OCR Text |
Show 424 there is no single comprehensive policy. But the existing machinery for projecting construction agency plans six years in advance offers a possibility for relating separate agency seg- ments to comprehensive plans. For all construction agencies of the Government are required to prepare and keep up-to-date "carefully planned and realistic long-range programs" which must be submitted annually to the Bureau of the Budget.169 The Bureau is required to consolidate these programs and submit to the President an "over-all advance program for the Executive Branch." 170 This responsibility of the Bureau has been described to Con- gress by its Director as follows: m The development of long-range programs is not the operating responsibility of the Bureau of the Budget. Rather it is the responsibility of the agencies that have been authorized by Congress to undertake or aid in executing the projects comprising the program. The Bureau of the Budget has the responsibility of insuring that estimates for public works and improvements are based on a carefully thought-out program, that they do not impinge upon or conflict with programs of other Federal agencies, and that the estimates of appropria- tions recommended to the President for presentation to Congress represent orderly progress in our national de- velopment and bear proper relationship to each other. This practice of requiring federal construction agencies to prepare six-year, advance programs stems from the Employ- ment Stabilization Act of 1931.172 169 Ex. O. No. 9384, October 4,1943, 8 F. R. 13782. ™Id. par. 3. 171 Hearings on H. R. 3598 (First Supplemental National Defense Appro- priation Bill for 1944) before Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, 78th Cong., 1st sess., p. 324 (1943). See also id., p. 740, for memorandum concerning the authority of the Bureau of the Budget in relation to public-works programming. 172 Act of February 10, 1931, § 8, 46 Stat. 1084,1086, 29 U. S. C. 48g. (The compilers of the United States Code state that this Act "became obsolete upon the abolition of the National Resources Planning Board." However, the Act abolishing the NRPB did not mention the 1931 Act which, in addi- tion to prescribing certain duties that later became vested in the NRPB, |