as possible.

have succeeded in keeping the Government's utility costs as low Since 1981 such interventions have resulted in savings of 16 million dollars in annually recurring costs to the Government, and in $7.7 million in savings from nonrecurring

costs. Pending rate cases could result in additional savings of approximately $11.25 million.

Although our litigation efforts are possibly the most visible means by which we provide legal support to the Department, other legal services which we provide may have an even greater impact over the longer term. For example, this office is actively engaged in facilitating the Department's participation in the legislative process. During this session of the Congress it is expected that bills will be considered concerning the Natural Gas Policy Act of of 1978, the Price-Anderson Act, and the President's defederalization initiatives. We will also be assisting the Department in reaching a position regarding Superfund reauthorization. We participated in a similar role last year with the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act.

The legal counsel this office provides also affects the conduct of the Department's most critical programs. In the nuclear area, we continue to be active in the implementation of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA). We assisted in the promulgation of guidelines under the NWPA for the Recommendation of Sites for Nuclear Waste Repositories and the preparation of draft Environmental Assessments for the nine possible sites. Other important objectives of the Department which were facilitated by our legal services include the completion of Environmental Impact Statements on the restart of the L-Reactor at our Savannah River facility and the disposal of decommissioned nuclear submarines.

The emergency preparedness activities of the Department

continue to require our extensive support. During the last year we participated in the International Energy Agency's (IEA) Fifth

Allocation Systems Test and successfully completed a million

barrel test sale from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).

A final area this office has devoted considerable efforts during the past year concerns regulatory reform. We attempt to minimize regulatory burdens while ensuring that accountability to agency goals is met. For example, we have been able to reduce greatly the recordkeeping formerly required pursuant to the Emergency Petroleum Allocation Act's allocation and price rules. We also provide program support to the Department in the wake of judicial findings regarding federal energy efficiency standards for eight major household appliances covered by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act.

In the future, this office will be pursuing a number of additional important objectives, such as completion of Environmental Assessments under the NWPA for the recommendation and nomination of three sites for characterization.

In addition we

will assist the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Defense Programs in initiating the upgrade of DOE's physical security programs for the protection of nuclear facilities, nuclear materials and classified information. This includes the development of policies and procedures on arrest and use of

force.

Continued diligence and dedication to fiscal responsibility in the review of the Department's multi-billion dollar procurement program is another DOE objective. We will continue to devote considerable resources to the development of the Clean Coal Technology program, an effort to enter into cost-sharing projects with the private sector to demonstrate feasibility of the technology for future commercial applications. Additionally, we continue to support implementation of recent legislation and the President's patent policy to transfer Department-owned

invention rights to contractors and thereby facilitate

commercialization.

By ensuring that the activities of the Department are conducted in a manner which fully comports with the law, while avoiding the imposition of unnecessary requirements and burdens, this office has made significant strides in contributing to our national energy policy. That policy is to foster an adequate supply of energy at reasonable costs.

The FY 1986 appropriation is $9,715,000. Our budget request for fiscal year 1987 is $9,953,000. The FY 1987 request will

provide $8.8 million for 166 FTE's and the remaining $1.1 million will be utilized for this office's support funding. In addition to the 166 FTE's, an additional 4 FTE's, to be funded from the Nuclear Waste Fund, are being requested for this office.

With this budget we believe we can continue to provide the professionalism in rendering legal services which this office has furnished to the Department since its formation.

OFFICE OF SECRETARY FUNDING REQUEST

Chairman HATFIELD. Madam Secretary, I am sure the record has it in some part, at least during the confirmation, that your duties and responsibilities would be rather monumental in your role as the Assistant Secretary for Management and Administration. You have direct or oversight responsibilities for $22 billion a year and 135,000 Government or contract employees, which is a very, very major responsibility, and I want to commend you on the special way in which you have been conducting your office. The questions that I have in no way reflect other than my deepest admiration for your capabilities.

But I do want to pursue some budgetary items which relate to a 16percent, as we calculate it, a 16-percent increase in funding for the Office of the Secretary of the Department.

My figures also indicate that there is about a 14-percent increase in travel budget; a small item relating to the staff, and that is a $2,000 item, a very small item, for special training programs.

These are only examples of what we see as rather significant increases and wondered if you could elaborate on the reason for these increases in the Office of the Secretary.

MS. HESSE. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Essentially, the request for fiscal year 1987 for the Office of the Secretary is the same as the pre-Gramm-Rudman fiscal year 1986 re

quest. As you know, the overall Department of Energy budget is increasing. Also, the Office of the Secretary's staffing is relatively inelastic; that is, it pretty much needs to remain the same.

We have unobligated carryover dollars from previous years that we intend to use in fiscal year 1986, so that in reality, there will be no increase in funding for the Office of the Secretary from fiscal year 1986 to fiscal year 1987.

In fact, the number of employees has been decreasing since 1981. Chairman HATFIELD. I wonder if you could supply the committee with a comparison of the levels of funding of the Office of the Secretary when you made those requests initially within the Department-the first step of your budget review. Then carry that through the OMB and now, as compared to the figures that we have presented here. Why I ask that question is that, historically, OMB has tended to reduce the agency or Department's request levels, especially in the field of administration, and I am just interested in knowing if that follows in this particular case. Really, in some part, it ties back, again, to one of the questions I asked Secretary Herrington relating to the perceived shift, as well as the actual budgetary shift of the Department from more of a civilian orientation to a military direction.

I think these figures here would also assist us in understanding that, if it is a type of policy that is expected to be followed.

I suppose in part, also, it seems that with military spending, this administration knows no particular limits of wish lists and energy to advocate and promote increased expenditures, and then for nonmilitary programs; almost conversely, there doesn't seem to be any limit to how far they are willing to go to destroy or eliminate, terminate, or reduce programs.

I have had a growing concern over a number of years and over a number of administrations that in terms of financial resources, in terms of natural resources, in terms of human resources, that we could be starting down a road of militarizing our whole economics of this country, and I need not engage in a long soliloquy on that issue at this point, but I do feel that it is one of those things that, like so many things in Government, happens suddenly at first, and then before we realize it, we are committed to a policy or a direction that I am not sure we really want to be.

That is the background of my questions relating to some of these increases and comparing the budget request with your request to OMB. [The information follows:]

FUNDING REQUEST FOR THE OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY

The Office of the Secretary's fiscal year 1987 budget request to the Office of Management and Budget was $2,056,000 and the budget request to Congress is $1,860,000.

OFFICE OF MINORITY ECONOMIC IMPACT

Chairman HATFIELD. Following up on that, I note that the Office of Minority Economic Impact, specifically the Minority Honors Training

Program is being cut substantially. Yet, last year the testimony was that this was an excellent program and had been highly successful. The term "impressive," the term "excellent" was used to describe the fact that over 700 financially needy minority honor students had received scholarships for tuition, books, tools, laboratory fees, and of the 190 graduates in the program, 150 had been placed into jobs, or 79 percent. We expect this excellent placement figure to improve to approximately 82 percent, with the recent August-September 1984 graduates being placed into jobs.

I see that as, first of all, a question as to whether or not that is your view of the program as it has been performed up to this point, and if so, then why do we propose to cut substantially the Honors Training Program?

MS. HESSE. Mr. Chairman, it is my view that this particular program has been very successful, and we are very proud of the accomplishments of this program. We also believe that we have done enough work in helping the schools to set up their own programs that we could now focus on a 4-year program as opposed to a 2-year program, and if so, the funding for 1987 is requested for a 4-year training program project. We hope that it will be as successful as the 2-year program.

Chairman HATFIELD. One of our questions for the record will ask you to give us the list of the nine, I believe, colleges that have participated in this program and the level of funding for 1986 and 1987 to get a comparison, again, of those, and any other detail that relates to the Minority Training Program.

ADDITIONAL PREPARED QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD

I have some other questions. I must move on now to, hopefully, get the full committee to report out a Commodity Credit Corporation supplemental. But we will submit these other questions for the record and would like your earliest possible response to them.

I also want to take special note, too, of the assistance you gave to the university projects in the matter of categorizing them as rescissions, which is very helpful, and we are very grateful for that kind of sensitivity and that kind of response to those requests.

MS. HESSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman HATFIELD. Thank you very much. [The questions and answers follow:]