REORGANIZATION PLAN NO. 2 OF 1966

(Water Pollution Control)

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6, 1966

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EXECUTIVE REORGANIZATION,
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS,

Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:15 a.m., in room 1318, New Senate Office Building, Senator Abraham Ribicoff (chairman) presiding.

Present: Senators Ribicoff, Gruening and Muskie.

Also present: Jerome Sonosky, staff director; Philip Cook, professional staff member and Esther Newberg, chief clerk, Subcommittee on Executive Organization; James R. Calloway, chief clerk and staff director and Eli E. Nobleman, professional staff member, Committee on Government Operations.

Senator RIBICOFF. The committee will be in order.

We have a time problem here because we go into session at 11 o'clock. The committee is entitled to sit beyond that time. However, I have a responsibility of managing Reorganization Plan No. 1 which is under consideration today, so I will have to leave shortly before 11. Senator Gruening will continue until we all have to go for a vote. I am really pleased that Secretary Gardner, Secretary Udall, Mr. Seidman, and Mr. Quigley are here together, and I am wondering before we start the formal statement if I couldn't pose a question on something that bothers me and I think probably bothers Senator Muskie and Senator Gruening.

The reason we will do this before the formal statement is because we all will read your formal statements but I think there is a matter of importance here. First, under the leadership of Senator Muskie, there was gathered together for the first time, and I was enthusiastic for the program, Senator Muskie who has been fighting for it all these years to bring the whole water pollution centralized in one place. Then the Assistant Secretary, Mr. Quigley, has been running that program for just a few short months. It was my understanding that what was then contemplated was to do the overall problem of all water resources, including water pollution, to transfer this to the Office of the Secretary of Interior. We have before us in Secretary Gardner and Secretary Udall two very, very capable men, both dedicated to the public will.

Now what disturbs me, we suddenly find that instead of having this whole package together, as Senator Muskie had fought for all these years, and placing this into one agency, in a few short months it would

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seem, unless you people explain to the contrary, that we are fragmenting water pollution after this long fight, and dividing it up between Interior and HEW. Now we are all strong for water pollution and we want it to be an effective program, but what worries me, and I say this to my colleagues, is that we suddenly find it is possible that after all these months and all these years, we find the program divided. I am just wondering while we are all here together whether we couldn't have a discussion of just what are your objectives, what is being achieved, and are we actually dividing, instead of bringing together the program of water pollution. If my colleagues agree that they would like to listen to this discussion first, we will skip the formal statements with a few short minutes that I have, and I would like to be in on this.

I would say this. Let's not observe procedures of protocol. If someone wishes to ask questions, either one of you gentlemen whenever you wish to ask questions, please feel free to chime right in. I think we would like to get this discussion underway.

Senator MUSKIE. I would concur with your suggestions, Mr. Chairman. I think the questions that we have in mind are clear. I think also they are clear to the Secretary. I think it might be helpful at this point, since you have raised the question in this way, to read some portions of a letter which I wrote to Secretary Udall on February 7, some 3 weeks before the reorganization plan was submitted.

I engaged in this dialog with the Secretary and with others in the administration, as the President was considering his decision on this proposed reorganization plan. I had reservations which I stated in this letter, and so, if I may read excerpts from it to highlight my concern, which coincides with the chairman's to some extent. I read as follows:

"The forces of evolution may or may not transfer the program from HEW to Interior, or some other department." I did not realize at the time that the forces of evolution were going to move so fast.

I do not prejudge that question which in my judgment should be left to the future. This letter is addressed to the question, "Should the program be transferred to Interior now?" A little more than 3 months ago in 1965, after a long and sometimes bitter struggle, the Congress enacted the Water Quality Act which made some substantial changes in the form and direction of the Federal water pollution control program. These included transfer of the program out of the Public Health Service to a new Water Pollution Control Administration in HEW.

Now a little more than 3 months following that action, the President is being asked to dismantle and transfer the Water Pollution Control Administration before it has been fully established. Questions are bound to be raised in the Congress and outside about the wisdom of deciding that an agency is incapable of handling the assignment even before it has been able to assume its responsibilities.

The struggle over another administrative reorganization of the program within less than 6 months of the last transfer will further disrupt the current administration. Many of the new ideas of the program such as water quality standards, improved methods of dealing with combined storm and sanitary sewage, and accelerated development of advanced waste treatment methods would suffer. We cannot afford to continue to spin our wheels programwise while the country and the Congress plunge into another time consuming controversy and debate over the program's organization. The course of wisdom is to digest the organizational changes already authorized and implement the new program changes as quickly as possible.

Now, I undertook to set out these and other considerations which I thought pertinent to the White House, to the President and to you, Mr. Secretary, while the decision on this reorganization plan was pending, so that all factors, all evidence entering into that decision might be considered. The President made a decision favorable to the reorganization plan. I have not undertaken since then to do anything more than to consider and to listen to what others may have to say about the reorganization plan. I still have reservations and I think this hearing is the place to resolve them. I think we have lost some time and some valuable time in implementing the Water Quality Act of 1965. It may be that that time has been well spent, if in the long run this plan proves to be the wise step to take at this time.

I think now is the time to consider whether or not it is the wise step. I think the question raised by Senator Ribicoff as to whether or not we are indeed bringing together in one department all of the functions relating to water pollution in a way that is useful ought to be explored.

Senator RIBICOFF. Senator Gruening, would you like to make a comment before we begin?

Senator GRUENING. No. I share Senator Muskie's reservations, and I think that this is the place where these questions can be thoroughly debated. I notice here, for instance, on the list of witnesses, that there are no medical people. Pollution control is very largely a health problem, and, while it affects other aspects of our national life, it seems to me that we ought to have some medical people here to testify on this, and I am hoping that we can bring that out in the discussion.

Why have none of them been called, or will they be called? I think this is primarily a health matter, and while it is clear that it affects fisheries and other things of that kind, medical aspects seem to me to be superlatively important and I hope Secretary Gardner will give us some light on this.

Senator RIBICOFF. Before we continue, may I say to you, Mr. Seidman, that personally I am very disappointed with the type of reorganization plans that are being sent up here. I don't think that the Budget Bureau is achieving the objectives that I thought you were out to achieve when I discussed these with various people in the executive branch. It would appear to me that what has been going on is a series of bureaucratic accommodations, all throughout the Government, without taking into account the fact that there has to be a lot of reorganization in the executive branch of our Government. That there shouldn't be anything sacred, and no particular branch or department should feel that because they have a program that they should keep it. That we should look at all these programs in the whole Federal Establishment as to, as times change, should there be a new emphasis, should there be a shifting of functions from one department to another.

But as I gather it from the reorganization plans that are coming up, the various bureaus are getting together and trying to make a deal and an accommodation of what they give up and what they keep. Frankly, I couldn't care less about the bureaucratic infighting. I think the bureaucratic fighting and the fact that everyone wants to be a king of the bureaucrats leaves me absolutely cold. I think the time has come, if you mean to reorganize the Federal Government, to do a

good job or forget it. Let's not kid the public or kid the Congress along by sending up all these reorganization plans when we are not achieving the objectives we have set out to achieve.

I was under the impression that there were going to be real reorganizations coming up from the executive branch of the Government. I don't see much evidence of it in the type of reorganization plans coming up. So I think the executive department ought to do a job or forget it entirely.

Now I think, Secretary Udall and Secretary Gardner, all of us in this room are interested in water pollution. We want to do the best job possible. Senator Muskie and myself and I think Senator Gruening have felt that all water pollution problems and all the problems of water resources should be in one place.

When the matter was first broached I was very enthusiastic about it and I am still enthusiastic. The whole problem of water which is so important to our Nation's future should be under one roof. The decision was made by the President to place it in Interior. As far as I was concerned, that was all right, provided it was done.

Now what bothers me, is it being done? I think the comments of Senator Muskie and of Senator Gruening and myself have been made. Why don't you gentlemen discuss that with us? At this point in the record, we will insert a copy of the President's message transmitting Reorganization Plan No. 2 and a staff memorandum on the subject prepared by Mr. Eli E. Nobleman of the full committee staff.