That proposal was introduced quite recently and we have had only a few inquiries as to these metropolitan planning incentive grants.

Let me go back to your first point, however. I think-and I am not going to

Mr. ST GERMAIN. Excuse me, Mr. Secretary. The first part was an observation that will be brought out by questioning as I go along. Secretary WEAVER. I beg your pardon.

Mr. ST GERMAIN. In the criteria in section 4:

Provide substantial increase of supply to extant housing, and take care of people in slum and blighted areas, and with a view to reducing educational disadvantages, disease, and enforced idleness.

Not to be facetious, but you know the young damsel from St. Louis, a very charming and hard working individual on this committee, heads the Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs. And I am wondering if perhaps HUD should not ask her to look into the price of bacon, which is up to $1.18 now. That contributes to disease among underprivileged people when they can't afford the necessities of life.

So perhaps, this could be incorporated also, Mr. Secretary, in the aims of the act.

Secretary WEAVER. I will have to decline that suggestion sir. I think that what we would hope to do here would be able to prepare people better to participate in the economic affluence and well-being of society so that they could pay the price of bacon as well as those who are better off. It is somebody else's job to keep the price of bacon low. This is not something that I feel we have any competence

in.

Mr. ST GERMAIN. Thank you.

Mr. Secretary, in line with that, under section 4 once again there is a reference to "providing a good access to industrial or other centers of employment." My question is, Is this limited to access roads? In other words, to highways, the building of highways that would allow these people to get to their places of employment, does it contemplate or take in urban transportation that would get these people to their employment, or does it refer to what it considers industrial parks to bring employment into these areas, so that after the 5 or 6 years when some of these people, it is hoped, are going to be helped by the act, will be working on the renewal of these cities, they will then have permanent employment in industry within the area?

Secretary WEAVER. I think it refers to all of them. Obviously as far as the transit is concerned, it is not only a question of streets and highways and parking facilities, but also a matter of mass transit. These are people, some of whom cannot, and some of whom should not have to purchase automobiles in order to get to their employment. As far as the industrial park side of it is concerned, this would be more indirectly than direct, because we are concerned here with primarily developing residence areas. Now, there may be some small factories and so forth. But one of the things that would be considered in the cities plan that would make the cities plan more feasible would be if the city also had gone along with some activity to provide industrial employment and industrial parks and places for employment. And au courant this would be certainly a factor that would make this a sound and more desirable program and plan than another city that could not do it—

Mr. ST GERMAIN. Keeping au courant, Mr. Secretary, in order for the city to do this, if it is a city that needs money and is in bad shape, and it also needs funds to develop an industrial park to give employment to these people, I am wondering why this was not included as so many other things were in the Demonstration Cities Act.

Secretary WEAVER. The reason for it is dual. In the first place, as I said earlier, we want this to be concerned primarily with housing and with the human elements involved.

Secondly, under the existing urban renewal program the city now has Federal support up to two-thirds for the provision of industrial parks, so that it can do this out of the regular program that can be coordinated into this. There is no lack of assistance for that now.

Mr. ST GERMAIN. But for the most part it is 50 percent, and I also

Secretary WEAVER. For the economic development program, but up to two-thirds for writing down the cost of blighted land in our urban renewal program. The manner of developing the land and the site for the industrial park could come in as an urban renewal project. Now, the actual development of that would probably come under the economic development program. Let's assume that you had a city developing an industrial park, and it went through urban renewal to get the site, and used our two-thirds grant to write down the cost of the site. It would be two-thirds Federal money and one-third local. On that one-third local, the proportion of it that would result in improvement and employment for the people involved here-they would get 80 percent of that one-third. If the other Federal program, economic development, which deals with the development as contrasted to the making of the land available were involved, and that were a 50-percent grant, with respect to the proportion of the local contribution to that grant which helped these people, they could get an 80-percent grant from this program. So this proposal does cover it. just as it would cover the building of the houses.

Mr. ST GERMAIN. I know my time is up, but I would like to make one observation, because we will be back to the Secretary, I am sure later on, Mr. Chairman.

On two occasions, the Secretary mentioned that we are primarily interested in housing. I make this observation, Mr. Secretary. If you give these people wonderful housing you must also give them jobs to afford to stay in that housing after 5 years.

Secretary WEAVER. I think this program would do it under the very approach you have suggested.

Mr. BARRETT. Mr. Gonzalez?

Mr. GONZALEZ. I would like to defer questioning until this afternoon.

Mr. BARRETT. It seems to be agreeable to the Secretary. I am sure that he will answer your questions.

Mr. Reuss?

Mr. REUSS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, in commenting to Mr. Ashley and Mr. Moorhead on the four amendments which were put to you, and particularly on the amendment to require the development of an expedited program for new systems of urban transport, when you indicated you approved of that, I thought your approval was a little hesitant, and that you

implied that that was not a good way to do it. The two things which you mentioned I think could be cleared up if you could read with me the proposed amendment. You said (1) you thought that 2 years was not enough to develop such a program. And secondly, that you thought that the approach ought to be through new systems rather than just through individual technology. Now, if you will read the amendment with me, I think you will agree that we have in mind precisely what you do the amendment will direct the Department to prepare a program for research and development and demonstration of new systems of coordinating urban transport. And then it says the program should "aim at a breakthrough within 5 years of its approval by the Congress," and it "concerns itself with the technical, financial, economic, governmental, and social aspects of the problem. In this connection, experts from such universities as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and such aerospace companies as North American Aviation, have recently testified that a program of this sort has an excellent chance of bringing about the required breakthrough. The proposed program would 'provide national leadership to efforts of States, localities, private industry, universities, and foundations."'"

Now, I call your attention to the fact that we are talking about 5 years rather than 2, and that we are talking about not just isolated technology, but whole new systems, for communities of different sizes. Doesn't this convert you into an enthusiastic adherent of the AshleyMoorhead-Reuss amendment?

Secretary WEAVER. Let me say that it removes some of my hesitancy. I think there are two problems involved here. The first one is, of course, to reconcile this amendment to what we already have under the mass transit law. And the second goes back to the fact that we will soon have a message up to the Hill on a Department of Transportation. I think it would be premature for me to make any comment on anything to do with mass transportation until the position of the administration on the whole subject has been set forth.

Mr. REUSS. As of today, you are in mass transport. And the question is, are you content in going along buying communities a new bus here and a new subway car or subway station there? Or don't you think, as representatives of the aerospace industry do, as representatives of our great universities like Massachusetts Institute of Technology do, that what is really needed in our problem of urban transport is an approach like that of the Manhattan project on atomic energy, like that of the Boston and Washington high-speed railway, like that of the space program to put a man on the moon, whereby the Federal Government acts as a coordinating influence on the whole society, with all its public and private aspects?

Secretary WEAVER. I think our differences come down to this, that I feel that there has been a great deal of overemphasis on what I call the hardware approach, on the notion that you are going to get some technological breakthrough, and get people riding on air and have them riding in a new type of thing-monorail, for example, is often mentioned or have them riding in a tube underneath the ground, pneumatic tube, and so forth. I think that while this is a part of the picture, the economics of it, the consumer habit part of it, and all of these other factors are equally important. I would hate to see—and I

60-878-66-pt. 1

don't see that your bill necessarily does this-but I would hate to see this emphasis made.

Mr. REUSS. May I call attention to the fact that the technological, of course, was merely one of five aspects which are listed as technological, financial, economic, governmental and social? Does not a reading of that reduce the swelling a bit as far as your Department is concerned?

Secretary WEAVER. A bit.

Mr. REUSS. Thank you.

Mr. BARRETT. Thank you, Dr. Weaver. The committee will stand in recess until 2 o'clock.

(Whereupon, at 12 noon, the subcommittee recessed to reconvene at 2 p.m., the same day.)

AFTERNOON SESSION

Present: Representatives Barrett (presiding), Mrs. Sullivan, Ashley, Moorhead, Stephens, St. Germain, Gonzalez, Reuss, Widnall, Fino, and Mrs. Dwyer.

Mr. BARRETT. The committee will come to order.

This morning we operated on a 5-minute rule. We hope to give the members an opportunity to ask questions for a longer period this afternoon. And therefore we are going to operate under the 10-minute rule.

Mr. Secretary, as I understand, the funds for actual planning under the metropolitan planning program, they will come from the existing section 701 program. Under that law most areas get only a two-thirds grant, while the depressed areas can get up to three-fourths. This bill would authorize higher ratio grants under another program as an inducement to planning. But frankly I am surprised to see that there is no increase in the planning grant ratio. Wouldn't you consider it logical to increase the ratio of planning grants to the same 80-percent ratio as you propose for the demonstration cities

STATEMENT OF ROBERT C. WEAVER, SECRETARY OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT-Resumed

Secretary WEAVER. Mr. Chairman, we have had, as you know, a period of some years of experience with the 701 planning grant. To date we have not found that the present ratio has created any difficulty to the participating local units of government, nor has it been a deterrent to this type of planning. We didn't increase it because we didn't think it was necessary, and we didn't want to have a higher ratio than was necessary, since this would probably represent an undue Federal participation.

I would say that if there is any evidence that an increase is needed we certainly will reflect that in our legislative proposal. But to date this hasn't occurred. We haven't had difficulty here.

I think the difference between these two programs is that the demonstration cities program involves activities which the cities would like to do but just do not have the financial resources to carry out. This is well documented by their own condition and by the condition that is reflected in the amount of taxes that they can collect, and their expenditures.

We haven't run into a similar situation in the 701 program, and I don't believe we will. But we will certainly be cognizant of this issue. And if it does arise, we will make recommendations to correct whatever deficiencies may be there.

Mr. BARRETT. Thank you, sir.

I see that the metropolitan planning proposal speaks of metropolitan areas as defined by the Bureau of the Census, but gives you power to change that definition. In my own area of Philadelphia, the metropolitan area is defined as including three counties across the river in the State of New Jersey. Would you expect that we would have to get the cooperation of the authorities in another State before Pennsylvania communities could qualify for additional grants contemplated by your metropolitan planning proposal? Is it true that you could divide the area and consider them separately?

Secretary WEAVER. Well, as you know, Mr. Chairman, we have had some experience with that in our planning and our programing for mass transportation, and in some degree open spaces also. I do not believe that it would be possible to get a metropolitan approach in certain activities which would involve the area in which Philadelphia is the center without, for example, involving Camden, which is so closely allied to Philadelphia both physically and otherwise. I would doubt as a general rule that it would be possible to get a metropolitan areawide approach for Philadelphia which would not include certain parts of Jersey.

We run into the same problem, for example, though of a more complex nature, when in New York City. There you have not only New Jersey but also Connecticut. I think the whole concept of a metropolitanwide approach falls down if you don't involve with those other two States.

In Congresswoman Sullivan's area of St. Louis you have not only the State of Missouri but the State of Illinois as well which is also involved.

I think our problem here is to get the type of interstate compacts that we have been doing. We would feel that we should assist the localities in getting those agreements and encouraging them in every way possible to make this occur.

Mr. BARRETT. Mr. Widnall.

Mr. WIDNALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. Weaver, the rent certificate program, which was section 103 of last year's bill, and which I first proposed in 1964, has gone into action, and I believe there have been some good reports on it. It seems to have stirred up considerable interest. Could you tell me how many rent certificate applications have been approved to date, since you issued the form for that purpose in late October?

Mr. BARRETT. Mrs. McGuire would have to answer that.

Mrs. MCGUIRE. I have no figures. We have had applications from 16 communities, formal applications for a total of 3,405 units, and many more inquiries.

Mr. WIDNALL. Of that number how many are waiting approval at this time?

Mrs. MCGUIRE. We have approved six, and the balance are awaiting approval, although some are in the central office and are clearing it now. We have executed annual contributions contracts on three. Only 3 with 75 units have actually been leased and occupied.