The question of an agency
If flexible coordinative planning's advantages for a place like the Potomac Basin are recognized, and it is accepted as the most reasonable and hopeful way to approach problems there, the question arises as to what kind of agency is best suited to carry it forward and to act on it. Besides certain unique agencies like the Tennessee Valley Authority several types of institutions are available that can be oriented toward a whole interstate river basin.
An interstate compact is a detailed agreement between two or more States to act toward a common specific goal. It needs the approval of Congress, but the Federal government usually takes no formal part in the compact commission's activities, nor are Federal activities in the basin subject to compact commission control. A Federal-interstate compact, on the other hand, does have Federal participation and provides for some limitation on Federal freedom to act on basin problems without compact commission consent. Compact commissions under either of these types of agreement can have wide or quite limited powers in regard to planning, construction, management, and such things, depending on the specific agreement itself.
Two kinds of Federally-directed bodies with primary emphasis on planning are in operation in various river basins. A Title II river basin commission, as defined in the Water Resources Planning Act of 1965, is formed by the President to carry out comprehensive basin planning, with a Federal chairman and members from Federal agencies, Basin States, and approved interstate or international agencies with jurisdiction in the Basin. A Basin inter-agency committee is created by agreement among Federal agencies for an assigned mission, usually the coordination of Federal and State planning through the exchange of information about programs and projects.
The main work of the Federal Interdepartmental Task Force on the Potomac has been done at the same time that the new Water Resources Council has been studying out its powers and putting them to use. Formed before the Water Resources Council, the Task Force was assembled as a unique entity rather than as one of the categories of Federal planning organizations mentioned above. But, having been shaped after a directive from the President and having worked in cooperation with the Basin States' Governors' Advisory Committee, the Task Force together with that Advisory Committee has been exercising some of the main functions of a Title II river basin commission. These commissions can plan flexibly, in stages, if this is desirable. They make recommendations for comprehensive development which can quite compatibly be implemented by a separate basin management authority, perhaps of a type recommended by the commission.
In these terms, the water-related recommendations that accompany this Interior Department report, which have been concurred in by the other Federal agencies on the Task Force and by the Governors' Potomac River Basin Advisory Committee, can be considered a first stage in a new approach to comprehensive planning for the Potomac. Hence it is time not only to undertake these recommended initial actions toward the balanced development and preservation of the Basin, but also to consider an agency or agencies to take over such coordinative planning, management, and operation as may be necessary. From the start, it has been recognized that a long-term management agency was going to be desirable, and we have been inquiring toward its definition. From the start also, it has seemed obvious that some form of Federal-interstate compact offered the most promise, for various reasons.
The direct and special interest of the Federal government in the Basin is extensive, and clearly justifies continuing Federal participation in any planning and development. On the other hand, to invest all or most management authority for such a politically complex region in Federal hands would ignore certain powerful realities, and would throw away a chance to achieve the most meaningful kind of "creative Federalism." The Basin States have shown strong willingness to take on responsibility and authority in relation to the Basin's problems and to cooperate with one another and with the Federal government toward their solution. An organization based in such cooperation could cut through much of the Basin's tangle of jurisdictions involved and to each of them individually, and would be responsible to each and all. It could mesh the efforts of the numerous and diverse action agencies sponsored by each jurisdiction and aim them toward overall Basin goals, probably more effectively than any other arrangement could.
Early in this planning effort, primary responsibility for inquiring into the desirable characteristics of such an agency was allotted to the Governors' Advisory Committee. After over two years' hard work by a subcommittee, the Advisory Committee has lately made public the preliminary draft of a Potomac River Basin Compact. It proposes a compact commission with broad power and responsibilities to adopt and maintain comprehensive plans for water resources and amenities, and to acquire, construct and operate facilities related to water problems and use, watershed management, and recreation. It would be financed by government and private funds, could issue bonds, would absorb INCOPOT, and would consist of six members—one each from the four Basin States, the District of Columbia, and the Federal Government.
The draft compact is currently being discussed at public hearings scheduled in various parts of the Basin, and is under review by the Water Resources Council. Undoubtedly it will be altered somewhat during these processes, and it will very possibly undergo further alteration at the hands of the State legislatures and the Congress, which will have to review and approve it before the agency it proposes can be created. All of this will take a good deal of time. The detailed features of the institution that may emerge cannot be precisely known at this point, and a specific Federal recommendation for its establishment is not yet possible. Nonetheless, the compact draft's essential principles—adequate authority, accepted responsibility, and protection of the interests of the participant jurisdictions while moving toward coordinated Basinwide accomplishment—are sound and needful ones, and offer the best kind of hope of implementing and continuing the sort of flexible, coordinated planning and action that we have advocated in this report.
The members of the Potomac Planning Task Force, the A.I.A. group, in their recently published independent report, have made a strong recommendation for a new type of Federal institution, a Potomac Development Foundation, which would be headed by a Presidentially appointed administrator and would have a planning staff and a top-caliber professional advisory board. It would not engage in construction, operation, or management of projects, but would be liberally financed over a period of five years out of Federal funds and would emerge as a self-sustaining agency with power to assist in Basin planning, to acquire land, to make grants for various purposes, and to sponsor appropriate development of the Basin's resources with low-interest loans. With a strong orientation toward ecological values, scenic preservation, architectural amenity, and recreation, it would emphasize a long-range approach to coordinated Basin planning.
A Development Foundation of this kind would obviously harmonize with the main principles enunciated in this present report. It is also envisioned by the A.I.A. group as compatible with a compact commission or other management agency, though they have recognized that the relationship between the two would need to be studied out at length.
The proposal is a bold one and an appealing one, with much promise, particularly in its potential for giving full weight to ecology and the amenities in planning. We are hopeful that its basic idea will get serious consideration during the period of institutional study and review that is coming up.
In the period before permanent planning and management machinery for the Potomac materializes, the Basin will get much protection against major disruptive change through the continuing interest of Federal and State agencies made aware of its problems during this first-stage planning effort, through improvement and preservation programs already in movement or initiated by this report, and perhaps most of all through aroused and informed public interest. There is room for a broadly based citizens' watchdog organization to keep tabs on Basin affairs and to exert leverage in such critical fields as local planning. It might be formed as a new group or might be built around an existing organization such as the new Potomac Basin Center, whose function has been to comment impartially and intelligently on Basin planning and prospects.