437 



President's "Water Kesources Policy Commission, made its report." 

 It was a vokiminons set of documents : Volume I ran to 445 pages, and 

 two supporting volumes ran respectively to 801 and 793 pages. Unlike 

 the even more volmninous but more particularized Hoover studies, the 

 "Water Policy Commission dealt with basic national objectives, policies, 

 and programs within its scope. "Water objectives were summarized by 

 the report in these terms : 



* * * The maximum sustained use of lakes, rivers, and their associated land 

 and ground water resources, to support a continuing high level of prosi)erity 

 throughout the country. They should include the safeguarding of our resources 

 against deterioration from soil erosion, wasteful forest practices, and floods ; 

 the improvement and higher utilization of these resources to support an expand- 

 ing economy and national security ; assistance to regional development ; expansion 

 of all types of recreational opportunity to meet increasing needs ; protection of 

 public health ; and opportunity for greater use of transportation and electric 

 I)Ower.^ 



The report contained few surprises, and was evidently a compromise 

 betvreen two opposing concepts, that of strict cost and benefit analysis, 

 and that of welfare. Thus, the report proposed that the "same standards 

 and methods'- should be applied to the evaluation of all river basin 

 programs "to assure uniformity in the application of evaluation pro- 

 cedures.'' On the other hand, said the report : 



The evaluation procedure should also provide that, where the sum of the 

 benefits so estimated is not suflScient to balance the direct and indirect costs, 

 the final decision by the basin commission on the merits of the project should 

 include a judgment as to whether the balance of general welfare benefits and 

 detriments contributes sufficient additional value to warrant construction of 

 the project.^ 



Representatives of the Bureau of the Budget were subsequently 

 called before the Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation of the 

 House Committee on Interior and Insidar Affairs, to interpret the 

 Commission report. The chairman of the subcommittee. Representative 

 Clair Engle, said he had been "a little disappointed, at least a little 

 confused at times, as I have looked at this report." ^^ In response to 

 a question from Representative D'Ewart of Montana, a witness for 

 the Bureau of the Budget (Mr. Melvin Scheidt, an engineer-economist) 

 replied : 



I think the report contemplates a system of financing in which, bj' agree- 

 ments with State and local governments with respect to certain secondary 

 benefits by the establishment of charges based on actual costs including interest for 

 vendable commodities and by assessing or determining values of general-welfare 

 benefits, a formiila would be devised whereby a project would be paid for in part 

 from revenues received from the sale of vendable commodities on a cost basis, 

 revenues received from water users on an ability-to-pay basis, ad valorem taxes 

 or other assessments received from special districts or local governments ; pos- 

 sible contributions from State governments, as a result of their interest 

 in certain aspects, including perhaps broad flood-control programs and finally 



'"The Presidpnfs Water Resources Policy Commission, "A Water Policy for the Ameri- 

 can People." The report of the * * * 1950. Vol. I: General Report. (Washington, U.S 

 Government Printing Office, December 1050), 445 pages. 



="Ibid., p. 10. 



=1 Ibid., p. 11. 



'^U.S. Congress. House, Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. An interpretation of 

 the recommendations of the President's Water Resources Policy Commission. Hearings 

 before the Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation of the * * * on an interpretation 

 of the recommendations of the President's Water Resources Policy Commission. ]Mav 18, 

 21, 22, 1951. Serial No. 6. (Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1951), p. 3. 



