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quality plan to be developed and the procedures used by the agencies for this purpose vary even more and are less sound that those used for traditional benefit-cost analysis. As a consequence, we plan a second phase to improve the procedures used by the agencies for developing the environmental quality account. Procedures for instream flow criteria will be important for the traditional benefit-cost analyis portion of the manual but will be crucial for the environmental quality portion. Consequently, as we move into this second phase after the first .of the year, we will be in close contact with you con- cerning the procedures you are developing. You may ask why the environmental quality account procedures have been reserved for the second phase. Why is it not important enough to be in the first phase? The basic excuse is the age-old one used by bureaucrats of not enough time and people. The Presidential directive ordered us to have this manual com- pleted by next July, which requires us to have a draft completed by about February 1 of next year in order to provide adequate time for publication in the Federal Register, a gO-day review period, and then development of the final document. We felt that there was no way we could really adequately develop definite procedures for the various areas of the environmental quality account in such a short period of time. Closely aligned with the P&S manual directive is another directive to the Water Resources Council to develop an independent review function. Simply stated, the purpose of this review is one of quality control. The Water Resources Council will establish a technical group to assure that agency project plans are done in compliance with the Principles and Standards, the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act, and other Federal laws and regulations. The general objective here is not for the water Resources ~ ~ ~ 12