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Cooper retires and I go as Chief of Staff of the Senate Select Committee. This is the
period of an important effort to get rid of Emergency Powers and War Powers. 2,300
statutes had been passed since 1790, that gave the president extraordinary powers in time
of war or so-called national emergency. Among the emergency powers which the
President could exercise without legislative approval was the power to freeze currency,
seize all communications, declare military zones, and put people in concentration camps.
Q: Well, would you explain? This was an act that set up a temporary committee?
MILLER: This was an ad hoc committee that was set up by the House and the Senate, a
joint select committee. Select committees have an equal number from each party and ours
had co-chairman. The Select Committee has a limited life, as a committee; it has a
requirement to complete work within that specified period.
At first there were two separate committees: one in the House, one in the Senate. The
House Committee was disbanded after some internal difficulties while the Senate Select
Committee continued its work. For three years, we worked closely with the executive
branch and the Supreme Court on the legal status of declarations of war, declarations of
emergency and the powers that were delegated from the legislature to the president as a
result of declarations. It was a huge research project, that I directed. Frank Church and
Charles Mac Mathias were the co-chairman. Our staff had 20 lawyers, mostly seniors in
several law schools who took time off from their law studies to work for a semester at the
Committee. We all spent most of our time in the Library of Congress. The first task was a
so-called “hand search” of all statutes, that is, going through all laws passed by the
Congress from number one to the present time.
This search of all statutes in the Statutes at Large was necessary because there had never
been a catalog made by the government of emergency powers or the special powers of the
president, much less executive orders. So, after a year, we had gained a thorough
understanding of the task. Our research revealed that there were over 2,300 statutes that
delegated from the congress to the president emergency powers. They included 120 secret
statutes, which bestowed upon the president extraordinary powers. The committee
decided to undertake a “dead wood” operation to eliminate all unneeded or egregious
statutes by repeal. We went to every department and agency, "Look over these 2,300
statutes. What do you need, why do you need it?" By agreement with the White House, all
the relevant departments and agencies, and with the concurrence of all standing
committees with jurisdiction in both houses of congress, we repealed all but a few. The
National Emergencies Act, which prescribes the procedure that the president has to
follow when he declares a national emergency was passed by both houses and signed into
law on September 14, 1976. The president must first state the reasons for the declaration
of an emergency, specify in particular the statutory powers he wished to put into force;
the declaration and the powers triggered are limited in time. If more time is needed, it can
be extended by vote of both houses of congress.
After the several years of Emergency Powers and War Powers, I took up the issues of
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