The ASBPA, a strong supporter of the measure, pubUshed in the proceedings of its 

 meetings, a number of discussions regarding this bill and its progress in Congress. The 

 argument heard back in the 1930's is echoed here— that shore protection has never received 

 its fair share of Federal concern or Federal appropriations. "For example, Association 

 President J. Spencer Smith remarked in April 1946, ". . . what's hard for me to reconcile is 

 the fact we are willing to spend ... a great deal of money on flood and soil and irrigation 

 purposes and yet we hesitate to authorize the Congress to appropriate money for the 

 protection of our beaches. . ."^^^ Smith also brought out another point which the ASBPA 

 had long stressed, i.e., that "there are relatively few voters on the beaches. The people who 

 enjoy the beaches come from aU over the United States, but they are not there when the 

 damage is being done, and they do not know the need for appropriations to protect those 

 beaches. "^^^ 



Thorndike SavUle, who had been a member of the seven-man Board since its inception in 

 1930, attended this AprU 1946 meeting of the ASBPA. Saville, who recognized some 

 inequities in the status of shore protection in relation to other Federal water programs, 

 made these comments on the subject: 



"The Bureau of Reclamation has a 5-year program of about $1,000,000,000, 

 all of which is to be expended, naturally, in the irrigation states. The flood 

 control work and River and Harbor works again have a 5-year plan of roughly 

 $1,000,000,000. The main objections to H.R. 2033 from the Budget Bureau is 

 from the standpoint of economy; they have to balance the budget. They naturally 

 are opposed to new Federal pohcies which involve additional expenditure of 

 Federal funds which will reflect against balancing the budget. 



"But from the standpoint of logic it never seemed sensible to me to adopt 

 policies reflecting enormous expenditures, running up to $2,500,000,000 over the 

 next 5 years, when a majority of that cost, probably a pretty big majority, 

 upwards of 70 per cent 1 would guess, is going to be paid for by the taxes of the 

 coastal states— New York and the other eastern coastal states, plus California. I am 

 guessing that up to about 75 per cent of the tax money which is expended for 

 these billions of dollars worth of non-coastal projects will be expended outside of 

 the states from which most of the tax money is derived. It seems to me this might 

 well be an added strong argument for the adoption of H.R. 2033, or rather for the 

 underlying policy; that the coastal states do put up very large amounts of money 

 for Federal construction programs in the water field, that by and large they do 

 not benefit proportionately from these moneys, and therefore it is logical that the 

 Government should adopt a policy which would enable such states to secure some 

 of their tax money in the form of Federal structures to protect the coast 

 Une,..."i30 



50 



