at the time contemplated will seriously jeopardize the national-defense power program.

Mr. CLAPP. That is right.

Senator ROBERTSON. But not the atomic-energy program?

Mr. CLAPP. No, not specifically, as we now understand it. That is correct, sir. These four units at Shawnee which are to be added to the four units which we are already building there would be a part of a larger power-construction program designed to give us enough additional capacity by 1955 to meet the estimated load growth between now and that time.

Senator ROBERTSON. Before we leave this point that I have in mind, I want to ask this: Are these four plants to be built under the generalwelfare clause?

Mr. CLAPP. Senator, the TVA Act as passed by the Congress authorizes the TVA to build power plants, including hydro and

steam.

JOHNSONVILLE STEAM PLANT

Senator ROBERTSON. I realize that, but you remember we had a long argument and debate when you built or proposed to build the Johnsonville plant. We had a long argument over the authority of the Government to build an independent steam plant. The Johnsonville plant was hooked up in some way with the proper utilization of the Tennessee hydroelectric flood-control navigation program? Mr. CLAPP. That is correct.

Senator ROBERTSON. But it would appear to me now that we have completely abandoned that concept, and I just wondered about the authority. I do not question the fact that the Congress has authorized you to build steam plants, but I am wondering what authority Congress had to build steam plants. If the Congress has the power to build plants, would not the Congress have power to build steel plants or any other kind of plants it wanted?

Mr. CLAPP. I am not qualified to discuss constitutional questions, but with respect to the concept you refer to of relating these steam plants to the river development, I want to say definitely we have not abandoned the idea of using steam plants as a means of improving the quality of the power in the hydro system.

Senator ROBERTSON. In the past the steam plant has been urged upon us as a necessary complement to the full utilization of the hydroelectric plant, but my point was we are now apparently abandoning that concept. It is not a question of firming up any power from a hydroelectric dam. It is going into the production of power; is that correct?

PURPOSE OF NEW STEAM-PLANT FACILITIES

Mr. CLAPP. In part that is correct, with respect to a large portion of the new steam-plant facilities that we are building and that we will have. But if I might explain more fully, much of the steam capacity the TVA is building today is being built for the specific purpose of supplying national defense loads and high load factor loads. If you segregate those amounts from the normal loads of the TVA, and relate the remaining steam to the hydro system, we still have need for steam capacity that can be used to firm up the hydro capacity in the river.

Senator ROBERTSON. Far be it from me to challenge the need for more power. We can utilize far more power than is now available. I was just raising the issue, first, as to the power of Congress to produce anything that the Congress might decide is needed in a defense program or any other kind of program.

The second proposition, assuming we are going to vote that the Congress can build any kind of plant, is that it will contribute to the national defense program, but could the work be done by private industry which was our original way of producing the things that the Government needed?

CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION AND STATUTORY AUTHORITY

Mr. CLAPP. There is in the record, and I would be glad, if you wish, to get it and present it for filing in this record, a careful and official legal opinion filed with this committee in connection with the new Johnsonville plant. The opinion covers both the constitutional question and the statutory authority of the TVA to build steam plants. That I think would throw a great deal of light on the constitutional question.

Senator ROBERTSON. Is it impossible to get private industry to come in here and furnish the power that this new atomic-energy plant will need?

Senator MAYBANK. We had that in the hearing before, but do you want it printed again?

Senator ROBERTSON. No. I would rather you just refer to the specific place in the record if it is printed.

Mr. CLAPP. I will do that.

(The information referred to follows:)

Two memoranda by TVA's General Counsel on the constitutionality of proposed steam plant at New Johnsonville, Tenn., appear on pages 1050-1058 in hearings before the subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, Eightieth Congress, second session, on the Government Corporation appropriation bill, 1949, and on pages 294-308 of the hearings before the subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, United States Senate, Eightieth Congress, second session, on the Government corporations appropriation bill, 1949, respectively.

AVAILABILITY OF PRIVATE POWER

With respect to your other question, the availability of power from private power company sources to supply the Atomic Energy Commission plants that are right in the middle of our service area, it would be an extremely complicated and difficult financial problem for any private utility to come into that area and build a plant; such a plant would either have to depend upon TVA as sole outlet through the TVA system for distribution to its retail outlets through municipalities and rural electric cooperatives, or become a captive plant of the Atomic Energy Commission, able to count on no other market.

Senator ROBERTSON. You mean that in all the area that the TVA now serves we have what amounts to Government monopoly and it is just not feasible for private industry to come into that area?

Mr. CLAPP. That is correct. It is true that in the new Paducah facility as now planned and authorized, and which the Atomic Energy Commission is building, half of the power is to be supplied

from the initial four units of TVA's new Shawnee plant and half by a plant being constructed by Electric Energy, Inc., a combination of private utility companies organized for the specific purpose of building that plant. We will supply a half million kilowatts.

Senator ROBERTSON. I was not aware of the fact-possibly I was uninformed that the Paducah area was already within this Government monopoly area of TVA but these new steam plants would put you up into that area?

Mr. CLAPP. Paducah is within the watershed of the Tennessee River system. It is right at the mouth of the river. The actual location of the Shawnee plant, which has to be near water, is on the Ohio River a few miles from the precise boundary of the drainage area of the Tennessee. For all practical purposes the TVA covers, with its transmission lines and service area, a large part of that area.

HOUSE ACTION

Senator ROBERTSON. I have not read either the House hearings or the House debate, but I was under the impression that when the House voted to eliminate these four plants at Shawnee that the House took the position that these private agencies to which you now refer who could come in and furnish half the power, if given an opportunity, would furnish it all. Is that correct?

Mr. CLAPP. That I do not know.

Senator ROBERTSON. Could they furnish it all if given the opportunity? Could they build the plant as well as the Government and furnish all the power?

Mr. CLAPP. I am sure the private companies in the area north of Paducah could build a plant if they could finance it. Of course the plant they are building at Joppa while privately financed is underwritten by the power contract with the Government. The Government will pay for it through the purchase of the power but the Government will not own it after it has paid for the plant.

The private companies will own the plant.

Senator ROBERTSON. I have not given up hope we may work out some plan for peace in the world. We might work out some plan for international disarmament which would include cessation of the manufacture of atomic bombs. If such a plan would be worked out, and we stop manufacturing atomic bombs, because we have agreed to live in peace in the world, what would be the use made of the tremendous amount of power that these four Shawnee plants would produce?

Mr. CLAPP. Senator, the power from those units would be absorbed rather quickly in the normal development of the domestic and industrial consumption of that region. Power consumption is growing at a very rapid rate, not alone for defense purposes but for normal purposes as well. The increase in rural electrification, the increase in domestic residential use, the increase in industrial use from the new industrial development that is building up on the resources of this great region are going to use up all the power that the TVA system can possibly supply.

Senator ROBERTSON. I will not question this witness any more, Mr. Chairman. I have gotten off of my chest a few preliminary questions I wanted information about.

Senator MAYBANK. Please proceed.

LANGUAGE LIMITATION ON TRAVEL

Mr. CLAPP. The other items that we have covered in our letters to the chairman of this committee, Senator Maybank, include as the next item an urgent and deeply felt request that the committee eliminate or exempt the TVA from a travel limitation placed upon it by action of the House. I hope the committee will bear with me while I go into that in some detail. Because of the nature of the work in which TVA is engaged and the way we organize our work, a limitation on travel expense will not only be very costly and expensive to the Government, but in this case it would actually make it impossible for us to carry out the construction and operation and maintenance work we have to do.

BUDGET ESTIMATE FOR TRAVEL

The estimate in the President's budget affecting TVA for travel expense was $2,061,585. That is for the entire TVA. The limitation put upon it would reduce that by one-third, or put a ceiling of $1,375,000 on our travel expenses. That would cover both corporate and appropriated funds.

As I pointed out in the letter to the chairman and the exhibit attached, travel expenses in the TVA consist primarily of per diem payments to employees. It also includes payments to railroads, and the cost of automobile transportation where private automobiles are used, but it pays primarily for keeping men in the field to do the work of TVA.

TRAVEL PERSONNEL

Senator THYE. Might I inquire at this point? What are the classifications of these men that would be traveling?

Mr. CLAPP. Twenty-three percent of the 1953 estimate for travel expenditures is in connection with the operation and maintenance of dams, reservoirs, steam plants, transmission lines, and substations. Senator MAYBANK. Page 3, section B, has it all set out, Senator. Mr. CLAPP. There is a table there to which I was just referring. Senator THYE. Do you not assign them specific stations?

Mr. CLAPP. We do. But in many instances we find it more economical to have traveling crews doing construction and maintenance work and as relief operators than to add to our payroll by increasing the personnel permanently stationed at one place.

I would like to ask Mr. Wessenauer, our manager of power, to explain by concrete cases just how these travel expenses arise.

Senator MAYBANK. Without objection that will be done, unless the Senator wanted to ask further questions.

Senator THYE. No thank you.

JOB TRAINING TRAVEL

Mr. WESSENAUER. The first item which Mr. Clapp referred to, 23 percent, is the amount of money which was paid for travel expenses to operating personnel. For example, in order to man the new power generating stations as they come into service, we have a training program under which we train men over a 2-year period.

The training program contemplates that these men will obtain onthe-job training at existing generating stations where they can become familiar with the equipment they will be called upon to operate. cause the equipment differs among plants, it is necessary to move them from time to time in the training program from one location to another and finally to move them into the plant to which they are permanently assigned. We estimate that $27,000 will be required in moving such men from one place to another during the 1953 fiscal year.

TEMPORARY ASSIGNMENTS

We have some old steam plants which are used intermittently. We do not man those plants the year round except for a skeleton crew. When it is necessary to put those plants into operation during dry seasons of the year, we transfer men from other plants to such plants for a temporary period of 2 or 3 months.

Senator THYE. What would be the maximum travel these men would have to engage in in order to go to their plant?

Mr. WESSENAUER. They would travel perhaps two or three hundred miles.

Senator THYE. Once they were they would be stationed for the period of the low-water mark and that might be 2 or 3 weeks or a month?

Mr. WESSENAUER. They would not be traveling daily. "Travel expenses" is a misnomer, because most of this money is used to pay the man per diem while he is away from his home station. Let us say we have a man stationed at Watts Bar steam plant in east Tennessee. That is his home and official base. He is an operator there. We move him from there to Wilson Dam when that plant goes into operation. He may stay there for 60 to 90 days. He gets $6 a day to cover his living expenses while he is away from his home base. He travels down once and back, but most of the money is for the per diem which he is allowed while he is away from his home station.

Senator THYE. Let me take a man by the name of Jones, we will say. How many days out of the year does Mr. Jones receive the per diem because he is away from his home station?

Mr. WESSENAUER. That man may be away from his home station between 60 and 90 days.

Senator THYE. Of a year?

Mr. WESSENAUER. Yes.

Senator THYE. The only reason he is away from his home station is that he is managing a plant which you only operate in the low water period?

Mr. WESSENAUER. That is right.

Senator THYE. How many of those men do you have that rove in the manner you have described?

Mr. WESSENAUER. We estimate that in 1953 there would be between 60 and 80 men involved in that type of operation.

Senator THYE. If you have $2,061,000 involved in this, that is a terrific amount of money.