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- 18 - - - - - - Priorities The Commi..sion began ils first efforts at eSlablishing priorities for basin water projects and programs in 1973. That year the Commission endorsed two bank stabilization projects, below Garri..on Dam and between Yankton, South Dakota and Ponca. Nebraska as Commission priorities. The Commission then announced it would "explore how it can best execute the respomibilitie.. assigned in P.l. 89-80 10 recom- mend. . . priorities for the collection and analysis of basic data and for investigation. planning, and construction. . ." In 1974, the Commission created a Priority listing Commillee which instituted a !rial process for identifying basinwide water project and program priorities. The initial process began in the basin stales, where state priority teams ranked proposed interstate projects and programs in five categories: planning-related research, special studies. regional or river basin planning, implementation studies, and implementalion projects and programs. Each state fearn's recommendations were for- warded to the Commillee, which combined the recommendations into one set of basinwide priorities. The trial process was judged suc- cessful and was scheduled to become operational in 1975. When the priorities process was implemented in 1975, a sixth category, that of basic data collection, was added for consideration. The Priori- ties Commiltee also adopted a four-parr criteria for ranking state submissions in a final, basinwide priorities report. The criteria were: (1) geographic impact, (2) level of support, (3) need, and (4) feasibility. The Committee's recommended priorities were then submitted to the Commission for adoption. The Commission's adopted priorities were published and forwarded to the U.S. Water Resources Council for transmittal to Congress through the President. In 1975, the priorities report also conlained the original priorities recommendation of each state priorities learn. The Commission's priority process continued largely unchanged until 1979. In that year, the Commission joined with the five other multi-state river basin commissions in the United States in developing uniform standards for the format and timing of priority reports. This effort altered the schedule of the Commission's priority process so that priority reports would reach Congress and the federal agencies at the most opportune time. The Priorities Committee also revised its criteria for ranking basinwide priorities althat time. The new criteria included: (1) state-assigned priorit}., (2) economic effect or impact, (3) regional implications, (4) compatability with other programs, and (5) probability of implementation. In 1979, the Commission Chairman and Vice Chairman took a more active role in encouraging the implementation of Commission-adopted priorities. For the first time they specifically monitored the progress of priority projects and programs through the programming, authori- zation, and budgeting processes of sponsoring agencies, the Administra- tion, and the Congress. In 1980 and 1981 Commission-adopted priorities were presented at a briefing for congressional delegations from the ten basin states. The briefings were presented by the Commission Chairman or Vice Chair- man and staff members in Washington, D.C. early in the legislative year.