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authorized project because it was passed on by Congress. Later on we had unofficial legal rulings that that was not so. Rather than to jeopardize the thing, attempts have been made to get those that were not actually authorized, specifically authorized.

It seemed to me in view of the experience that we had had here in New England, that when $250,000 or $260,000 was being sought for planning purposes on Otter Brook, there could not have been much interest by the congressional delegation of New England nor the Congress itself when only $100,000 was appropriated.

Those are some of the reasons why I have arrived at my conclusions. Mr. JONES. The statement I made at the beginning of the hearings, Mr. White, were these and I repeat them to you again because I do not know whether you were present. It has been my experience as a member of the Flood Control Subcommittee of the Committee on Public Works of the House of Representatives, which authorized these projects, that there has not been a genuine display of zeal on the part of the people of New England to try to acquire flood-control projects from the Congress of the United States. On the other hand, I have noticed, that the members of the delegation, both Democratic and Republicians, have worked earnestly to try to obtain those authorizations and appropriations.

I do not serve on the Appropriations Committee, but I think the record will disclose that annually they go before the Appropriations Committee and ask for money either for planning or construction, for the authorized projects. I know just this spring Mr. Boland and and several members of the Massachusetts delegation appeared before the Public Works Committee and sought further authorization of the projects. They expressed the sentiment and feeling that unless there was a comprehensive development of flood control and water resources in New England, that the situations which came about, might occur, just like they did happen in Pennsylvania.

Mr. WHITE. There is no conflict with the projects that are listed in the compact with the comprehensive development of the stream. I am sure both of you gentlemen have had experience enough in legislative bodies to know if you get a document like that from the legislatures of four States, it should be some indication that the people are in accord with it.

Now, in New Hampshire nobody up there wants these projects. They take up land that we do not want to yield. Therefore the New Hampshire people are not going to ask Congress to appropriate the money. It appeared that the people in Massachusetts and Connecticut did not fully realize in order to get the protection that was necessary, that these projects would have to be built in Vermont and New Hampshire.

Mr. JONES. Does that attitude still prevail?

Mr. WHITE. I do not believe so. I think this recent disaster probably caused people to look into it more thoroughly now, and it is understood. But I attended a meeting in Boston, Mass., just prior to the hurricane flood in August. The meeting was called more or less because we were not getting enough public works projects in the area. They were thinking more of harbor improvements than floods. There were tabulations made as to the benefits that the various States got, and Phil Shutler finds that the State of Vermont is being credited

70818-56-pt. 3-14

with flood protection works as a credit to Vermont, and I find the same thing in New Hampshire, when they are built to benefit Massachusetts and Connecticut. Still, we were being charged as getting a little more public works than our neighbors were.

So as I say, that is illustrative of the fact that I do not think it is understood.

Mr. JONES. Let me assure you of one thing, Mr. White. I am not here to incite differences among the States. What I am anxious to do is to contribute what little I can, possibly, and the efforts of this committee also, to reconcile any differences, if there are any differences outstanding, with the hope that the Federal Government will assume its responsibility to carry out whatever works are necessary to insure that we do not have a repetition of what you have experienced this year on two different occasions.

I hope whatever works are undertaken, that the maximum benefits will be derived from the Federal investment, in order that the majority of the people will get the fruits of their investment.

I hope you do not sense that we are here to bring up a dead horse, but we are here to look to the future. I can assure you of cooperation, as a member of the Flood Control Subcommittee of the House of Representatives Public Works Committee. I can assure you that you will have an anxious ear waiting.

I hope through my own efforts and the efforts of my committee that we can do something.

Again I want to say I am sympathetic to your flood-control problem. I have lived on a river where we had a series of floods every year, and I saw the loss of life and the loss of property there. Now we do not have a single dollar's worth of loss. The reason why we do not is because the Federal Government has invested in flood control on the Tennessee River. It is to benefit of the people of Alabama. It will be just as much benefit and satisfaction to me, though, if the people of New England are spared disasters as a result of that.

Mr. WHITE. I am certainly glad to hear that, Mr. Chairman, because I have been greatly concerned as I have been sitting here in the last 2 days, that we were going to have this issue confused and we were tying flood control over the back of power.

I would like to make this statement: I have given considerable thought and study to these projects. In the first place, you are aware, I am sure, that regardless of what the State of New Hampshire or any of these States do, or the Army engineers, if a floodcontrol project is being built then the Federal Power Commission has the authority to order the provision of power being built into it. So nobody can be barred from the development of power if it is a multiple-purpose use.

In my own State we have four flood-control projects already being built. Two of them are possible multipurpose. One has a provision for the penstocks to be installed. The other is so constructed that later on it can be raised for the additional storage which will be necessary if you make it multipurpose. But every site is not adapted to that use.

Mr. JONES. Of course not.

Mr. WHITE. And floods occur here in New England any day of the week, or month, or year. It is not safe to encroach upon the capacity of a flood-control project for any other purpose. So, if you have

many sites which are not adapted to multipurpose use and you are going to build flood control in there, then that is all you can have in it-flood control.

In the NENYIAC report there are a couple of multipurpose projects listed there in my own State. I believe there is one in Vermont. I am not sure of the State of Maine. So there was no attempt by anybody in a responsible position that I know of to prevent multipurpose development.

What I am fearful of is, it is going to become confused here and we are going to lose the flood-control protection that we so sorely need. That is why I am talking so much about it.

There is another reference that has come in here several times, and I am sure the record you have is probably complete, but for the sake of this record, the governors' conference program on flood control has been referred to as a $50 million or $50-some-odd million program. It is my understanding that that $50-and-some-odd million is for the initial stages of it. The total is some $250 million or $260 million. I would not wish this record to show that $50-odd million are going to take care of the flood needs of the area.

Mr. BOLAND. I think that $50 million reference was made yesterday. I think it referred just to projects in Massachusetts, if I understand it correctly.

Mr. WHITE. As I understood it—and again, I could not hear all of the discussion until I moved up here

Mr. BOLAND. It would run to the total, you say, of $250 million. That is correct.

Mr. WHITE. That is right.

Mr. JONES. And that is the very minimum that General Itschner quoted, with a figure of $259 million. It is the bare minimum, to use his words, for any adequate flood-control protection in New England. So we can expect that figure on present-day costs, as General Itschner projected the authorized projects up to present-day costs.

Mr. WHITE. I think it is a pretty firm figure, but in the experience of the two recent storms there may be gaps that have to be filled in which nobody has the information on at the present time.

There is a recommendation in this Hoover report which I believe could be improved. As a matter of fact, it is two recommendations. Those are 2 and 3. Yes, 2 and 3.

That, without going into details, we recommend the creation of a water resources board upon the above basis.

Which is more or less a cabinet board.

I have served on boards which have been set up similarly, and as some other speaker here mentioned, it is difficult. I think it was Sumner Pike who said it. It is difficult to get attendance.

In our work on the NENYIAC report, after we submitted that report, we felt that in order to get the full advantage of it there must be something done on a local area basis. After giving it considerable thought we came up with a proposed charter for a Northeastern Resources Council which would have a State representative from each one of the States, and a Federal representative from each one of the resources agencies of the Federal Government. I do have some copies of this and I will be glad to leave them with you.

This is a coordinating committee, and we believe for once we can take a report and work out a program from it, and schedule that

program, working closely with Congress, and get some real accomplishments. If it happened to be a good idea and could be applied to the other regions of the area where we now have a Federal interagency committee rather than a coequality committee between the States and Federal, it would seem to me that one representative for each one of these regions could be selected and put on this top water resources board, which would be a top coordinator and adviser, and you would then be getting it from the grassroots.

I would expect probably that Congress might want to have something to say about representatives on there, and possibly the President may want to appoint the Chairman, and so forth; but you would get grassroots representation, which is extremely important.

I say that because, as you fully realize, the problems here in New England, water-resources-wise, are a great deal different than they are in some of our western or southern or other regions of the United States. You have great reclamation and irrigation problems that so far we have escaped here, and so forth.

So I would think if you have a water resources board, or whatever you may call it, the representation drawn that way could be very helpful.

When you are going to staff the Bureau of the Budget with technical staff to appraise a project on which they are going to pass, I become uneasy about that.

The Bureau of the Budget is an arm of the President, as I view it. It is the Executive arm. As General Fleming said to you here yesterday and as all of you have experienced, we do not know what they have recommended to the Bureau of the Budget. We cannot be told until after the President's budget message goes to Congress. To further staff that Bureau, you might reach a point where we will be completely lost. I think you can get a better appraisal from an impartial group which knows exactly what the problems are, if the staff is lodged with this water resources board, or policy group, or whatever you want to call it, rather than in the Bureau of the Budget. The Hoover Commission report lightly brushes over that and says that this policy board or coordinating board can draw its technical assistance from the various Federal agencies. That is not good because you are going to draw your technical assistance from the very men who provided the project in the first place. Their loyalty and interest remain with that Federal agency.

So I think if this group is ever set up they should have their own technical staff, and I believe it should be here rather than in the Bureau of the Budget.

I think, Mr. Chairman, you have been very patient and I have very briefly touched on some of the points I wanted to raise. I thank you for the opportunity of appearing before you.

Mr. JONES. It is a pleasure to have you, Mr. White. We appreciate the testimony that you have supplied the committee.

Without objection, the document submitted by Mr. White on the North-Eastern Resources Council Charter shall be made a part of the record.

(The document referred to is as follows:)

NORTH-EASTERN RESOURCES COUNCIL CHARTER

I. ESTABLISHMENT

There is established a North-Eastern Resources Council to be comprised of a representative of the governors of the States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, New York, and Connecticut, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and a representative from any of the following Federal departments which accept an invitation to participate: Interior, Commerce, Agriculture, Health, Education, and Welfare, the Army, and the Federal Power Commission. The human resources of the region was not a part of the NENYIAC report, therefore, the Federal Department of Labor is invited to take part in the work of the NorthEastern Resources Council as an associate member which will permit adequate participation by that Department in matters affecting its responsibilities.

(a) The governors of each of the States concerned shall appoint one member of the resources council.

(b) Each Federal agency concerned will be invited to designate a member to the resources council and they shall preferably be residents in the region.

(c) Council members may designate other officials to serve as alternates. (d) When appropriate, other Federal, State, public, and private agencies and private enterprise will be asked to participate in council meetings and to appoint representatives to specific committees, in order that the work of the council may be coordinated with the related work of all agencies.

(e) A chairman of the council shall be elected annually in August from and by the State and Federal members, provided that, except by unanimous consent of the members, the chairman shall not succeed himself.

(f) The respective States and Federal departments may assign staff assistants as the members may request.

(g) The coordinator for the council and the necessary administrative personnel, office space, heat, light, supplies, etc., shall be paid for from funds of NERC as hereinafter provided.

(h) The expenses of NERC shall be borne 50 percent by Federal departments and 50 percent by the States, and the States' respective shares shall be the percentage of the average of the population and wealth.

II. METHOD OF OPERATION

(a) The council shall maintain a continuing office of record in Boston, Mass. (b) Meetings of the council will be held each month at a designated time and place appropriate to the agenda. Special executive sessions of the council may be held at the call of the chairman or on petition of a majority of the council members.

(c) The council shall serve as a means for coordinating activities and achieving accord or agreement, at the regional level, among its member States and agencies on all issues or problems which may arise. Staff work necessary to coordinate activities and present the essence of any issues or problems to the council shall be carried on by the council staff or by committees as appropriate and as may be appointed by the chairman and approved by the council. (d) All problems or questions shall be resolved by the council. problem or question under consideration appeared as a part of the agenda in the notice of the meeting, a majority vote of the members present and voting shall be sufficient to resolve the problem or question, otherwise a majority of the members of the council must vote in the affirmative before any act of the council can become binding.

When the

(e) Minutes of meetings will be prepared to record the actions and recommendations of the council. The minutes will be primarily for use of the participating States and agencies, but a wider distribution may be made when considered desirable by the council.

(f) The council shall hold at least one public hearing annually in each of the affected States to obtain the views of all interested parties on the resources plans which the council has considered, and to receive the views of anyone as to plans, grievances, or any other matter related to the resources of the region which it may be desired to have the council consider.

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