Water Resources People and Issues
On the Senate side, I think the bill went through right away without any
problem, but on the House side, Wayne Aspinall had some problems with it.
I think I told him I didn't see the need for the study because it seemed obvious
to me that water resource policies were going to continue to be evolved on a
case-by-case basis, such as the Recreation Act which you mentioned, the Wild
and Scenic Rivers Act, and for specific projects. The one comment that I made
was that if this was going to work, you had to put the full responsibility in the
chairman, subject to general policies laid out by the commission. This was
based on my observation of the Water Resources Council, which I didn't think
was working very well because the chairman didn't really have any authority.
While he had appointed the executive director, it appeared that each of the
other members of the council had appointed an assistant director from his
agency, and it was not at all sure that the staff was independent.
The only other input that I had to that act was to recommend that the
commission's report be sent simultaneously to the President and the Congress.
The Central Arizona project legislation was passed first, and the National
Water Commission Act was passed soon afterward in late September 1968.
Scoop Jackson had a lot to do with the negotiations that led to the appointment
of the members of the commission. In fact, at one time a draft of that
legislation had called for the members to be appointed by the President and
confirmed by the Senate, however, it was argued that it was not appropriate for
members of a study commission to be confirmed by the Senate. When they
took that provision out, the legislation stalled and it was rumored that Scoop
wasn't going to let it pass until he knew who the members were going to be.
One of my colleagues called it preconfirmation-all of the members confirmed
by Scoop Jackson before he'd let the legislation pass. It was quite obvious that
they knew exactly who was going to be appointed because the appointments
were made soon after the bill was passed.
The membership was very well balanced politically, geographically, and
environmentally. The chairman was Charles
chairman of Consolidated
Edison of New York, who had been Under Secretary of the Interior. Then
there were Russell Train on the environmental side, Ray Linsley, a professor
of civil engineering at Stanford, and Frank Diluzio, from industry who had
worked in government on the saline water program. Another industry
representative was Mike Wright, chairman of Exxon U.S.A., from Texas. Sam
Baxter, a civil engineer who was chief engineer of the Philadelphia Municipal
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