BOARD00983

• Board Meeting Date: 4/13/1966
• Description: Minutes and Resolution
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

5079

I

large throughout the United states, be
designated by the President actually. The
only limitation is that none of them can be
active officers or members of the federal
government. A small staff, I think of about
seven people, would be provided to this com-
mission. This would be somewhat analogous
to the activities carried on by the Select
Senate committee on Water Resources, which
was chaired by the late Senator Kerr of
Oklahoma.

I am not exactly sure what this Commis-
sion could accomplish with such a small staff.
Obviously, the Commission itself could not
carryon any type of investigations. As I
understand it, it would merely be a policy
agency which would make recommendations as
to how future investigations should be carried
on.

The bill was introduced into the Senate
by Senator Jackson of Washington, the Chairman
of the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee
of the Senate. When we left washington last
week it had a total of 44 sponsors which s}J.ould
be enough to put it across in the Senate. It
was introduced into the House by Congressman
Aspinall ~ request, which means that he is
not saying at this time that he is endorsing
the bill. But as committee chairman he did
introduce it by request.

I

It appears that from remarks that Senator
Jackson has made in the past that if, in fact,
a feasibility investigation of importing water
from the columbia River Basin into the Colo-
rado River Basin is carried on, that he would
prefer that it be done under the auspices of
this National T'7ater Commission. Now, ob-
viously, the National Water Commission would
have to delegate the actual investigations to
an existing federal agency. There are only
two, possibly, which could carryon such an
investigation. It would either be the Corps
of Engineers, United States Army, or the Bur~au