I find nothing to that effect here. Senator ALLOTT. And that the establishment of the Water Resources Council, referring specifically to section 3, which provides that— to determine the contribution which such plan or revision will make in obtaining the Nation's economic and social level cannot possibly refer to any lessening of the present rights of the individual water owners in the West. Secretary FREEMAN. Well, I would read it that it could refer to plans that might conceivably change the status quo but it could not do anything about those plans. Senator ALLOTT. If the plans change the status quo, then you have interfered with these water rights. Now, this is the point. Secretary FREEMAN. Senator, I have never seen a plan that changes anything. You have to act on the plan before it changes anything and this is the point that I would make. Certainly all of the circumstances with relation to water and its use and what the laws are, what the interstate compacts are, would, of course, be considered and a plan could conceivably recommend some change in them, but the plan in itself would accomplish nothing. It would merely set down some suggested goals and it would be up to an action program to carry them out. Senator ALLOTT. I am sure you are aware that this particular idea of establishing one super water planning board is not a new one? Secretary FREEMAN. No, sir. Senator ALLOTT. That it has been discussed and considered by previous administrations-in fact, I think at one time, there was even a suggestion that all natural resources should be brought under one Secretary and I won't ask you to comment on that at this time. Secretary FREEMAN. Thank you. Senator ALLOTT. I do have one other question. On page 5 of the bill which you now have before you, on line 9, and this is under the general heading of the Water Resources Council, on line 9 it says to the extent permitted by law, all appropriate records and papers of the Council may be made available for public inspection during ordinary office hours. The phrase that bothers me is, "to the extent permitted by law." Do you deem that that phrase reserves the right of executive privilege to the Council? Secretary FREEMAN. Senator, I do not know what that phrase means. I cannot conceive personally, and I speak personally now-I have not considered this with the other potential members of the Council or with the Bureau of the Budget or the drafters of this bill-I cannot conceive of anything to do with water that ought not to be available to anybody in this country who wants to take a look at it. It has always been my policy to have information available and not to plead so-called executive protection in connection with it. There are things that are under consideration that could be refused because of private industry interests at a given time and place but outside of that, this kind of information ought to be public information. I do not know what that clause in the bill means. Senator ALLOTT. I have raised the question and the committee can discuss it later, but I wondered what your opinion was. Secretary FREEMAN. Thank you. Senator ALLOTT. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Senator ANDERSON. Not trying to cut off the members of the other committee, but do you have questions, Senator Hickey? Senator HICKEY. The only question I have is short. In reading your statement, Mr. Secretary, I notice on page 6 that you discuss the technical assistance that this would make available to the various States, and I would like to call to your attention the fact that one of the problems that the States have had, particularly in my State, in complying with the public laws now on the book with regard to watershed protection and flood protection projects, is the lack of technicians in the field to give them the information needed to fill out applications. I would be hopeful that you could implement your staff and agree that these people would be made available to give assistance. I recommended to our legislature that they appropriate some money, and they did, for this purpose, in an effort to do this but basically it was difficult to find the technicians to employ them, and I wondered if the Secretary was aware of that. That may be holding back some of your development of the watershed program. Secretary FREEMAN. The Senator is absolutely right and as a Governor I did the same as you. There is a shortage of such technicians and we need to have more of them. We have some requested in our budget and expect to continue to do so. Senator HICKEY. Thank you. Senator ANDERSON. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Now, Mr. Schaub, if you will come forward, please. I want to announce at this time that Senator Kerr may have to leave for a White House appointment and, therefore, I want it clearly understood that if after reading the testimony, in case he does not hear all of it, he has any questions that he wants to ask, it will be his privilege to submit those questions in writing and the witness from the Army to submit replies in writing for the record. I also wish to state that we had hoped that other appointments would not keep Senator Case from South Dakota from being here. He is not here and I want to say that I would hope that the representatives of the Army might be available at another time when Senator Case may have an opportunity to question you on the testimony you give this morning. I want to clearly preserve Senator Case's rights in this matter since he is not here. With that understanding, we will proceed. I understand, Mr. Schaub, that you want to read the statement of the Secretary of the Army. Mr. SCHAUB. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator KERR. May I interrupt? I appreciate what the chairman has said about Senator Case. Mr. Chairman, I would like for the record to show that I have a great respect for all of the water agencies of this Government including all of the gentlemen of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, that magnificent group in the Department of Agriculture which has done such an outstanding, constructive job in the field of soil conservation and flood control and water control, for the great Bureau of Reclamation, which has such a fine record everywhere and especially the one in Oklahoma that has earned the respect of all of our people, but as the chairman of the Subcommittee of the Public Works Committee on Rivers and Harbors and Flood Control, I have a very close association with the Corps of Engineers and my respect for them is of such a high degree that I would hesitate to try to accurately described it lest I appear either as prejudiced or as captive of the Corps. But I would not for anything on earth want them to ever get the latter impression because if there is going to be any captivity, I want it to be in the reverse order. But I do regret that I am going to have to leave shortly for a White House appointment which I was not aware of until a little while ago. I would say to the corps that I shall not only read the statement of the Secretary very carefully but also the responses to any questions that may be asked and then either at the time Senator Case is here, or by the means of some written questions, I will be able to submit to the Corps the inquiries that I would like to have them answer for this record on this very important legislation. Senator ANDERSON. I, too, want to pay tribute to one of the most competent of all of the Government agencies. In the days when WPA was very busily engaged in construction work, each regional agency was assigned engineers and almost without exception those engineers came from the Army Corps of Engineers. In the Denver office and in the Salt Lake office, where I was for some time, we had the benefit of the then Col. Thomas Robbins, now Maj. Gen. Tommy Robbins, one of the most beloved and, I am sure, one of the finest engineers this country has had. He did a great deal of the work preparatory to the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam, which he did in the most wonderful fashion. We had at Los Angeles, Col. Donald F. Conway, who later built the railroad up to Teheran and later came back in his capacity with the Baltimore Friendship Airport. I was particularly close to him because Los Angeles was for a long time in my territory and I saw every bit of the fine work that he did for a period of years. We had Lucius Clay, who was then a major and who became, I think, a four-star general, but certainly a three-star general. We had General Summerville, then a colonel, who was assigned to New York; we had a man named Spike Wheeler, who was then in Chicago. These men saved the Government of the United States, I would say, hundreds of millions of dollars by the things which they did for the public spending program in those early days. Every time I get a chance, Mr. Schaub, I pay tribute to these very fine and very distinguished people, and many others who were engaged in that program. So, I do not want the corps ever to think that this committee is failing in its appreciation of the wonderful things that have been done over this country. You may proceed. STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM F. SCHAUB, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY; ACCOMPANIED BY GEN. WALTER K. WILSON, CHIEF OF CORPS OF ENGINEERS, AND MAJ. GEN. WILLIAM F. CASSIDY, DIRECTOR OF CIVIL WORKS, CORPS OF ENGINEERS Mr. SCHAUB. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am William F. Schaub, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Financial Management. Among the responsibilities assigned to me by the Secretary of the Army is the general direction of the civil works program of the Corps of Engineers. The Secretary of the Army Stahr, who has a keen interest in this program has asked me to express his regrets that he is unable to be here to present his statement. He has asked me to read his statement to you. STATEMENT OF ELVIS J. STAHR, JR., SECRETARY OF THE ARMY, PRESENTED BY WILLIAM F. SCHAUB, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY Mr. SCHAUB (reading): The Secretary of the Interior has given you the views of the administration with respect to the bill, S. 2246, which is S. 1629 as amplified and modified to meet national objectives. I can assure you that the Department of the Army is in full accord with the statement that the attainment of maximum benefits in the use of water requires comprehensive and coordinated planning with the cooperation of the affected Federal agencies and States. The urgent need is for legislation to provide the Nation with the tools essential for the development of such comprehensive plans. Here, in one bill, the administration has proposed legislation to combine these tools, and the Department of the Army supports this proposal. The Department of the Army has a particularly deep interest in comprehensive river basin planning, and the establishment of river basin commissions to facilitate such planning. I say this because the Corps of Engineers of this Department has for many years been in the forefront of the Nation's efforts to achieve truly comprehensive river basin development. For this reason it will be helpful, I believe, if I take a few minutes to review the experiences which have led the Corps of Engineers to support the comprehensive approach contemplated by S. 2246. Although the basic idea behind comprehensive basin planning goes back to the "Conservation Crusade" led by President Theodore Roosevelt, there was no serious attempt to put this idea into effect until 1928 when the Corps of Engineers initiated the studies which resulted in the so-called "308" reports. (Parenthetically, these reports are thus somewhat cryptically designated because their preparation was recommended in a special report printed as House Document 308, 69th Cong.) The 308 reports were the first river basin plans meriting-to even a limited extent the designation "comprehensive." By congressional direction they covered power, irrigation, and flood control, in addition to navigation. Senator ANDERSON. Excuse me one moment. I want to let the members of the committee know there is a live quorum now being called. I think it may be called off. It is a live quorum and we just wanted you to know that. Mr. SCHAUB (continuing): Many overall basin programs were first proposed in 308 reports. Moreover, 308 studies are still being made. For example, the recently developed comprehensive plan for the Columbia River Basin is the result of a review of the original 308 report for that basin. It was not for 8 years after the initiation of the 308 study program that the first general flood control legislation was enacted. This was the Flood Control Act of 1936. As time went by, the Congress gradually broadened this body of flood control legislation, and in 1944 it took a long step forward by including in the Flood Control Act of that year language indicating the intent of Congress "to facilitate the consideration of projects on a basis of comprehensive and coordinated development. However, all provisions of the Flood Control Acts were not brought into harmony with this 1944 declaration of congressional intent, and it was not until the Flood Control Act of 1950 that the Congress provided a clear-cut directive for truly comprehensive planning. At that time, the Corps of Engineers was directed to prepare a broad comprehensive plan for the region drained by the Arkansas, White and Red Rivers, and also to make a similar study of development potentials in the New England-New York region. This directive was carried out with the full cooperation of five other Federal agencies and all of the States concerned; and with the Corps of Engineers acting as chairman agency. We learned a lot about comprehensive planning through these efforts. And one of the things we learned was the importance of full State participation in basin planning. This experience was invaluable in the preparation of the comprehensive plan for the Delaware River Basin; again under the leadership of the corps with the close cooperation of the States, the two principal cities, and with indispensable assistance from the other Federal agencies. A comprehensive plan for the Potomac River Basin is nearing completion under a procedure similar to that used in the Delaware. The most recent development in basin planning is-as you are all awarethe establishment of a U.S. Study Commission for the Southeast river basins, and a similar Commission for the Texas basins. The Corps of Engineers is playing a major role in these studies. The experience of the Corps of Engineers in river basin planning over the past 33 years-as well as its full 137 years of experience in the general field of water resourc development-has led that agency to conclude that the Nation needs truly comprehensive basin plans to attain maximum benefits from the bountiful water resources of all of its major river basins. Titles I and II of S. 2246 would provide the authorities and an organizational structure which would make it possible for such plans to be formulated and kept up to date. Title III would enable the States to play their essential role as participants. In view of the foregoing, the Department of the Army has no hesitancy in urging the Congress to enact legislation to assure the preparation of comprehensive river basin plans. Enactment of S. 2246 would constitute a great stride forward in the Nation's efforts to achieve this important objective. I intend to devote my personal attention to the achievement of the objectives of this important legislative proposal. I consider it a privilege to have had this opportunity to express the views of the Department of the Army to your two committees. This concludes the statement of Secretary of the Army Stahr and I consider it a privilege to have had the opportunity to express the views of the Department of the Army to your two committees. I shall be glad to answer any questions. General Wilson, Chief of the Corps of Engineers, and Major General Cassidy, Director of Civil Works, are here to assist in answering the questions. Senator ANDERSON. Mr. Dworshak. Senator DwORSHAK. No questions. Senator ANDERSON. Senator Metcalf. Senator METCALF. I have no questions. Senator ANDERSON. Thank you very much. The main reason why I desired to have the testimony in at this time was that I do want Senator Kerr, Senator Case and other members of the Public Works Committee to have a chance to examine them, and then we may have you back at a later date in case they desire and |