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Show Area water projects dead until 1980. official savs c Ae future" of th Water . M0iirc Council, the coordinating a- 'joy for t,,r rjtvts. ( ap'for grabs, v j '79 public works .priiiona bill (HR n !V'SI vetoed by the iident mainly on 'nXaA!ofits10.1 billion g, about 35 per-' per-' of it for federal water nV&as. doesn't contain c"0pper cent for the Vcncil- -"hiirmn Tom Bvill. MU-. of the House - Works Appropria-; Appropria-; , Subcommittee and .Subcommittee staff X- 'become disenchant-rith disenchant-rith the Council. The jxu repirt on the bill 'rSg off the Council as -but another layer bureaucracy." But juthorizing legislate legisla-te IS 2701), which the sijent has already -ed into law, would "-dsue the Council for Sfyear 1979, with $2.6 million authorised for its operations. The House version of the bill blanked out the Council, but the Senate version continued it and its authority. A compromise was struck extending the Council's life and authority for one year. Since the Council was created by the Water Planning Act of 15 (PL 89-80) as a statutory body, it has been a toothless debating society. The law gave the Council the authority to coordinate federal and regional plans for water resource development. devel-opment. The same act set up federal-state river basin bas-in commissions to coordinate coordi-nate federal, state & local w ater programs within the major river basins, with authority to carry out basin studies and to develop basin-wide plans. The Council has the authority to review these plans and studies. It administers a planning grant program providing matching funds to the states. It does a periodic assessment on the adequacy ade-quacy of the nation's water supplies. And. finally, it was directed to establish principles, prin-ciples, standurds and procedures pro-cedures for planning water wat-er projects. Neither the states, fearing encroachment encroach-ment on state water rights, nor the federal water construction departments, depart-ments, fearing infringement infringe-ment on their authority to construct water projects, wanted the Council to have any real authority. Nor, as it turned out, did the old Budget Bureau, now the Office of Management Manage-ment and Budget (OMB). So it has none. Insofar as policy is concerned, the Council has always been run first by the old Budget Bureau and now by OMB. When the Council suddenly sudden-ly put out a revised set of principles and standards on water policy several years ago, this correspondent correspon-dent found the Council's executive director, a nationally na-tionally recognized water planning expert, was totally to-tally unprepared to talk about the revisions. They i had been put in final form 1 and put into the Federal i Register by the Budget ' Bureau without its bother-J bother-J ing to inform the operat- ing head of the Council on J the new developments. I Consensus and Perennial Interior Chairman I Other problems are endemic with the Council. One is that the repre- sentatives of the Council ' must seek a consensus on all issues and subjects discussed, so major controversies con-troversies never get resolvedthey re-solvedthey just keep simmering. Ten departments depart-ments and agencies are members of the Council, including the big three water development departments, de-partments, Interior, Army and Agriculture. Each of the three jealously guards its own jurisdiction. A particular bone of contention conten-tion is that the Secretary of Interior is perennial chairman of the Council by law, but the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers has the largest water development develop-ment program by far in this country, and the Environmental Protection Agency is increasingly important in the water development field relative to water quality issues and problems. The importance, or lack thereof, that Interior assigns as-signs to the Council can be seen in the fact that only two Interior Secretaries, Stewart L. Udall and Walter J. Hickel, ever turned up to chair a Council meeting. The Council is actually run by the Assistant Secretary of Interior for Land and Water Resources, currently current-ly Guy Martin of Alaska. Although other agency and department heads are technically members of the Council, all have designated alternates who attend the Council meetings. meet-ings. Experienced water officials of-ficials here believe there must be some mechanism to coordinate federal wa- 7 tcr programs, und the Council is regarded as good a mechanism as any, if for no other reason that it i.s already in existence. B. Joseph Tofani, who represented the Army Corps at Council meetings when the Council was first established in the mid-UMiO's, mid-UMiO's, now executive vice president of the Water Resources Congress, believes be-lieves the Council could become effective if the 1965 Act were amended. His recommendations run along these lines: the chairman "should be an independent guy" appointed ap-pointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate; he should have no tie to any department or agency. The Council should have representation representa-tion from all levels of government, particularly the states. It should no longer be an all-fed preserve. Decisions should be by majority vote, not by consensus. Finally, and most important im-portant of Tofani 's recommendations recom-mendations is this: any establishment of principles, princi-ples, standards and procedures pro-cedures for planning water wa-ter projects or any revisions revi-sions must be approved by Congress. He believes the 19G5 Act should be a-mended a-mended to require the President to send the Council's recommendations recommenda-tions to Congress for its approval or disapproval. They could not become effective without Congress' Con-gress' approval, under Tofani's recommendation. Thus, Congress would have the final "say" on jf water policy, whereas President Carter has insisted in-sisted that he, as President, Presi-dent, must have the final "say" on this sensitive issue. The President's insistence insist-ence on the Council becoming a review and screening agency on all new water development projectsa recommendation recommenda-tion that Mr. Carter made in Juneaccounts for much of the Council's low standing on Capitol Hill and its lack of funding for the 1979 fiscal year which began on Oct. 1. The Council also hurt itself with Congress when, in attempting to comply with a six-month time schedule set by the White House for a review of water policy, it put in the Federal Register last year some alternatives to current cur-rent methods of planning, building and operating water projects which were far-fetched. If the President's veto of the public works funding fund-ing bill is sustained, Administration spokesmen spokes-men say the President will insist on some funding for the Council to continue to operate in 1979. If not, the Council has enough carryover carry-over money to operate for another three months. The funding bill turned water resources planning over to the Office of the Secretary of Interior. The Council's staff might be transferred to Interior to make planning grants to the states and basin commissions. Impact Area Aid Legislation to provide federal aid to communities impacted by energy developments de-velopments is dead for this year. The Senate Government Affairs Committee on Sept. 28 reported out a much-amended version of the impact area aid bill (S1493) by Sens. Gary Hart, D-Colo., and Jennings Jenn-ings Randolph, D-W. Va. In key respects, it is quite different from the Hart-Randolph Hart-Randolph bill as it had been reported out of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on June 27. The differences differ-ences in the two versions are so great it is unlikely that they can be ironed out so that a compromise can pass the Senate before adjournment on Oct. 14. There will be no action on similar legislation in the House this year. Basically, the purpose of the Hart-Randolph bill was to provide aid to communities impacted by major energy development, develop-ment, such as the opening of new coal mines or oil shale mines, power plants, processing plants "including uranium pro cessing and nuclear spenl fuel storage and wasti facilities," and any federally fed-erally funded energy project. pro-ject. There were man) versions of the Hart-Randolph Hart-Randolph bill, but the one marked up by the Senatt Environment unit provided provid-ed basically for a grant program; it maximized the role of the governors ir establishing intergovernmental intergovern-mental teams to mitigaU the impacts of energ) developments; and il sought to get an energ) company or companies honchoing the development develop-ment to put up as much front-load money as possible possi-ble for community facilities facili-ties and services. Under amendments worked up by the Energ) Subcommittee chaired b) Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, of the Senate Government Affairs Committee, three major changes were made in the bill as reported oul of the Government unit. Aid was primarily in the form of loans and loar guarantees rather thar grants. The role of the governors was diminished and that of the U.S. Commerce Department (Cont. Pg.A6) Water (Cont. from Pg. A3) was increased. And the emphasis on loans and loan guarantees took the pressure off the affected energy company to pick up the initial costs of public facilities and services. ser-vices. The Administration, the National Governors' Association As-sociation and the National Association of Counties favor the version of the bill cleared by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, of which Randolph is chairman chair-man and Hart is a member. But industry organizations, notably the National Association of Electric Companies, strongly oppose it. Glenn backed away from one amendment to the bill that had tentatively tentative-ly been agreed to in his Energy Subcommittee. It stated, "the preparation of and approval of the preliminary or final mitigation miti-gation plan" for an energy-impacted area "is not a major federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment" as defined by the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Environmental groups attacked the a-mendment a-mendment as modifying NEPA, and Glenn had it stricken when the bill came up for a vote in the Senate Government Operations Oper-ations Committee. Hart plans to reintroduce reintro-duce his impact area aid bill again next year at the beginning of the new 96th Congress. But it is apparent appar-ent that it will have to be modified to some degree if it is to clear both the Senate Environment and Government Affairs Committees without major hassles. -HCM-Moving Up H. P. (Buck) Newson, a communications expert with 19 years experience in timber organizations, has been appointed vice president and general manager of the National Forest Products Association Associa-tion by the NFPA executive execu-tive committee. He has been with NFPA and its predecessor organization, the National Lumber Manufacturers Man-ufacturers Association, since 1959. He overcame a heart attack several year ago to achieve the 2 spot in NFPA, which is run by Ralph D. Hodges, Jr., a forester. . Bernard A. Coster, a 19-year veteran with the U. S. Forest Service mainly in the Northwest and Alaska, has been appointed Program Manager Mana-ger of SEAM by the U. S. Forest Service. SEAM is headquartered in Billings, Montana. It is the USFS office which provides technical assistance to land managers and mining min-ing companies on land reclamation following mineral development in 12 Western states. It also carries on a number of research projects and has established several demonstration de-monstration sites in the West on trying out the latest methods for revege-tating revege-tating mined areas. Coster succeeds Kenneth C. Scholz, who retired last summer. |