For each regional planning agency (except the Tennessee Valley Planning Agency which is to be administered by the Tennessee Valley Authority) the proposed act calls for the establishment of a regional planning director who shall be the chief administrative officer of the agency and devote his full time to the work. And for each regional agency at least one regional conservation committee is provided, but the members of such committee determine only matters of general policy and are required to give only a part of their time to the work. The proposed bill provides in case of need that more than one regional conservation committee may be named for any one regional agency. This provision will permit a subdivision of the work of a regional agency for different functional purposes or for different river basins within its jurisdiction. This provision not only gives flexibility to the regional divisions set up in the bill, but permits the gradual development of integrated activities within natural subdivisions of those divisions. It is obviously desirable to avoid at the start the setting up of an excessive number of regional agencies which might entail excessive overhead and administrative expense to the Federal Government. The present departments of the Federal Government, as well as State and local governmental agencies, do considerable planning within their own spheres. But there has been until now an absence of overall planning to ensure the most effective coordination and integration of various activities and policies. It will be the function of the regional planning agencies to develop integrated or overall regional planning, and they will be under the direction and supervision of a national planning agency at Washington, whose task it will be to see that the regional planning conforms to national policy. It will be the duty of each regional planning agency to submit annually to the President, or such national planning agency as he may designate, plans for the construction and undertaking of projects and activities for the promotion of navigation, the control and prevention of floods, the safeguarding of navigable waters, the reclamation of swampy and arid lands, and the conservation and prudent husbandry of the water, soil, mineral, and forest resources of the Nation, including the prevention of waste of the Nation's resources from droughts, winds, dust storms and soil erosion, and the control and retardation of water run-off and the restoration and improvement of the absorption and infiltration capacity of the soil. The plans are to be developed after study and investigation, and after cooperation and consultation with the other Federal, State, and local agencies. The President, after study and investigation by the Director of the Budget, the National Resources Board, and by such other agencies whose advice he may request, submits the plans to the Congress with his recommendations. In this way a flexible administrative procedure is provided that will bring to the Congress useful public works which are necessary to preserve, as the President has said, "the natural sources of a virile national life." Such works can then be undertaken not haphazardly but with knowledge of their urgency and their relation to our long-range as well as immediate needs. The carrying out of the projects developed and recommended by the regional agencies will have to be authorized by the Congress, and, insofar as the participation of State and local agencies is concerned, by these State and local governments. Projects will not be undertaken until the Congress makes the necessary appropriations. The Congress is to provide and to determine what departments and agencies shall be used to carry out these projects. It might be expected that the carrying out of most of the projects would be given over to existing departments of Government best equipped for the purpose. Obviously many important projects would fall wholly or partly within the field of the Department of War, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of the Interior, and such projects might appropriately be intrusted, in whole or in part, to those departments. The development of power at Federal power sites has, however, created new problems relating to the generation, transmission, and marketing of public power with a view to encouraging the widest possible economic use of power. These new problems, it is believed, require special administrative attention. For the administration of public power in the Tennessee Valley the Congress created a special authority. For the Bonneville project the National Power Policy Committee recommended a special civilian administrator, and the Bonneville bill reported out by this committee so provides. The effective administration of important public power projects would seem therefore to require a special administrstive set-up. The proposed bill accordingly directs the President to set up a regional power authority, whenever he deems necessary in the public interest, to administer Federal hydroelectric developments in that region. Each such regional power authority is to be managed by a civilian administrator, and the administrator is subject to the direction of a board of directors. The directors pass only on matters of policy, and are not expected to do administrative work. The powers given to the regional power authorities are taken largely from the experience of the Congress with the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, and from the report of the National Power Policy Committee on the Bonneville project. SECTIONAL ANALYSIS OF H. R. 7365-REGIONAL CONSERVATION ACT OF 1937 TITLE I Section 1: The purposes and policy of the act is to develop, integrate, and coordinate plans, projects, and activities for or incidental to the promotion of navigation, flood control, and reclamation in order to conserve natural resources and promote the general welfare. Section 2: Creates seven regional planning agencies (1) Atlantic Seaboard; (2) Great Lakes-Ohio Valley; (3) Tennessee Valley; (4) Missouri Valley; (5) Arkansas Valley; (6) Southwestern; and (7) Columbia Valley planning agencies. However, nothing in the act is to limit the functions of the Mississippi River Commission. The President is authorized to define or redefine geographical areas of authorities and agencies. Section 3: (a) Each regional planning agency except the Tennessee Valley, shall have a regional planning director and one or more regional conservation committees. (b) The director shall be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. He shall be a member, and may be chairman, of the conservation committee and shall be chief administrative officer for the region. No person shall be appointed director unless he professes a belief in the act; and he may not have any financial interest in a public-utility company. (c) Each conservation committee shall consist of the planning director and not less than two nor more than eight other members as the President may determine. They shall receive no compensation except a per diem plus expenses. All matters of general policy affecting a regional planning agency shall be considered and determined by the regional conservation committee having jurisdiction thereof. (d) The power and functions conferred upon the Tennessee Valley Planning Agency shall be exercised and performed by the Tennessee Valley Authority as now constituted. Section 4: (a) Planning agencies shall be subject to the supervision of the President or of such national planning agency as he may designate in order to assure conformity of regional planning to a national policy. (b) Each planning agency shall study projects undertaken or planned by the departments and agencies of the United States relating to the subjects covered by the act. Each agency insofar as practicable shall endeavor to coordinate these plans and shall consult and cooperate with the various offices or departments and may call upon them for information. Government departments are directed to cooperate with the regional planning agencies. (c) The agencies insofar as practicable shall consult and cooperate with States and their subdivisions and make available to them information and studies. (d) Each agency shall include in the plans submitted to the President recommendations (1) for economic and efficient cooperation in carrying out projects and plans among Federal, State, regional, and local agencies, and (2) for further legislation to promote such projects and plans. Section 5: (a) Not later than October 15 of each year each agency shall submit to the President plans for the construction and undertaking in the next fiscal year of projects for the promotion of navigation, the control and prevention of floods, the safeguarding of navigable waters, the reclamation of public lands, and for other regional integrated developments to conserve and husband the water, soil, mineral, and forest resources of the Nation. (b) After study by the Director of the Budget, the National Resources Committee and such other agencies as the President may request, if the President approves such plans, he shall refer them to Congress with his recommendations. Plans involving integrated developments traversing the geographic regions of two or more regional agencies may be assigned to any one of such agencies for study and report. Section 6: (a) Conservation plans submitted to the President by each agency shall include, among others, the following purposes: (1) Promotion of navigation; (2) control and prevention of floods; (3) safeguarding of navigable waters; (4) reclamation of arid and swampy public lands. (b) Such plans shall give due regard to (1) present and future development and conservation of water power for all beneficial uses; (2) prudent husbandry of soil, mineral, and forest resources; (3) prevention of irreparable waste from droughts, winds, dust storms, and soil erosions; (4) development of the multiple purposes of projects and the equitable distribution of their benefits; (5) equitable contributions to cost by States and their subdivisions benefited; (6) equitable contribution to States and their subdivisions of revenues from projects for such losses not offset or mitigated by benefits; and (7) such economic, social, and cultural values as may be affected or furthered by the projects and activities. (c) Plans may include projects to be constructed or undertaken with contributions by States or subdivisions or by States with contributions by the United States. (d) Plans shall be classified in the order of their urgency. Plans for reserved or less urgent projects shall be completed as expeditiously as possible and shall be modified as circumstances warrant to be available for prompt action when neces sary. (e) Each agency shall have power to acquire and maintain laboratories and experimental stations and to undertaake necessry research work. Section 7: The consent of Congress is given to the States to enter into compacts to further the purposes of the act. Section 8: Declares that it shall be unlawful to pollute navigable streams. Designates the Attorney General as enforcement agency in cooperation with the United States Public Health Service. Section 9: Provides for employment and employee compensation and directs that each planning agency shall deal collectively with employees through representatives of their choosing; all employees (except officers, attorneys, engineers, accountants, special consultants and experts) subject to civil service. TITLE II Section 201: (a) Authorizes the President in the public interest to create by Executive order corporate regional power authorities for the purpose of controlling, operating, maintaining, and improving facilities capable of producing hydroelectric power. It authorizes the President to transfer the control of any hydroelectric project from any department or agency of the Government to a newly created regional power authority or a regional power authority functioning in the same transmission area or the same drainage basin. However, no more than one regional power authority shall be created for the administration of hydroelectric facilities which are or may be economically interconnected by transmission lines. (b) Within 6 months after the passage of this act the President is authorized to create the Columbia Valley Power Authority to take over the facilities for producing hydroelectric power at Bonneville Dam. (c) Each power authority shall have a regional power administrator and a regional power board. (d) The administrator shall be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. He shall be a director, and may be chairman, of the regional power board. (e) Each board shall consist of the administrator and not less than two nor more than four other directors. The directors shall receive no compensation except a per diem and expenses. All matters of general policy affecting an authority shall be considered and determined by the Board. Section 202. Customary corporate powers are granted the regional power authorities. However, no authority shall dispose of any real property on which there is a permanent dam, hydraulic power plant, fertilizer plant and munitions plant heretofore or hereafter constructed by or in the behalf of the United States. Section 203: (a) The power authority shall administer such power facilities entrusted to it in a manner consistent with the promotion of navigation and other purposes set forth in the subsection, and in connection therewith shall have power to acquire, construct, and operate, maintain, and improve power houses, transmission lines, rural electric lines and substations to supply existing and potential markets. (b) The power authority shall make arrangements to dispose of surplus electric energy. Unless directed otherwise by Congress, locks, lifts, fishways and navigation facilities shall be operated by the War Department and the power administrator shall allot and deliver without charge sufficient power therefor. (c) The power authority in order to insure widest use of surplus electric energy shall build and maintain transmission lines and facilities and it may enter into contracts with public and private systems for mutual interchange of energy for emergency purposes. (d) States and public agencies including cooperatives shall be given priority and preference in the purchase of electric energy and reasonable opportunity shall be afforded for the creation and financing of such agencies. (e) Each authority may enter into contracts for the sale at wholesale of electric energy either for resale or direct consumption under conditions and limitations set forth in the subsection. (f) Rate schedules shall be prepared by the authority and be submitted to the Federal Power Commission for approval. Rate schedules shall be established so as to encourage the widest possible use having regard, however, to the recovery of the cost of generating and transmitting the electric energy including the establishment of reserves. Rate schedules shall to the full extent of economic feasibility provide uniform rates or rates uniform throughout prescribed transmission areas. (g) In the case of multiple purpose revenue-producing projects each authority shall allocate to the cost of power whatever part of capital outlays is applicable to power according to standards set forth in the subsection. Each authority shall determine the rates of amortization and such allocations and periods and rates of amortizations shall be subject to the approval of the President or such agency as he may designate. Section 204: (a) Each authority shall employ and fix compensation of officers, attorneys, engineers, accountants, and experts, but all other employees shall be subject to the civil service laws. Subject to Federal statutes each authority shall deal collectively with its employees. (b) The workmen's compensation law shall apply to each authority. (c) The prevailing rate of wages for work done by contract or directly by an authority shall be paid. Section 205: (a) Relates to purchase of supplies and the procurement of repairs. (b) Establishes rules with regard to audits and the payment of accounts and directs the Comptroller General to audit the books of the authority once each year. Section 206: (a) Each authority shall submit a financial statement to the President and Congress in December of each year together with a report on the status and progress of all its projects. (b) Each authority shall keep complete and accurate accounts of all its activities. Section 207: (a) Gives original jurisdiction over the authorities to the Federal district courts without regard to the amount in controversy. (b) No other Federal or State court shall have jurisdiction of a lawsuit against such authority or its agents involving the constitutionality of any law of the United States or the validity of any act or conduct of the authority or its agents done under the color of such law, without the express consent of such authority or agent. (c) Requires the filing of an appropriate bond in order that a United States court shall have jurisdiction to issue a temporary or permanent injunction restraining the activity of any authority. (d) Describes the nature of the bond and the conditions under which it is operative. (e) Relates to the assessment of damages under the bond. Section 208: Sets up the machinery for condemnation of property, and methods to be pursued in determining just compensation. Section 209: Requires that provision shall be made for power in the construction of any dam by or on behalf of the United States, unless the President, after study, directs to the contrary. Section 210: Penal section. Section 211: All receipts of each authority shall be covered into the Treasury to the credit of miscellaneous receipts. Sets up from the receipts of the authority a revolving fund of not more than $500,000 for each authority to defray costs and insure continuity of operations. Section 212: Exempts the Tennessee Valley Authority from the operation of this act except as to sections 207 and 208. TITLE III Section 301: Authorizes necessary appropriations. |