Show ln U-Wf If VI II bk H a mv UfiM U M Dl I D WW Wf I Natural resources reorganization Washington-A task force within the Office of Management and Budget headed by William W. Harsch has officially proposed the establish- ment of a new Department of Natural Resources without direct Congressional Copies of the final draft of the proposal dated 16 have been selectively leaked by the Ad- ministration and comments have been requested by Richard A. Assistant to the President for as soon as A decision by the President to reject or modify the proposal is ex- about the first of the It basically provides that all of the agencies and their functions within the Interior with one ex- would become the nucleus of the new The Bureau of Indian Affairs would be in the new The construction functions of the Bureau of now in and the construction functions of the Soil Conservation Service's watershed now in the U.S. Department of would go to the U.S. Army Corps of The Corps in become the construction arm of the new Some big agency and agency would be transferred to the new They the National Oceanic Atmospheric from the U.S. Department of the U.S. Forest Service's program of managing the National Forest System and its research arm from the the watershed planning and and snow surveys of the Soil Conservation Ser- vice from the Agriculture the and planning and budget functions of the Corps of Engineers from the U.S. Army's civil works All policy and planning work In the water resource development field would be centered in the new An independent project review of all federally-funded water development projects would be carried out within the office of the Secretary of the new The Water Resources Council would be abolished and its functions would be folded into the new NO SPECIFIC CONGRESSIONAL AUTHORIZATION The task force proposes that the new be created under the President's reorganization authority rather than by a direct Administration request to Congress to authorize the new Such a proposal is of to speed up the reorganization process and to minimize opposition to It present Department of Interior represents the nearest approximation of the intended altho it is functionally in- Utilizing Interior as a the proposed Department can be for- mcd by transferring authorities and responsibilities present The transfers would be made under the President's Reorganization The following points are Either House House or can veto the plan by a simple majority If the plan is not voted down within 60 it becomes The name of the Interior Department can be changed under the reorganization Congressional hearings would provide an additional opportunity for comment by members of Congress and the general public The plan would be accompanied by sufficient detail to facilitate orderly review by the Congress of intended departmental functions and Western Resources Wrap-up has been told that there was a big hassle within the Administration itself on whether to propose a bill to create the new Department or to propose that the President do so by use of his existing reorganization- The group headed by Harsch favoring the reorganization route won in an effort to keep the proposal as intact as possible and to put it into operation as soon as The final decision will be up o President Under the directions that the President gave to in August 1977 to review all federal program for managing natural resources and protecting the the term resources as in- public and private uncultivated include weather and inland the coastal and scenic and historic These are largely in their natural The concept excludes privately held lands used for commercial farming and lands developed for urban and industrial according to the proposal RATIONAL FOR CHANGE The Harsch task force concluded that a change was needed the organization of natural resources at the federal level because present federal organization managing our natural resources is cum- and It is not well suited to efficient and responsive ac- of the federal role in managing our public The proper federal role is one of balancing competing claims for the use of public resources as well as balancing use versus often conflicting values of preservation and quality it Many of the agencies with natural resources were established in in an era when the West was being settled and there was a need to increase raw material output to nourish an ex- it Over time needs have changed and the for of the agencies have broadened from their initial narrow the task force Among the problems with the present it were unnecessary confusion and excessive costs and narrowly based present piecemeal structure cannot effectively deal with interactions between air and it With two agencies managing most of the nation's public Forest Service in Agriculture and Bureau of Land Management in Interior- user groups often have to deal with two separate sets of it seeking to use federal lands for grazing must obtain two separate permits from two agency Timber companies purchasing timber from both and Forest Service find the two agencies have different methods of measuring the amounts offered for which can result in different costs to the and that the two agencies have dif- ferent requirements for harvesting it With four agencies or departments involved in the development and management of the vital Outer Con- Shelf oil and gas resources and the protection of the marine en- the split responsibility has caused delays and legal battles and resulted in increased expenditures for In the field of water the Army the Bureau of Reclamation of Interior and the Soil Conservation Service in Agriculture have evolved from initially-assigned limited missions into multiple-purpose water resource agencies in water development They compete for budget and manpower resources in three different the task force Altho the inter-agency water Resources Council has the statutory responsibility for coor- these it is ineffective because of its Hence it is unable to establish a national water the task force reserves the right to establish policy a I point not mentioned by the task The task force spelled out nearly a dozen weaknesses in the current set-up including poor management of river basins and poor regional which it found in its In the public outdoor recreation six agencies in three departments have various so that coordination required to uniform user conduct the task force The Army md the Forest Service operate as do three In- agencies-National Park Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land The Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service in the Interior Department is responsible for providing a comprehensive national in the natural resource field are fragmented because the missions are fragmented the government according to task force the necessary broad for comprehensive and problem identification and from scientific and work in resources it found NEW ORGANIZATION The of Natural Resources woul designed to bring o factions anc responsibilities in the resource field Cabinet-Level Department me would It g nto five which would have responsibility In five closely related ana r sources- Land ces Water Resources- Parks Recreation and Wildlife-and Sciences and Data proposal assumes that federal responsibilities for Indian affairs territories would continue to the federal resources functions and would ded n it said No gyrate for Indian and territories is proposed however Under this Secretary of the Department would be ac- countable for the protection and proper use of the nation's the task force REACTION But the very order in which the Usk force lists the responsibility of the Secretary of has the water organizations and the timber industry concerned about They fear that water development and sales of federal timber and other wood products would be put on the back burner by the Secretary in the new who expected to be the present Interior Cecil D. vice president to the National Forest Products summed up this opposition to Department of Agriculture is The Interior Department is the industry believes the new won't be he There is widespread concern with the Forest in about the because officials fear position now accorded it by the Department of Agriculture in the new and because it would become at the Chief's Dean Sherman expressed this concern in his Dec 15 Forest Industry Affairs News The reorganization mean politicizing the Forest downgrading professionalism and probably with Chief John McGuire being the last of the professional to head the Agriculture Secretary Bob Bergland at this working on an alter- native proposal for a Department of Renewable Resources at the request of the Forest but it is not ex- to get approval of The task force has already considered it and turned it |