uniformity.

Certainly we don't condone any reckless flying, or the flying of any aircraft by anybody who is under the influence of intoxicating bev

erages.

There are already Federal rules on that anyway.

I think that pretty well covers the question of safety, except this: That I would not quite agree with the suggestion previously made, that this proposed bill should not be passed unless the States want it

passed. I think that there is a Federal question involved in it, which goes over and beyond any desire on the part of the States; and that is the desire on the part of the Federal Government for safety reasons to have uniformity.

I point out in this statement that recently, in New York, a law was proposed by which the police commissioner of New York City was given or would have been given the power to control the operation of all flying within the New York City limits.

The provisions of the proposed bill were in many instances either needless duplications of Federal safety regulations, or were in conflict with such regulations.

It was possible to persuade the New York officials to rely upon Federal regulations to protect their local interests. But we may not be that fortunate in some other instance.

I have also pointed out in the statement, on page 5, an instance where the State of Colorado, in 1944, undertook to set up a complete set of regulations applicable to air carriers operating in the State, consisting of some 43 typewritten single-spaced pages.

So that we do have a problem, which is with us now, of the disposition in some spots to undertake State regulation of flying which may, and has in some instances past, conflicted with the Federal regulation. So while there may be some validity to the suggestion that we not put this burden on the States unless they want to take it, the act, as I understand it, does not force any State to engage in the powers which this act would give them. And it does not relieve the Federal Government of responsibility of enforcing them if the State does not.

Senator HAWKES. Mr. Ramspeck, do you not think that to have this thing work executively, it would be necessary for the proper agency of the Federal Government, the CAB, to know what States were accepting responsibility under the act?

Mr. RAMSPECK. Yes.

Senator HAWKES. I am just wondering whether some provision ought not to be incorporated in that bill, under which the States would signify their intent to follow through and do this enforcing within the authority granted under this bill, so that that would be on file, and on record in Washington with the CAB. That may be in there already.

Mr. RAMSPECK. There is a provision in the bill, on page 4, line 19, which provides for reports.

Senator HAWKES. Yes: I saw that. But that is not what I am talking about. I am talking about knowing in advance. This is after the thing was done.

Mr. RAMSPECK. Yes.

Senator HAWKES. I am talking about whether or not some provision should not be made under which the States, if this became a law, would signify to the Federal agency that they intended to function under the authority given in this bill.

Mr. RAMSPECK. I think that is a very interesting suggestion, Senator Hawkes, and one that might well be considered.

Senator HAWKES. It is just like the old story of too many cooks spoiling the broth. If you do not know who is going to do this, and who is going to do that, you are liable to miss something in between. Mr. RAMSPECK. That is true.

On page 6 of my statement, I have quoted from some testimony given by the late Colonel Gorrell, who was at that time president of the Air Transport Association, where he was discussing this same problem, Congress having under consideration at that time a bill for exclusive jurisdiction over safety regulations.

Senator BREWSTER. He makes a very effective statement there about the necessity. He compares it to the trucks.

Mr. RAMSPECK. I will not undertake to read it, gentlemen. I would especially like to call your attention to it, because it is not overdrawn; it is an actual statement of conditions that existed in the motor carrier field at that time. And that was a field where the States first undertook regulation, and the Federal Government later stepped into the field.

We have the opposite situation pretty much today, in the air; and one reason we think it is important to consider this legislation is that it is much easier to enact Federal legislation of this kind when the States have not entered the field than to wait until they have set up conflicting regulations, and then undertake to reconcile them through a Federal statute.

Senator BREWSTER. We have had a rather conspicuous case of this in prohibition. Prohibition was a Federal law, but the States carried out some measure of the enforcement in some cases.

Mr. RAMSPECK. Now I come to the suggested amendment which we have offered for the record.

I would like to preface my discussion of this by saying that if the committee feels that it is too broad a subject to take up at this time, we certainly do not want the safety end of this bill deferred until the next session.

Senator HAWKES. What page is that?

Mr. RAMSPECK. The amendment is on page 8.

We are suggesting here that we ought to have also exclusive Federal economic regulation. And I think I can summarize our views on that very simply.

Senator BREWSTER. That is pretty well settled, as a matter of constitutional law, is it, under the railway cases?

Mr. RAMSPECK. I think it is, Senator.

As a matter of fact, I think under the Supreme Court decisions, State public service commissions today have no effective power to regulate interstate carriers. Because in all of the States where a conflict with State regulation has occurred, it has been held to be a burden on interstate commerce, and the ICC has been upheld in overruling the State commissions.

We do not have State economic regulation in the air yet except in a very few States.

Senator BREWSTER. What is the nature of those regulations?

Mr. RAMSPECK. Well, in some of them they undertake to regulate rates and fares and charges.

Senator BREWSTER. On intrastate traffic?

Mr. RAMSPECK. Yes, sir. They in some cases undertake to require a certificate of convenience and necessity, even though the interstate carrier holds a certificate from the Federal Government.

Senator BREWSTER. Would that be on purely intrastate routes? Mr. RAMSPECK. No, sir; the intrastate segments of the interstate routes.