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5 SEC. 7. (a) The program information may be set forth 6 in such form as the President may determine, and the cata7 log may include such other program information and data

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as in his opinion are necessary or desirable in order to assist 9 the potential program beneficiary to understand and take 10 advantage of each Federal domestic assistance program.

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(b) The catalog shall contain a detailed index designed to assist the potential beneficiary to identify all Federal 13 domestic assistance programs related to a particular need. 14 (c) The catalog shall be in all respects concise, clear, 15 understandable, and such that it can be easily understood by 16 the potential beneficiary.

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18 SEC. 8. The President shall revise the catalog at no less

19 than quarterly intervals. Each revision

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(1) shall reflect any changes in the program infor

mation listed in section 6.

(2) shall further reflect addition, consolidation, re

organization, or cessation of Federal assistance programs,

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and shall provide for such Federal assistance programs

the program information listed in section 6.

(3) shall include such other program information as will provide the most current information on changes in financial information, on changes in organizations administering the Federal assistance programs, and on other changes of direct, immediate relevance to potential program beneficiaries as will most accurately reflect the full scope of Federal assistance programs.

(4) may include such other program information and data as in the President's opinion are necessary or desirable in order to assist the potential program

beneficiary to understand and take advantage of each

Federal assistance program.

PUBLICATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE CATALOG

SEC. 9. (a) The President (or an official to whom such

function is delegated pursuant to section 10 of this Act) 18 shall prepare, publish, and maintain the catalog and shall 19 make such catalog and revisions thereof available to the 20 public at prices approximately equal to the cost in quantities 21 adequate to meet public demands, providing for subscriptions to the catalog and revisions thereof in such manner as he may determine.

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Gratis distribution of not to exceed ten thousand copies,

25 in the aggregate, is authorized to Members of Congress and

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1 Resident Commissioners, Federal department and agency

2 officials, State and local officials, and to local repositories

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as determined by the President or his delegated representa4 tive.

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(b) The catalog shall be the single authoritative, Gov6 ernment-wide compendium of Federal domestic assistance program information produced by a Federal agency or

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8 department. Specialized catalogs for specific ad hoc purposes

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may be developed within the framework, or as a supple10 ment to, the Government-wide compendium and shall be 11 allowed only when specifically authorized and developed 12 within guidelines and criteria to be determined by the 13 President.

14 (c) Any existing provisions of law requiring the prep15 aration or publication of such catalogs are superseded to the 16 extent they may be in conflict with the provisions of this 17 Act.

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19 SEC. 10. The President may delegate any function con20 ferred upon him by this Act including preparation and dis21 tribution of the catalog, to the head of any Federal depart22 ment or agency, with authority for redelegation as he may 23 deem appropriate.

Mr. BLATNIK. Mr. Roth, would you take the stand and begin the hearings this morning?

STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM V. ROTH, JR., A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE

Mr. ROTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, if I may, rather than reading my official statement-which I would appreciate having incorporated as part of the record-I would like to briefly outline what the legislation is about and why I hope it will be enacted.

Mr. BLATNIK. Without objection your statement will appear in its entirety in the record and you may proceed at will to give emphasis, underscore, or call attention to those aspects of your proposal which you feel need further elaboration.

Mr. ROTH. First of all, I would like to say that I thank the chairman for holding these hearings. I recognize the great burden of work you have with a number of other organizational matters before your committee.

Basically, what we are talking about today is a very simple concept to fill what I think is a very basic need-that is, to provide meaningful information in a readily available form to help those whom the various Federal assistance programs are designed to help.

The Program Information Act would require the President to publish a catalog each year by May 1, to be updated on at least a quarterly basis.

The legislation sets forth certain basic elements that should be incorporated in this catalog. I will mention them very briefly, but I think it is important to first note that the primary purpose is to give the kind of information that is necessary to help the potential beneficiary or to help the local and State officials back home who are responsible for making applications.

The kinds of information we require to be incorporated under this legislation would include, of course, the identity of the program, a brief description, and the eligibility requirements. All this is meaningful to the individuals who have to determine whether or not they are eligible or can become eligible. In addition, we have found that one of the areas of greatest concern-the area creating the greatest problems for our constituents-has been the lack of adequate financial information about Federal programs. Consequently, the proposed legislation does require that certain basic financial information be supplied, and hopefully, as time moves on, more complete financial information than is now possible under present accounting procedures will be included. To continue, we would require the description of each program in the catalog to incorporate such additional information as what the application procedures are and, perhaps more important, identify related programs.

I have found that one of the things that have most concerned the people back home, as well as my colleagues in the Congress, is that very often in the past it has been extremely difficult to identify related programs. This is a service that I think will be very helpful to those who use the catalog.

Mr. Chairman, I think the need for adequate information is now pretty clear cut. I will suggest very briefly, if I might, why I think there has been what I have called in the past an information crisis.

My interest in this matter started back in 1966 when I made a survey of Delaware attempting to find out from local officials, school administrators, and so on, what problems they were having, if any, with Federal assistance programs. It soon became clear that one of the critical problems was adequate information. Coming to Washington, I soon learned that nowhere in the executive branch of the Government was there a compilation of all Federal programs. And, as I have outlined in earlier speeches and I shall not go through this again— to fill this gap we made an 8-month study in an effort to compile a comprehensive compendium of all assistance programs.

One of my basic concerns is that this lack of adequate information hurts most those whom we are trying to help the most.

In other words, it's the small colleges, the small communities, smaller schools, smaller States and smaller counties that have suffered the greatest from the lack of adequate information. We have found that large universities have developed entire libraries in Washington whose principal purpose is to find out where the assistance is. This has given them a tremendous advantage in contrast to the smaller organizations that cannot afford to do the same. I would like to, if I might, make one quote. It's a quote of the National Association of County Administrators, which says that "The vastness of the Federal aid 'administrative jungle' reflects the urgency of developing an information system to keep local leaders and administrators informed so they can fulfill their responsibilities."

As a matter of fact, NACO goes on and recommends, for example, that every county have at least one person whose principal activity would be to develop such information. I think this gives you some idea of the magnitude of the information need, because this alone would mean that there would have to be 3,000 different information officers in the counties and, by extrapolation, 18,000 in the municipalities, all doing the same thing.

In addition, we have something like 25,000 different school districts and 2,500 institutions of higher learning. All of these need adequate information on Federal assistance programs as well.

Mr. BLATNIK. Would the gentleman yield at that point?
Mr. ROTH. I would be happy to.

Mr. BLATNIK. It's a good point you have made. We have a good relationship with the Association of County Officials; the Council of State Governments, and the National Association of Counties. They have been very active with us in many programs-area development, community facilities-to help the smaller communities. Many of these programs would fall under the heading of "Ways to Improve the Quality of Life."

On these occasions it is most difficult to find where they can get help.

But once you find an agency it is absolutely inexcusable and pathetic or incredible-whatever word you want to use-that you can't get something going. I can name specific cases over and over again where these little county officials are supposed to run to Chicago to the headquarters for information on urban renewal or to get information on small community projects or sewer projects, or whatever it might be. They are running back and forth. They may have a small hospital application or housing for the aged application, in these small counties, and they have to go through almost the same procedure

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