FEA  met  the  challenge  confronting  it  and  brought  us  through  a
trying,  dangerous  period  with  a  minimum  disruption  to  our  economy
and  our  society.  But  of  course  there  were  mistakes  made  during  this
period.  In  retrospect,  it  is  clear,  we  probably  should  have  done  some
things  differently,  although  I  might  add  it  was  much  less  clear  at  the
time  when  hard  decisions  had  to  be  made.  I  am  speaking  on  behalf  of
my  predecessors  here,  Mr.  Chairman,  who  I  am  sure  made  decisions
with  respect  to  the  data  that  was  in  front  of  them.
We  have  learned  from  these  mistakes,  many  of  them  have  already
been  corrected  and  others  are  now  being  corrected.  As  we  have  gained
experience  we  have  learned  how  to  do  our  job  better  and  we  will  con-
tinue to  improve  our  perf ormance.
One  of  the  most  trying  circumstances  that  we  have  to  live  with  and
still  impacts  the  program's  effectiveness  today  is  the  entire  subject  of
FEA's  regulatory  activity.  It  was  conceived  as  only  a  temporary  pro-
gram. At  first,  it  was  due  to  expire  on  February  28,  1975,  only  14
months  after  it  began;  now,  it  is  due  to  expire  on  August  31,  1975,  20
months  after  it  began.
This  fact  has  made  it  difficult  for  me  and  my  predecessors  to  plan
and  execute  an  adequate  staffing  program.  It  has  been  hard  to  plan
future  requirements  and  attract  fully  qualified  and  dedicated  people
to  an  agency  that  offered  very  limited  job  security.  We  were  able  to
staff  most  of  our  positions  initially  with  employees  from  other  agen-
cies, principally  the  Internal  Kevenue  Service,  but  they  hold  reem-
ployment rights  which  some  of  them  exercised  either  because  they
thought  they  saw  the  first  sign  of  the  program's  demise  or  simply  for
personal  reasons.
