Mr. CLAPP. I wonder if the pages are the same. I think we can give you the page reference in Committee Print No. 3, Mr. Teague. It would be on page 33, lines 13, 14, and 15. This proviso contemplating the submission of an annual budget program is not consistent with the mixed ownership corporation status given the telephone bank nor is it consistent with the treatment given in the electric sections. We feel that this should be deleted as it was in the corresponding electric bank section.

Section 608(b) (5), page 47, lines 4 to 9, deletes the language which we had incorporated to provide for the possibility of financing telephone facilities which might be used to accommodate CATV, where there was a demand for this type of service. This reference in our submission has been deleted in Committee Print No. 2. We simply point this out for the benefit of the committee.

Mr. POAGE. You are satisfied with what has been done?

Mr. CLAPP. In all of these items, except for the proviso on page 33 referring to the submission of annual budget programs, Mr. Chairman, we feel that the changes made are not basic to the general thrust of the bill and we are perfectly willing to concur with the wisdom of the committee.

Mr. GATHINGS. Let us just review a little now. We do not have Committee Print No. 2 and we are talking about language in Committee Print No. 2 and language in Committee Print No. 3 and the changes that have been recommended.

Mr. POAGE. The language is identical. The pages are different. The wording here is word for word the same, as I understand it. Mr. CLAPP. The language is the same.

Mr. POAGE. The language is the same; it is that the pages are not the same.

Mr. GATHINGS. You recommend that beginning on line 13 with the word "provided" and going through line 15, that language be deleted on page 33 of Committee Print No. 3?

Mr. CLAPP. Yes, this would be our recommendation to make it. conform to the theory of the mixed ownership corporation which is the theory behind these conversion principles both in the electric sections and in the telephone sections.

Mr. GATHINGS. That would make them both the same.

Mr. CLAPP. Yes, sir, in treatment.

Mr. GATHINGS. On line 14, the proviso there, which would include the remainder of lines 14 and 15, what is the recommendation there? Mr. CLAPP. What page is this, Mr. Gathings?

Mr. GATHINGS. Page 47. Starting on line 4, subsection (5), and concluding with "service" through line 9.

Mr. CLAPP. In the language we submitted, we had included in the term "telephone lines, facilities, or systems," facilities which could be used to provide service for community antenna television, in areas where this was in demand. Our intent in this was simply to protect the position of the telephone companies that are borrowing from REA so that they would be in a position to render the same kind of service to community antenna television organizations which nonborrower telephone systems can. The committee has preferred to delete this from the language, and as I have just assured the chairman, we have no objection to this if the committee prefers to approach it this way.

Mr. GATHINGS. That clarifies it. Thank you.

Mr. CLAPP. I might point out section 3(b), on page 49, lines 19 to 24, amends section 201 of the Rural Electrification Act to authorize REA telephone loans to public bodies now providing telephone service in rural areas. This was not included in the draft which we submitted. We understand it is intended primarily to make the Puerto Rico Communications Authority eligible for REA loans and for bank loans. Again we would have no objection to this language and this amendment.

One further change I would call to your attention is in section 605, beginning at page 35, relating to the composition of the board of directors. This has been substantially rewritten by the committee and it is different from the language which we submitted. But here again we feel that it is more a matter of detail of organization and is not a fundamental or basic consideration in the general thrust of the legislation. So we have no objection to whatever solution the committee sees fit to propose in this particular problem.

Mr. POAGE. You think what they have in here will work?

Mr. CLAPP. I am sure it will work, Mr. Chairman. I think there is some difference of opinion within the industry as to just how this should be handled in order to protect the position of the different types of organizations which are engaged in rural telephone service. But this is something that I think can be worked out in an amicable fashion and we have no particular point of view on this.

I would like with the indulgence of the committee, Mr. Chairman, to simply take note of certain amendments which appear in title IV of the Committee Print No. 3 dealing with the electric bank. I realize that the committee's primary concern this morning is with the telephone titles, but I would like to express our concern over the possible problems which may be inherent in some of these amendments affecting the electric bank.

I refer particularly to first, the additional restrictions on loans for generating plants; secondly, the additional restrictions on loans for acquisition of facilities; third, the prohibition of 2-percent loans to borrowers having net worth in excess of 35 percent; fourth, the requirement that cooperatives adopt bylaw provisions for certificates of ownership

Mr. TEAGUE. Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry. I am not going to object, but I understood, and perhaps incorrectly, that we were just considering the telephone section of this whole business today. I wonder if we get started in the electric bank we are opening it up and having other witnesses come in and give their further views. I repeat, I am not going to object. I am asking a question. Mr. POAGE. I think we would save a good deal of time by letting Mr. Clapp express his views here rather than calling him back another day. We called this primarily to go over the telephone part of the bill. I did ask that we not preclude any other discussion although I do not know that the notice actually carried that.

Mrs. GALLAGHER. The notice had already been put in the mail late Friday.

Mr. POAGE. Yes. Certainly we will not go over anything if anybody wants to object. I know you are just raising a question. All we achieve would be to call him Thursday to go over it and it would take 2 days instead of 1. I don't know what Mr. Clapp is going to

say here. I have not discussed it with him. It seems to me if we get through with these things we are just that much better off.

Mr. TEAGUE. I concur with that. A further parliamentary inquiry, if we do proceed here, and obviously we will because I am not going to object, at least, then the next inquiry is this: Can others who have different views on the electric bank section of the bill be given an opportunity to come in and testify?

Mr. POAGE. I think it has been proven ever since early this spring that anybody who wants to take time can take it. This subcommittee is not trying to cut anybody off or trying to be arbitrary on anything. I would say if the Chair came to the conclusion that we were just indulging in a filibuster, I would feel inclined not to go into it, but it seems to me that anybody who wants to make a relevant comment on what is before us

Mr. TEAGUE. On the basis of equal time.

Mr. POAGE. I am not going to hold the clock on Mr. Clapp or anybody else. We have not done it and we will not do it.

Mr. TEAGUE. You have been most fair, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. POAGE. We will let anybody who wants to make a serious discussion of this thing do it. I do not want that to go in and out as an invitation for anybody who simply wants to delay this thing by talking to come up here and do it.

I do not feel Mr. Clapp has evidenced any indication of doing that. But if there is any feeling of that kind, if any member of this subcommittee feels that Mr. Clapp ought not to be allowed to say this, the Chair will hold it is out of order because it is out of order. Unless the point is raised there will not be any holding on it.

Mr. TEAGUE. I am not going to raise it. I am going to make this request. I do not know that there are, but in the event there are other persons obviously representing the investor-owned utilities who want to come in and take an equivalent amount of time to that taken by Mr. Clapp, whether it is 5 or 20 minutes or a half hour, I would hope the chairman would feel that is a fair thing to allow them to so testify. I do not know that there are any such persons.

Mr. POAGE. I will certainly try to give them a fair hearing. We have not denied anybody the right to be heard so far.

Mr. TEAGUE. You have been most fair.

Mr. POAGE. As far as I am concerned, I am going to hold if anybody who comes here with the obvious intention of filibustering is out of order. But I do not assume that will be the case on the part of Mr. Clapp, or the power companies or REA or anybody else. If they have anything to present to us, we ought to hear it.

Mr. TEAGUE. Fine.

Mr. POAGE. I think the committee is interested in Mr. Clapp's views if he has some views he would like to express now rather than call another meeting. I think we can move along much better that

way.

Mr. GATHINGS. Mr. Chairman, I just want to say that the subcommittee had already acted upon the matter of the electric bank. As I understood that is not before us at all today and it would not be necessary for any investor people or other type of power people to come in and take the time. I am here today to learn something about the telephone bank title. He has given us information here and no ques

tions have been asked. They had 286 applications from telephone borrowers totaling $197 million and subsequently it turned out they have 309 applications totaling $234,400,000. That is what we are here for, as I understood, to go into this thing and find out just what the need is for funds in connection with the telephone rural community section of the bill.

Mr. POAGE. Do you object to Mr. Clapp making comments? I do not know what his comments are going to be. Do you object to Mr. Clapp making the comment that he started to make here? That is the whole point. If there is any objection the Chair will hold it is out of order. But if there is no objection the Chair will not so hold. Mr. GATHINGS. I still think we ought to delve into the telephone portion of the legislation.

Mr. POAGE. We certainly will.

Mr. GATHINGS. That is what we are here for.

Mr. POAGE. It is part of the same bill and I do not see hardly how you can say that you can discuss part of a bill and say you cannot mention another part of the same bill. They are part of the same bill. Mr. GATHINGS. Mr. Chairman, we have come in here with original bills introduced by you and by Mr. Cooley, and we discussed those a while, and then we came in with No. 1 and No. 2 and now we have No. 3 of the committee prints. I do not know who developed No. 3. I do not know where it came from. I was not present when this revision was brought before us. I had nothing to do with it.

Mr. POAGE. I am trying to tell you. Our attorney, Mr. Heimburger, asked that it be printed. That is where it came from.

Mr. GATHINGS. I do not object to his testifying on Committee Print No. 3, but I do not know where it came from.

Mr. POAGE. Just like all other committee prints, our attorney asked that we have a print made of what we had done at the last session, so that we might understand how far we had gone. It has no legal significance whatsoever. It is not a bill before the committee It is a committee print merely for the convenience of the committee. The bill that is before the committee is No. 14837 and neither Committee Print No. 1, 2, or 3 has any binding effect on anybody. It is merely a convenience just like you set down the names of the witnesses so you can read it a little easier and see what the committee had done up to that time. That is all the committee print does. It shows you the point to which we have moved. If you do not want to consider the committee print, we will just consider the bill with the amendments, and that is the same thing. That is all there is to the committee print. But this is a great deal easier than trying to keep in mind all the amendments that have been passed upon.

If anybody has any objection to Mr. Clapp testifying let us have it said now, and I mean if you have any moral objection, if you are going to go out and complain about the Chair being unfair, I want you to do it right now and not later, because the Chair has tried to let everybody testify that wanted to. I am not going to start following a different policy now unless somebody wants it started. If they want it started, then we will live by the rule and everybody will live by the rule and we will use the clock and we will use all of these details. If you want to do that, we will do it; if there is anybody on the committee that wants to do it.

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Mr. GATHINGS. It was not my purpose to filibuster.

I do not think the request made by the gentleman from California had anything to do with filibustering.

Mr. POAGE. He very specifically said he was not going to object. He simply asked about the procedure.

Mr. DOLE. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. POAGE. Yes.

Mr. DOLE. I would like to hear Mr. Clapp and also raise a question. Is it possible to have yet another committee print without the consent of everybody on the committee.

Mr. POAGE. Yes, it is perfectly possible.

Mr. GATHINGS. How will it be achieved? Will you just ask the Clerk to incorporate any amendment that anybody wants to put in? Mr. POAGE. I have not asked for any committee prints of this bill, but I think all that is necessary-there is no rule about committee prints that I know of-all that has ever been necessary if the staff felt we needed a committee print was for them to have it printed. Just like if they felt we needed a list of witnesses to be printed they printed it. It is the ordinary procedure of efficiently running your committee, to keep things up to date. Certainly if the chairman, or certainly if I as chairman of the subcommittee asked for a committee print, I am sure it would be made. If any of the members want a committee print and ask me to ask for it, I will ask for it.

Mr. GATHINGS. The gentleman has asked for it.

Mr. POAGE. He did not ask for it.

Mr. DOLE. I asked a question.

Mr. POAGE. If the gentleman wants another committee print we will get it for him.

Mr. DOLE. In other words, the approach would be to direct a letter to the chairman asking for a committee print.

Mr. POAGE. I think so. I think there would be no question about it being printed.

Mr. GATHINGS. And everybody would be advised on what happened.

Mr. POAGE. No, they would not. They would be allowed to read the print and advise themselves. Nobody plans to call a meeting and spoon-feed anybody-at least the present chairman does not. Members will have an opportunity to read it if they want to.

Mr. CLAPP. Mr. Chairman, I do not want to be the cause of any difficulty within the committee. I can assure you that what comments I had in mind are very brief. I realize that the committee has been attempting to harmonize conflicting points of view expressed before the committee. My purpose in bringing this up at this particular time is not to raise any arguments, but simply to give the committee the benefit, for whatever it may be worth, of our analysis of some of these amendments which are in Committee Print No. 3. I can do it very briefly if it is the wish of the committee.

Mr. POAGE. Nobody has objected and the time is now 25 minutes of 11. We will watch that time and we will be delighted to hear you proceed, Mr. Clapp.

Mr. CLAPP. The fifth amendment

Mr. POAGE. Suppose you go over them again because we have a different audience from what you had when you started.