REORGANIZATION PLAN NO. 20 OF 1950
Eff. May 24, 1950, 15 F.R. 3178, 64 Stat. 1272
Prepared by the President and transmitted to the Senate and the House of Representatives in Congress assembled, March 13, 1950, pursuant to the provisions of the Reorganization Act of 1949, approved June 20, 1949 [see 5 U.S.C. 901 et seq.].
STATUTES AT LARGE AND OTHER MATTERS
Section 1. Functions Transferred From Department of State to Administrator of General Services
There are hereby transferred to the Administrator of General Services the functions of the Secretary of State and the Department of State with respect to:
Sec. 2. Abolition of Functions
Sec. 3. Performance of Transferred Functions
The Administrator of General Services may from time to time make such provisions as he shall deem appropriate authorizing the performance by any other officer, or by any agency or employee, of the General Services Administration of any function transferred to such Administrator by the provisions of this reorganization plan.
Sec. 4. Transfer of Records, Property, Personnel, and Funds
There are hereby transferred to the General Services Administration, to be used, employed, and expended in connection with the functions transferred by the provisions of this reorganization plan, the records and property now being used or held in connection with such functions, the personnel employed in connection with such functions, and the unexpended balances of appropriations, allocations, and other funds available or to be made available for use in connection with such functions. Such further measures and dispositions as the Director of the Bureau of the Budget shall determine to be necessary in order to effectuate the transfers provided for in this section shall be carried out in such manner as the Director shall direct and by such agencies as he shall designate.
Message of the President
To the Congress of the United States:
I transmit herewith Reorganization Plan No. 20 of 1950, prepared in accordance with the provisions of the Reorganization Act of 1949. This plan transfers from the Secretary of State to the Administrator of General Services a number of functions which have no connection with foreign affairs but bear a close relation to the archival and records functions of the General Services Administration.
Since its establishment in 1789 the Department of State has performed certain routine secretarial and recordkeeping functions for the Federal Government which are entirely extraneous to its basic mission with respect to the conduct of foreign relations. While these activities do not properly belong in the Department, they were assigned to it and continued under its jurisdiction for want of an appropriate agency for their performance. At present these functions consist of the preservation and publication of laws, the preparation and publication of the Statutes at Large, the certification and publication of constitutional amendments, the receipt and preservation of certificates of Presidential electors and of electoral votes, and the compilation and publication of Territorial papers.
Through the National Archives and Records Service the General Services Administration is especially staffed and equipped for the conduct of activities of these types. It is the principal custodian of the official records of the Government. Under the Federal Register Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, it preserves and publishes in the Federal Register the Executive orders, proclamations, and other principal executive documents and it codifies and publishes the rules and regulations promulgated by the various departments and agencies. This work is generally similar in nature to, and much greater in volume than, that performed by the Department of State with respect to constitutional amendments, laws, and proclamations. Consequently, the consolidation of these activities of the State Department with the archival and records activities of the General Services Administration should make for greater efficiency and economy. The plan, however, does not transfer the custody and publication of treaties and international agreements, since they are matters of special concern to the Department of State and it is the agency most competent to edit such documents.
The handling of the certificates of Presidential electors and the compilation and publication of Territorial papers also more appropriately belong in the General Services Administration. The first is largely a matter of record keeping and the second of archival research. The preparation of the Territorial papers involves the compilation and editing of official documents of the various Territories formerly existing within the United States. The greater part of this material is now in the National Archives and the work involved is generally similar to that being performed by it with respect to other groups of public records.
In addition, the plan abolishes two statutory duties of the Secretary of State which have become obsolete. The first is the duty of procuring copies of all State statutes as provided in the act of September 23, 1789 (R.S. 206). Inasmuch as the Library of Congress now has a complete collection of the State laws, it is no longer necessary for the Department of State to maintain a complete collection. The second is the requirement, imposed by the act of July 31, 1876 (19 Stat. 105), as amended, that the Secretary of State publish proclamations and treaties in a newspaper in the District of Columbia. This is now unnecessary since proclamations are published in the Federal Register and treaties are made available currently in slip form in the Treaties and Other International Acts Series.
After investigation I have found and hereby declare that each reorganization included in this plan is necessary to accomplish one or more of the purposes set forth in section 2(a) of the Reorganization Act of 1949.
The transfers provided by this plan will relieve the State Department of a number of functions that have no relation to its primary purpose and place them in an agency especially designed for the performance of such activities. Until these functions are incorporated in the operations of the General Services Administration, it will not, of course, be practicable to determine the economies attributable to their transfer, but it is reasonable to expect modest yet worth-while savings to be achieved.
Harry S. Truman.
THE WHITE HOUSE, March 13, 1950.