30. "I have given these bills only cursory study and am not, therefore, in position either to support or oppose them. Since they are administration bills, they have not been subjected to close scrutiny at local levels. I hope that committee hearings will provide answers to some questions which arise in my mind at this time. I should like, for instance, to be assured that an end result of this legislation would not be to slow authorization of sound projects that may be proposed through presently established channels, and that representation of the States on proposed commissions would be equitable. My position, therefore, is that congressional action should be slow enough to develop complete understanding and permit local study and intelligent reaction."

31. "I do not know exactly when my executive committee will meet next, but certainly not before the date established for these hearings. My own inclination about the bill is unfavorable, because I am always suspicious of this sort of thing."

32. "Time is too short for this commission to take any position on the bill at the hearing beginning August 16. Consequently, any comments regarding the bill will be made when a committee of the House holds its hearing."

33. "As many safeguards as possible should be built into it to prevent it from becoming purely a political patronage creature. I believe further that such an overall planning body is inevitable because of the universal nature of the problem."

34. "I personally feel that such important legislation should not be rushed through without adequate hearings and adequate time for our Association to formulate a considered opinion. I urge that you oppose any hasty legislative action on this bill."

35. "I have made a rather brief study of your analysis of the water resources planning bill and consider it as dangerous legislation. I believe that the Mississippi Valley Association should vigorously oppose this bill. As I understand this bill, it would take the work of the planning of projects away from a group, mainly, Congress, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Corps of Engineers, who in my opinion have done a very able job, and place the responsibility of this work into the hands of a few people appointed by the President. Because of the tremendous amount of money to be expended upon these projects these appointees would become powerful political people responsible only to the President, opening the door for a method to develop a very powerful political machine. This legislation also opens the door for the creation of valley authorities in opposition to the will of the people and in opposition to the majority of Governors of the various States of the valley. These authorities in my opinion would be more powerful than the Governors and State legislators and would be able to exert their will upon State and local governments. I believe that if the door is opened that these authorities could easily extend their jurisdiction to many other phases of our economy than just the problems of water. It is readily conceivable that these authorities could and would do a lot of the construction work involved in these projects with forces hired and controlled by them, thereby eliminating the contractors competitive bidding and private enterprise. I believe that our system of checks and balances in government and the manner in which the program is presently being handled is more desirous for our people."

Mr. CASSADY. Mr. Chairman, I listened to the testimony here last Tuesday. Several people, I think, attempted to leave the impression that S. 1111 was a cleaned-up version of previous legislation and that with the changes that had been made it had come with virtually unanimous support from all over the country.

Mr. Chairman, I do not believe this is true. It is certainly not true in the case of our association.

The Mississippi Valley Association is a voluntary regional association of commerce, industry, and agriculture, covering a 23-State watershed of the Mississippi River and its tributaries. And numbered among our thousands of members from coast to coast and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, are more than 100 regional and local organizations with an underlying membership of many hundreds of thousands. I do not believe there is a water resource development organization in America with such a broad, diversified base.

The policies of our association are submitted to a vote of the membership after an exhaustive analysis by committees of the association and these are reconsidered each year. Our members have voted unanimously to oppose this type legislation in 1962 and again in 1963.

We have had more than 2,000 members of the association from throughout the United States at our annual meeting in New Orleans last month and they adopted a resolution opposing it without a single dissenting vote. Nowhere, I believe, can you get a better crosssection of the considered opinions of the lay leaders in the field of water resource development, and they do not like this bill.

The resolution in part is included in my statement. I will not bother to repeat that, here.

One of the major features of S. 1111 is its creation of the river basin commission. We believe there is already a precedent for basin commissions and a number of interstate commissions and study commissions have already been established by Congress.

If such commissions are desired by the States, they have only to ask their representatives in Congress, and I am sure that the legislation would be forthcoming.

We do not believe there is a need for S. 1111 in order to accomplish this.

The Corps of Engineers has by far the largest responsibility for planning and developing water resource projects of any Federal agency, but in spite of this, the Corps of Engineers is the only Federal agency not represented on this proposed Water Resources Council by a member who has Cabinet level status. If such a Water Resource Council is created, the Corps of Engineers is the major agency in the field of water resource development

The CHAIRMAN. Just a moment, now. I want to be sure I understand you. The Secretary of the Army is by the wording of section 101 a part of the Council. Is the Secretary of the Army in control of the Army Engineers?

Mr. CASSADY. Yes, sir; this is true but the Secretary of the Army does not have the same status as the Secretary of Defense.

The CHAIRMAN. Your suggestion is that it should be the Secretary of Defense?

Mr. CASSADY. We believe the Army should be represented at least on an equal Cabinet level with any of the other Federal agencies.

The CHAIRMAN. I am not trying to belabor this problem because you cannot have your cake and eat it at the same time. If you want to get on the Cabinet level, well, you take the Secretary of Defense. If you want to get on the working level, where the Secretary would have equal rights with the other members of the Council, then you stay with the wording here.

You can have either one, as far as advising the committee is concerned.

You may proceed.

Mr. CASSADY. The Senate Select Commitee on National Water Resources in its Senate Report No. 29 of the 87th Congress, 1st session, said in part, "The Select Committee would be inclined to favor having fewer Federal agencies operating in the water resource field, rather than more agencies. However, a new combined agency on water resources which merely incorporated all of the existing agencies under

a new Secretary at Cabinet level would not necessarily improve the present situation. Such reorganization might result in, merely, another layer of bureaucracy over the present agencies and many of the conflicts which are now aired openly would become interoffice in nature and come under various administrative secrecy rules.

I think in essence that sums up our position on this legislation, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Very good. You have 10 minutes. The Chair would recognize the gentleman from California if he has any questions.

Mr. ROYBAL. I have no questions.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Pennsylvania thereby gains at least 3 additional minutes. That is 7 minutes.

Mr. SAYLOR. Mr. Cassady, I am intrigued by the recommendation that your organization wants to establish a representative on the Water Resources Council to be of the same Cabinet level rather than the Secretary of the Army. Suppose we make this under the Secretary of Defense and you have a Secretary of Defense that is airminded and he then appoints the Assistant Secretary for Air to be his representative, because I am satisfied that no Secretary of the Interior, Agriculture, Defense, Health, Education, and Welfare, are going to come down and sit on this commission. It will be his name that is on it, but what you are asking for is to possibly do something that would be very detrimental to the Corps of Army Engineers.

Mr. CASSADY. I do not know that we necessarily advocate that the Secretary of Defense be named to this, but we feel the Corps of Engineers should be represented at least on an equal level, since they have the major responsibility from the money-spending standpoint. The CHAIRMAN. Will my colleague yield?

Mr. SAYLOR. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. I want to be sure I know for whom you are testifying, Mr. Cassady. You say you appear here on behalf of the Mississippi Valley Association and all the evidence I have heard so far is that you seem to be an advocate of Army Engineers. For whom are you appearing?

Mr. CASSADY. I am appearing for the Mississippi Valley Association.

The CHAIRMAN. Which is very friendly to the Army Engineers? Is that it?

Mr. CASSADY. We are friendly to the Army Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation, and all of the other agencies operating in this field. My point is we feel they ought to be on an equal basis.

The CHAIRMAN. You couldn't be very friendly with the Bureau of Reclamation. You don't have any irrigation from where you come from.

Mr. CASSADY. We represent the associations of the Mississippi and its tributaries. We operate from Montana to New York and from Canada to the gulf.

Our policies include a number of irrigation projects throughout the Missouri Basin.

The CHAIRMAN. I wanted to be sure we were understanding what your position is. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. SAYLOR. After having called it to our attention, Mr. Cassady, and having been one of those who sometimes has disagreed violently with the Corps of Engineers, this might be a good place to abolish the Corps of Engineers. I know they were created because at one time they were the only unit that had any engineers in the country and for that reason they were given certain authority. It is for that reason that they now have a representative, one of the three representatives in the District of Columbia, because at the time the Commission form of Government was set up, that was the only agency in Government that had any engineers. It has been a nice place for a fine colonel of the corps for almost a hundred years. He is appointed as a Commissioner. In view of the fact we have other agencies of Government that now have engineers this might be a good place to get rid of the Corps of Engineers and turn the function over to somebody else. Let's set up a Government agency that handles water problems. You might have opened the Pandora's box, the likes of which even you and the Corps of Army Engineers never dreamed. Mr. Chairman, I would recommend that we might ask the staff to take a look at this to see just how far we could go.

The CHAIRMAN. My friend from Pennsylvania knows we have been looking at this for a long time.

Mr. SAYLOR. Let's see if we can do a little more than look. Let's see if we can act.

Mr. CASSADY. Mr. Saylor, I think our position on that point is stated quite clearly in the last three paragraphs on page 2 of my statement. Mr. SAYLOR. "No reorganization plan should adversely affect any civil function of the Corps of Engineers." Why not? Since when has the Corps of Engineers become sacrosanct?

Mr. CASSADY. Not any more so than any other agency but we feel that the experience that they have gained is something that should be utilized with the Bureau or any other public works agency.

Mr. SAYLOR. The section I just read came from a resolution which you say was adopted at your annual meeting on February 3, 4, and 5, 1964, and of course I am delighted to find out that it was unanimous because that means that I do not pay much attention to it and nobody else should. This is one of those railroading affairs, but for the record, Mr. Cassady, I would like to know who drafted that resolution. Who was on the committee that drafted that resolution?

Mr. CASSADY. The committee is composed probably of 75 members, sir.

Mr. SAYLOR. How many?

Mr. CASSADY. About 75 members from all sections of the Mississippi Valley. I would be very happy to submit a list for the record of the people.

Mr. SAYLOR. Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent that Mr. Cassady be permitted to submit to us a list of the members of the Mississippi Valley Association who drafted the resolution which he refers to.

The CHAIRMAN. Together with the appointing authority.

Mr. SAYLOR. And the position that each one holds.

The CHAIRMAN. All of which will be placed in the record at this point when received.

31-928-64-12

(The information referred to follows:)

Chairmen :

WATER RESOURCES COMMITTEE

DISTRICT SUBCOMMITTEES CHAIRMAN INDICATED

Ed Ruisch, Iowa Public Service Co., Orpheum Electric Building, Sioux City, Iowa.

Roy T. Sessums, Freeport Sulphur Co., Post Office Box 1520, New Orleans, La. Secretary: James R. Smith.

District 1-Lower Mississippi :

Hu B. Meyers, chairman, Department of Public Works, Baton Rouge, La. Newman Bolls, Mississippi Levee Commission, Greenville, Miss.

Sam W. Cavett, 705 Booth Drive, Shreveport, La.

Sam W. Coker, Board of Levee Commissioners, Yazoo, Miss.

Bailey T. DeBardeleben, Coyle Lines, Post Office Box 6065, Station A, New Orleans, La.

Maj. Gen. P. A. Feringa, 317 Baronne Street, New Orleans, La.

Herbert A. Hamilton (Vernon Behrhorst, representative), Louisana Intracoastal Seaway Association, Post Office Box 200, USL Station, Lafayette, La.

Col. Wm. H. Lewis, Board of Commissioners, port of New Orleans, 2 Canal Street, New Orleans, La.

A. J. Pattie, Morgan City, La.

George E. Schneider, 910 Nashville Avenue, New Orleans, La.

H. K. Thatcher, Ouachita River Valley Association, Camden, Ark.
Calvin T. Watts, Board of Commissioners, Rougon, La.

District 2-Central Mississippi :

Eldon Hazlet, chairman, Kaskaskia Valley Association, Carlyle, Ill.
Wm. G. Blewett, Peabody Coal Co., 301 Olive Street, St. Louis, Mo.

Frank Drake, Union Electric Co., 315 North 12th Street, St. Louis, Mo.
Goffrey Hughes, Southern Illinois, Inc., Carterville, Ill.

Morton Meyer, Thompson-Hayward Chemical Co., 5 Carr Street, St. Louis, Mo.
Albert A. Wilson, Kaskaskia Industrial Development, 110 North Van Buren,
New Athens, Ill.

District 3-Upper Mississippi :

H. S. Byrum, chairman, Ottumwa Chamber of Commerce, 106 North Court, Ottumwa, Iowa.

Ray Eckstein, Cassville, Wis.

H. G. McKee, McKee Feed & Grain Co., 116 Spring Street, Muscatine, Iowa. Othie McMurry, Iowa Natural Resources Council, State House, Des Moines, Iowa.

H. B. Miller, Dubuque Boat & Boiler Co., Third Street Extension, Dubuque. Iowa.

Arlo A. Myers, Burlington Dock Board, 1519 Ashmun Street, Burlington, Iowa.

District 4-Northern Mississippi :

J. W. Lambert, chairman, Twin City Barge & Towing Co., foot of St. Lawrence Street, St. Paul, Minn.

J. W. Hoffman, Northern States Power Co., 15 South Fifth Street, Minneapolis, Minn.

Lloyd Layton, Osborne McMillan Eelevator Co., Box 2113, Commerce Station, Minneapolis, Minn.

District 5-Lower Missouri:

John B. Gage, chairman, attorney, Kansas City, Mo.

W. Coleman Branton, attorney, Insurance Exchange Building, Kansas City, Mo.

N. Ray Carmichael, the Auditorium, Independence, Mo.

Russell Crites, Crites Auto Body Works, Ottawa, Kans.

Charles T. Daniels, R. B. Jones Insurance, 11th and Central, Kansas City, Mo.

Ralph Duvall, Board of Public Utilities, Kansas City, Kans.

Ed Gumbert, Dannen Mills, Post Office Box 429, St. Joseph, Mo.

James W. Kelly, Associated General Contractors of Missouri, Hotel Governor, Jefferson City, Mo.

Kelly Lewis, North Dakota Drainage Board, Lower Silver Lake Road, Topeka, Kans.

Vern C. Price, Iowa Southern Utilities Co., Centerville, Iowa.