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National Resources Committee 



visos like that attached to the Hatch Act, which 

 provided that not more tlian one-fiftli of the first ai3- 

 propriation might be used "in the erection, enlargement, 

 or repair of a building or buildings" necessary for 

 carrying on the work of the given experiment station; 

 "and thereafter an amount not exceeding five per 

 centum of such annual appropriation may be so ex- 

 pended." The Adams Act of 1906 retained this pro- 

 vision, and in addition required the States to replace 

 lost or diminished funds, and empowered the Secretary 

 of Agriculture to withhold the allotment due to any 

 State for non-compliance with the requirements of the 

 Act. The Purnell Act of 1925 raised the expenditure 

 limitation for buildings to 10 percent. 



Another type of limitation is exemplified in the Mc- 

 Sweeney-McNary Forest Research Act of 1928 which 

 places a limit of $2,500 on the erection, purchase, or im- 

 provement of any building, exclusive of water supply 

 and sanitary systems, which may be required in carry- 

 ing out the provisions of the act. Another method is to 

 limit the total amount which can be spent for any single 

 purpose, as the Relief Act of 1935 authorized the Ad- 

 ministrator to make "such expenditures * * * not 

 to exceed $350,000, as are necessary to carry out the 

 provisions of this act." 



Appropriation Acts 



The preparation of the budget is an executive func- 

 tion, with estimates for individual projects or divisions 

 prepared by those responsible for them, consolidated 

 at the bureau and departmental levels, reviewed by the 

 Bureau of the Budget, and finally recommended to the 

 Congress l)y the President. These estimates, as modi- 

 fied in the various steps of the process, are ultimately 

 embodied in the appropriation acts annually passed by 

 Congress. Because it is Congress rather than the ex- 

 ecutive which is finally responsible, however, the pro- 

 \'isions of appropriation acts bearing upon the exercise 

 of research functions are treated in this study as legis- 

 lative provisions. 



It is the annual appropriation acts rather than 

 organic statutes that provide the funds with whicli 

 governmental research is carried on. Organic acts 

 may authorize long-term appropriations, but only the 

 annual renewal of these by Congress can make them 

 operative, and in many cases the full amount of the 

 authorization is never appropriated. Tlie Forest Re- 

 search Act of 1928, for example, autliorized the 

 expenditure of a million dollars a year for 10 years, 

 but annual ai)propi'iations for forest research have 

 fallen well short of this amount. In general the ap- 

 propriation acts do no more than make funds avail- 

 able for purposes authorized in organic grants of 



power, but they may also and not infrequently do, 

 authorize new functions or even new agencies; and 

 they may restrict or limit previously defined activities. 



Items Included 



Appropriation acts vary greatly among themselves, 

 though the ajjpropriation items for the same agency do 

 not change markedly from year to year. Generally, 

 the way in which a given act is written is simply the 

 way in which it has been written in the past, and 

 the explanation of the particular form it takes is largely 

 historical. The divergence m form may be illustrated 

 by examples from the extremes. In the appropriation 

 acts for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1937 the Signal 

 Corps of the Army received a single lump sum for all 

 purposes (49 Stat. 1278, 1290), while the Bureau of 

 Plant Industry received a separate sum for each of 

 20 or more distinct investigations. 



Range of Expenditures. — The items of a research 

 nature for which funds are made available in the an- 

 nual appropriation acts cover somewhere near the 

 maximum possible range of expenditures. The list in- 

 cludes personal services, stenographic reporting serv- 

 ices, rental of quarters, newspapers, periodicals, refer- 

 ence books, law books, special counsel fees, supplies and 

 equipment, improvement and care of grounds, repaire 

 to buildings, traveling expenses, attendance at scientific 

 meetings, jsrinting and binding, vehicles, garage rental, 

 press clippings, foreign postage, and numerous special 

 items of equipment ranging from sponges to X-ray 

 apparatus. 



By way of example, a few random items will be 

 taken from the various executive appropriations for 

 the fiscal year ending June 30, 1938. The Navy De- 

 partment appropriation (50 Stat. 96) provides for 

 "the collection and classification of information"; and 

 expenditures by the Naval Research Laboratory may 

 include the "temporary employment of such scien- 

 tific and technical civilian assistants as may become 

 necessary." Among the items of exi^enditure for the 

 Bureau of Engineering are "services, instruments, 

 machines and auxiliaries, apparatus and supplies, and 

 technical books and periodicals necessary to carry on 

 experimental and research work"; and funds are made 

 available to the Bureau of Aeronautics "for continuing 

 experiments and development work on all types of air- 

 craft, including the payment of part-time or intermit- 

 tent employment in the District of Cohunbia or else- 

 where of such scientists and technicists as may be con- 

 tracted for by the Secretary of the Navy in his 

 discretion * * *." 



Safety research relative to aviation equipment, per- 

 sonnel, and operation methods is one of the items for 

 which the Bureau of Air Commerce appropriation 



