Senator BARTLETT. Now we will proceed to take testimony on S. 1917. The first witness is Phillip S. Hughes, Assistant Director for Legislative Reference, Bureau of the Budget. STATEMENT OF PHILLIP S. HUGHES, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE, BUREAU OF THE BUDGET; ACCOMPANIED BY PIERRE S. PALMER, CHIEF, HOSPITALS BRANCH Mr. HUGHES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Pierre Palmer is with me, also from the Bureau of the Budget, Hospital Branch. Senator BARTLETT. Thank you. Mr. HUGHES. I have a very brief prepared statement, Mr. Chairman, and I would like to read it, if I might. Senator BARTLETT. Certainly. Mr. HUGHES. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, we are here in response to the subcommittee's request to discuss S. 1917, to amend the Merchant Marine Act, 1936, in order to protect and promote the health of seamen on vessels of the United States, and for other purposes. S. 1917 is intended to prohibit the transfer or assignment of any responsibility or function of providing medical, surgical, and dental treatment and hospitalization for seamen and other Public Health Service beneficiaries to any other department or Government agency, or the termination of such service at any Public Health Service institution, hospital, or station without the consent of the appropriate committees of the Congress. Four Attorneys General, including Attorney General Katzenbach, have held that legislative provisions vesting in congressional committees the power to approve or disapprove action of the executive branch are unconstitutional. The constitutional objections to such procedure were stated many years ago in 1933 by Attorney General Mitchell as follows: The Constitution of the United States divides the functions of the Government into three great departments-the legislative, the executive, and the judicial and establishes the principle that they shall be kept separate, and that neither the legislative, executive, nor judicial branch may exercise functions belonging to the others. The proviso in the *** (instant) *** bill violates this constitutional principle. It attempts to entrust to members of the Senator BARTLETT. Now we will proceed to take testimony on S. 1917. The first witness is Phillip S. Hughes, Assistant Director for Legislative Reference, Bureau of the Budget. STATEMENT OF PHILLIP S. HUGHES, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR LEGISLATIVE REFERENCE, BUREAU OF THE BUDGET; ACCOMPANIED BY PIERRE S. PALMER, CHIEF, HOSPITALS BRANCH Mr. HUGHES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Pierre Palmer is with me, also from the Bureau of the Budget, Hospital Branch. Senator BARTLETT. Thank you. Mr. HUGHES. I have a very brief prepared statement, Mr. Chairman, and I would like to read it, if I might. Senator BARTLETT. Certainly. Mr. HUGHES. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, we are here in response to the subcommittee's request to discuss S. 1917, to amend the Merchant Marine Act, 1936, in order to protect and promote the health of seamen on vessels of the United States, and for other purposes. S. 1917 is intended to prohibit the transfer or assignment of any responsibility or function of providing medical, surgical, and dental treatment and hospitalization for seamen and other Public Health Service beneficiaries to any other department or Government agency, or the termination of such service at any Public Health Service institution, hospital, or station without the consent of the appropriate committees of the Congress. Four Attorneys General, including Attorney General Katzenbach, have held that legislative provisions vesting in congressional committees the power to approve or disapprove action of the executive branch are unconstitutional. The constitutional objections to such procedure were stated many years ago in 1933 by Attorney General Mitchell as follows: The Constitution of the United States divides the functions of the Government into three great departments-the legislative, the executive, and the judicial and establishes the principle that they shall be kept separate, and that neither the legislative, executive, nor judicial branch may exercise func* bill tions belonging to the others. The proviso in the *** (instant) ** violates this constitutional principle. It attempts to entrust to members of the legislative branch, acting ex officio, executive functions in the execution of the law, and it attempts to give to a committee of the legislative branch power to approve or disapprove executive acts In recent years Presidents have on numerous occasions protested bills with similar effect. In 1954, Congress passed a bill to authorize the transfer to the State of Florida of federally owned lands situated within Camp Blanding Military Reservation with a provision in the bill requiring that prior to the consummation of the agreement of conveyance, the Secretary of Defense or his designee shall come into agreement with the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and of the House of Representatives concerning the terms of such agreement. President Eisenhower vetoed the bill because of the presence of this "come-into-agreement clause." President Johnson's recent disapproval of S. 327 reflects a similar concern over a provision different in form but with the same effect. In addition to the constitutional objection to S. 1917, we believe it would inhibit orderly and efficient administration. We believe it essential that the President have the necessary flexibility to respond to changing circumstances. The closing or relocation of facilities often may be a necessary part of plans for providing improved and efficient services. The proposed amendment could cause undesirable and perhaps costly delays in the relocation and consolidation of facilities. This, in turn, runs counter to the administration's commitment to high quality and efficiency in the Government's operations. Accordingly, the Bureau of the Budget recommends that the Congress not enact S. 1917. That is all of my statement, Mr. Chairman. We would be glad to do whatever we can by way of answering questions. Senator BARTLETT. What is S. 327? Mr. HUGHES. S. 327 was the west coast flood bill. Senator BARTLETT. Do you know what the plans of the administration are with respect to the treatment of seamen in these Public Health hospitals? Are alterations, changes, under contemplation, or have they been ordered? Mr. HUGHES. There is underway the implementation of a plan under which the five largest Public Health Service hospitals would be improved, would be expanded and modernized, with, I believe, expanded teaching and research facilities. Other smaller hospitals, seven, would be phased out over a period of time, with the patients that have heretofore been taken care of in those hospitals cared for primarily in Veterans' Administration or in Defense hospitals that would be nearer to the seamen or other patients being served. Senator BARTLETT. Which hospitals are to be closed? Mr. HUGHES. The two in the near future are Memphis and Chicago, and I would like Mr. Palmer to name the others. Mr. PALMER. The other five are Boston, Norfolk, Galveston, Savannah, and Detroit. Senator BARTLETT. Each of those last five is obviously a seaport of considerable importance. How is it proposed that seamen who are ill or who have been injured shall be treated in those places? Mr. PALMER. They would use the Veterans' Administration hospitals in those locations, or in the case of Galveston, they would use the Houston VA hospital. Senator BARTLETT. I have just been informed that only yesterday, last night as a matter of fact, the General Accounting Office issued a decision, stating that seamen entitled to treatment at public hospital facilities would be necessarily subordinate to veterans with respect to admission to VA hospitals. Are you aware of that? Mr. HUGHES. I understood there was such a decision, Senator. I haven't seen it. I am not really in a position to comment on it. Senator BARTLETT. I haven't read it, either. It has just been handed to me. It is a letter to Chairman Bonner of the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee dated June 7, as a matter of fact, and apparently signed by Joseph Campbell, Comptroller General of the United States. That letter will be incorporated in the record. (The letter follows:) Hon. HERBERT C. BONNER, COMPTROLLER GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES, Chairman, Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: Your letter dated April 13, 1965, requests our views on several legal questions which arose during the recent hearings of your committee on the proposed administrative closing of designated Public Health Service hospitals, announced January 19, 1965, by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. To briefly summarize the situation, the Department of Health, Education. and Welfare contemplates closing, over the period ending with the fiscal year 1968 or 1969, 7 of the 12 general hospitals of the Public Health Service. The hospitals to be closed are in Chicago, Memphis, Savannah, Boston, Galveston, Norfolk, and Detroit. They are the smallest of the Service's general hospitals, having a capacity of 1,035 beds, or approximately 35 percent of the present bed capacity of the 12 hospitals. The closed hospitals are to be converted to outpatient clinics which will refer Public Health Service beneficiaries in need of hospitalization to Veterans' Administration, Department of Defense, or local community hospitals. Merchant seamen, the largest category of Public Health Service beneficiaries, are to be referred to Veterans' Administration hospitals, and it is contemplated the Veterans' Administration will give the merchant seamen a higher priority in admission to its hospitals than veterans with non-service-connected disabilities. The five remaining Public Health Service hospitals, located at Staten Island, Baltimore, New Orleans, San Francisco, and Seattle, are to be modernized and enlarged from a bed capacity of 1,937 to not more than 2,400, or an increase of about 20 percent. In the course of the hearings your committee was informed that a study was being conducted, by the Office of Science and Technology, to weigh the merits of transferring responsibility for the health care of American seamen, and the five remaining Public Health Service general hospitals, to the Veterans' Administration. In view of the foregoing the questions arose, on which our opinion is requested, "as to the authority of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to close any or all of the Public Health Service hospitals and to transfer a statutory responsibility to another Government agency." Also, "The questions arose as to the authority of the Veterans' Administrator to render hospital care to Public Health Service beneficiaries in preference to veterans of any category and under what authority, if any, can nonveterans be treated at Veterans' Administration hospitals." The Public Health Service Act, as amended (42 U.S.C. 201, et seq.), contemplates the operation by the Public Health Service, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, of hospitals and other stations for the care of certain beneficiaries, such as merchant seamen, and in the absence of Public Health Service facilities authorizes the referral of such beneficiaries, at the expense of the Service, to public or private hospitals (sec. 249). The act also states that any executive department, in accordance with the interdepartmental service provisions of 31 U.S.C. 686, may perform work or service for the Public Health Service (sec. 254). The Surgeon General, who administers the Public Health Service, is empowered by the Public Health Service Act to "control, manage, and operate all |