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<br />New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, emerged in 196h5' to provide <br /> <br />(1) the essential linkage between federal and state planning and program <br /> <br />implementation and (2) the regional emphasis lacking in earlier compact approaches. <br /> <br />The Delaware River Basin Compact created the Delaware River Basin Commission <br /> <br />("DRBC") to unify regional development and control in place of the duplicating, <br /> <br />overlapping, and uncoordinated administration of some forty-three state agencies, <br /> <br />fourteen interstate agencies, and nineteen federal agencies exercising a multiplicity <br /> <br />of responsibilities. It embodied two significant innovations. First, it established a <br /> <br />structure for meaningful comprehensive planning by including the United State as a <br /> <br />signatory party and imposing significant coordinating constraints on both the states <br /> <br />and the federal government. Second, it ensured a more regionally oriented approach <br /> <br />through a broad grant of powers to the DRBC and provided for the injection of a <br /> <br />broader perspective of basin problems through the federal government's active <br /> <br />participation in the compact program. <br /> <br />To ensure that all water projects in the basin are in general conformity with <br /> <br />the comprehensive plan required to be developed by the DRBC, the compact confers <br /> <br />a "licensing" power on the commission. It provides that no project having a <br /> <br />substantial effect on the water resources of the basin shall be undertaken unless it <br /> <br />has been approved by the Commission, which must approve any project that it finds <br /> <br />15' 75 Stat. 688. A similar compact was negotiated on the Susquehanna River among New <br />York, Pennsylvania and Maryland and approved by Congress in 1970. 84 Stat. 1509. <br /> <br />12 <br />