8014

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 8014
• Author: McDonald, W. J.
• Title: The Upper Basins' Political Conundrum
• USFW Year: 1997.
• USFW - Doc Type: A Deal is Not a Deal.
• Copyright Material: NO

The Upper Basins' Political Conundrum: A Deal is Not a Deal
were imbued with an urgent sense of effecting national social and economic
purposes and experimenting with various models of river basin
"governance."los
Finally, when the United States entered World War II, there were a large
number of public works projects for irrigation, flood control, navigation, and
hydropower generation which had been authorized. However, work on these
projects was suspended, or not initiated, unless their completion would
contribute to the war effort.
Given the impacts of the 1930s drought on agriculture, the out migration
caused by the Depression and the war, and the need to provide jobs for
returning soldiers at war's end, upper and lower basin interests alike, as well
as government planners and members of Congress, began as early as 1942 to
look ahead to reinstituting the development of federal water projects after the
war as a means of providing jobs and economic stability for the Missouri River
Basin. In order to achieve this shared goal, upper and lower basin interests
understood the need to cooperate politically.
Recognizing the perceived urgency and the 'joint community interest"
throughout the basin, South Dakota Governor Merrill Q. Sharpe pointed
out that the special interests would "have a much better opportunity to
obtain development for their mutual benefit if they all acted together under
the direction of some kind of steering or executive or liaison committee."
The development advocates foresaw the political advantages of pooling
efforts to request plan authorization and appropriations from Congress.
... Although the states had varying interests in the basin's water resources,
they constituted a powerful political network.llo
The result was the formation of the Missouri River States Committee in May
of 1943 for the purpose of promoting the states' joint interests in the
comprehensive and integrated development of the water resources of the
basin. This much the upper and lower basin interests could agree upon. But,
the devil is always in the details.
109 For example, the grand experiment of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) emerged
from this period. Indeed, legislation to create a Missouri Valley Authority modeled after the
TVA was also considered by Congress in the late 1930s and early 1940s, but never enacted.
Id. at 73-86.
llo Id. at 10-11. Footnote omitted.
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