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Proposals for a federal water law that would preempt the field and displace existing state authority have been rejected.18 From the earliest times, water law has been state law. As the Public Land Law Review Commission stated in its report: "In nearly 100 years of development, state water law has achieved a reasonable certainty of results which has permitted substantial public and private development. . .While sometimes necessarily complex, the state administrative and judicial pro- cedures have provided a means to determine security of rights to the use of water. 1119 The states have systems of water law adapted to local water supply, climate and demand. The united states does not. Therefore, what is needed to achieve coordination and accommodation of federal uses with state uses is not to create a federal water rights agency, but instead, to encourage federal compliance with state water laws and procedures. The result of this policy of compliance "would be federal rights owned by the federal government, created by federal law, but so procedurally conformed to private rights owned by individuals, created by state law, that both federal and private rights were interrelated and inter- meshed into the same system of administration and enforcernent."20 The Justice Department proposal is thus clearly a step in the wrong direction. B. The proposed legislation fails to address the issue of the administration, physical regulation and distribution of water supplies to which the United States would be entitled pursuant to its inventoried water rights. The draft bill's objective to coordinate federal uses with state and private uses is also not aided by its failure to include provisions for the administra- tion of water rights and distribution of water supplied under those rights once they are quantified and determined. Such provisions would be as ilnportant as those regarding the initial quantification and determination of the federal rights. Their absence raises many questions. For example, once a federal rights was established and quantified, what authority would be responsible for interpreting the effect of such rights on other users. There would also be costs associated with administration and dis- tribution. It is a common practice in many states that such costs be assessed water users in accordance with the percentage of water rights on a given source. But the bill offers no guidance with respect to this issue. The qeustion of sovereign immunity could also be raised. If a federal official responsible for exercising and controlling water use under a federal right violated that right, would judicial action by the state or private party be precluded because of the doctrine of sovereign immunity. These and many other specific questions could arise in the absence of a specific delegation of authority for administration and distribution. 18. See National Water Commission Study at 241. 19. Public Land Law Review Commission, One Third of the Nation's Land 142 (1970). 20. National Water Commission Study at 24S. (20)