This difference affects the precedence of USE procedures relating to contained programs.
In VS COBOL II, Release 3.x, a file-specific USE procedure always takes precedence over a mode-specific USE procedure. This precedence occurs if an applicable mode-specific USE procedure exists in the current program, or if a mode-specific USE procedure with the GLOBAL attribute in an outer program is "nearer" than the file-specific procedure.
In VS COBOL II, Release 4 and Enterprise COBOL, USE procedure precedence is based on a program by program level; from the current program to the containing program for that program, and so on to the outermost program.