SURVEY OF SELECTED ACTIVITIES Mr. ZINNER. This is purely an estimate based on comparative costs of a similar job in Minneapolis. I would estimate it would cost us $2.5 million. This would assume we would build it on Government land some place. This is building cost only. Mr. BROOKS. Not land acquisition? Mr. ZINNER. That is right. Mr. BROOKS. Are there any questions? BUREAU OF MINES STATION SUPERINTENDENTS I would like to turn now to the subject of station superintendent of Bureau of Mines. I will say in recent years, the Bureau of Mines has reduced the number of its regional offices from 9 to 5, and placed the technical control of local stations under the division chiefs in Washington. The regional directors and their staffs appear to have been left with responsibility for public relations and administrative duties. The Bureau has established new positions at the stations, called station superintendent, to handle the administrative activities of the stations. Since most stations have administrative service sections headed by an administrative officer, we question the need for the new position of station superintendent and wondered if you had some justification. on it and would give us the answer to these specific questions as to how many station superintendent positions there are. STATEMENT OF PAUL ZINNER, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS, BUREAU OF MINES Mr. ZINNER. First of all, I would like to say we have a problem in We have two kinds of superintendent. definitions here. Mr. BROOKS. Proceed. Mr. ZINNER. Mr. Wheeler was here this morning Mr. BROOKS. We don't have any more contracts like that, do we? Mr. ZINNER. We operate the helium plants and of course each of these helium plants has a superintendent. Mr. BROOKS. What does Mr. Wheeler do when not signing helium contracts? Mr. ZINNER. We believe he is running a mighty big organization. Mr. BROOKS. He had a lot of doubts about it and I do, too. I share every doubt he has. Mr. ZINNER. We run the helium business as well as running the contract business, so the five plants that the Bureau operates, each one has a superintendent. These are not the type we are talking about here. Mr. BROOKS. Five is about all we can handle in this file. Mr. ZINNER. Also I would like to say there is some confusion here with regional offices. The regional establishments, in addition to handling overall administrative functions in the field, also are directly responsible for all of our resources investigations. This is separate and apart from the laboratories where mining, metallurgical, petroleum, or coal research is done. These do report technically to Washington and do not come in by way of the regions themselves. We have station superintendents at nine of those establishment I can run over the names of these if it will help. We have one at 4 69028-62-pt. 3 College Park Laboratories. We have one at the Pittsburgh Laboratory that we spoke about. We have one at Morgantown, a coal research center in West Virginia. We have one at Bartlesville, Okla., a petroleum research center. We have one at Laramie, Wyo., for petroleum. We have one at Rolla, Mo., a metallurgy research center. We have metallurgy research centers at Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, and Reno. I don't think we should confuse these people with the administrative responsibilities at these places. Each one of the superintendents are professional technical people in the sense that they are analysts or chemists or they come up this route. Not a single one has come up through the administrative route. The reason for that is that the things that they have to administer in support of the research program are essentially the mechanical shops, the analytical research laboratories, and all the functions that serve everything that goes on in one of these research centers. Now, it is true that the general administrative functions of the laboratories are also part of their concern. But they are not predominantly administrative positions. I hope that serves to clarify the question. Mr. BROOKS. We would like to have the salary and grade of those positions. Mr. ZINNER. I can supply you with the grade. These are standard GS ratings and if you wish I can do more than that, I can give you a list that will describe the organization serviced, the grade of the superintendent, the grade of the administrative officer where they are at the place, and the number of people involved. Would you like to have that? Mr. BROOKS. Yes, sir. We would appreciate that. appreciate that. We will appreciate your explanation of why you feel they are justified. (The document, exhibit 17, follows:) EXHIBIT 17-Bureau of Mines, superintendent positions, organizations, organizations serviced, grades of administrative officers, and number of employees serviced 4. Bituminous Coal Services. 1. Pittsburgh Coal Research Center... 3. Health and Safety Subdistrict 1. Bartlesville Petroleum Research 1. Laramie Petroleum Research Cen- 2. Office of Mineral Research. 2. Minneapolis Mining Research Cen ter. 3. Minneapolis Office of Mineral Re sources. 1. Salt Lake Metallurgy Research 2. Tucson Metallurgy Laboratory. 3. Berkeley Thermo-dynamic Labora- DELINQUENT OIL AND GAS ROYALTY ACCOUNTS IN GEOLOGICAL SURVEY Mr. BROOKS. Now we will go to the delinquent royalty accounts. STATEMENT OF HAROLD J. DUNCAN, CHIEF, CONSERVATION DIVISION, GEOLOGICAL SURVEY Mr. BROOKS. The subcommittee has been informed that in the Geological Survey's northwestern region, branch of oil and gas operations, 82 accounts with balances in excess of $1,000 each had been in a delinquent status from 6 months to 9 years. The recorded total amount due the Government from these delinquent accounts exceeded $500,000. We are further informed that 16 of these accounts, each having balances in excess of $7,000, showed they had not been reviewed periodically to determine the reasons for the delinquent status and that no collection or other corrective action had been initiated. I was wondering if we could take a look now at the list showing the names of the delinquent lessees, the amounts of the delinquency, and the total time delinquent. Do we have that? We appreciate the list and we will put it in the record. (The list, exhibit 18, follows:) |