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000882'- '\ S. III \ .,. 12/9/63 THE PROPOSED WATER RESOURCES PLANNING ACT by , "" Ivai V. Goslin (based on S. 1111 as passed by U.S. Senate 12/4/63) The title to S. 1111 describes the purpose of the proposed legislation by saying that it is "a Bill to provide for the optimum development of the Nation's natural resources through the coordinated planning of water and related land resources, through the establishment of a water resources council and river basin commissions, and by providing financial assistance to the States in order to increase State partiCipation in such planning." From the title I believe it would be fair to say that S. 1111 represents an attempt to provide Congres- Sionally-approved administrative policy and operative machinery to implement a comprehensive baSin-wide concept of planning the development of our nation's water and related land resources. By some, this definition may be thought to be too restrictive; by others, too broad. The idea of comprehensive river basin planning is not new. This concept was recognized early by those interested in the conservation and utilization of our natural resources as a method that would provide the optimum in benefits to the most people for the longest time. The first official expression of this idea may have been that of President Theodore Roosevelt's Inland Waterways Commission in 1908. Since that time, as all of you know, many economic and social forces related to our rapidly increasing population and high standards of living have caused our planners to look again and again at the manner in which we are utilizing our resources in order to devise ways of deriving optimum benefits therefrom, and, at the same time enhancing their conservation. The more recent incentives for comprehensive, basin-wide, water resources, planning legislation have undoubtedly sprung from the seeds planted by the Hoover Commission report which in 1955 proposed the creation of a Water Resources Board to set up basin commissions to represent Fed8ral, state, and private interests; various studies and reports of the Federal and State Governments directly concerned with water conservation projects; the report of the V.S, Senate Select. Committee on National Water Resources in 1961; the recent lawsuit, Arizona v. California whleh gave impetus to th", Pacific Southwest Water Plan; activities of many National and State organiz- ations, including the Council of State Governments; and the general public's growing awareness of the seriousness of water problems--locally, State- wide, and nationally.