May
12
Rep. John Linder’s 21st Century Water Commission Is Still Afloat
May 12, 2008 | Posted by Michael "Aquadoc" Campana
Jerry Sehlke just posted about a national water vision for the US, and what happens? A Congressman takes him up on that!
Rep. John Linder (R-GA), who represents Georgia’s 7th District, the northeast suburbs of Atlanta (Gwinnett County and environs), has seen his bill H.R. 135 to establish a “21st Century Water Commission” get voted out of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure’s Subcommittee on Water and Environment. Linder’s bill has been down this road before, getting House approval in the previous two sessions but no consideration in the Senate. His Senate colleague Johnny Isakson (R-GA) hopes to change that should the bill be approved by the House.
Third time’s a charm, right?
Download linder_pr_water_bill_2008.pdf
Download hr_135_21_century_watercommission.pdf
Linder is one of the founders of the House Water caucus and spoke at our First and Third Water Policy Dialogues [access his most recent address here: http://awra.podshowcreator.com/podcasts.aspx?feedid=994]
Download congresswatercaucus.pdf
Linder’s bill establishes a nine-person commission with a three-year life and a $9M budget. The commission members will be unsalaried. The keys are not only the commissioners themselves, but also the staff positions and the Director, all of whom are salaried. The commission will study and develop recommendations for a comprehensive water strategy to address future water needs.
Okay, here are the “good, bad, and the ugly.”
Good:
- The commission is a very good idea and its charge is long overdue.
- I like the idea of a water strategy as opposed to a water policy (thanks, Dick!).
- States’ water prerogatives will be respected.
- Conflicts and duplication among Federal water agencies will be addressed (great idea - good luck!).
- Water quality and environmental considerations are embedded in the bill.
- The study will look at options other than simply trying to develop more supplies via infrastructure projects.
Bad:
- The commission, its charge, and budget should have been assigned to the The National Academies. They have experience with these kinds of studies, and would help ensure that politics would not rear its ugly head and that the “right” people would be appointed. I’d like to get a good water strategy, not the SOS.
- The commissioners should not all be “the usual suspects”; ditto the Director and staff.
- The bill calls for a 50-year horizon. A longer time frame is required - at least 100 years.
Ugly:
- The commission Director is appointed by the Speaker of the House and that’s a bad idea; too much risk of political shenanigans. The commission itself should hire the Director, a la the 9/11 Commission.
For those who say that the gravitas of the commission will be lessened by having the NAS involved at the expense of Congress and the President: ensure that Congressional hearings will be held on the committee’s report. There are precedents for this.
An amendment (in the form of a substitute bill) was recently added to Linder’s original bill by Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX). Here’s what her amendment does (all good):
- increases the size of the commission to 11 members;
- increases the budget to $12M over five years; and
- directs the commission to include the effects of climate change and climate change science in its report and recommendations.
Download johnson_substitute_to_hr_135_oberst_127_xml_2.pdf
Time will tell whether the commission will produce a workable water strategy, but it’s a long-overdue start.
But the real test will come when the commission’s work is done. Will the President and Congress heed the recommendations? About that, I’m less optimistic.
“I’d rather be upstream with a ditch and a shovel than downstream with a decree.” – Western USA water saying
Comments
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What relation do you see to the Western Water Policy Review Advisory Commission of the 1990s–other than what would now be a national focus? The background studies and policy papers for the WWPRAC were outstanding, but the political process that led to the recommendations was downright painful. It is interesting that many of the most-objected-to observations in the report were later folded into Interior’s Water 2025 program, but the report’s immediate reception was pretty flat.
Hi, Sarah.
Good comment. I think a lot could be learned by reviewing the WWPRAC report.
For the uninitiated, ‘WWPRAC’ stands for ‘Western Water Policy Review Advisory Commission’. You can find a copy at: http://www.den.doi.gov/wwprac/, or just Google it.
I have not revisited the report in about a decade so I cannot answer you very well. I do recall the response - I think to say its reception was ‘pretty flat’ is an understatement. I know it raised a lot of hackles among my water colleagues in NM (for a variety of reasons, some of which were unfair - need I say more?) and elsewhere in the SW.
Any commission with the words ‘national’ and ‘water’ will generate controversy - I don’t need to tell you that. I would prefer to see a report done using the NAS model as opposed to the Linder act’s model. Not that the NAS approach will not generate controversy; I just prefer the way NAS does things, especially the way it selects experts.
I am admittedly prejudiced; I have served on a number of these and been impressed with the way they work. I just got off the Klamath Basin committee. Contention, anyone? But not as contentious as the issue under discussion here.
I don’t kid myself that Linder’s approach will necessarily work or greatly improve things. But it is another incremental step on a long, tortuous road, and it is nice to see a MC not from the West propose such a study. That alone is an advancement.