Chapter Viii Legislative Restraints on the Administration of Emergency

POWERS

It is generally conceded that the problem of the responsibility of administrative officials in a democracy is the very crux of the problem of the maintenance of the democratic system, and that we must look chiefly to the Congress for performance of the task of happily combining administrative responsibility with the administrative discretion so vital to the maintenance of the democratic government in time of peace or war. Members and critics of the federal legislature, particularly since the 77th or first wartime Congress (1941-1942), have acknowledged and responded to the need to equip it more effectively to formulate basic policy as well as to scrutinize administrative execution of the legislative mandate. As appraised by these critics the problem is one of adequately and accurately informing the Congress, of concentrating congressional checks upon essentials rather than trivia, and, in contradiction of those who seek an unchecked executive discretion in time of emergency, of “including closer, stronger, steadier cooperation between the President and the Congress.”

Among recent innovations which may be viewed as the product of this movement to perfect administrative accountability to Congress are the requirements of executive reporting to the Legislative Branch and the “legislative veto.” Whether statutes embodying these devices provide Congress with a check on the Executive Branch in excess of that deemed essential, and in effect, accord to the Legislative Branch an actual participation in the administration of the laws is the major issue to which this chapter is devoted.

ACCOUNTING TO COMMITTEES

In the course of signing H. R. 6042, a defense appropriations bill, on July 15, 1955, President Eisenhower rebuked Congress for including therein Section 638 requiring the Secretary of Defense to secure prior consent of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees before separating from his Department functions which he thinks could better be performed by private industry. The President alleged that the Congress has no right to confer upon its committees the power to veto Executive action or to prevent Executive action from becoming effective. Invoking the constitutional principle of the separation of powers, he declared his intention to ignore this provision.

While the bill which President Eisenhower reluctantly signed represented an effort to delegate a share in the executive function to committees of the Congress, such legislative action is not wholly without precedent. A survey of legislation in the fields of foreign affairs and economic or military emergency since 1933 indicates not infrequent attempts by Congress to secure for its committees some measure of continuing influence over the exercise of powers delegated to the executive. This may take the form of requiring periodic or special reports to policy committees instead of the full houses, it may take the form of compulsory consultation with committees--and whatever this entails by way of consequent committee influence on administrative action, or the committee may be secured a suspensive, enabling, or veto power over administrative action. It would be rash to construct, on the basis of our study, a judgment of the potential good or evil attending the increasing effort of Congress to share the detailed burdens of administration. The trend, it seems clear, exists, however.

Reporting to Committees: The requirement that administrative units report to superiors, to Congress, or to units of the latter, may be designed to achieve many purposes. The requirement may be devoid of any overtone of control--e.g., its aim may be limited solely to providing of technical information or advice as an aid to policy formulation, or it may be utilized to promote maximum scrutiny and control of executive action. For when one must report in detail and frequently on the discharge of delegated functions, it is necessary either to attempt to mislead the Congress--a dangerous pastime--or to toe the line and act as a meticulous surrogate of the legislature, in anticipation of an imminent accounting with it.

Thus it would be difficult to distinguish the informative and control purposes of the provision of the Supplemental National Defense Appropriations Act of 1948 requiring that the Secretary of Defense report quarterly “to the Committees on Appropriations and Armed Services of the Congress ... the amounts obligated” for “the construction of aircraft and equipment.”

The Secretary’s reports were to include a statement of finding by the President that the contracts let were necessary in the interest of the national defense and that the contract specifications insured the maximum utilization of improvements in aircraft and equipment consistent with the defense needs of the United States. The Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949 permitted the President, upon his own determination of the need therefore, to transfer funds from one project to another provided for in the Act. The amounts transferred could not exceed five percent of the total funds appropriated. Whenever he made such a determination, however, he was required forthwith to notify the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and of the House of Representatives, and the Committee on Foreign Affairs own determination of the need therefore, to transfer funds from one to report to the Congress biannually on the administration of the Act. The Mutual Security Act of 1951 contained a similar provision.

Similar to the above is the 1950 requirement that the Secretary of the Navy annually file with the Committees on Armed Services in the Congress information as to the proceeds of all sales of condemned naval material and the expenses connected with such sales. The 1950 statute permitting the summary suspension of civilian officers and employees of specified departments and agencies (State, Commerce, Justice, Defense, Treasury, Atomic Energy Commission, National Security Resources Board, National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) gave the President authority to extend the list of agencies to which the Act applied. Any additions to the list, however, had to be based upon the best interests of national security and communicated to the Committees on the Armed Services of the Congress.

In the Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1951, which established an embargo on the shipment of arms, ammunition, and implements of war to any nation or combination of nations threatening the security of the United States, Congress gave the Administration the power to determine what items constituted arms, ammunition, and implements of war and items should be embargoed. Aid to any nation knowingly permitting shipment of such materials or equipment to the U.S.S.R. and its satellites was to be suspended, unless the President found that unusual circumstances indicated that the cessation of aid would clearly be detrimental to the security of the United States. Upon making such a decision, the President was to report his decision and the reasons for it to the Appropriations and Armed Services Committees of the Senate and House of Representatives, the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate, and the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives. Moreover, the President was required to review, at least once each quarter, all determinations made previously and report his conclusions to the foregoing committees.

A postwar statute of limited dimensions was enacted in August 1953, enabling the President to lend to Italy, France, and any friendly foreign nation in the Far Eastern area, on terms satisfactory to him, naval vessels of stated categories. This legislation charged the Secretary of Defense with the duty to keep the respective Committees on Armed Service of the Senate and the House of Representatives advised of all transfers or other dispositions of naval vessels. The Defense Cataloguing and Standardization Act of 1952 established within the Department of Defense a Defense Supply Management Agency which was to develop a single catalogue system and related supply standardization program. The Director of the Agency was required to transmit to the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and House of Representatives on January 31 and July 31 of each year, progress reports on the cataloguing and standardization programs. Similarly, in authorizing the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force to acquire or develop industrial plants as needed for defense mobilization Congress required the Secretary of Defense to report semi-annually to the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and of the House of Representatives with respect to those activities authorized by statute which were not otherwise the subject of reporting under law.

The foregoing can perhaps best be characterized as legislative adaptations of Carl J. Friedrich’s so-called “rule of anticipated reaction.” In context the rule implies that administrative officers, aware of the imminent necessity of reporting to the legislature the details of exercise of discretion under delegatory statutes, will attempt so to pattern their action as to maximize the likelihood of legislative approval.

Consultation with Committees: Legislative restraint is less obvious--though nonetheless present--in statutes which, instead of requiring detailed reporting of administrative discharge of delegated functions, provide for periodic or continuous administrative consultation with congressional committees. The Economic Co-operation Act of 1948 created a Joint Committee on Foreign Economic Co-operation, consisting of ten members from the Foreign Relations and Appropriations Committees of the Senate, and the Foreign Affairs and Appropriations Committees of the House. The Economic Cooperation Administrator was to consult with the committee from time to time as the Committee might request. In 1950 the Secretary of Defense was empowered after consultation with the respective Armed Services Committees of the Congress to provide the facilities necessary or the administration and training of the Reserve components of the Armed Forces. The Defense Production Act of 1950 established a Joint Committee of Defense Production to make a continuous study of the programs authorized by the Act, and to review the progress achieved in the execution and administration of such programs. It required all agencies and officials administering programs authorized by the Act, at the request of the committee, to consult with the committee, from time to time, with respect to their activities under this Act. A Joint Committee on Immigration and Nationality Policy was created to make a continuous study of the administration of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. The Act instructed the Attorney General and the Secretary of State to submit to the Committee all regulations, instructions, and all other information as requested by the Committee relative to the administration of the Act. The Secretary of State and the Attorney General were required to consult with the Committee from time to time with respect to their activities under this Act.

Committee Participation in Administrative Decision-Making: The history of recent use of the “legislative veto” might lead one to expect that, in those instance in which it seeks to retain a power of continuous oversight of administration action, Congress would be prone to locate this function in either or both houses rather than to delegate it to committees. However, the fiscal 1956 Defense Appropriations Act, earlier mentioned, is by no means the first instance in which committees have been assigned the function of participating in administrative decision-making. In fact, careful study of the functioning of Congressional Committees might reveal that compulsory consultation and joint committee-agency decision-making are more the rule than the exception.

Certainly Congress, in requiring the Atomic Energy Commission to report to the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy any instances in which it imparted atomic secrets to other nations, contemplated committee control of such action. Arrangements with other nations were not to be consummated until the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy had been fully informed for a period of thirty days in which the Congress was in session. If the Committee disapproved the arrangement and found the Commission unresponsive to its influence, the former would have time in which to report this fact to Congress.

When it authorized the establishment of a long-range proving ground for guided missiles in 1949, Congress stipulated that prior to the acquiring of lands under this law the Secretary of the Air Force had to come “into agreement with the Armed Services Committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives with respect to the acquisition of such lands.” This clearly established a joint committee-agency decision-making arrangement. A 1951 statute required the Secretaries of the Army, Air Force, and Navy, and the Federal Civil Defense Administrator, to come into agreement with the two Armed Services Committees whenever real estate actions by or for the use of the military departments or the Federal Civil Defense Administration were involved. The Emergency Powers Interim Continuation Act of July 1952, continued this provision in force.

In conclusion we mention a device for securing to congressional committees a form of suspensive power over administrative action. This is the familiar provision for suspension of deportation orders where either the Immigration and Naturalization Committee of the House or of the Senate Committee on Immigration has favorably acted on a bill for the relief of the alien in question. The Act cited here was restricted in effect to the Seventy-fifth Congress, and stays of deportation under it were to be terminated at least by the date of adjournment of the first regular session of the Seventy-sixth Congress.

ACCOUNTING TO CONGRESS

The preponderance of relevant data collected under this particular head consists of routine requirements, inserted in delegatory statutes, that administrators periodically report to the Congress on the discharge of their functions. It need hardly be stressed that by this method of acquiring information Congress not only equips itself with data vitally prerequisite to its exercise of the function of oversight, but that its demand for such information in itself represents a form of control. The necessity of periodic reporting interposes an effective psychological hurdle between the administrator and intentional malfeasance. Certain reporting provisions clearly reflect a desire to maintain a continuous check upon the administration; others appear directed more at securing information and advice as an aid to policy-making.

Reporting Administrative Activity: In delegating powers in the areas of defense, foreign affairs or in time of emergency, Congress is inclined to insist upon frequent reporting, and to specify carefully the kind of information and supporting documentation it expects to receive. It may stipulate, as in the Japanese Evacuation Claims Act of 1948 and the Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949, the subjects on which it wishes reports, and refrain from imposing an obligation to report at specified calendar intervals. The Japanese Claims Act instructed the Attorney General to submit to Congress a full and complete statement of all adjudications, name and address of each claimant, the amount of the settlement and a brief synopsis of the facts of each claim case and the reasons for each adjudication. A 1935 statute required that the Secretary of the Navy report to Congress at the next regular session thereof all expenditures on ship repairs in excess of the amounts specified by appropriations legislation. In April, 1937 the Secretary of Agriculture was granted one million dollars to “be expended for the control of grasshoppers, Mormon crickets or cinch bugs,” and required to report to Congress on his handling of the fund. Similarly, in establishing an emergency fund for the President in 1940, to enable him to furnish government-owned facilities to privately owned plants and procure and train civilian personnel in the production of critical materials, Congress stipulated that an account be kept of all expenditures made from the fund and required that a report on the condition of the fund be submitted to the Congress on or before June 30, 1942.

The Federal Emergency Relief Act of 1933 went so far as to require the Federal Emergency Relief Administrator to print a report of his activities and expenditures monthly, and submit them to the President and the Congress. The foregoing, like the statute of June 1942, mobilizing small business concerns for war production, which provided for reports to Congress by the Attorney General at least once every quarter (“not less frequently than once every one hundred and twenty days”) is somewhat unusual. Standard practice requires quarterly, biannual, or annual reporting. Annual reporting may be in terms of a report to be submitted to both houses of Congress “on the first day of” or “at the beginning of” each regular session of Congress. However, it more likely will be phrased an “annual report.”

Congress sometimes requires great specificity in administrative reporting. Exemplifying such demands are the following statutes. A 1950 statute limited the number of Army officers who might be assigned to permanent duty in the Department of the Army and the number who could be assigned to the Army General Staff at any one time. The Secretary of the Army is required to report quarterly to the Congress the number of officers and the justification therefor. This is a simple but extremely precise reporting requirement. The May, 1937 amendment to the Neutrality Act more generally defined and described the various topics to be covered in the annual report of the National Munitions Control Board, but stipulated that the report contain a list of all persons required to register under the provisions of the Act, and full information concerning the licenses which had been issued thereunder. A like blend of liberality and rigidity in stipulating the content of reports was manifested in a 1937 Act designed to establish a government monopoly of the production of helium gas. The National Munitions Control Board was to include in its Annual Report to the Congress full information concerning the export licenses issued thereunder and whatever additional information and data the Board considered of value in the determination of questions related to the exportation of helium gas.

The Secretary of the Navy was directed in 1938 to report annually to the Congress all agreements entered into for leasing naval petroleum reserves; and a 1939 statute to facilitate certain construction work for the Army required the Secretary of War to report annually to the Congress all contracts entered into under authority of the Act, including the names of the contractors and copies of the contracts concerned, together with the amounts involved. The Sixth Supplemental National Defense Appropriation Act of 1942 established the duty of the Secretary of War and Secretary of the Navy to submit a complete list of all contracts awarded in excess of $150,000 together with the names of the contractors, and the subject matter of each contract. If the contract had been awarded without competitive bidding, the Secretaries had to supply Congress with a statement of the principal or controlling reason for selection of the contractors. Reports had to be submitted within sixty days after the end of the fiscal year.

In the main the congressional requirement of reporting is cast in general terms, permitting the administrator considerable discretion as to content and precise date (if not periodicity) of submission. On occasion, however, Congress is disposed to insist upon specificity in exacting reports from agencies, particularly agencies assigned such tasks as the registering of individuals, licensing, letting contracts, and the like.

Informing and Advising the Congress: A large number of statutes require reports which appear not so much directed at enforcing responsibility on the part of executive agencies as eliciting information and specialized advice for policy-making. In 1934 Congress required the Federal Power Commission to submit a report and analysis of rate schedules charged by private and municipal utility companies at the earliest practicable date. The Tennessee Valley Authority Act contains a reporting requirement commonly found in legislation pertaining to newly established programs. The President was directed to recommend to Congress such legislation as he deemed proper to carry out the general purposes stated in the law. His recommendations were to be made from time to time as work progressed. In 1934 Congress authorized the President “to appoint a Commission composed of five members ... for the purpose of making an immediate study and survey, and to report to Congress not later than February 1, 1935, its recommendations of a broad policy covering all phases of aviation and the relation of the United States thereto.” In setting up the Federal Communications Commission in 1934 Congress indicated that it expected the Commission’s annual reports to contain information and advice facilitating further congressional policy-making in the communications field. The Commission was directed to prepare an annual report for the Congress which would contain information and data collected by the Commission considered to be of value in the determination of questions connected with the Commission’s regulatory responsibilities involving wire and radio communication and radio transmission of energy. The Commission was also required to submit recommendations for additional legislation in the report if the Commission believed it necessary. And on February 1, 1935 the Commission was specifically directed to make a special report to the Congress recommending amendments to the F.C.C. Act.

In the Price Control Act of 1946 Congress indicated its desire that the control of prices be terminated as rapidly as possible, and directed the President to recommend to the Congress whatever was judged by him as needed to supplement the control of prices and wages during the remainder of 1947. The national emergency provisions of the Labor Management Relations Act provide that upon exhaustion of the procedures for deferring and attempting settlement of national emergency strikes “the President shall submit to the Congress a full and comprehensive report of the proceedings ... together with such recommendations as he may see fit to make for consideration and appropriate action.” A final illustration is drawn from the June, 1951 amendments to the Universal Military Training and Service Act. This measure established a National Security Training Commission of five members which, in addition to generally supervising the training of the National Security Training Corps, was to submit to the Congress certain legislative recommendations. These recommendations were to include, but not be limited to--(a) a broad outline for a program to assure that the training be of a military nature, (b) measures for the personal safety, health, welfare and morals of members of the Corps and (c) a code of conduct.

THE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

The suggestion has been made that Congress would be better informed and could exercise a more adequate check upon the administration of delegated powers “if the major rules and regulations of the agencies were submitted to Congress under a provisional order system. Under this system they would become effective after a certain time, unless negatived by Congress.” This would in effect adapt to American purposes the provisions of the British Statutory Instrument Act of 1946, requiring that important administrative rules and regulations issued under delegatory statutes be submitted to the Parliament, where they would be reviewed by a “Scrutiny Committee” of the Commons.

The resultant veto power might be exercised in a number of ways. A congressional committee might be given power to scrutinize and report on such rules and regulations, or delegated a final power to approve or disapprove. We have earlier noted the extent to which Congress has equipped committees with a power to review and approve or disapprove administrative action.

Were Congress to utilize the Joint Resolution as an instrument for approving or disapproving administrative action, no innovation would be involved. The Joint Resolution requires presidential signature to become effective. This legislative instrument traditionally has been relied upon to clarify congressional intent in delegatory statutes which it thought had been misinterpreted by administrative agencies or the courts. However, if in delegating powers to the executive, Congress conditioned the grant by reserving power to itself by concurrent resolution or by simple resolution of one house to define the terms under which the executive was to act and to review, approve or disapprove such administrative action, a signal departure from established practice would be recorded. In effect, the Congress would have retained the power to curb administration through legislative procedures which do not require Presidential signature to be effective, and which traditionally do not have the force of law, serving simply to express the intent of the Congress.

While the Constitution provides that “every order, resolution, or vote to which the concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary ... shall be presented to the President ... and before (they) take effect shall be approved by him,” concurrent resolutions have not for over a century and a quarter been submitted for presidential approval. Apparently the earliest use of the concurrent resolution as a device for enhancing the ability of Congress to control administrative action is to be found in the Reorganization Act of 1932, followed by the Reorganization Act of 1939. These statutes empowered the President to submit reorganization plans to Congress, the plans to have legal effect unless disapproved by concurrent resolution adopted within a prescribed period.

Within the past two decades all three instruments--the joint resolution, the concurrent resolution, and the simple resolution passed by one house--have been used by Congress in an attempt to retain influence and control over the administration of emergency programs. Whether for good or for bad, in statutes delegating emergency authority the present trend is pointed toward inclusion of congressional power to review administrative action by concurrent resolution.

DELEGATORY LEGISLATION INCORPORATING POWER TO CHECK BY CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

Congress appears to have pursued a variety of objectives in incorporating within delegatory statutes a power to influence or control administration through concurrent or simple resolution. (a) In some instances it has reserved power to terminate a statute or program by concurrent resolution. (b) It has asserted power to enable or require executive action by concurrent resolution. (c) Finally, it has made administrative exercise of delegated power subject to congressional approval or disapproval by concurrent or simple resolution. The forty odd delegatory statutes noted in the course of this study, which reserve to Congress the right to influence or limit administrative action by simple or concurrent resolution, will be discussed in this order.

Terminating Programs: Use of the concurrent resolution for the express purpose of terminating legislative delegations of power to the executive branch may take two forms: (a) congressional reservation of a power to repeal the authorizing statute, or (b) congressional reservation of the right, by concurrent resolution, to declare an end to the particular conditions under which the President is empowered to take action. Exercise of congressional power to repeal by concurrent resolution generally has been expressed as follows: “The provisions of this Act, ... shall terminate on June 30, 1943, or upon the date of a proclamation by the President, or upon the date specified in a concurrent resolution ...” A similar provision is contained in at least twenty-three emergency statutes enacted since 1941 and listed below. The Mutual Defense Assistance Act of 1949 secured to the Congress a form of item veto through reserving to it the power by concurrent resolution to terminate assistance to any nation under the Act.

Instances in which Congress reserves the right by concurrent resolution to declare terminated the conditions authorizing executive action are fewer. In a 1941 statute the Secretary of the Navy was authorized to establish a plant protection force for naval shore establishments and to maintain and operate this force until June 30, 1943, unless Congress at an earlier date, by concurrent resolution, declared such force no longer necessary. A 1942 amendment to the Communications Act of 1934 gave the President certain powers to control wire communication facilities upon proclamation by the President that a state or threat of war exists involving the United States. The President’s powers in this respect were to end not later than six months after the termination of such state or threat of war and not later than such earlier date as the Congress by concurrent resolution may designate. In defining national emergency for purposes of the Federal Civil Defense Act of 1950, Congress stipulated that “the provisions of this title shall be operative only during the existence of a state of civil defense emergency.... The existence of such emergency may be proclaimed by the President or by concurrent resolution of the Congress if the President in such proclamation, or the Congress in such resolution, finds that an attack upon the United States has occurred or is anticipated and that the national safety therefore requires an invocation of the provisions of this title.” Congress also has reserved the right, although not on an exclusive basis, to determine by concurrent resolution the “dates of commencement and termination of an armed conflict.”

Enabling or Requiring Executive Action: An example of the use of the concurrent resolution as an enabling device is the provision of the Neutrality Act of 1939, which imposed rigorous limitations upon United States carriage to belligerents “whenever the President, or the Congress by concurrent resolution, shall find that there exists a state of war between foreign states.”

The Legislative Veto: The Reorganization Acts of 1939, 1945 and 1949 are also illustrations of the use of the simple and concurrent resolution to effect approval or disapproval of administrative action. All three Acts were designed to foster reorganization to enable the government to cope with emergency conditions, and the 1945 Act had the expressed purpose of facilitating orderly transition from war to peace. The 1939 Act stipulated that the President’s reorganization plans were to take effect sixty calendar days after the date on which the plan was transmitted to the Congress, but only if during the sixty-day period the two Houses of Congress had not passed a concurrent resolution stating in substance that the Congress did not favor the reorganization plan. A similar provision was contained in the 1945 Act, and on July 15, 1946 Congress, by concurrent resolution, disapproved the President’s Reorganization Plan No. 1. The 1949 Act provided for a veto of Reorganization Plans by one house. Under the latter, a reorganization plan becomes operative “upon the expiration of the first period of sixty calendar days, of continuous session of the Congress, following the date on which the plan is transmitted to it; but only if, between the date of transmittal and the expiration of such sixty-day period there has not been passed by either of the two Houses, by the affirmative vote of a majority of the authorized membership of that House, a resolution stating in substance that the House does not favor the reorganization plan.”

In a class by itself is the Federal Civil Defense Act of 1950, by the terms of which the concurrent resolution may be employed to veto interstate civil defense compacts. The consent of the Congress would be granted to each compact, after the termination of sixty calendar days of continuous session of the Congress from the time Congress first received notice of the compact. But Congressional consent could be denied anytime during the sixty day period if Congress passed a concurrent resolution stating that it did not approve the compact.

Remaining for consideration is the utilization of the concurrent resolution to enable Congress to achieve a more intimate participation in the administration of selected programs, principally in the field of immigration and naturalization. In the Alien Registration Act of 1940 Congress provided for the deportation of additional classes of aliens. Aliens of proved good moral character might have deportation suspended under certain conditions at the discretion of the Attorney General. However, if deportation were suspended for more than six months, all of the facts and pertinent provisions of law in the case must be reported to the Congress within ten days after the beginning of its next regular session, with the reasons for such suspension. If during that session the two Houses pass a concurrent resolution stating in substance that the Congress does not favor the suspension of such deportation, the Attorney General is required to carry out the deportation as provided by law. If, however, during that session the two Houses fail to pass such a resolution, the Attorney General is required to cancel deportation proceedings at the end of the session. In subsequent legislation Congress reserved the right by concurrent resolution to suspend deportation of aliens or to grant permanent residence, and a considerable proportion of the concurrent resolutions enacted each year now constitute directives to the Attorney General in this regard.

The Rubber Producing Facilities Disposal Act of 1953 set up a Rubber Producing Facilities Disposal Commission and authorized it to enter into contracts for disposal of federally held rubber producing facilities. The Commission was to report to Congress in considerable detail on the negotiations and the contents of the contracts. The report had to be submitted to both Houses of Congress on the same day. Upon the expiration of sixty days of continuous session of the Congress following the date upon which the report was submitted to it, the Commission was free to proceed to carry out the contracts and proposals as outlined in its report, but only to the extent that such contracts and proposals had not been disapproved by either House of Congress by a resolution during the sixty-day period. Congress in recent years also has asserted the right by concurrent resolution to “declare ... that the period of active service required of any age group” under the Universal Military Training and Service Act “should be decreased ... or ... should be eliminated.”

USE OF CONCURRENT RESOLUTION PROVISIONS TO CHECK ADMINISTRATIVE ACTION

A survey of the statute books from 1939 through 1954 reveals few instances of congressional employment of the device of the concurrent resolution so thoughtfully included in delegatory statutes. However, the Congressional Record for the same period bears evidence of repeated effort on the part of members of the legislature to influence the administration of delegatory statutes through concurrent or, in some instances, the simple resolution.

Terminating Powers: Legislative efforts to terminate statutes by concurrent resolution prove anticlimactic in view of the many instances in which the power to accomplish this was included in the delegatory statute. The statute which provoked the most vigorous and persistent effort at termination by concurrent resolution was that of January 20, 1942, establishing daylight saving time. From 1943 through 1945 some twenty-four concurrent resolutions were introduced to terminate the effect of the Daylight Savings Act. None of these concurrent resolutions survived committee screening.

In 1941 a House concurrent resolution abrogating the authority of the President to provide aid to Russia under the Lend-Lease Act died in the Foreign Relations Committee. The appropriate provision of the Lend-Lease Act provided in general terms for termination of the lend-lease authority upon adoption of a concurrent resolution by both Houses. The Act did not provide for suspension by concurrent resolution of authority to aid specified countries and the resolution probably sought to exercise a power which Congress had not reserved to itself in the Act.

Pressure to terminate war controls intensified following the September 2, 1945, signing of the Japanese instrument of surrender. On September 14, House Concurrent Resolution 84 was introduced, “to terminate the effectiveness of certain provisions of the Second War Power Act, 1942.”