BOARD00983

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

::'Ul::lU

of Reclamation of the Department of the In-
terior. If, in fact, this bill passes, Senator
Jackson will quite certainly attempt to amend
our revised R.R. 4671 to substitute this
National Nater Commission for the Secretary
of the Interior. The $64 question that all I
of the states have to decide in the near future
is whether or not this substitution would be
acceptable.

COlmnissioner Dominy, when we talked to
him, had no particular misgivings about it but
the members of our congressional delegation
certainly had grave reservations. Senators
Allott and Dominick \-lere not among the co-
sponsors of the bill. There were some un-
official opinions expressed to us by members
of our congressional delegation that we had
enough agencies in the federal government
already, and that the federal government
should be trying to reduce agencies instead
of creating new ones. I subscribe to that
theory myself.

If the President is insisting upon the
establishment of such a commission and it
gets to be the final roadblo~c to the passage
of this bill, then all of the seven states
must take a hard look at the matter. Mr.
Chairman, I wonder if any of the Board members
have any views on it at this time to guide us
in further staff actions?"

HR. ECKLES:

"Hr. Sparks, from \-lhat you have related
here this morning it seems to me that the
only capability of a group such as this would
be to possibly attempt to coordinate the
activities of the Corps and the Bureau of
Reclamation. I can't see what they would
further donate to the water development in
the United States. I haven't even read the
bill but I really can't see the need.

I

Would this commission also get into the
field of, say, basin activities which we know
are coming throughout the United States or