that time Chairman Thompson directed HIS to proceed with the development of the integrated system. The HIS staff is now working on the development of the system and they are being assisted by the GPO staff who must also develop certain portions of the system because of the printing aspects of the system. I think it is significant to note that, while this was not initiated on the basis of our being able to save money but rather to improve the methods of the preparation of the Code, the Public Printer in his report to Chairman Thompson indicated that, over the 6-year cycle of the U.S. Code, if the system is implemented and becomes operational, there would be a significant cost saving. I have outlined this on page 4 of my statement. For the record, GPO has indicated that the typesetting costs over the 6-year cycle for the U.S. Code would be $2,116,000. If the new system is implemented, the total cost to GPO would be $780,000. These are typesetting costs. Thus, over the 6-year cycle the new system would save GPO a total of $1,336,000 in typesetting costs, or a net annual saving of $222,666. I should point out, Mr. Chairman, that implementation of this system will require some additional staff on our behalf because we will in effect be performing additional editorial work for the U.S. Code that we are now receiving from West Publishing Company. Some of that editorial work would be necessarily undertaken by our office because the system is designed to be updated on a daily basis. In other words, we would have our master computer tape with the U.S. Code on it and we would be incorporating into that data base new laws as they became enacted. This would require us to do some of the editorial work in our office that would normally have been done by West Publishing Company. They have in the past been doing this as their workload permits and submitting editorial work to us at the end of the session, at which time we review all the work that they have done for us for accuracy and sufficency and make sure that all the copy is ready to go to the GPO for the next edition of the U.S. Code. Mr. BENJAMIN. What are we talking about and when? Mr. WILLETT. The system concept that HIS and GPO submitted has an implementation schedule. Assuming that the development proceeds on schedule, we are talking about implementation of this system in the latter part of fiscal year 1982 or the early part of fiscal year 1983. There will be some $300,000 worth of computer equipment that will have to be purchased and installed in the Office of the Law Revision Counsel and there would have to be some period during which the transition to the new system would take place. We would have a certain period of test operations to make sure everything was working right before we committed ourselves fully to this system because we do not want any delays in the publication of the U.S. Code to occur as a result of the transition to the new system. CODIFICATION OF TITLES OF U.S. CODE Mr. BENJAMIN. Speaking of that, how many titles of the U.S. Code have been codified and would you provide a list of the legislation and dates that enacted and codified the various titles of the Code? Mr. WILLETT. We will be happy to. At the present time some 20 titles of the U.S. Code have been enacted. I would like to draw the distinction between the publication aspects of the U.S. Code and the recodification effort which is an entirely different operation within the office. TITLES OF THE UNITED STATES CODE THAT HAVE BEEN CODIFIED AND ENACTED Title Date of enactment 1-July 30, 1947, ch. 388, 61 Stat. 633. 3-June 25, 1948, ch. 644, 62 Stat. 672. 4-July 30, 1947, ch. 389, 61 Stat. 641. 5-Sept. 6, 1966, Pub. L. 89-554, 80 Stat. 378. 6-July 30, 1947, ch. 390, 61 Stat. 646. 9-July 30, 1947, ch. 392, 61 Stat. 669. 10-Aug. 10, 1956, ch. 1041, 70A Stat. 1. 11-Nov. 6, 1978, Pub. L. 95-598, 92 Stat. 2549. 13-Aug. 31, 1954, ch. 1158, 68 Stat. 1012. 14-Aug. 4, 1949, ch. 393, 63 Stat. 495. 17-July 30, 1947, ch. 391, 61 Stat. 652; Oct. 19, 1976, Pub. L. 94-553, 90 Stat. 2541. 18-June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 683. 23-Aug. 27, 1958, Pub. L. 85-767, 72 Stat. 885. 28-June 25, 1948, ch. 646, 62 Stat. 869. 32-Aug. 10, 1956, ch. 1041, 70A Stat. 596. 35-July 19, 1952, ch. 950, 66 Stat. 792. 37-Sept. 7, 1962, Pub. L. 87-649, 76 Stat. 451. 38-Sept. 2, 1958, Pub. L. 85-857, 72 Stat. 1105. 39-Sept. 2, 1960, Pub. L. 86-682, 74 Stat. 578; Aug. 12, 1970, Pub. L. 91-375, 84 Stat. 719. 44-Oct. 22, 1968, Pub. L. 90-620, 82 Stat. 1238. 491 Oct. 17, 1978, Pub. L. 95-473, 92 Stat. 1337. STATUTE SILENT ON PRIORITIES Mr. WILLETT. There are some 20 titles of the U.S. Code that have been enacted so far, 19 of which were done in years prior to 1978. In 1978, subtitle IV of Title 49 was codified and enacted. Also in 1978 there was a codification of the Bankruptcy Act which was not done by our office but which we assisted the Judiciary Committee in. That codification was not a true codification in the sense of it being a codification without substantive change. It was a substantive rewriting of the Bankruptcy Act as Title 11 of the U.S. Code in which we assisted the Judiciary Committee in some respects in the drafting effort. But I should draw the distinction. Mr. BENJAMIN. Who sets the priorities? Mr. WILLETT. In the recodification effort, Mr. Chairman? Mr. WILLETT. The statute that established this office five years ago was silent as to the priority under which we would undertake a codification. Soon after the establishment of our office there was a congressional direction that the Interstate Commerce Laws be en 1 Subtitle IV of this title has been enacted. acted and a codification be submitted to the Congress in two years. So we started up with the recodification of the Interstate Commerce Laws in response to that direction which was a direction to the Interstate Commerce Commission. But inasmuch as we had the jurisdiction and the mandate by Congress to be responsible for the recodification of the titles of the U.S. Code, the Interstate Commerce Commission worked very closely with us to make sure that the end product would be acceptable to us. So that was the first congressional direction since the establishment of our office for a recodification in a particular subject area. That happened to involve Title 49 of the United States Code which is the transportation title. At the present time we are finishing up with the recodification of Title 49 which contains some four other subtitles. We successfully completed the recodification of the Interstate Commerce Act which is now subtitle IV of Title 49. That project has been initially completed and a committee print of that recodification which this represents has been submitted to the Judiciary Committee and we in turn have asked the transportation agencies to informally review this and submit comments. The comments are back from the agencies. We are in the process now of analyzing those comments, incorporating into the bill legislation that was enacted since the cut-off date which was the end of August, and we will then be submitting a bill to Judiciary seeking an enactment of the remaining subtitles of Title 49, probably within the next 60 days. Since this is winding down, you might say, we have chosen our next title to be Title 31, Money and Finance, and we are starting work on recodification of the Title 31. Mr. BENJAMIN. When your group was organized five years ago, how long did they envision that the recodification would go on? Mr. WILLETT. I do not think I can respond to that because I am not sure what was in their heads at the time. Let me mention to you, though, what the history of the codifications have been. They are a very time demanding and long-term effort. Some of the original codifications that took place, from the time the work began on it until the bill was finally enacted by Congress have run a minimum of three years, I believe. In the case of Title 10, which is the Armed Forces recodification, I believe from the time that started until Congress finally enacted it some 7 or 8 years were involved. So we are talking about a substantial period of time in a recodification. Again, it depends upon the title itself and whether it is a large title or a small title. It depends upon how active Congress is in this particular subject area. I just mentioned Title 49, Transportation. Congress has been extremely active in legislating in this area. I mentioned in my statement to you last year that we had hoped that this bill would be ready to be presented to the Judiciary Committee early in 1979. But we were faced with having the bill substantially completed when the airline deregulation bill was enacted which required us to go back to the drawing board, you might say, and redraft sub stantial parts of the bill to bring things up to date so that we had a current document to submit to the committee. So it is difficult to respond in terms of how long any particular codification requires because of the variables that are involved. TITLE 31 NEXT I mentioned that we are just starting on Title 31 of the Code. That is a title containing money and finance matters, the charter for the Treasury Department, GAO and fiscal matters of the government. That particular title has received very little legislative action over the past couple of years. I think probably the major thing that is going to be going into that area that has been enacted in the last couple of years is the GAO personnel bill which the Congress is just finishing up work on. One of the reasons that we selected Title 31 at this time was because one of our senior counsels was recruited from the General Accounting Office and he is very knowledgeable in this area and we expect to make use of his expertise in the recodification. So that is one reason that we selected Title 31 at this time as our next recodification. I know I am being somewhat wordy here with you, Mr. Chairman, but I am trying to respond as best I can. If I may take one further moment in responding, there was a bill that passed the Senate two years ago and was referred to the House Judiciary Committee which would be a first step toward rewriting of the charters of the independent regulatory agencies, the deregulation aspects of it. As a first step toward deregulation, the bill would establish in each of the regulatory agencies a law revision counsel and his function was to prepare and submit to the Office of Law Revision Counsel of the House a proposed recodification of the law that the agency operated under. That bill did not pass the House and I am not sure if there has been anything more that has happened in that area. But if that bill or some similar legislation were to be enacted, we would certainly be involved for a number of years in the recodification of the laws governing the regulatory agencies. Mr. BENJAMIN. If you have a recodification that you are almost complete on and the Committee is working on a bill that is going to affect that, do you then coordinate with that Committee to show what you have done to date on recodification so that whatever integration may be necessary after the bill has become law, it would be minimal? Mr. WILLETT. We have maintained, during the Title 49 recodification on the transportation agencies, contact with two House Committees that have major jurisdiction in that subject area at the staff level so that they are aware of what is going on and we periodically have submitted to them drafts of where we are in this particular subject area. The difficulty, Mr. Chairman, is that the bills that are being processed have to be amendments to existing legislation. You are amending the existing Interstate Commerce Act rather than a revised Interstate Commerce Act. There is very little that you can do in terms of coordinating that legislative effort because of the different styles involved. In the recodification of the Interstate Commerce Act, for example, the Interstate Commerce Act went back to 1887. There were literally hundreds of amendments since that time and there were a series of laws called supplementary laws. When we finished recodification of the Interstate Commerce Act, we did a word count with our computer and came up with a restated law that contained 50 to 60 percent of the number of words that we had in the law that we started off with. We reorganized the Act on a subject matter basis. It would be very hard to integrate recodification effort with a law that is on the books at the present time. I think that is the answer to your question. [A list of titles showing which titles have been recodified and enacted as law is inserted here.] |