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federal agencies could take administratively is to provide for a 

 mechanism to coordinate these diverse parties by basin or river 

 system. Beyond that, each individual agency should evaluate what 

 policies or statutory guidance it is working under which 

 undermines the goal of aquatic protection and make 

 recommendations for change where appropriate. Some of these 

 recommendations will require Congressional action, but much of it 

 could be handled administratively. 



For example, full-cost pricing of all of our public resources 

 would be a good place to start. If the prices for all of the 

 resources under the public domain -- water, timber, minerals, 

 grazing, etc. -- reflected the true cost (both financial and 

 environmental) of producing them, the market would produce far 

 greater conservation and more selective use. (For example, 

 ratepayers in the Northwest now enjoy electricity rates about 1/2 

 that of the national average, and not surprisingly have one of 

 greatest per capita energy use rates in the country.) Much of 

 the full-cost pricing concept could be implemented 

 administratively, and in places where it cannot be (the 1872 

 Mining Act stands as one obstacle) lands can be taken out of 

 production administratively until such time as Congressional 

 reform can be enacted. 



Another opportunity for significant improvement of the nation's 

 aquatic ecosystems through administrative measures is national 

 floodplain management. The nation's current flood control 

 management "system" is responsible for much of the ongoing damage 

 to aquatic ecosystems. Levees and channelization have cut 

 thousands of miles of rivers off from their natural flood plain, 

 destroying valuable wetlands, trapping often-toxic sediment, and 

 altering natural channels. The Great Flood of 1993 demonstrated 

 that as the Corps of Engineers and the Soil Conservation Service 

 continued to straight jacket the Mississippi, it not only slowly 

 destroyed the ecological integrity of the river, but also invited 

 ill-advised development along the river's banks by providing a 

 false sense of security. 



In June 1994, the Interagency Floodplain Management Review 

 Committee released a comprehensive far-reaching report on the 

 1993 summer flooding and made a series of progressive 

 recommendations, most of which can be implemented 



administratively. Among the recommendations are revisions to the 

 National Flood Insurance Program to discourage floodplain 

 development, changes in the process by which the Corps evaluates 

 federal water projects to include environmental objectives and a 

 number of mechanisms for coordination and cooperation. 



By way of example, I have mentioned only a couple of 

 opportunities for federal agencies to administratively make 

 significant changes to the management, protection and restoration 

 of the nation's aquatic ecosystems. Many other recommendations 

 would undoubtedly come out of a thorough, comprehensive review. 



