464 



Federal sponsorship, but great divergence of views as to the rules to be 

 followed m applying the principle. The uncritical approach of general 

 simultaneous development was rejected. The close-pricing approach 

 frustrated regional aspirations. Multipurpose projects with many in- 

 tangible benefits were judged profligate by hard-headed realists; 

 single-purpose projects based on a substantial preponderance of tangi- 

 ble benefits over costs were judged wasteful by conservationists. 



Presentations to the Congress of proposals for new projects dealt 

 ni specifics related to individual competing projects. Evidence of merit 

 of individual projects presented by interested parties from the region 

 concerned v.ould always be suspect. Congresses disposed toward en- 

 larged development activity might accept such evidence, especially 

 in connection with a general sympathy for equitable geographic dis- 

 tribution of projects among States or districts. Congresses less gen- 

 erous, or confronted with a greater need for economies, might have 

 more difficulty in choosing among candidate projects, and would rea- 

 sonably resort to the harder but more restrictive evidence of tangible 

 costs and benefits. The policy of total basin development ran counter 

 to both approaches, by calling for regional systems in which projects 

 might be concentrated in favored (or lagging) basins, and in which 

 support for individual projects was based on their contributions to 

 total system performance, rather than item benefit/cost ratio relative 

 to some project elsewhere. 



Individual projects were inherently local or regional. Decisions favor- 

 ing single projects were accordingly local in elfect, although of course 

 the total eltect of a generous or a frugal attitude in Congress toward all 

 such projects had significance for the national economy, defense, em- 

 ployment, and productivity, as well as on inflation, the national debt, 

 the stability of the dollar, and on the availability of tax revenues for 

 other social purposes. In this ^^■ay, national policies and standards for 

 the assessment of water projects had both a regional and a national 

 impact. Conversely, projects had to satisfy two sets of criteria: suit- 

 ability within the region, and superiorit}' in competition with other 

 projects for limited national investment capital, under varying condi- 

 tions of relative lenience toward new starts. 



Different specific aspects of water projects were emphasized by the 

 succession of study groups and commissions on water before 1958 : 

 balanced economic development of regional subdivisions of the Nation 

 was stressed by the National Resources Committee in 1936. Availability 

 of adequate quantity and quality of industrial and urban water where 

 and when needed was the concern of the Paley Commission in 1952. 



The first Hoover Commission in 1949 addressed its attention to the 

 problem of coordinating national water policy, while the second, in 

 1955, sought tighter and more cost/effective decisionmaking. The Presi- 

 dent's AVater Policy Commission, in 1950 sought to maximize the 

 total utility of water for social x^ui'poses. Each study had its own con- 

 straints and preoccupations. 



Events during the Eisenhower administration tended to transfer 

 responsibility for decisionmaking on water projects and policy to the 

 legislative branch. Thus, within the National Government, the Presi- 

 dent referred decisions on policy standards to the Congress. Moreover, 

 his effort to restore some extent of resource development to private 

 initiative, and his further effort to return some Federal initiative 



