Committee Approves YCC Proposal, But House GOP Opposes Measure

The first of President Kennedy's three youth corps bills was approved by the House Education and Labor Committee Thursday on a straight party-line vote after the committee added several restrictive amendments.

The Youth Conservation Corps bill now goes to a hostile Rules Committee, which killed a similar proposal last year by an 3-7 vote.

The bill originally called for a large-scale corps, modeled on the depression-time Civilian Conservation Corps, to work on federal and state conservation projects. The Committee restricted the group to federal projects and agreed that only unmarried and "permanent residents" of the U.S. should be among its members. The "permanent residents" clause was added to prevent a flood of Cuban refugees from joining the corps, according to one committee member.

House Republican leaders have announced their opposition to the bill. Minority leader Charles Halleck (R-Ind.) called it "a depression measure in nondepression times" and said it had "no chance" of winning approval by the House.

William Gifford, administrative assistant to Rep. Charles Goodell (R-N.Y.), ranking Republican on the Education Committee, said yesterday that "strong Administration pressure might get the bill past the full House if it ever got past the Rules Committee," but added that its chances of winning approval from Rules seem very small.

The Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee will vote on a similar bill March 28. A subcommittee cleared the bill Wednesday.

With the Youth Corps bill out of the way, the heavily-burdened Education and Labor Committee can go on to consider the National Service Corps proposal, which would send college-age volunteers to do social work in depressed areas in the U.S.

Administration leaders have been pressing for a committee vote on the Service Corps bill before Congress takes its Easter recess in early April. But the committee, which held two months of hearing on the Youth Corps bill, is unlikely to be more hurried about the more controversial Service Corps proposal.

In addition, the committee during this session will vote on the omnibus education bill and the Home Town Youth Corps bill, a plan that would set up volunteers groups of teenagers to work in their own neighborhoods.