ning-whether flood-control measures taken in time might not have saved immeasurable suffering and destruction.

Flood control is not a panacea. It cannot be expected to provide absolute protection in all situations against flash floods of the type that struck Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey last week. Moreover, there are problems involved in effecting flood control for heavily populated and long settled areas like New England which do not exist in the same degree in less developed regions such as the Tennessee Valley. In colonial days, towns were established as a matter of course along the rivers and cannot now be relocated; the building of necessary flood-control reservoirs would, therefore, present serious difficulties. When all of this has been acknowledged, however, the fact remains that a practicable flood-control program was proposed for New England by the Army Corps of Engineers after the disastrous flood of 1936. There is no doubt whatever that, had the program been put into operation, it would have diminished damage in the Naugatuck Valley, where the flood destruction was greatest in August as well as last week. The proposed Thomaston Dam might well have spared Waterbury, Ansonia, Winsted, and neighboring industrial communities. A bit farther north, two proposed projects might have done a good deal to protect Woonsocket and Worcester from needless damage.

But New England has been resistant to the recommendations of the Army Corps of Engineers and to other flood control proposals-in large part, it would seem, out of a doctrinaire distaste for what is sometimes called creeping socialism. Every suggestion that flood control be accomplished through the construction of multipurpose dams, which would be used for the generation of electric power, has encountered the adamant opposition of the private power companies. The whole New England river situation ought to receive fresh and unprejudiced scrutiny. And it would be well to bear in mind that there is nothing more creepingly socialistic about Federal aid for flood prevention than there is about Federal aid for the victims of disaster.

Mr. JONES. Our first witness this morning is Mr. Phillip Shutler. However, Mr. Shutler, we have a witness we carried over from yesterday, Mayor Burke of Westfield, who has a short statement.

Won't you come around, Madam? Will you identify yourself for the reporter, please?

STATEMENT OF HON. ALICE D. BURKE, MAYOR, WESTFIELD, MASS.

Mayor BURKE. Mayor Alice D. Burke, mayor of the city of Westfield, Mass.

Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Power, the city of Westfield, Mass., has suffered from the flood waters of the Westfield River many times. The most damaging floods occurred in 1927, 1936, 1938, 1949, and August and October

in 1955.

We respectfully urge immediate action to implement legislation for the authorization, planning, and construction of the Littleville Dam on the Middle Branch of the Westfield River.

We further urge that steps be taken to investigate all possible avenues of approach to remedying the disastrous conditions recently experienced along the Little River below Cobble Mountain Dam.

The city of Westfield would also appreciate having an investigation made and action taken to control the flow of flood waters from the West Branch of the Westfield River.

Mr. JONES. Thank you very much. Are there any questions? (No response.)

Mr. JONES. Now Mr. Shutler, who is representing the Governor of Vermont, and also appearing as director the Connecticut River Valley Flood Control Association.

We are glad to have you, sir.

STATEMENT OF PHILLIP SHUTLER, REPRESENTING THE GOVERNOR OF VERMONT, ALSO APPEARING AS DIRECTOR, CONNECTICUT RIVER FLOOD CONTROL ASSOCIATION

Mr. SHUTLER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, for the record, I am Philip Shutler. I represent the governor first and then

Mr. JONES. Mr. Shutler, will you speak louder, because we have some old people up here and have difficulty hearing you.

Mr. SHUTLER. Mr. Chairman, I have difficulty in speaking. I have been trying to get rid of a cold for 3 or 4 weeks. I will do the best I can, sir.

Mr. JONES. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHUTLER. I have not had an opportunity to read the task force report. I have read the Hoover Commission's report, but I have not had an opportunity to study it. I think there may be some things in the report that are of particular interest to Members of Congress.

The report details the number of agencies concerned with water resource problems, and at a later period indicates that because of differing legislation governing the actions of these various agencies, there are various striking differences in the approach to the problem and matters resulting from the action. I know that this report indicates that there have been in the past estimates of costs and benefits which have not stood up when the works were completed.

Mr. JONES. Are you talking about the Corps of Engineers' projects now?

Mr. SHUTLER. They detailed Corps of Engineers; they detailed Reclamation, and they also detailed the Department of Agriculture. I am sure the members of your committee are familiar with the fact that there is great competition for appropriations not only by regions of this country, but by the various agencies. That is well known. What the answer to these incorrect estimates of costs or benefits is, I do not know.

Mr. JONES. Did you say the cause of their errors?

Mr. SHUTLER. Yes. I think perhaps Gresham's law works here. That law in economics says bad money drives out good money. I think perhaps bad estimates drive out good estimates. I do not know who began the poor estimates.

Mr. JONES. Mr Shutler, did you ever take occasion to study the time elements involved in the estimates when they are first submitted to Congress and the time when the average projects receives an appropriation?

Mr. SHUTLER. I was about to go into that as a part of the difference between the estimates and the costs.

Mr. JONES. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHUTLER. Now, an estimate prepared in 1941 would have to be severly upgraded to make it applicable to the costs in 1949 or in 1954. Mr. JONES. Yes, sir. Are you saying that the costs and the benefits are static?

Mr. SHUTLER. No; I am not saying that, sir. I am merely saying when I said that, that an estimate prepared in 1941 would have to be upgraded to be applicable to 1954-Î am saying only what we all

know, that is, that in those years there has been a tremendous decrease in what a dollar will buy, and we are using the same symbol

Mr. JONES. Congress has used a rule of thumb that when a project goes up in cost it goes up in its ratio of benefits. We have tried to bring about some analysis to study it as to whether or not the increases are in proportion to the increased benefits and the increased costs of the project. So far we have not been able to say that the benefits have not been commensurate with the increased costs.

Mr. SHUTLER. I think each case would have to be examined by itself. Some of them will be increased more than the cost, and some of them less.

Mr. JONES. And some of them, because of the changed conditions and the economic changes, are changed to such an extent that they are not economically feasible at all.

Mr. SHUTLER. I think that is true too.

Mr. JONES. We have expended some $42 million in planning of projects that will never be executed. Of course, we lose a lot of money like that. We have one project in New York, I recall specifically, where we spent more on planning than the estimated project would cost, and it is still not underway. Of course, that is the fault of the Congress. I do not think it is entirely the fault of the agency which prepared the estimates.

Mr. SHUTLER. I am not attempting to fix any blame. I noticed that the report does not, except in the way that it says there should be more specific direction from the Congress to the agencies that make the reports.

Mr. JONES. Are you familiar with the reports made by the subcommittee of the Committee on Public Works in 1952 of which I was chairman, and which recommended that the planning stage of the works of both the Corps of Engineers as well as other agencies, with the exception of the Department of the Interior projects, be eliminated as a separate stage in the planning and execution of the projects?

Mr. SHUTLER. I read most of your report, Mr. Jones. I am not currently familiar with the provisions. I think that that represents the governor's feeling, that there can be a considerable good coming out of these recommendations to have more careful budgetary control of activities of the spending agencies.

Mr. JONES. Are you referring to the Hoover Commission's recommendation in their report that the Bureau of the Budget be strengthened with trained personnel of a technical nature for assaying the reports submitted to them by the various agencies?

Mr. SHUTLER. I note that is here. Considering the whole country, and all of the things that come up, and the extent of the work, it would have to be a tremendous organization to be able to check on down through all of these proposals.

Mr. JONES. Are you familiar with the course that a project must follow before it is authorized by the Congress and the various steps that the Corps of Engineers employ?

Mr. SHUTLER. I think I am, sir. Yes, sir.

Mr. JONES. That process within itself is about a 2- to 3-year operation.

Mr. SHUTLER. Yes, sir; that is true. Except in extraordinary cases. Gentlemen, I should like to speak now about the Connecticut River flood control problem.

On yesterday there was some discussion of, let us say, upstream against downstream States. That is a misunderstanding of the situation. That does not enter into the problem now.

Mr. JONES. You say it does not enter into the problem now?
Mr. SHUTLER. It does not.

I do not want to be misunderstood. There are people in the places where reservoirs are to be built, who object to having their lands taken. You can understand that perfectly.

Mr. JONES. That is true.

Mr. SHUTLER. That occurs everywhere in the country. That is not a distinctive characteristic of the upriver States, or at least these particular upriver States. There was, as you know, a period in which one upriver State opposed construction of dams within its borders. That State is Vermont. Vermont has not done so since the passage of the 1944 Flood Control Act.

If we strip all of the feathers off the animal and look at the naked carcass, here was the difficulty: The 1938 Flood Control Act directed the Secretary of the Army to acquire in the name of the United States all lands and rights needed for flood-control dams and to pay all of the costs, and to acquire these properties without regard to any prohibition in any other law respecting State consent.

Now we people in Vermont, I believe, are old-fashioned on matters which we think are fundamentally important. We hold that that section of the law would strip or did strip every part of sovereignty left in the States from the States, because if a State has nothing to say about where a reservoir or any other development is made within its borders, then its control of its area and its legislative rights over that area are gone. That was our position.

Mr. JONES. How did it differ from any other acquisition by the Federal Government of property for construction of dams?

Mr. SHUTLER. I think we go back to the Constitution in that regard. Mr. JONES. No. I am not asking you that question. The question I am asking you is, how is it different from the Corps of Engineers acquiring property for the construction of a dam in Tennessee, or California, or any other State?

Mr. SHUTLER. We do not say so.

Mr. JONES. Oh, I see.

Mr. SHUTLER. We say that that is universal.

Mr. JONES. So you object to the universal application of the Federal laws with respect to the acquisition of property for the construction of dams and remedial works by the Corps of Engineers?

Mr. SHUTLER. If the State had nothing to say about where they were located or which ones should be built.

Mr. JONES. Is the site a subject of discussion between the Corps of Engineers, as authorized in the Flood Control Act of 1938, and the State of Vermont and various other States affected by the flood? Mr. SHUTLER. Were they subject to discussion?

Mr. JONES. Was there a discussion by the Corps of Engineers? Mr. SHUTLER. There is only one hearing that I know of, sir, that had to do with a proposed site on the West River. All the testimony that was adduced at the hearing was opposed to it. They did not appear such testimony or anything else did not appear in the report. We did not know what was proposed in the State until the Authorization Act of 1941.

Mr. JONES. Do you know of other States in which the Federal Government under the Flood Control Act of 1938 acquired property and constructed a dam which trespassed on the sovereignty of the States in which the projects were constructed?

Mr. SHUTLER. Sir, they did not acquire any in Vermont under the law until after the 1944 act. There was a proposal on dams in the State of Massachusetts. The legislature of Massachusetts passed an act authorizing the purchase.

Mr. JONES. Does the organization you represent still take the position that the Federal Government should come in and acquire those properties for flood control purposes?

Mr. SHUTLER. I do not quite see how you got to that point. I have said in the beginning, sir, that since 1944 there was no acquisition, or, that is, the objection on the part of Vermont stopped after the 1944 act, so I do not quite see how the idea might carry over to present conditions.

Mr. JONES. I see. How did the 1944 Flood Control Act vary or differ from the 1938 act, as far as objections are concerned that you had in 1938?

Mr. SHUTLER. I do not recall the language exactly, sir, but it provides that hereafter no project authorized for flood control shall be prosecuted by the Corps of Engineers except that during the planning stage there shall be full information back and forth between the States where the project is located, and that before the report goes to Congress, the purpose of that being to wipe out any controversy between State or agency-before the report went to Congress that the Governor of the State shall have 90 days after the Chief's report has been prepared, to comment on it. If he has objections and still has objections, then the objections of the Governor shall be printed in the same document as the engineers' report.

Mr. JONES. So the Flood Control Act of 1944 cures the objection that your association raised to the 1938 act?

Mr. SHUTLER. I would like to correct that. Our association did not raise that objection. The State of Vermont did. The association did not come into being until 1953.

Mr. JONES. I see. Are you speaking now for the association? Mr. SHUTLER. Yes, sir.

Mr. JONES. Does the association have any objections to the Federal Government, through the Corps of Engineers, constructing floodcontrol projects in the States of Vermont, on the Connecticut River? Mr. SHUTLER. Quite the contrary, sir. The commission is a body set up by compact between the four States on the Connecticut River. The compact gives consent of the States to the construction of floodcontrol dams at certain sites. I believe there are 6 in Vermont, 5 in New Hampshire, and 1 additional one in Massachusetts.

Now, until that compact was arrived at, the upriver States did have an objection to building further dams. That arose because of the fact that the Government owning the properties, all of the lands taken were taken away from the tax rolls of the municipalities where the dams were located. Those people, the municipal officials, are no different there than they are anywhere else. They have lost taxes to the benefit of the other cities downstream.