Evening star., 1935-04-18
UTILITY MEASURE
DRIVE IS SPLANNED
Consideration in Congress
Before Middle of May
Being Sought.
ny WILL p. KENNEDY.


insistence that at least title OF the
Rayburn-Wheeler bill for control OF
public utilities be passed in some form
before Congress adjourns, an in
tensive drive will be made to get this
legislation considered in both House
and Senate before the middle of May.
Title l of the 178-page measure
provides for elimination of holding
companies by 1910. The big question
for the House Interstate and Foreign
Commerce and the Senate Finance
Committees to decide is whether it
will recommend elimination or strict
regulation and control by some Federal
agency Then the other provisions
will be distributed among various sub
committees.
The House has just completed eight
weeks of hearings-and no position
has vet been taken on anything. The
Senate committee now has started
hearings on its own hook, with Chair
man Wheeler hoping" they will not
last more than two weeks.
EXpGCGe0 TO Dc nc"TASsCh.
Members of the House committee
predict the bill will be rewritten ma
terially. The new bill may do some
thing to take away the voting power
of top holding companies, and un-
doubtedly will provide for strict
regulation of the issuance Of securi-
ties, supervision of service, manage
ment contracts, purchase of new
properties thus to prevent the paying
of several times what the property Is
worth and then establish the rate
on that valuation) and to require uni
form accounting.
Those who are fighting for COM
plete elimination of holding COM
panies have been protesting that the
evils disclosed in the Federal Trade
Commission report cannot be fought
by Federal regulation alone. Public
utility representatives have made 1t
clear to members of the committee
that too many innocent third parties
are involved to have such radical
elimination declared by law; that 1t
would ruin investors and so damage
the utility systems as to hurt con-
sumerS.
Month More Delay Seen.
The bill itself hasn't even been read
in the House committee with view
to changing the language. This is
to be taken up next week, in an ef-
fort to change it to meet the views
of the committee after the question
has been decided-elimination or reg
oYl xhay, Al c,1hfit1aS will he
referred to subcommittee to be per-
fected.
Some members of the committee
predict the bill will not be out OF
committee for another month or six
weeks, while the best hope seems to
be three weeks or month from now.
Title II of the bill-with reference
to operating companies, permitting
the Federal Trade Commission to fix
the wholesale rate on transmission OF
electrical energy in interstate move
ment-will meet with less opposition,
and probably will be approved.
The bill is on the Presidents must"
program, anyhow-and administration
leaders in Congress are getting busy
accordingly.
Disbursement Rules.
Those who have been sitting in the
all-day hearings, morning and after
noon for eight weeks, are becoming
considerably discouraged. They say
"if we run over July we will be here
until September 49," but they are
really figuring that Congress may be
able to get through early in August.
At the same time they figure roughly
the Senate has its work mapped out
for at least four months-will discuss
the public utilities bill on the floor for
q month, the N. r. A. for another
month, the banking bill for month
and the social security bill a month
not to mind its routine business
While Republican members Of the
House committee-such as Cooper of
Ohio, Mapes of Michigan and Wolver-
ton of New Jersey-have earnestly op-
posed the provision of the bill for
elimination, there are also prominent
Democratic members whose views do
not coincide with the administration
proposals which are staunchly advo-
Gated by Chairman Rayburn, who
contends the bill Is liberal in allowing
q new lease of life to such holding
companies as are found worthy Of
living.
Representative Pettengill of Indiana,
who has made substitute suggestions.
feels the committee will report a bill
designed to prevent recurrence of the
abuses. and says he will go as far as
any one to prevent them"