CO-OPERATION
Joint decision-making shades into co-operative relationships which, if loose and flexible, may be continuing and steady. Such relations may exist with private as well as official groups.
Must Co-operate: The Small Business Concerns Mobilization Act made it the duty of the Chairman of the War Production Board to co-operate to the fullest practicable extent with the Director of Civilian Supply and other appropriate governmental agencies in the issuance of all orders limiting production by business enterprises with a view to insuring that small business concerns would not be bypassed in the production of war materials and goods essential to the civilian population.
In granting the Secretary of the Interior power to construct demonstration plants for production of synthetic and liquid fuels from coal oil shale, and agricultural and forestry products, the Congress specified that “any activities under this Act relating to the production of liquid fuels from agricultural and forestry products should be carried out in co-operation with the Department of Agriculture and subject to the direction of the Secretary of Agriculture.”[700] A 1945 flood-control act clearly sought to effect interagency co-operation in facilitating the replacement by farmers of flood-damaged or -destroyed [farm equipment.][701] The War Production Board, and every other governmental agency which had jurisdiction over allocations and priorities relating to farm machinery and equipment were authorized and directed immediately to take whatever steps were necessary to provide for the necessary allocations and priorities to enable farmers in the areas affected by floods in 1944 and 1945 to replace and repair their farm machinery and equipment which was destroyed or damaged by such floods, or windstorms, or fire caused by lightning, and to continue farm operations.[702]
The Defense Production Act of 1950 provided that whenever the price and wage stabilization powers contained in the Act were exercised, all agencies of the Government dealing with price and wage stabilization, within the limits of their authority and jurisdiction, should co-operate in carrying out the purposes of the Act.[703]
May Co-operate: The Emergency Price Control Act of 1942 was in part designed “to permit voluntary co-operation between the Government and producers, processors, and others to accomplish the ... purposes” of stabilizing prices and preventing speculation.[704] “It shall be the policy of those departments and agencies of the Government dealing with wages (including the Department of Labor and its various bureaus, the War Department, the Navy Department, the War Production Board, the National Labor Relations Board, the National Mediation Board, the National War Labor Board, and others heretofore or hereafter created), within the limits of their authority and jurisdiction, to work toward a stabilization of prices, fair and equitable wages, and cost of production.”[705]
MUTUAL ASSISTANCE
Congress will not infrequently require or enable one agency, on an interim or continuing basis, to come to the assistance of another in the execution of its program. This may take the form of providing money, material, facilities, or service to the agency. It is a kind of mutual assistance program within the executive branch.
The Reconstruction Finance Corporation, for example, was occasionally treated by Congress as a source of credit to enable agencies to launch authorized programs immediately after enactment, and thus avoid the delays which attend appropriation of funds for authorized programs. The Far Eastern Economic Assistance Act of 1950 authorized the appropriation to the President of sixty million dollars to enable the Economic Co-operation Administration to furnish assistance to the Republic of Korea. As a way of getting the program started at once, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation was authorized and directed to make advances not to exceed thirty million dollars in the aggregate, until the regular appropriation was available.[706] It can readily be seen that this device might be employed not only to avoid the normal delays of the appropriations process, but to circumvent or nullify the obstructive tactics of an unfriendly appropriations subcommittee.
The India Emergency Food Aid Act of 1951 contained a similar provision. If the President, after consultation with public and private shipping officials, found that private shipping was not available to carry American food to India on reasonable terms and conditions, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation was authorized and directed to make advances not to exceed in the aggregate twenty million dollars to the Department of Commerce for activation of vessels for such transportation.[707]