survey report before it, and the function of the Public Works Committee is no more important than the function of this committee. The benefit-cost ratio at the time of the survey report, which is considered by the Public Works Committee, may be different by the time the Appropriations Committee goes into it.

General PICK. They get these reports months ahead of time, and they have the staff go through them and analyze them.

Mr. DONNELLY. General, you have a quotation, or the Corps of Engineers has, in one of your manuals prepared in 1949 or 1950, which says this, paraphrasing it, that the definite project report is prepared to close the gap in engineering planning between the survey report and the time that you break ground and start construction. General PICK. That is what it was designed for.

Mr. DONNELLY. Yes, sir, but now the corps says you do not want to complete a definite project report for the whole project until after construction is under way; is that correct?

General PICK. Mr. Donnelly, most of the members of the committee know that when we get projects authorized there is a great demand for some of them to be built, they want you to start to work on them right away. Now, that project can be analyzed and it can be determined that you can start preliminary work there that has got to be done before you start the big work, and that would save 1 or 2 years maybe in the completion of the project. They want you to go to work.

Now, we have always tried to work with the people and with the Congress. Members of Congress are very much interested in projects. which we build, and they want us to get to work just as soon as we possibly can. I have got a lot of projects right now that people are after me every day to start work on, and we have not even finished the survey report on them.

Now, if the committee desires to have the definite project report completed in all of its details and bound and sent to the committee before any work is started that will mean that from the time the resolution is passed for the survey until the time the job is completed, instead of being the amount of time I tell you of 5 or 6 years to do the job and get started, it will be about 8 or 9 years before anything will be done on it.

NEED FOR THE NEW PLANNING REPORT

Mr. DONNELLY. Well, I certainly follow you there, and that is why I discussed with your representatives this subject of a planning report.

General PICK. Now, do you think it is possible to prepare a planning report that would give the committee the information that it is entitled to and ought to have?

Mr. DONNELLY. I believe that it is possible and practical and would be an ideal, as a matter of fact, an ideal basis upon which this committee could evaluate individual projects before they appropriate initial construction funds.

General PICK. Well, if that is the opinion of the committee, of course, that is what we will do.

Mr. DONNELLY. That has been my own opinion, as you understand.

General PICK. Yes.

Now, I do not know what the committee will decide on that, but I can assure you, and I can assure the committee that all I want to be is helpful.

NEED FOR MORE CURRENT COST ESTIMATES

Mr. DONNELLY. Well, General, now that we have discussed the plan and procedure in detail here, let me ask you this question: As of today your field offices have sent in cost estimates for the projects now under construction to be used for the 1953 budget, have they not?

General PICK. Yes.

Mr. DONNELLY. And your office was good enough to furnish me figures which show that the figures used by this committee in the pending bill, and that pending bill is now over in the Senate, are increased tentatively $116,000,000.

General PICK. Now you are talking about something I know nothing about. We have not gotten into the budget. I do not know the basis for any changes like that, and those things are not final until I have approved them myself. I cannot help you very much.

Mr. DONNELLY. General, the figures that were before this committee in April, May, and June, when this committee considered the current construction program had been compiled last July 1950, so that they were at least 7 or 8 months old at the time this committee considered them. In that period of time your field offices had discovered unforeseen conditions and inadequacies and changes in local needs and relocations and lands, and the like, which would have increased the cost of the program, and that is in addition to the rise in construction costs.

To give an illustration, in April of this year one of your representatives advised this committee, in response to a question, that the cost of the central and southern Florida flood-control project was $58,129,000—that is a figure of $70,000,000 less local contributions of $12,000,000, approximately-yet at that very time the Jacksonville District Office had made a draft of a definite project report and had found that phase would cost $93,000,000. So, my point is that if these Congressmen are to have the opportunity to exercise their important legislative function each year they should have current, upto-the-minute cost estimates from the corps. Do you agree with that, sir?

General PICK. As I say, you are talking about something I have not considered at all, and I know nothing about. You say this was in a definite project report?

Mr. DONNELLY. In the draft of a definite project report.

General PICK. Were there any changes in the scope of the work? Mr. DONNELLY. I discussed that with Mr. Slichter and Mr. Beard, I believe. It was the first phase. It seemed to be the same as that covered by the survey report with some minor changes.

Mr. SLICHTER. I can give you information on that if you would like to have it.

That document which you identified as the draft of a definite project report was some definite project studies of the basic hydrology of the entire over-all central and south Florida project. It was prepared

86506-51-pt. 1——4

specifically for a conference in the field, I think, which was held in June. It was transmitted, not formally to the Chief of Engineers, until the last 2 weeks when we finally received it.

We used it in June as a draft document to review the field studies. I might mention that there are numerous new thoughts in that report which, if adopted, might modify the cost.

However, the corps has not adopted any changes in the first phase of the project. There are such things proposed as abandoning certain pumping plants and substituting others. While I have not analyzed the cost of those items I still have a large question in my own personal thinking that the proposed procudere is advisable. So, the report has not official status yet in the Corps of Engineers.

General PICK. You see, Mr. Donnelly, that project is about as complicated a project as you can think of anywhere in the world. None has ever been built like it anywhere.

You have terrific precipitation to take care of there, and slow run-off, and then you have terrific wind problems, and you have flat country where there is no fall to get the water out, and you have local problems down there. Each area has problems of its own, and each area is fearful that something will be done in another area which will cause them concern or even damage.

That project is being worked very slowly, it is being studied. I have spent a lot of time on it myself. It is something that has got to go slow; you have to work it out because there are so many angles in it.

Now, then, there will be study after study made as to what to do, and we have got a consultant board on that. There was a meeting of the board down there and that study was made for that meeting, was it not?

Mr. SLICHTER. That is correct.

General PICK. So, that has not been approved yet. It may be correct, sir. We may come up next year and tell the committee that is what we have decided.

Mr. DONNELLY. General, I ask you these questions to furnish a background for a suggestion. I have discussed with your representatives whether it would be advisable for the Corps of Engineers to circulate the district and division offices in the spring each year, shortly before the time you come before this committee, to get the latest figures so that this committee will be given current data rather than data which is 7 or 8 months old. What would you think of an arrangement such as that, sir?

General PICK. Well, we get those, we get those annual estimates changed in time to make up the data sheets-they are made up in the data sheets. You want them as of a certain date in the spring of each year?

Mr. DONNELLY. Shortly before your representatives come before the committee so that this committee will have current and reasonably accurate information.

General PICK. Well, we try to bring them up to date to show the increase in price, the increased cost due to price rises.

It seems to me that once a year to bring up the estimates on these jobs would be sufficient. I am thinking about the cost in it. If the committee wanted that we could do that; we could bring them up as of, say, the 1st of January each year, or just before they started hearings.

FAILURE TO DISCLOSE TRUE FACTS TO CONGRESS

Mr. DONNELLY. We found one instance of an apparent desire on the part of your field offices to suppress the true facts from this committee and the Appropriations Committee of the Senate, and I only cite this as an illustration to demonstrate that about which we are talking. On the McNary dam there was a telephone conversation held in 1945 between the Portland district office and the Office of the Chief of Engineers in Washington. The district office pointed out that housing for workers on the $49,000,000 project would cost $7,000,000, and the two offices expressed great concern as to what congressional reaction would be to this situation and, apparently, it was decided to suppress the true facts until the following year. The representative in the Office of the Chief of Engineers said this: "Now, if we throw the answer of $7,000,000 (for housing) at them (a committee of Congress) and have a $49,000,000 project, somebody is going to fall dead." The people who were talking were a representative of your office and a representative of the Portland District office who decided they better wait until the following year perhaps before they told the Congress about that situation. I only refer to that, General, to illustrate the desirability, or the benefit that would flow from carrying out this suggestion.

General PICK. I think he was right. I said the same thing myself yesterday. I was approached on an Army post to build a set of quarters for $60,000. I said, "If I go before a committee of Congress and ask them for $60,000 to build a house on this post I expect the roof of the Capitol to raise up over my head," and it would, just as soon as I would go in there to try to get $60,000, because it is absurd.

Now, then, this was a telephone conversation. I do not go around and read people's telephone conversations, or their private memorandums, and people say things in telephone conversations that would not look so good in print. I would not doubt but what that came from a telephone conversation, but if it did the fellow on this end of the line was trying to tell the fellow out there that, for the Lord's sake, you cannot put that much money in that particular item or work.

Mr. DONNELLY. Yes; but that is not the way it went. The conversation was that they knew the housing was going to cost $7,000,000, but they did not want to tell Congress, because Congress would, as they said, "Fall dead."

General PICK. All right; when I came back from overseas I had a job or a project where the housing was calculated to cost $8,000,000, and then $11,000,000. I said, "No; Congress would never agree to that," and I proceeded to cut it down. Now you probably know whether the housing costs $7,000,000 or not. Do you know whether the housing will cost $7 million or not?

Mr. DONNELLY. No, I do not.

General PICK. I do not, either.

Mr. DONNELLY. I cite that only as an illustration for a disposition not to give all the facts.

General PICK. Those were two of them.

Mr. DONNELLY. Yes.

General PICK. As Chief of Engineers, I do not withhold information from a committee of Congress.

Mr. FORD. Mr. Chairman, I think it might be well perhaps to have the whole story in the record, to know whether the $7 million was actually requested and approved for this particular item.

Mr. DONNELLY. We just have some telephone conversations which the Corps of Engineers has given to us. I do not know whether the $7 million was ever reported to the committee or not.

Mr. FORD. Do you not feel, Mr. Donnelly, that to make the story complete we should have that as a part of the record?

Mr. DONNELLY. Will you ask someone to get that, General Pick? General PICK. Yes; we can get the figure.

Mr. DONNELLY. Will you have it put in the record at this point? General PICK. We will be glad to.

(The data requested follows:)

Housing, camp, and administrative facilities, both temporary and permanent, and including roads, utilities, etc., were approved in the definite-project report at a total cost of $7,414,000, for construction. (The authorization estimate for the whole project was $49,470,000.) Salvage value and rentals will reduce the cost to a total net amount of $3,504,000. As of June 30, 1951, the housing program has cost $5,370,000.

NONAVAILABILITY OF DEFINITE-PROJECT REPORTS IN OFFICE OF CHIEF OF ENGINEERS

Mr. DONNELLY. Now with respect to the definite project report; the definite-project report, generally speaking, is not available in your Office here in Washington, is it?

General PICK. I beg your pardon?

Mr. DONNELLY. The definite-project reports, generally speaking, are not available at your Office here in Washington, are they?

General PICK. When they are made up, they are made up in the field, they are either approved in the field, or they are approved in my office. Now in order to expedite the work, in order to cut down the administration costs to the minimum, I have people from the Engineering Division in my Office visit the district offices with a view to following the preparation of the definite-project studies to completion, so they may get tentative approval right out in the field without having to come to Washington.

Mr. DONNELLY. Once this definite-project report is completed, under orders and regulations there can be no major deviation from it without your approval; is that correct?

General PICK. That is correct.

Mr. DONNELLY. For the 182 projects in the current construction program, is it not a fact that very, very few of the definite-project reports for those projects are available in your office here in Washington?

General PICK. That is right. We only get them, only get them when they are sent in when they have been completed.

There is a running record kept of all actions taken with respect to the individual definite-project reports. There will be telegrams and letters and studies back and forth. Then when that definite-project report is completed, a copy of it is sent to my office.

Mr. DONNELLY. I have been down there a lot of times, that is, to the Washington Office, and your office has advised me that they are not there.

General PICK. Because they are working papers for a going job.