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000890 From the standpoint of the Federal Government, there is probably less need for the enactment of S. 1111 than there is from the standpoint of the States. The Appropriations Committees of the Congress have been quite interested in various aspects of river basin. planning. They have been critical of the lack of coordination among departments and agencies, and have been concerned with the magnitude of over-all estimates of costs of comprehensive basin planning. The Appropriation Committees have provided real stimuli to the Executive Branch of the government in getting it to require coordination of efforts of the various departments and agencies. Pending passage of a Water Resources Planning Act, the President has asked the Secretaries of the Interior, Agriculture, Army and HEW who would be on the Councii to undertake similar work which would be the normal activities of the Council. As you all know, the first item that was produced by the four Secretaries under this request was "Policies, Standards, and Procedures in the Formulation, Evaluation and Review of Plans for Use and Development of Water and Related Land Resources" in Senate Document 97, 87th Congress, 2d Session, May 29, 1962. In addition, the Chief Executive has urged the Nation in various speeches to Congress, such as the State of the Union Address and his Address on Water Resources that baSin-wide water resource development must be considered in the future and should be used as a means of strengthening the economy of the Nation. One of the goals of the Executive Branch has been to set up comprehensive river basin plans for all basins of the country by 1970. In a letter of August 2, 1963, Mr. Elmer B. Staats, Deputy Director, Bureau of the Budget, told Senator Ellender, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Public Work s of the Senate Appropriations Committee, "As you were advised in our letter of April 23, 1963, the Bu.reau of the Budget had forma lly requested the four Departments involved in comprehensive river basin planning to under- take a thorough review of their planning procedures and concepts." And again, In another part of the letter, he said, "The four agencies have jointly developed procedures for coordination of their comprehensive river basin planning programs for the 19t5 budget and have initiated coordination at the field level. As a result, we expect that coordination of planning programs for the 19(5 budget will be more effective than for 1964 when initial coordination in the field was not attempted." In an attachment to his lctter entitled "Comprehensive River Basin Planning," Mr. Staats said, "Pending the establishment of the Water Resources Council and river basin commissions proposed in the legislation transmitted by the President to the Congress on July 13, 1961, it is believed that the coordination procedures presently established and continually being improved among the four Departm.ents provide a satisfactory interim method for assuring suitability and use of data and procedures now available or to become available from contemporary activities of the agencies." - 9 - i p. I '. II .; ,; i! "