Chapter Ix Inter-Agency Relationships

The study of administration proceeds within the framework of a taxonomy of human relationships, the breadth and content of which remain fluid. In large measure, when we speak of law we refer to a socially prescribed and sanctioned taxonomy of human relations. The analysis offered in this chapter is grounded upon the premise that clarification and refinement of a taxonomy of administrative relationships may result from the study of legislative enactments prescribing relationships between administrative agencies. It also reflects the supposition that at a time when the behavioral or human-relations approach to the study of administration is in ascendancy, such a review may provide an essential foundation for the contrasting of formality and actuality which is one of the characteristics of behaviorism.

In the following pages we record and classify various kinds of inter-agency relationship prescribed by statute. We have attempted to employ the inductive approach, permitting the categories and gradations of relationship to emerge from the materials. But we are not unaware of the inevitable intermixture of the a priori.

When fashioning economic regulatory legislation, Congress must heed the complexity of the industrial society to which the controls are to be applied, and of the bureaucracy through which regulation is to be accomplished. It will be possible to realize the legislative purpose only if the active co-operation and help of a wide variety of official agencies and private groups can be enlisted. And these must include the groups to be regulated.

Thus it is not surprising to find, upon examining a large number of emergency regulatory statutes enacted during the last twenty-five years, that they contain many provisions detailing the relationships which should prevail between the administering agencies and other groups, official, semiofficial, or private. Such provisions establish a variety of rights and obligations. They may have the effect of enlarging or constricting the discretion of a particular agency to interpret and pursue legislative policy goals. In the pages which follow we attempt to sort out and categorize such provisions.

The confusing medley of statutory provisions for kinds and gradations of inter-agency relationship is perhaps best reduced to order by invoking the image of three overlapping spheres.

permissive or mandatory solicitation or receipt or advice of a nonbinding nature

mandatory performance in accordance with instruction of another agency

joint pursuit of policy goals by co-ordinate agencies

The center sphere, into which and from which the others spill, represents the kind of inter-agency relationship in which one agency performs a mandatory, nondiscretionary function at the direction or “request” of another. Flowing into it, from the left, is the sphere in which agencies are permitted or compelled to receive advice from, to consult or confer with others, but are under no obligation to follow the advice received. The third sphere is that in which two or more co-ordinate agencies share active responsibility and authority for the pursuit of a common policy goal.

If the interagency relationships provided for by statute are scaled according to the binding quality of the advice received by one agency from another or according to the degree to which two or more agencies share authority and responsibility for program administration subtle nuances of interagency relationship are revealed. Advice received may be purely of an informative and nonbinding nature, or the statute may be so worded as to indicate that “advice” from one agency to another amounts virtually to direction. In the sharing of program authority and responsibility, one agency may perform ministerial functions at the direction or “request” of another, or, at the opposite extreme, interagency personnel, judgment, and resources may be fused toward the accomplishment of a common goal.

COMMUNICATION

Herbert A. Simon’s definition of communication “as any process whereby decisional premises are transmitted from one member of an organization to another,” generally describes the kinds of legislative provisions which will be reviewed in this section, with the exception that we are here concerned with the transmission of decisional premises from one agency to another. The transmission may be permissive or mandatory. The information or advice conveyed may or may not be related to the framing of a particular decision; it may or may not be binding upon the recipient agency.

COMMUNICATION UNRELATED TO THE FRAMING OF A PARTICULAR DECISION

Permissive Consultation: Provisions for communication are perhaps seen in their mildest form in the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, which established the right, although clearly not the duty, of the Secretary of the Treasury and the Postmaster General to accede to the request of the Librarian of Congress that they provide the librarian with copies of foreign printed matter excluded from the United States under congressional statutes.

Must Receive Advice: The 1938 Naval Reserve Act created a Naval Reserve Policy Board, at least half the members of which were to be naval reserve officers called to Board duty from inactive duty status, which was to be convened annually for the purpose of advising the Secretary of the Navy on the formulation of Naval Reserve Policies. Here a definite obligation to communicate, and a special agency for communication are established, and the Secretary of the Navy is by inference required to receive proffered advice, although he is not obligated to act in conformance with it.

Must Confer or Consult: Dictionaries tend to regard the words “advice” and “consult” as synonyms. And it may be that the Congress tends to employ these terms interchangeably. Yet it is reasonable to suppose that the legislature does not regard the transmission of decisional premises as an invariable one-way process. If this be true, it is possible although not demonstrable that “advise” as employed in statutes connotes the offering of counsel or opinion, recommending as wise or prudent--the communications process flowing in one direction; and “consult” implies a two-way communication process, “talking over a situation or a subject with someone to decide points in doubt.”

The Emergency Railroad Transportation Act of 1933 is infused with a quality of briskness which is absent from the statutes alluded to above. In this Act Congress created a co-ordinator of transportation and a number of regional railroad co-ordinating committees. It stipulated that the co-ordinator must “confer freely with the committees, and the committees, the carriers, the subsidiaries, and the Interstate Commerce Commission shall furnish him ... such information and reports as he may desire.”

The Defense Production Act of 1950 required the President, in exercising the price and wage stabilization provisions of the Act, “so far as practicable, (to) advise and consult with, and establish and utilize the committees of, representatives of persons substantially affected by regulations or orders issued hereunder.”

Must Consider: While not saying that proffered advice must be accepted, Congress indicated in a 1946 statute that the Civil Aeronautics Administrator was to hold himself open to influence. In drawing up his plan for the development of public airports in the United States, he was required as far as possible to consult and give consideration to the views and recommendations of the Civil Aeronautics Board, the States, the Territories, Puerto Rico, and their political subdivisions. He also had to consult and consider to the extent feasible the views and recommendations of the Federal Communications Commission.

The Philippine War Damage Commission was created in 1946 and assigned the task of making compensation for war damage to private property in the Philippines. The Commission was required so far as practicable to give consideration to the recommendations of the Filipino Rehabilitation Commission created in an earlier act. But, said Congress, the Commission was not required to await, or be bound by such recommendations.

COMMUNICATION RELATED TO FRAMING OF A PARTICULAR DECISION

The foregoing advice and consultation provisions fall short of setting the requirement in a specific action context. They seem to have the objective of maximizing the likelihood that interested official and private groups will have the opportunity to influence program content. At the same time they imply or categorically state that the action agency need not be guided by such advice. It is not patently clear in any instance that the administrator must defer action until after consultation; and, of course, in one instance he is specifically advised that he is free of such a requirement.

The statutes referred to below clearly link the prescribed advice or consultation to the taking of specified action by the administrator. In some instances he must advise with others prior to taking action, but is not required to follow the advice. In others he is enabled but not required to act upon receipt of a report or information from another agency. An occasional statute will require not only consultation, but the making of specific findings precedent to exercising powers delegated by Congress. The administrator will sometimes find himself in a position in which he may take certain action only if it is acceptable to, or meets the approval of, other groups. And, carrying us to the end of this progression, we have the statutory requirement that the administrator act in conformance with advice received.

Must Seek Advice Prior to Acting: A June, 1934 amendment to the Tariff Act of 1930 sought to assist recovery from “the present emergency in restoring the American standard of living” by authorizing the President to enter into reciprocal trade agreements for the relaxation of duties and import restrictions. Prior to concluding individual agreements, however, the President had to seek information and advice with respect thereto from the United States Tariff Commission, the Departments of State, Agriculture, and Commerce and from such other sources as he deemed appropriate. The advice need not be followed, but it must be sought precedent to concluding a reciprocal trade agreement. The 1934 grant of power to the President to prohibit the sale of arms to participants in the Chaco War made the exercise of that power contingent upon prior consultation with governments of other American Republics.

Similarly, in granting the President power, in March, 1941 to authorize the transfer of American military equipment to the government of any country whose defense the President considered vital to the defense of the United States, Congress specified that no defense article not manufactured for such a foreign power might be disposed of except after consultation with the Chief of Staff of the Army or the Chief of Naval Operations of the Navy, or both. The War Risk Insurance Act of 1950 permitted the Secretary of Commerce “with the approval of the President, and after such consultation with interested agencies of the Government as the President may require,” to “provide insurance and reinsurance against loss or damage” of American merchant vessels “by war risks.” In 1950 security provisions were added to the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938. Among these was an authorization for the Secretary of Commerce to establish zones or areas in the airspace above the United States as he found necessary in the interests of national security. Having established such spaces, he might, “after consultation with the Department of Defense and the Civil Aeronautics Board ... prohibit or restrict flights of aircraft” within them.

These statutes simply open up the channels of communication and insist that they be used prior to the taking of action. They do not explicitly require the administrator to accept proffered advice, and whatever effect they have upon his freedom of discretion is subtle and impalpable.

May Act on Receipt of Advice or Request: The 1937 statute extending the life of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation permitted the Board of Directors of the Corporation to report to the President that private credit was sufficiently available from private sources to meet legitimate demands of any class of eligible borrowers, whereupon the President might authorize the directors to suspend lending to that class. Here, in effect, the Board of Directors of the RFC was given power to report (recommend) and thereby enable presidential action. The 1947 surplus property act authorized the disposal agency, upon the request of the Administrator of Civil Aeronautics, the Secretary of War, or the Secretary of the Navy to omit any of the terms, or conditions for the transfer of title to such property. The agency granted a dispensing power which it was enabled to exercise upon receipt of a request from specified officials.

The first of these two statutes enabled the President to act after the RFC had made what amounted to a finding. In this, it is similar to the Nationality Act of 1940, which provided that the President might, in his discretion, exempt certain aliens in the United States from the classification of alien enemy, provided the Department of Justice investigated and established the loyalty of the alien. A Department of Justice finding of loyalty enables but does not compel the President to act.

The Secretary of War was granted power in 1941 to remove any officer from the active list of the Regular Army for such causes and under such regulations as he might prescribe. He could not exercise this power in individual cases, however, until the officer had been recommended for removal by a board of not less than five general officers convened for this purpose by the Secretary of War.

Action on Making an Independent Finding: At least two of the statutes covered in this survey required the President not only to consult, or to receive recommendations prior to taking action, but in addition, to make an explicit finding of fact. The India Emergency Food Aid Act of 1951 permitted the President, after consultation with appropriate Government officials and representatives of private shipping, and after finding and proclaiming that private shipping was not available on reasonable terms and conditions for transportation of supplies made available under Act, to provide for carriage in government-owned ships. Four days after signing the Act, the President proclaimed that he had consulted with public officials and private shipping representatives, and had found it necessary to use government ships. The 1951 amendments to the Universal Military Training and Service Act authorized the President “upon finding by him that such action is justified by the strength of the Armed Forces in the light of international conditions,” and “upon recommendation of the Secretary of Defense” to decrease or eliminate periods of compulsory military service.

The remaining statutes, in varying degree, subject administrative decision-making to external controls.

Action if Acceptable to Others: Congress in 1935 imposed, for three years, limitations upon imports of Philippine yams, twines, cables, and other fibers. The limitation was subject to continuance for an additional three years by presidential proclamation, provided such extension was acceptable to the President of the Commonwealth. Such an extension was made by a proclamation of January, 1938, in which the President recited that “the President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines has indicated to me ... his acceptance of an extension of the operation of that Act for an additional period of three years.” Unlike the earlier statutes which require consultation prior to action, or sometimes permit action only following recommendation and findings, here the substance of the President’s action is subject to approval from a source external to the presidency.

Action Upon Receipt of Prior Approval: We have already employed, in another context, the provision of the War Risk Insurance Act of 1950, which hinged action by the Secretary of Commerce to the prior approval of the President. The Defense Production Act of 1950 exempted from anti-trust prosecution business agreements made pursuant to the request of the President. The President was given a limited authority to delegate this power to subordinate officials, but only upon the condition that such officials consult with the Attorney General and with the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission not less than ten days before making any request or finding thereunder. In addition, the request was to be subject to the prior approval of the Attorney General. In August, 1950, Congress legislated on the matter of termination of government employment for security reasons. Persons whose employment was thus terminated might be employed elsewhere in the government only if the Civil Service Commission approved a request coming from the individual or the prospective employing agency.

The Rubber Producing Facilities Disposal Commission was directed to “consult and advise with the Attorney General” concerning the disposal of such facilities. The 1953 statute creating the Commission required that its report to Congress, suggesting an appropriate manner of disposing of government-owned producing facilities, be submitted first to the Attorney General who would advise the Commission “whether, in his opinion, the proposed disposition would violate the anti-trust laws.” His findings approving the proposed disposals were to be appended to the report which the Commission made to Congress. Thus, in effect, the Commission was gently admonished to bring in a report bearing the Attorney General’s approval.

Must Act in Conformance With Request: The next group of statutes compel the administrator to accept and to act in accordance with recommendations or requests coming from a source beyond his agency. The Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, as amended in 1942, permitted certain exemptions from its registration provisions. The Attorney General might, after notice to the employing government or the person concerned, and with the approval of the Secretary of State, terminate in whole or in part an exemption from registration granted to United States residents who were employees of a foreign government. When the Secretary of State initiated a request for termination of an exemption, the Attorney General had to comply with the request. The Second War Powers Act of 1942 contained a provision for the waiving of navigation and inspection laws under certain conditions. The head of each department or agency responsible for the administration of the navigation and vessel inspection laws was directed to waive compliance of such laws upon the request of the Secretary of the Navy or the Secretary of War to the extent believed necessary in the conduct of the war by the officer making the request.

The discretion of federal jurists has to some extent been subjected to constriction by the executive. The Secretary of the Navy was given power, in a July, 1944, statute, to certify to federal courts that pending suits arising out of damage caused by naval vessels or towage or salvage services to naval vessels would, if tried, tend to endanger the security of naval operations. Upon receiving such a certification, the federal court having jurisdiction in the case was required to stay further proceedings until six months after the cessation of hostilities or such earlier date as the Secretary of the Navy might set.

Congress, in February, 1952, took emergency action temporarily suspending the import duty on lead. The Tariff Commission was to advise the President at the end of any month in which the average market price of lead delivered at New York had fallen below eighteen cents per pound, “and the President shall, by proclamation, not later than twenty days after he has been so advised by the Tariff Commission, revoke such suspension of the duties.” In June, 1952, the President issued a proclamation under this Act, revoking the suspension of the duty.

The converse of these arrangements whereby an administrator is compelled to take prescribed action upon the request, or upon a finding of others, is the situation in which he may be barred from taking contemplated action, in consequence of a request or finding coming from another agency. Our final illustration falls into this bracket. The President was permitted by the Export Control Act of 1949 to “prohibit or curtail the exportation from the United States ... of any articles, materials, or supplies, including technical data.” But he could not exercise this power “with respect to any agricultural commodity, including fats and oils, during any period for which the supply of such commodity is determined by the Secretary of Agriculture to be in excess of the requirements of the domestic economy.”

INTEGRATIVE RELATIONSHIPS

The statutory provisions enumerated above have the apparent objective of facilitating communication between agencies or introducing checks and balances--contrived frustrations--into the administrative process. At the least intense end of the scale is permissive interagency communication; gradually the relating of interagency communication and agency action intensifies until the point is reached at which an agency may exercise a delegated power only upon clearance with another agency, or is compelled to exercise it upon the direction of another. However, the relationship between agencies is communicative, and they do not by statute have joint responsibility for decision-making or day-to-day program development and execution.

The broad group of statutes to which we now turn attempts to distribute among a number of agencies responsibility and authority for joint decision-making and action. The resources and judgment of many agencies may be focused on one program, or a system may be set up for co-ordinating the activities of many agencies toward the attainment of broad policy goals. The kind of interagency relationship contemplated by Congress appears to be more active and positive, more a harnessing of equals, than those which we have thus far reviewed.

Four principal categories of statutory provisions may be distinguished under this general head. Some aim at joint decision-making by two or more agencies. Others enjoin agencies to “co-operate” in the administration of a given program. A third group establishes mutual assistance arrangements among agencies. Finally, we have those statutory provisions which seek co-ordination of interagency activities.

JOINT DECISION-MAKING

A 1939 stockpiling act required the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Secretary of the Interior, to determine whether certain materials purchased under the Act were strategic and critical. Once this determination was made, they then were permitted to determine the quality and quantities of materials to be purchased under the Act. The Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy, when they considered such action appropriate because the domestic production or supply of certain materials was insufficient to meet the industrial, military, and naval needs of the country, were to direct the Secretary of the Treasury, through the medium of the Procurement Division of his Department to make purchases in accordance with specifications prepared by the Procurement Division of the Treasury Department and approved by the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy. Two months later Congress authorized the Commodity Credit Corporation to accept such strategic and critical materials in exchange for such surplus agricultural commodities; and for the purpose of such exchange it was left to the three Secretaries to determine which materials are strategic and critical and the quantity and quality of such materials needed.

The Central Intelligence Agency Act of 1949 set up procedures for granting asylum to foreign nationals who have performed valuable security services for the United States. Whenever the Director of the CIA, the Attorney General, and the Commissioner of Immigration determines that the entry of a particular alien for permanent residence is in the interest of national security or essential to the furtherance of the national intelligence mission, such alien and his immediate family shall be given entry into the United States for permanent residence without regard to their inadmissibility under the immigration or any other laws and regulations, or to the failure to comply with such laws and regulations pertaining to admissibility. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 assigns to the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Commerce, and the Attorney General jointly the function of determining the annual quota of immigrants for any quota area. On June 30, 1952, the President issued a proclamation reciting that the quotas had been determined, and listing them.

The National Security Act of 1947 recited as one of its purposes the establishment of integrated policies and procedures for the departments, agencies, and functions of the Government relating to the national security.

CO-OPERATION

Joint decision-making shades into co-operative relationships which, if loose and flexible, may be continuing and steady. Such relations may exist with private as well as official groups.

Must Co-operate: The Small Business Concerns Mobilization Act made it the duty of the Chairman of the War Production Board to co-operate to the fullest practicable extent with the Director of Civilian Supply and other appropriate governmental agencies in the issuance of all orders limiting production by business enterprises with a view to insuring that small business concerns would not be bypassed in the production of war materials and goods essential to the civilian population.

In granting the Secretary of the Interior power to construct demonstration plants for production of synthetic and liquid fuels from coal oil shale, and agricultural and forestry products, the Congress specified that “any activities under this Act relating to the production of liquid fuels from agricultural and forestry products should be carried out in co-operation with the Department of Agriculture and subject to the direction of the Secretary of Agriculture.” A 1945 flood-control act clearly sought to effect interagency co-operation in facilitating the replacement by farmers of flood-damaged or -destroyed farm equipment. The War Production Board, and every other governmental agency which had jurisdiction over allocations and priorities relating to farm machinery and equipment were authorized and directed immediately to take whatever steps were necessary to provide for the necessary allocations and priorities to enable farmers in the areas affected by floods in 1944 and 1945 to replace and repair their farm machinery and equipment which was destroyed or damaged by such floods, or windstorms, or fire caused by lightning, and to continue farm operations.

The Defense Production Act of 1950 provided that whenever the price and wage stabilization powers contained in the Act were exercised, all agencies of the Government dealing with price and wage stabilization, within the limits of their authority and jurisdiction, should co-operate in carrying out the purposes of the Act.

May Co-operate: The Emergency Price Control Act of 1942 was in part designed “to permit voluntary co-operation between the Government and producers, processors, and others to accomplish the ... purposes” of stabilizing prices and preventing speculation. “It shall be the policy of those departments and agencies of the Government dealing with wages (including the Department of Labor and its various bureaus, the War Department, the Navy Department, the War Production Board, the National Labor Relations Board, the National Mediation Board, the National War Labor Board, and others heretofore or hereafter created), within the limits of their authority and jurisdiction, to work toward a stabilization of prices, fair and equitable wages, and cost of production.”

MUTUAL ASSISTANCE

Congress will not infrequently require or enable one agency, on an interim or continuing basis, to come to the assistance of another in the execution of its program. This may take the form of providing money, material, facilities, or service to the agency. It is a kind of mutual assistance program within the executive branch.

The Reconstruction Finance Corporation, for example, was occasionally treated by Congress as a source of credit to enable agencies to launch authorized programs immediately after enactment, and thus avoid the delays which attend appropriation of funds for authorized programs. The Far Eastern Economic Assistance Act of 1950 authorized the appropriation to the President of sixty million dollars to enable the Economic Co-operation Administration to furnish assistance to the Republic of Korea. As a way of getting the program started at once, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation was authorized and directed to make advances not to exceed thirty million dollars in the aggregate, until the regular appropriation was available. It can readily be seen that this device might be employed not only to avoid the normal delays of the appropriations process, but to circumvent or nullify the obstructive tactics of an unfriendly appropriations subcommittee.

The India Emergency Food Aid Act of 1951 contained a similar provision. If the President, after consultation with public and private shipping officials, found that private shipping was not available to carry American food to India on reasonable terms and conditions, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation was authorized and directed to make advances not to exceed in the aggregate twenty million dollars to the Department of Commerce for activation of vessels for such transportation.

Other mutual assistance provisions enable or require agencies to produce or procure goods or services for other agencies under certain conditions. The Tennessee Valley Authority Act required the Corporation, upon the requisition of the Secretary of War or the Secretary of the Navy to manufacture for and sell at cost to the United States explosives or their nitrogenous content. Upon the requisition of the Secretary of War the Corporation was to allot and deliver without charge to the War Department whatever power was necessary in the judgment of the Department for use in operation of all locks, lifts, and other facilities in aid of navigation. The Helium Gas Act of 1937 permitted the Army, Navy, and other government agencies to requisition helium from the Bureau of Mines, which agency was charged with responsibility for the production of helium.

The Maritime Commission was assigned responsibility, in July, 1941, for meeting the shipping needs of defense agencies. The Secretary of the Air Force was directed to make available to the Civil Air Patrol by gift or by loan, sale or otherwise, with or without charge, obsolete or surplus aircraft and aircraft parts to permit utilization of facilities of the Air Force, and to furnish to Civil Air Patrol the fuel needed to enable it to complete any specifically assigned mission.

CO-ORDINATION

If co-operation involves working together, co-ordination is the process whereby things are placed in position relative to each other and to the system of which they form parts. Administrators may work together, or co-operate, toward the end of co-ordinating their programs. But joint decision-making, or co-operative programming are vitally, if subtly, different from the co-ordination of programs. In the first place, joint decision-making or co-operation have the purpose of focusing the judgment and resources of many agencies upon the execution of one program, whereas co-ordination involves the relating of many similar, or possibly diverse, programs. Secondly, to indulge a tautology, joint-decision-making and co-operation (as provided for in the statutes just reviewed) involve a positive, creative elaboration and execution of programs, whereas co-ordination consists of minimizing conflict of purpose among two or more programs.

The Commissioners of the District of Columbia were authorized in August, 1950, to set up an Office of Civil Defense for the District, which office would, among other things, plan for integration of the District’s civil defense effort with that of the federal government and nearby states, and co-operate with governmental and nongovernmental agencies and co-ordinate the activities within the district. The National Science Foundation’s functions include that of correlating its scientific research programs with those undertaken by individuals and by public and private research groups. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 authorized the Commissioner of Immigration and the administrator of the Bureau of Security and Consular Affairs of the Department of State to maintain direct and continuous liaison with the Directors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency and with other internal security officers of the Government for the purpose of obtaining and exchanging information for use in enforcing the provisions of this Act in the interest of the internal security of the United States. The Commissioner and the administrator are to maintain direct and continuous liaison with each other with a view to a co-ordinated, uniform, and efficient administration of this law, and all other immigration and nationality laws.

There were some statutes with regard to which it is difficult, if not impossible, upon the basis of reading alone, to determine whether the purpose was to bring the facilities of many agencies to bear upon the administration of one program, or to enhance the prospect that the program would be administered in a manner consistent with the objectives of other related programs. A study of the legislative history and the administration of these provisions would probably disclose that the legislative intent was mixed, or that in the process of administration both objectives were joined.

We might include within this category the Neutrality Act of 1935 which set up the National Munitions Control Board, to be composed of the Secretaries of State, Treasury, War, and Navy. The Board, acting largely through the Secretary of State, was the agency for execution of the neutrality program. The Contract Settlement Act of 1944 set up an Office of Contract Settlement, headed by a Director, and a Contract Settlement Advisory Board, with which the Director was required to advise and consult. The Board was composed of the Director, the Secretaries of War, Navy, and Treasury, the Chairman of the Maritime Commission, the Administrator of the Foreign Economic Administration, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, the Chairman of the War Production Board, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Smaller War Plants Corporation, and the Attorney General. Any of these officials might appoint representatives.

The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 contained provision for a Military Liaison Committee. The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, created to supervise the scientific study of the problems of flight, under a 1948 statute, was to be composed of not more than seventeen members appointed by the President including two representatives of the Department of the Air Force; two of the Department of the Navy, from the office in charge of naval aeronautics, two of the Civil Aeronautics Authority; one of the Smithsonian Institute; one of the United States Weather Bureau; one of the National Bureau of Standards; the Chairman of the Research and Development Board of the National Military Establishment; and others.

Are these representative of congressional efforts to organize co-operation, or to organize co-ordination? We think the latter, although it is clear that reasonable men could differ, and a careful legislative history might prove us wrong.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings appear to suggest that either Congress has a considerable feeling for the subtle nuances of administrative interrelationships, or that it is loose and inconsistent in the language it employs. The statutory provisions run a gamut, permitting the exchange of information, providing formally prescribed sources of advice, compelling agencies to consult, to consult and consider, to consult prior to taking specific action, hinging action to the receipt of a prior enabling report or request, requiring prior consultation and fact finding, requiring clearance or approval from a source external to the agency, and finally, compelling action in conformance with the request of another agency. It has harnessed the judgment and resources of many agencies to the making of particular kinds of decisions, it has provided for interagency co-operation and assistance in the accomplishment of policy goals; and it has taken care to assure co-ordination of related programs.

These are the relationships which Congress has sought to establish among administrative agencies.