Water Resources People and Issues
I was already compensated at the equivalent of grade 18 under Public Law 3 13
in one of the two top scientific jobs at the Library which more or less kept pace
with the top scientific positions in NASA, and it was expected that the pay
would go higher. So I couldn't see that there'd be any promotion for me at the
National Water Commission, and there was an indication that the Civil Service
Commission would never agree to another grade 18 position. At that time they
were all allocated by the CSC. I guess it was just a coincidence that so many
of them were in the Civil Service Commission. If you look at the record you
will see that they had more super grades, proportionally, than any other
agency. This was before they had the Senior Executive Service.
So I wasn't really interested in leaving the Library. But several people talked
to me, including Ken Bousquet who was on the staff of the Senate
Appropriations Subcommittee on Water Resources and Gene Wilhelm who had
a similar position on the House side. They both encouraged me to apply for the
positions, as did Sid McFarland, staff director for the House Interior
Committee. I don't know whether Gene Wilhelm or Ken Bousquet had
anything to do with it, and I never asked them, or whether a member of the
appropriations committee was responsible, but the committee wrote into the
first appropriation for the National Water Commission an executive level IV
position for the executive director.
Probably they were angry about the Civil Service Commission's having been
obstinate in demanding that everything be in accordance with civil service rules
and regulations. So they wrote into the appropriations act providing the first
0,000 to start the work of the National Water Commission that funds shall
be available for compensation of the executive director at level IV of the
executive schedule.
I guess I must have known about this when I first talked with Mr.
However, I think we talked mostly about what the committee should do, and
I must have told him that I didn't have any preconceived ideas as to what
should be done. But I'm sure that I told him about my experience with the
Senate Select Committee which had decided against doing the things that I
thought were most important, such as the economic analysis and the allocation
of responsibilities among agencies. At that time I thought those were the major
problems.
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