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Executive Summary From these initiatives, we have formulated a vision of how governance of rivers might be retooled for the 21st century. Rather than representing "more government," this proposal acknowledges and incorporates the successes that westerners are already bringing about to make government more responsive to local needs. The federal government, along with other levels of government, has a substantial presence and exercises significant authority in most major western river basins. Nothing in the Commission's new governance vision would expand fhat role. Insofar as the federal presence is more limited in some basins, this proposal would not give additional authority to the federal government. What we propose would, instead, make existing governmental programs more coordinated and efficient by requiring that federal agencies better coordinate their activities within river basins. The federal agencies would also be required to work effectively with other levels of government as well as all stakeholders. At present, fhere is no requirement that federal agencies coordinate at a basin level. It is our belief that a successful coordination strategy must proceed on two fronts: federal agencies must be given a mandate and a mechanism to forge horizontal cooperation, and coordinated federal goals and programs must also be integrated vertically with state, tribal, and local activities. The vertical integration must go in both directions. Appropriate federal objectives and requirements need to be clearly expressed and communicated from the basin level to local watershed groups. In turn, those very requirements should be informed by local needs and objectives. Funding should be directed to the local level, where appropriate, to realize and accomplish joint goals, and regional and local initiatives should be encouraged. Watershed councils, where they exist, are varied and unique entities, and they should not be bureaucratized nor recruited as arms of the federal government. Federal agencies should cooperate with them. We believe that, in order to accomplish the desired level of coordination and cooperation, river basin forums should be created in which federal agencies; state, tribal, and local governments; and stakeholder groups can come together to set joint goals for improving conditions in fhe basin. We do not recommend any single template for these forums. In fact, our report discusses a number of different models fhat could be used, depending on the needs of any given basin. The federal government should continue to support experimentation by sponsoring pilot projects in a variety of basins. Our recommendation that the federal government coordinate its agencies better is made with full awareness of the bureaucratic infighting and competition that could frustrate achievement of this goal. Budgetary disclosure, such as that which is now occurring in the Everglades restoration effort and in the Northwest Power Planning Council, enables the public to understand the federal resources that are being spent on a problem and to evaluate the effectiveness of that spending. Further, our research revealed how difficult it is for anyone to track federal proposals for a region without this sort of coordinated budgeting. If we are to have more public participation, more democracy in the management of a basin's rivers, we need to require that federal agencies coordinate their budget submittals, that they seek public comment on their proposals before fhey approach the Congress, and that they fully reveal to the public how money is being spent in a region. The experience in the Everglades and in the Columbia River basin demonstrates that this can be done: our proposal attempts to capture the rough contours of what should be done across the West. Our vision of a new governance for western river basins includes the following specific suggestions, to be tested through pilot projects: xvii