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assistance proposal. That support included communications from about 30 of the States. The State letters will appear in the printed record of our hearing, which will be printed with these joint hearings.

Representatives of the executive agencies were not asked to testify at the July 10 hearing when we learned that the President expected, within the week, to submit an omnibus water resources planning bill which would include provision for major river basin planning as well as assistance to the States.

The President did send a letter to the Congress on July 13, transmitting the draft of his "Water Resources Planning Act of 1961," which I introduced on July 14 to bring it officially before the Senate. It became S. 2246, which is the subject of our joint hearing today. Without objection, the President's letter will be included in the record of this hearing.

(The President's letter referred to follows:)

Hon. LYNDON B. JOHNSON,

President of the Senate, Washington, D.C.

THE WHITE HOUSE, July 13, 1961.

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: I am transmitting herewith a draft of legislation designated as the "Water Resources Planning Act of 1961." This draft supersedes the proposal transmitted with the letter of January 16, 1961, from the former Director of the Bureau of the Budget and now pending before the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs.

In my message to the Congress on natural resources, I stated that:

"Our Nation has been blessed with a bountiful supply of water; but it is not a blessing we can regard with complacency. We now use over 300 billion gallons of water a day, much of it wastefully. By 1980 we will need 600 billion gallons a day.

"Our supply of water is not always consistent with our needs of time and place. Floods one day in one section may be countered in other days or in other sections by the severe water shortages which are now afflicting many Eastern urban areas and are particularly critical in the West. Our available water supply must be used to give maximum benefits for all purposes-hydroelectric power, irrigation and reclamation, navigation, recreation, health, home and industry ***"

Maximum beneficial use of water rests upon comprehensive and coordinated planning by both Federal agencies and States. This draft legislation will encourage and make possible such planning.

Legislation already introduced in the Senate and the House manifests congressional recognition of the need for comprehensive planning for water and related land resources. The draft legislation adopts principles and procedures included in a number of these pending bills. Implementing the recommendations on comprehensive planning and grants to States for such planning made by the Senate Select Committee on National Water Resources, the proposed legislation brings together in a single bill authorizations for complementary planning activities by Federal agencies and State governments.

The regional or river basin commissions authorized by the bill will prepare and keep up to date comprehensive, integrated, joint plans for Federal, State. and local development of water and related land resources. Existing laws will not be modified or superseded. The preparation of detailed plans and specifications for individual projects, and the construction and operation of works of improvement will continue to be the responsibility of appropriate Federal agencies, States, or local groups.

Another important feature of the bill is the establishment of an interdepartmental group in the executive branch for coordinating river basin plans and for maintaining a continuing study of water supply, requirements, and management. The Water Resources Council will be composed of the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of the Army, and the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. Other departments and agencies with interest in the water resources field, will participate in the work of the Council on an ad hoc basis. The draft legislation provides that the Chairman of the Council shall be designated by the President. I propose to designate the Secretary of the Interior as the first Chairman of the Council.

The first major task of the Water Resources Council will be to establish, subject to my approval, standards for formulating and evaluating water resources projects. These standards will replace those currently in effect.

Finally, the proposed legislation would authorize financial assistance to the States enabling them to play a more effective role in planning for the development and conservation of water and related land resources. This is an essential element in promoting sound, comprehensive water resources planning.

We have a national obligation to manage our basic water supply so it will be available when and where needed and in acceptable quality and quantity-and we have no time to lose. The planning authorized by this legislation will provide a vital tool for achieving effective water resources management.

Also enclosed is a section-by-section analysis of the bill. A similar letter is being sent to the President of the Senate.

Sincerely,

(Signed) JOHN F. KENNEDY.

Senator ANDERSON. The President's Water Resources Planning Act contains three principal proposals:

1. It establishes a Water Resources Council composed of the Secretaries of Interior, Army, Agriculture, and Health, Education, and Welfare, to guide river basin planning and to keep us abreast of the water needs of the Nation.

2. It authorizes the President to establish a river basin planning commission for each major river basin, or group of related river basins, upon request of the Governors or the Council.

3. It provides for assistance to the States in water resources planning. Appearing today are three of the four members of the Federal Council proposed by the President, Secretaries Udall, Freeman, and Ribicoff, and the Assistant Secretary of the Army, Mr. Schaub-a very distinguished panel of witnesses.

But before the witnesses appear, I want to give an opportunity to the ranking member of the Public Works Committee, who served as chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Water Resources, to say anything he wishes. Senator Bob Kerr probably has more firsthand knowledge of water resources in the Nation than any other Member of Congress.

As chairman of the Select Committee on Water Resources, he conducted 25 hearings in 21 States and the District of Columbia on water problems. Witnesses were heard from every State in the Union. He listened to hundreds of witnesses and compiled hundreds of pages of records in a demonstration of thoroughness and devotion to duty seldom equaled by other chairmen. While other members of the committee attended hearings in their own and a few other States, the chairman attended them all but two.

The hearings, the studies and the report of the Senate Select Committee on Water Resources are historic documents for which the Senator from Oklahoma is going to be praised for many generations. I recognize the able Senator from Oklahoma, Mr. Kerr. Senator KERR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate the very kind words you said but I am just as aware as you are that the Senate committee's effort was because of men on it from both parties of the caliber of the chairman of the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee here who put their brains and efforts into the work wholeheartedly and vigorously and successfully.

Senator ANDERSON. Thank you.

The first witness this morning is Secretary of Interior Stewart Udall.

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Mr. Secretary, we are always happy to welcome you to this room. I am particularly happy to welcome you to a joint hearing of the Public Works Committee and Interior Committee for your statement on this bill.

STATEMENT OF HON. STEWART L. UDALL, SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR

Secretary UDALL. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I should like at the outset to commend the two committees for agreeing to this type of joint hearing.

I think this approach the administration has devised toward broad, comprehensive planning is a sound one and since it does come across committee lines I think this is a most appropriate procedure.

Let me say, also, that the type of harmony exhibited here today by this joint meeting is certainly present among those of us in the Cabinet who will have the responsibilities of this Water Resources Council. We have a spirit of harmony, and I think we see this as a fine opportunity to make a real record.

The legislation involved in this hearing today, I think one might say, as the chairman said, is the culmination really of the work of the Kerr committee and I think that the main recommendations, the heart of this legislation, represents the recommendations of the Kerr committee. It is a most happy circumstance that the Senator from Oklahoma and the Senator from New Mexico and these other distinguished Senators can sit here on this hearing today.

My statement is relatively brief and it says what I want to say this morning, Mr. Chairman, so I will read it.

Today the United States is clearly in arrears in water management. New signs of the growing water crisis continually appear. Without major improvement in management, we could well come face to face with water bankruptcy.

I might say in an aside, Mr. Chairman, that the urgency with respect to this legislation is certainly pointed up by the very serious drought that exists in many parts of the country today.

It is getting more grave and I am sure the Secretary of Agriculture will, if you want to elicit it from him, give you some of the very serious impacts that this drought is having, and again here we have the situation where proper water planning and management, comprehensive management, can do a great deal to help us combat droughts of this kind.

Senator KERR. Mr. Chairman.

Senator ANDERSON. Senator Kerr.

Senator KERR. Would the Secretary provide the committee in the form of a map showing the areas currently adversely affected by the drought?

Secretary UDALL. I think the committee should have it. We would be very happy to do that.

(The material requested follows:).

DROUGHT, JULY 1961

Moderate to severe drought conditions prevail over a vast area of the United States extending from northern Michigan to southern California. Pastures are brown, livestock water is scarce, and forest fire danger is high. The hordes of grasshoppers which often accompany drought are present and adding to the

destruction. Although showery weather in July, particularly in the North Central States, has eased the situation in some spots, the drought certainly has not ended. The generalized map on the facing page delineates the drought areas in two ways: by hydrologic conditions and by the need for emergency drought assistance.

The diagonal shading shows that area where rainfall and streamflow have generally been appreciably below normal for 6 months or more. Severest conditions prevail in the southern California-Nevada-Utah region and in the northern Great Plains including northern Minnesota, the Dakotas, northern Wyoming, and most of Montana. In the southern California-Nevada-Utah region, the drought stems from a shortage of precipitation last winter. With little snow on the mountains, streamflow is much below the median, ground-water levels are low, and many reservoirs are dry or nearly so. In some sections, the San Joaquin River Basin, for example, this is the third consecutive year of far below normal water supplies. Although some sections of the northern Great Plains received drought-relieving rains in July, moisture continues to be extremely deficient for the area as a whole. Over much of the area, as a result of the shortage of rainfall, streamflows are among lowest ever recorded, ground-water levels are at or near record lows, and soil moisture is badly in need of replenishment. The dotted shading shows those areas that the Department of Agriculture has designated eligible for emergency loans from the Farmers Home Administration or eligible for emergency assistance under the agricultural conservation program. The Farmers Home Administration loans can be used to finance normal farming and livestock operations, including the purchase of feed, costs of insect control, and making necessary improvements in irrigation and livestock water systems. Assistance under the agricultural conservation program includes sharing the cost of emergency measures to conserve and supplement irrigation water on cropland, supplement livestock water in range areas, and tillage measures to protect cropland from wind erosion. In addition, farmers and ranchers are permitted to graze and cut hay off land retired from production under the conservation reserve program and to buy Government-owned feed grains at current support prices.

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For these fundamental reasons, the administration believes the time has come for this Nation to improve markedly, as well as speed up, planning of future water resource development. We believe, that by so doing, action can and will be taken promptly and surely to bring about necessary water resource development.

On July 13, the President transmitted to the Congress a legislative proposal designated as the Water Resources Planning Act of 1961, which has been introduced by the chairman of the Interior Committee as S. 2246 and is before you this morning. The committee's focus upon the President's proposed Water Resources Planning Act is particularly appropriate, we feel, because it includes as its title III the substance of S. 1629, a bill introduced by the chairman and others which would provide financial assistance to the States for comprehensive water resources planning. A similar measure, S. 1778, was introduced by Senator Kerr and Senator Case.

Briefly, the President's proposal does three things:

In title I, it would establish a Cabinet-level Water Resources Council to be the central focus within the executive branch of a comprehensive framework for water resources planning within river basins throughout the United States and as a source of overall guidance and standards for planning, consistent with established law.

In title II, the President's proposal would authorize the creation by the President, at the request of the Governor of one or more of the affected States or of the Council, of a river basin water resources commission for any region, major river basin, or group of related river basins in the United States.

These commissions, which would be composed of representatives of the States and Federal agencies concerned, would be charged with the responsibility of preparing and keeping up to date comprehensive, integrated, joint plans for Federal, State, and local development of water and related land resources. They would also recommend longrange schedules of priorities for the collection and analysis of basic data and for investigation, planning, and construction of projects.

In title III, the proposed legislation includes, as I have already stated, the substance of S. 1629 and S. 1778. In so doing, it provides encouragement to full participation in water and related land resource planning by the States. It does this through financial assistance to them in aid of their planning. Thus, it provides an element, more essential now than ever, to the total water resources effort that is needed for the future.

As you know, the President in his special message on natural resources accepted the goal urged by the Senate Select Committee on National Water Resources to develop comprehensive river basin plans by 1970, in cooperation with the States. We believe the means provided by the President's proposed Water Resources Planning Act of 1961 would enable all Federal, State, and local interests to work cooperatively and coordinate properly their separate responsibilities to the end that the select committee's goal will be achieved.

Again in an aside, Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that one of the great elements that this legislation provides is that it is national in scope and enables us to tackle not only comprehensive planning within basins but comprehensive planning in considering the total water resources in the country.

The system of reports of comprehensive plans and planning for water resource development through the United States that would be provided by this legislation would enable the Congress, within the Federal sphere of responsibility, to decide upon the many individual project developments that will be needed on the basis of full information as to the overall needs for water resources development of the

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