The rights of interstate compact organizations appear to be adequately protected by subsection 3 (a) which states that nothing in the act shall be construed to displace, supersede, or limit any interstate compact or the jurisdiction or responsibility of any legally established joint or common agency of two or more States, or of two or more States and the Federal Government.

Therefore, we believe the proviso should be deleted and the area to be covered by a river basin commission should be worked out on a case-by-case basis, taking into account all relevant factors, including the desires of the States concerned.

Second, subsection 203 (a) provides that a river basin commission shall terminate upon agreement of the Council or agreement of not less than one-half of the majority of States composing the commission. That provision would permit 3 out of 8 to 11 States or 2 out of 6 or 7 States to terminate a commission. This seems inconsistent with the philosophy reflected in subsection 201(a), which requires, before the establishment of a commission, concurrence of not less than onehalf of the States in the area for which the commission is to be established.

Therefore, we recommend the provision be changed so that a commission may be terminated upon agreement of the Council or agreement of a majority of the States composing the commission.

Third, subsection 205 (a) authorizes river basin commissions to obtain personal services in any or all of three ways: (1) by employing and compensating their own employees, (2) by accepting personal services of State employees assigned to work for a commission, and (3) by accepting personal services of Federal employees assigned to work for a commission.

This gives the commissions desirable flexibility. However, subsection 205 (a) and section 405 authorize the river basin commissions to purchase from the Civil Service Commission, and that Commission is authorized to extend to the river basin commissions' direct-hire employees, coverage under the retirement and insurance systems for Federal employees.

In other words, it would treat them as if they were Federal employees. A far-reaching and undesirable precedent would be established for a river basin commission employee, not a Federal employee, to receive supplementary or "fringe" benefit compensation from the Federal Government in the same manner as Federal employees.

Any person employed directly by a river basin commission should receive his compensation only from the commission, and whenever the commission desires to provide supplementary benefit compensation for its employees, it should do so directly, and could easily contract with private insurance carriers in such cases.

We recommend that subsection 205 (a) be amended accordingly, and that section 405 be deleted.

With these and the other amendments recommended in our letter, the Bureau of the Budget recommends that S. 1111 be enacted.

We feel, I might add, that this is to be a very important step looking a long-term period ahead, for more effective use of our water and more efficient use of the taxpayer's dollar in carrying out the objectives of both the President and the Congress, and our hope is that a satisfactory bill can be adopted.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Morris?

Mr. Hosmer?

Mr. HOSMER. Mr. Staats, I take it that this Council, this Federal Council on Water Resources, is in the nature of another interdepartmental committee.

Mr. STAATS. It would be a committee. I think you are quite accurate in describing it as a committee or a council. It would be interdepartmental.

We feel that the operating agencies concerned here, with the kind of directive that they would have under this bill, could more effectively collaborate in carrying out common activities, and while I have not restated the functions of this council that are set forth in this bill, these are very important matters, as you would agree, I am sure, that there should be effective collaboration among various Federal agencies. But it would be, I think.

Mr. HOSMER. Now, the Secretary of Interior I see is on this council. Mr. STAATS. That is correct.

Mr. HOSMER. And he can make his contribution. Right?

Mr. STAATS. Right.

Mr. HOSMER. And likewise the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, and the Chairman of the Federal Power Commission?

Mr. STAATS. Yes.

Mr. HOSMER. Do you have any idea how many interdepartmental committees the Secretary of Interior now serves on?

Mr. STAATS. I could not tell you the exact number he serves on. Of course, this, as you know, is one of his prime responsibilities-the water resources field.

Mr. HOSMER. Well, that is true, and it seems to me he might even be derogating his function by surrounding himself with these other sets of brass to look over his shoulder.

How do you feel about that?

Mr. STAATS. Each of these agencies have their own statutory responsibilities in the water resources field, and what we would be establishing here is an instrument where they can more effectively carry out their own responsibilities.

Mr. HOSMER. Well, now, let's investigate that. You said you did not know on how many interdepartmental committees the Secretary of the Interior served. Do you have an estimate?

Mr. STAATS. No, I would not want to venture a guess, and I would be only guessing.

Mr. HOSMER. A hundred ?

Mr. STAATS. That would be, I am sure, much too high.
Mr. HOSMER. Not more than half of that, probably?

Mr. STAATS. The only significant one that bears on this problem has to do with the outdoor resources field, the Recreation Council.

Mr. HOSMER. I think you will find that not only the Secretary of the Interior but the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the Secretary of HEW sit on numerous of these interdepartmental committees and councils.

Would that be a fair statement?

Mr. STAATS. Well, I am sure that that is the case. I think this is true with all of the agency heads in Government. We sit on quite a few of them ourselves.

Mr. HOSMER. That is right. I think the Director of the Bureau of the Budget is the officer that sits on them, is he not? He is the one who is in law said to be a member of this committee? And then, when it comes time for the Director of the Bureau of the Budget to go to a meeting of one of these, he seldom goes, but more often sends one of the people who work for him to represent him at a meeting of these committees, does he not?

Mr. STAATS. Well, this would depend, really, on the subject matter. Mr. HOSMER. I just said more often than not.

Mr. STAATS. No, I would not agree.

Mr. HOSMER. Do you know whether or not, more often than not, the Secretary of the Interior sends an underling to sit on one of these interdepartmental committees?

Mr. STAATS. Well, I think this depends a great deal on the commitwee that is involved. I would not want to be categorical, here. But To my knowledge, on the matters which have come up of any great importance, the Secretary of the Interior has been a member of the committee, and he has been present.

Mr. HOSMER. Each time that one of these interdepartmental committees is established, it is established with a great deal of flourish and fanfare about meeting an important need, for coordinating within the Government, on a vital subject matter of intense interest to the people of and the welfare of the United States.

That about characterizes the establishment of these things, does it not?

I am just recalling from the phraseology of White House press releases and things like that.

Mr. STAATS. I think the only response I can make to your point, here, is that there are few areas that I am aware of that are more important, from the point of view of the Government, where we have adequate cooperation and coordination, than this area.

Mr. HOSMER. You will find that the attendance will be by, and the responsibilities executed by, people whose names most Americans have never heard of. Is that not correct?

Mr. STAATS. No, I do not believe that would be correct.

Mr. HOSMER. You could give us a categorical and absolute guarantee that each and every meeting of this Water Resources Council would be a meeting of principals?

Mr. STAATS. I sat in on a meeting of the Outdoor Recreation Council just the other day.

Mr. HOSMER. Could you give me a categorical answer?

Mr. STAATS. No. And I do not think you would expect me to try to say that there would be an ironclad commitment that all would be present at every single meeting of the Council.

Mr. HOSMER. As a matter of fact, they will not be. It will be a rare occasion on which you would have more than one.

Mr. STAATS. I would not agree with that. I do not think that would be correct.

Mr. HOSMER. Well, you have no statistics on how many of these Secretaries do belong to these interdepartmental committees, and you cannot tell us how many of them attend, and you cannot tell us how many they belong to, so you can give us no assurance at all.

Mr. STAATS. I am not clear what point you are making here, but I would say even if you could get the Under Secretaries here at these meetings, this would be a step forward.

Mr. HOSMER. All right. Then we will recede back one level, to the busy Under Secretary level. Are you also familiar with the fact that most of these interdepartmental committees end up with some sort of a staff organization?

Mr. STAATS. I would hope that this one would have staff. This is a part of the idea of getting a statutory council established, so that they could have their own independent staff.

Mr. HOSMER. And, Mr. Staats, is this not also true of these other interdepartmental committees?

Mr. STAATS. It is true of some of them, not all of them.

Mr. HOSMER. It is true of most of them, is it not?

Mr. STAATS. Well, now, the Outdoor Recreation Council has no separate staff of its own. The staff of that is largely in the Department of the Interior.

I think there has to be flexibility in this respect.

Mr. HOSMER. And there are full-time people working on that, are

there not?

Mr. STAATS. Yes.

Mr. ROGERS. Without objection, the gentleman from California may reserve the balance of his time.

I am going to continue the hearing, though, and Mr. Morris is coming back to relieve me.

Mr. Staats, while we have the opportunity: Now, do I understand that in your proposed amendment with relation to the dividing of these subbasins you would advocate that each subbasin be treated as a basin, if it is separated? As far as the commission is concerned? Mr. STAATS. Are you speaking to the suggestion of our amendment, here?

Mr. ROGERS. Yes.

Mr. STAATS. Our point here would be to permit flexibility, to treat each basin on its own, rather than be restricted by statute into a requirement that each subbasin, where an interstate compact exits, would be treated as a subbasin.

We feel that the bill previously gave adequate protection there, and this amendment which was put in on the floor of the Senate simply I think was an effort to get additional statutory direction, which we feel could better be expressed in terms of a committee report or in the legis lative history.

Our hope would be that we could leave some flexibility there to plan for a river basin, even though there might be more than one basin interstate compact involved in it.

That is the sum and substance, really, of it.

Mr. ROGERS. Would that mean, then, that if the proper request with the proper support went to the President, a separate and distinct commission would be appointed for a subbasin?

Mr. STAATS. It could be; yes.

Mr. ROGERS. And if that subbasin happened to lie all within the confines of one State, then the membership of that commission would be made up only from the representatives of that State, plus the Federal representative?

Mr. STAATS. Yes; I think that would be correct. I think there would be very few of those. I think these would be very few in number. In most of these basins, more than one State would be involved.

Mr. ROGERS. What I was thinking about, though, was that when you split this up into subbasins, do you not open the door for actually a different commission to be established for each State?

Do you think there would be any danger of a request being made by each State for a separate commission based upon their previous request that this subbasin be declared a separate basin?

Mr. STAATS. I do not think so. I think that the emphasis that would be given would be to provide the most comprehensive type of planning that we could.

I was trying to think of any particular States-California would be the only one that I am aware of-where there would be any major basins which might lie wholly within one State. Texas would be probably another one. But most of them would fall within more than one State.

But the objective here would be to try to deal with as large a unit as you could, consistent with the practical planning of a particular basin.

Mr. ROGERS. Actually, those two States you named-California and Texas-the situation is simply that the waters rise within the boundaries of the State. Most of the waters rise within the boundaries of the State, so that would be a complete basin in itself.

Mr. STAATS. That is right.

Mr. ROGERS. Let me ask you, if I can: What did we have in mind about subbasins? I fail to see the connection as to creating an opportunity for subbasins to be established. Do you know of any examples?

Mr. STAATS. I believe that this was Senator Allott's amendment, that you are referring to?

Mr. ROGERS. Yes, sir.

Mr. STAATS. And it was my understanding that he had in mind protecting certain subbasins in that amendment.

I have not discussed this personally with him, and my knowledge about his amendment is from the reading of the Congressional Record, the debate on this point.

Mr. ROGERS. Of course, I can understand this, and I think if it was confined, we will say, to the Colorado River, where you have actually divided the basins into the upper and the lower basins

What I had in mind was whether or not there would be an opening wedge there for controversy to arise later on, for people wanting to set up their own basins and to try to make their own developments within the confines of the State boundaries.

Mr. STAATS. I think there has to be some judgment here applied. And of course this would be handled case by case, where the President and the Congress, actually, would participate.

Mr. ROGERS. Now, Mr. Staats, that is on page 7 of the bill?

Mr. STAATS. Yes.

Mr. ROGERS. And, Mr. Whitten, I apologize for leaving the subject matter for a minute.

I presume this is the Allott amendment, is it not?

Mr. STAATS. The proviso; yes.