Economic Agency Clears Committees
The House and Senate Bank-iijg Committees yesterday voted to give President Ford the anti - inflation monitoring agency he requested Monday night.</br></br>Members of both committees agreed that they were not giving the President any authority he did not already have, since hp could establish such a task force by executive order, But the consensus on botli committees was that it could not do any harm and since it was Mr. FordÛªs first request as President he should have it.</br></br>Both Mouse and Senate arc] expected to vote Monday on their respective versions of the monitoring agency bill. Although the thrust of both proposals is the same, there are enough diferences to require a conference to shape a bill acceptable to both chambers.</br></br>Both versions of the bill authorize Mr. Ford to set up a White House council to monitor wage and price developments and collect data on various sectors of the economy, in order to pinpoint both private and government sources of inflation.</br></br>The proposed agency will, in effect, take the place of the larger and more powerful Cost of Living Council, which went out of existence .June 30. This agency would not have the power to impose mandatory wage and price controls, which the old Cost of Living Council had until April 30.