Special Message to the Congress Recommending Establishment of a Columbia Valley Administration.

To the Congress of the United States:

I recommend that legislation be enacted reorganizing certain Federal activities in the Columbia River Valley to the end that the Federal Government may play a more effective part in the development and conservation of the resources of the Pacific Northwest.

The resource activities of the Federal Government in this region are of great importance, not only because of the Government's responsibility with respect to the waters of the Columbia River and its tributaries, but also because of the extensive Federally-owned lands within the region.

Many Federal agencies have long participated in these activities to some degree, and the coordination of their separate activities presents a difficult organizational problem.

In general, two main objectives should guide the organization of the Government's resource activities. There should be unified treatment of the related resources within each natural area of the country-generally the watershed of a great river-and within the framework of sound nationwide policies. Furthermore, there should be the greatest possible decentralization of Federal powers, and the greatest possible local participation in their exercise, without lessening the necessary accountability of Federal officials to the President and to the Congress.

The traditional method of organizing the Government's resource activities, through departments and bureaus which carry on separate nationwide activities, does not itself provide for the unified consideration of each area's resources which is so necessary, nor does it easily lend itself to decentralizations. It has long been apparent that some organizational adjustments are necessary.

We have not found--nor do I expect that we shall find--a single organizational pattern that will fit perfectly the resource problems in the many diverse areas of the country.

The Tennessee Valley Authority, with headquarters in that Valley, has been spectacularly successful in achieving many of the goals of a wise and balanced use of resources, through its own activities and through close cooperation with other Federal agencies and with State and local organizations. The integration of Federal activities, through the TVA, has contributed greatly to the growing prosperity of that region, and has met the acid test of satisfying the people who live there.

More recently, Federal interagency committees have been established in several of our western river basins, under the leadership of an interagency committee in Washington, D.C. These committees have proved useful in improving the coordination of Federal activities in those basins.

This committee system, however, has obvious limits, since none of the field representatives of the several departments and agencies concerned is responsible for an over-all view of all the resources of an area. Furthermore, the field committees have no power, other than the separate delegation of authority made to their members, and important problems must be referred through separate channels to headquarters in Washington, D.C., for decision there.

In improving the organization of Federal activities in the Pacific Northwest, we must recognize the unique features of that region. The Pacific Northwest--comprising principally Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and western Montana--is a relatively undeveloped area of our Nation, rich in resources and opportunities. The grand dimensions of the Columbia River give consistency to the problems, needs and opportunities of the region.

The waters of the Columbia River system (among our rivers second only to the Mississippi in flow) are capable eventually of producing more than 30 million kilowatts of electric power, of which only a little more than 3 million kilowatts are now installed. There are possibilities of reclaiming many more acres of land by irrigation, as they may be needed, in addition to the 4 million acres now irrigated. More than 40 percent of the Nation's saw timber and many important minerals, including 60 percent of our known phosphate reserves, are in the region. Properly developed and conserved, the resources of the Columbia Valley region can furnish enormous benefits to the people living there and to the Nation as a whole.

The Pacific Northwest has been developing very rapidly in recent years. The population has jumped 37 percent since 1940. The tonnage of agricultural production (not including livestock and livestock products) has risen about 25 percent in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho between 1940 and 1947. Total income payments have increased 200 percent since before the war in those three States, as compared to 150 percent for the country as a whole. The per capita income is among the highest in the Nation. These are signs of the progressive energy of the people of the region, and of the growth that can occur there.

However, this growth will not take place to the extent necessary to provide adequate employment for the growing population unless there is a steady program of investment in the development of basic resources in accordance with broadly conceived conservation and development plans.

The activities of the Federal Government have already been of great help. Bonneville and Grand Coulee Dams and the Bonneville power system, begun before the war, made possible the tremendous war and postwar expansion in population and in industry. Industrial development in aluminum, electro-chemical and electro-metallurgical industries, atomic energy, phosphates, and other lines is going forward rapidly. Each of these requires large amounts of low-cost power, in the production of which the Columbia River and its tributaries offer greater possibilities than any other river system in the country. Continued industrial progress depends upon turning these hydroelectric power potentialities into realities, since the present power supply is far short of the demand, and the region has no significant resources of coal or petroleum.

But far more than power is involved in the further development of the Columbia River for useful purposes. The disastrous flood of 1948 showed how much needs to be done, both in the river and on the land in the watershed, to reduce potential flood damage. The first irrigation water will soon be brought to the thirsty land in the Columbia Basin Project below Grand Coulee Dam, and other irrigation projects are possible. The important lower Columbia fisheries program, to adjust the salmon fishing industry to the dam construction program, needs to be pushed forward. The use of the river for low-cost transportation of bulk goods can be greatly expanded.

Various Federal agencies are now at work on these phases of river development, and a considerable amount of competent planning has already been done. In particular, the Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation have jointly worked out the framework for a comprehensive program of dambuilding. McNary and Hungry Horse dams are now under construction, and others are about to be started to meet urgent needs.

So far as river development is concerned, the task ahead is twofold. Present plans and schedules should be incorporated in a more inclusive, better balanced river development program. And a unified operating system must be established for the many facilities already built or to be constructed. These objectives require better organizational arrangements than we now have.

Furthermore, a great deal needs to be done to bring the land, forest, and mineral activities of the Federal Government into step with the water development program. It is questionable economy to spend millions of dollars for dams as part of a flood control scheme, unless at the same time we are doing all we can in the way of forest and soil conservation and rehabilitation, so that floods will be minimized rather than aggravated. Similarly, it is not sensible to spend millions of dollars to reclaim land, in order to create new farms, if at the same time we fail to take appropriate steps to save existing farm lands from being washed into the rivers.

It is obvious that Federal activities and expenditures concerning land resources need to be planned in relation to those concerning water resources. Here again better organizational arrangements are needed than we now have.

I do not wish to minimize the substantial progress that has been made under the programs as they have been conducted in the past. However, we have now reached a point where the growing scope and complexity of the Federal activities in the region require much greater integration and the full-time attention of top-level administrators if the tremendous potentialities of the region are to be wisely and rapidly developed.

I therefore recommend that the Congress enact legislation to provide a means for welding together the many Federal activities concerned with the region's resources into a balanced, continuously developing program.

In so doing I recommend that certain Federal activities in the region be consolidated into a single agency, called the Columbia Valley Administration. To that agency should be transferred the Federal programs of constructing and operating physical facilities on the Columbia River and its tributaries for the multiple-purpose conservation and use of the water, including the generation and transmission of power. These programs are now carried on by the Bureau of Reclamation and the Bonneville Power Administration in the Department of the Interior, and by the Corps of Engineers in the Department of the Army. This consolidation will provide not only for a balanced program of constructing dams, irrigation works, power transmission lines and other facilities, but also for a workable operating plan for using these facilities simultaneously for flood control, navigation, power generation and transmission, fish protection, and other purposes. It is plain common sense that the planning and operation of the system of river structures is a job for a single agency.

The Columbia Valley Administration would have the advantages of a sound foundation of basic planning already done, and a large construction program already under way. The bulk of its staff would be secured from existing agencies. It would follow the practice of existing agencies in carrying on its construction work by contract so far as Practicable. Under these circumstances, the establishment of the Columbia Valley Administration would result in no hesitation or delay in the development program. Instead, the Administration would carry forward the work already started in a more effective manner.

I do not recommend the consolidation of any other Federal activities in the Columbia Valley Administration. I do recommend, however, that the Administration be given direct responsibility for preparing definite plans and programs for soil and forest conservation, mineral exploration and development, fish and wildlife conservation, and the other aspects of Federal resource activities in the region, and the means to see that those plans and programs move ahead in step. Such plans and programs would be worked out in cooperation with all interested groups--local, State and Federal, private and public.

In this way the activities of the Columbia Valley Administration and other Federal agencies would be properly adjusted to each other and to the activities of State and local agencies, and the maximum degree of joint and cooperative action would result. In this way the activities of all agencies concerned with water, land, forest, mineral, and fish and wildlife resources can be brought into a consistent pattern of conservation and development.

The Columbia River rises in Canada, and part of its watershed is in that country. Under long-standing treaties, the governments of Canada and the United States consult with each other on any development projects which affect international waters, including the Columbia River. The Columbia Valley Administration can work out, in cooperation with appropriate Canadian agencies and in accordance with our treaty obligations, practical means of developing the resources of the Columbia River region, on both sides of the international boundary, on an integrated basis. It is my hope that we will be able in this respect to demonstrate to the world new ways of achieving mutual benefit through international programs of resource development.

A further vital element in developing a better organization of Federal resource activities in the Columbia Valley region is to bring about a larger degree of local participation. To this end I recommend that the Columbia Valley Administration be required to have its headquarters in the region, easily accessible to the people who live there. I recommend further that the Administration be required, with respect to all phases of its activities, to seek the advice, assistance, and participation of State and local governments, agriculture, labor and business groups, educational institutions and other representative groups concerned. This can best be done, as the Tennessee Valley Authority experience has shown, not through formalistic statutory machinery, but through the establishment by the Administration of a large number of advisory groups for its different activities and in different parts of the region, and through the use, wherever possible, of established local agencies to carry out the development program.

In these various ways the Columbia Valley Administration, while retaining its basic accountability to the President and the Congress, will be far more responsive to the needs and interests and desires of the people of the region than the present subordinate field establishments of the Government can be.

The Columbia Valley Administration should, of course, administer its activities in accordance with Federal policies which apply to the whole country. In seeking decentralization of Federal authority and appropriate flexibility to meet the unique characteristics of the Pacific Northwest, we should not establish different national policies for that region than for the rest of the country.

For example, the Administration should be required, in accordance with long-established Federal policy, to respect existing water rights and the water rights laws of the several States. The Administration should be required to follow the reclamation laws in contracting for the disposition of land or water in reclamation projects. It should be required to give the customary preferences and priorities to public agencies and cooperatives in disposing of electric energy. It should be required to demonstrate the economic soundness of the various projects it undertakes, and to repay reimbursable costs, in accordance with national policies. In short, its activities should harmonize, and not conflict, with Federal policies concerning agriculture, commerce, labor, and the other broad areas of national interest.

Finally, the Columbia Valley Administration should be given, with respect to its revenue-producing activities, appropriate financial and operating flexibility under the business-type budgeting, accounting and auditing methods established by the Government Corporation Control Act. Without detracting from the necessary control of the Administration by the President and the Congress, this will permit more business-like procedures and more steady and economical scheduling of construction and operations than are now possible.

These recommendations I regard as the fundamental elements of a better organization of Federal resource activities in the Pacific Northwest. They involve no expansion of Federal powers, no encroachment on the rights of States, communities or individuals. Instead they are designed to achieve a more sensible and unified organization of Federal activities, which will result in a more effective program for resource development and more effective participation by the people of the region in shaping that program.

The enactment of legislation embodying these recommendations will bring Government closer to the people-closer to the grass-roots- This means Government action that will be more responsive to the needs of the people.

In recent years the people of our country have come to understand that the progressive growth of our economy and the maintenance of national security depend largely upon the wise use of our natural resources. We have reached overwhelming agreement that our natural resources must not be wastefully exploited, but instead must be developed and used for the benefit of all our people, and at the same time must be conserved so far as possible to preserve their usefulness permanently.

We have been making great strides toward accomplishing these objectives. Private citizens and groups, local and State governments, and the Federal Government have all been doing more and more as we have found new technical methods and new ways of working together.

Much remains to be done. We will need sustained private and public effort over many years, based on a realization of the importance of long-range investment in developing and conserving natural resources. This is an effort in which each citizen should feel a direct responsibility--not only the private owner of resources, whose management of his property has an immediate bearing on the public good, but every other citizen as well, since the welfare of all depends upon the preservation and wise expansion of our resources.

I believe that the establishment of a Columbia Valley Administration along the lines I have recommended will enable the Federal Government to carry out, far more vigorously and effectively than is now the case, its part in the tremendous long-range task of developing and conserving the natural resources of the Pacific Northwest for the increasing welfare of the people.

HARRY S. TRUMAN