Thirty-Five Years of Water Policy: The 1973 National Water Commission and Present Challenges

Concern about the availability and use of water to support the nation’s people, economy, and environment has bolstered interest in establishing a national water commission. The commission structure proposed in recent legislation (e.g., H.R. 135) is similar to that of the 1968-1973 National Water Commission (NWC or Commission). As proposed in H.R. 135, the commission would assess future water demands, study current management programs, and develop recommendations for a comprehensive water strategy.

Questions about a commission as an effective model and which topics a commission might consider have raised interest in assessing what the NWC recommended in its 1973 report, Water Policies for the Future, and how the issues that it identified have evolved.

The NWC recommended addressing the interconnection between water development and the natural environment, implementing a “users pay” or “beneficiary pays” approach, accomplishing water quality improvements, and adapting governance and organizations to meet water challenges. Since 1973, progress has been made in some of these areas; however, few actions can be traced directly to the NWC’s recommendations.

Nonetheless, the influence of the NWC on the evolution of water policy cannot be dismissed. Many of the problems that the Commission identified remain today, and some actions since 1973 have moved water policy toward alignment with NWC recommendations; others have moved it in the opposite direction of NWC recommendations. Shifts in institutional arrangements in general have reduced coordination of
federal water agency activities and in many ways have moved away from NWC-recommended multi-objective or river basin planning. State-federal tensions over proper and respective roles continue to cloud resolution of difficult water resource issues and complicate coordination efforts.

While many support better coordination of federal water activities and a clearer national “vision” for water management, Congress has not enacted overarching water policy legislation since the 1965 Water Resources Planning Act. Instead, water policy has largely evolved through executive and judicial actions, in many cases in response to piecemeal legislation. Congress continually modifies federal water projects through amendments to existing projects and programs through Water Resources Development Acts (WRDAs), Reclamation acts, water quality legislation, and appropriations decisions.

Incremental and ad hoc evolution of water policy, however, is not surprising. Water management is complicated by past decisions and investments affecting a wide range of stakeholders pursuing different goals. Specifically, federal and state laws and regulations, local ordinances, tribal treaties, contractual obligations, and economies dependent on existing water use patterns and infrastructure all affect water management. Attempts to untangle such complexities involve many constituencies with differing interests, and success is difficult to achieve. Expectations for a commission to achieve change in a complex system resistant to transformation may be unreasonable; instead, the influence of a commission may lie in how its recommendations combine with other drivers to support policy evolution.

This CRS report presents the NWC’s recommendations and analyzes how issues targeted by the recommendations have evolved during the intervening years. The report focuses on key federal-level recommendations, thereby targeting what has been accomplished since 1973, what issues remain unresolved, and what additional concerns have developed.