Vernon K. Hagen
How are you going to operate the reservoirs if you don't have people who know what the
hell they're doing? How are you going to get your data if you don't have money? Well,
we finally got him educated, and he put the money back in.
But those were some trying times when you get people that were so new to the water
resources area that they couldn't understand simple things like that until they had been
thoroughly educated. Some of those were trying experiences that Augie had to really work
hard getting us and them together and getting all this stuff straightened out so that you
didn't lose a lot of money when you really needed it for some essentials. It wasn't some
add on, you know, that they thought we were just going overboard on water problems.
Q ..
Yes, you get a lot of that.
A.
Anyway, Augie had a tough job, I think. When the Administration is always trying to
keep costs down and he was trying to keep the programs going and convincing the staffers.
Then once he gets them convinced to get their bosses convinced and so forth.
Q ..
Especially, I guess, when they're politically motivated like some of the Reagan
Administration people must have been.
A ..
Well, they're always trying to make a name for themselves--some of those upper echelon
people at OMB. They're close to the President, and they might get something big,
appointed to one of the agencies, agency heads, or something.
Q ..
Become a more important person.
A
Well, when Carter was in, it was a weird time. We had all these young people heading
up major offices that really didn't know doodle about anything. The first job for some of
them. They came in as an Assistant Secretary of an agency and 30 years old and never
even had a job before. They were suppose to be managing Federal programs.
Committees and Jake Douma
Q ..
After the end of the last session, we got into a discussion of committees. I thought that
was a very interesting discussion where you explained why a committee would be used and
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