Question: Does the reprogramming provide any resources to the coal enforcement program in addition to new inspectors, and if so, please describe fully?

Answer: The reprogramming does not provide any additional resources other than the 412 additional positions. These positions include inspectors and other enforcement and clerical support personnel.

Question: Has MSHA actually reprogrammed any of these funds to the coal program at this time prior to Committee approval?

No action

Answer: MSHA has not reprogrammed any of these funds. will be taken by MSHA until the reprogramming request is approved by the Congress.

Question: When will we see a reprogramming request if the President's rescission proposal is not accepted by the Congress?

Answer: A reprogramming request is currently being developed for transmission to the Congress.

BUDGET AMENDMENT

Question: The President also announced on February 6, 1982, a fiscal year 1983 budget amendment of $15 million to supplement the coal enforcement program in addition to the proposed reprogramming in fiscal year 1982. When will this amendment be transmitted to Congress?

Answer: The President is monitoring the budget and its development as it proceeds through the appropriation process. The amendment will be transmitted at the appropriate time in that process.

PROPOSAL FOR LATER TRANSMITTAL

Question: The President's fiscal year 1983 budget on page 8-96 notes a reduction of $8.9 million to the MSHA budget request as a proposal for later transmittal. What is the nature of this proposed reduction, how was it developed, what programs would be reduced, and when does the Administration anticipate transmitting this reduction formally to Congress?

Answer: The $8.8 million reduction shown in the President's budget for MSHA in 1983 is a place holder for possible submission of legislative changes from MSHA. The details of the changes are still under discussion, and are not clear at this time. Also, the timing of submission of any legislation is not cler.

Question: The Urgent Supplemental Appropriation Bill for fiscal year 1982 (H.R. 5922) which was originally reported by the House Appropriations Committee prior to the Easter Recess contained language in section 203 which restores to the Mine Safety and Health Administration the same enforcement authorities vested in the Administration on September 30, 1981. This language would negate the effects of the Rousselot Amendment which presently limits MSHA authority. Do you support language such as is contained in Section 203?

Answer: MSHA supports the language contained in Section 203 of the Urgent Supplemental Appropriation Bill of 1982.

Question: If language such as that contained in Section 203 is added to a Supplemental Appropriations Bill this fiscal year, how will this influence the pending $2 million rescission? How will this affect the RIF of sand and gravel personnel which is presently underway?

Answer: Since Congress has not acted on the pending rescission within the allowed time the rescission will not be accomplished; therefore, the language in Section 203 has no influence. A determination of funding levels will be made after consultation with the Office of Management and Budget. Subsequent employment actions will be consistent with approved funding levels.

BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS

STATEMENT OF JANET L. NORWOOD, COMMISSIONER

ACCOMPANIED BY:

WILLIAM G. BARRON, ASSOCIATE COMMISSIONER FOR ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGEMENT

MARY ANN WYRSCH, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF BUDGET

INTRODUCTION OF ASSOCIATES

Senator SCHMITT. Our next witness is Ms. Janet Norwood, Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Commissioner Norwood, please introduce your colleagues.

Ms. NORWOOD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be here. I have with me Mr. William Barron, who is responsible for our internal operations.

1983 REQUEST

I'd like to ask that my statement be included in the record. Let me just say that we are requesting a budget of $120.1 million for fiscal 1983, which is funding required to carry forward into the coming fiscal year all of the programs remaining after the 12-percent reduction in fiscal 1982.

BLS, as you know, is a very small agency. We are also one of the oldest agencies. We are almost 100 years old, having preceded the Department of Labor. Our budget represents less than one-half of 1 percent of the Department of Labor's total appropriation. We believe that the output that is covered in our budget request is essential. These data permit evaluation of the health of the economy, and four of the basic series-the Consumer Price Index, Producer Price Index, the Employment Cost Index, and our monthly Payroll Series-are widely used to escalate income and contract costs that affect literally hundreds of billions of dollars in private contracts, as well as in the Federal budget. We have worked hard this year to contribute to the President's budget reduction initiatives, while preserving the basic core of economic intelligence for which BLS has responsibility.

The requested appropriation of $120.1 million is, I believe, essential to maintain the quality and the timeliness of our critical base program. I'd be glad to try to answer any questions that you may have.

STATISTICAL SERIES

Senator SCHMITT. Thank you. You've testified before this committee that much of the data the Bureau collects is mandated by law. If we were to make recommendations on which data series collection should

be dropped from law, what guidance could you give us? Is there anything that you're doing that nobody ever uses and you'd just as soon not do?

MS. NORWOOD. Mr. Chairman, I found that there is always a user for any statistical series in existence.

Senator SCHMITT. The corollary to that is that if you mandate a certain set of statistics, somebody will come along and use them; is that correct?

Ms. NORWOOD. I think that's true. Our experience has been that it's the Congress of the United States that is the primary user, and I think that's for good reason. We have eliminated or sharply reduced 19 programs. Those programs which are in that cut list, some of the programs in that cut list are required by law, and we reduced them, but only to the limits allowable by law.

For example, we are required by law to produce data on work days lost due to strikes. We will continue to produce those data, but only covering establishments of 1,000 or more, which is a very small proportion of all strike statistics.

So we have tried our best to live up to the law and still reduce our budget. And we have tried to do so by eliminating programs, even though they have important users, because those that we continue, especially the basic core of data, which is what is covered by this appropriation request, must be of reasonable quality.

Senator SCHMITT. Yes; you could get into trouble by having data that wasn't of particularly good quality.

Have you ever considered charging for the data so that you might be able to improve quality as well as quantity?

USER CHARGES

Ms. NORWOOD. Yes; we have looked at user charges. We do sell publications. We sell tapes and so on. But there are laws that we have to follow about that. We do a considerable amount of contract work for other parts of the Department. We have done work for the private sector, but that involves having personnel and we run into difficulties with personnel ceilings.

Senator SCHMITT. But is this under consideration, couldn't implementation of user charges justify increased personnel ceilings which, in turn, improve your data?

MS. NORWOOD. I think that any new series that we take on, we will certainly discuss that issue with OMB. For the basic core of data that is covered by this appropriation, however, we believe that these are critical to the Nation and that they must be considered to be objective and therefore, cannot be paid for by any single group.

Senator SCHMITT. Well, to some degree, the data you collect and the money expended for that, subsidizes a fairly large industry, does it not, the economic forecasting industry. And they, in turn, with the largesse that you provide it, sell what they produce for quite handsome prices.

Do you think that they ought to be paying a little bit more to the Government? I understand that, generally, they get their information free, or at least they pay only for the cost of the publication?

MS. NORWOOD. Mr. Chairman, there are laws which we follow which have been established by the Congress about user charges. We can't change those by ourselves.

Senator SCHMITT. Well, what I'm asking is are you considering recommending that we change them?

MS. NORWOOD. Well, we've always felt that we would like to see a system of using the private sector for things like printing charges and for things like distribution. In fact, we're unique among the statistical agencies in having a competitive system installed in our use of computers. We use a private computer center and one of the most efficient Government computer centers and shift our work, depending on where we can get the best work done for the cheapest amount of money. We have found that that works very well.

We used to, some years ago, have our own computer center. We think we do some things extremely well. We collect data. We compile the data. We understand how to put things together. We understand the concepts and we know how to analyze data. But we found that we did not know how to run a very efficient computer center. And so we use the private sector, as well as the Government sector so that we can get the best and most efficient and cheapest service.

Senator SCHMITT. But what about these economic forecasting operations, such as Data Resources and Chase Econometrics, Wharton, et cetera, that use Government data, which is essentially free to them? Are you considering that we might charge them, not only for the cost of publication, but some reasonable user charge for the cost of production of the collection and analysis?

Ms. NORWOOD. They use the same data that is used by the Congress, by labor, by business, and by the general public. We have to treat all users in the same way. I don't think that we would want to charge the Congress or the administration or the press for information on the Consumer Price Index, for example. And so it's rather difficult, since those data are available, to charge some of the forecasting units.

On the other hand, if they ask for special things that are not a part of our regular program, we do charge them, and we charge them the full cost.

Now as to being able to make a profit on it, that's a question that really goes beyond our single statistical agency. That's a Governmentwide policy and there are laws, as I understand it.

HOMEOWNERSHIP COMPONENT

Senator SCHMITT. In response to questions from this committee last year, you indicated that a test program was needed before the homeownership component of the CPI could be replaced by a rental equivalence measure. Yet, it was announced in October 1981 that such a change in the CPI was to be made beginning with data for January 1983.

Could you explain why the test program was no longer felt to be necessary or that it was accomplished in a shorter amount of time than you anticipated?