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Show to the end of developing, coordinating, and preserving a national transportation system by water, highway, and rail, as well as other means, adequate to meet the needs of the commerce of the United States, of the postal serv- ice, and of the national defense." The significant difference between the two policy state- ments is the emphasis on further development of water transportation in the act of 1920 and the stress on preser- vation of the inherent advantage of each mode of trans- portation in the act of 1940. It might also be added that one of the bitterest conflicts beween waterway develop- ment under existing procedure and the aims of the 1940 act comes when such development does not generate new traffic but merely diverts traffic from already existing means of transport. That projects concerning navigation are handled by a military agency, is due to the fact that in the early period of river development the Army was the only Federal agency that had available the necessary trained engi- neers, and tliat all efforts at reorganization have been successfully resisted because of the Army's engineering competence, the absence of a central transportation agency, and the engineers' excellent relations with local interests and Congress. In the transportation field, the two main agencies in- terested in waterway development are the Interstate Com- merce Commission, with its partial regulatory control over water transportation services, and the Department of Commerce which was originally established to "foster, promote, and develop," among other things, "the trans- portation facilities of the United States." * Conflicts and Inconsistencies of Governmental Policy and Administration.-Domestic water navigation fits into two major fields of Government activity, that of water- resources development and that concerned with national transportation policy. Added to this difficulty is the fact that Government policy in each of these fields has devel- oped in piecemeal fashion; action often has been marked by legislation, designed to meet the need of the moment. As a result, national policies are inconsistent and con- flicting, jurisdictions overlap, and gaps occur in the over- all policy structure. In the transportation field, the conflicts are perhaps most glaring, with promotional and regulatory activities to a great ex-tent moving in opposite directions, and with no one agency responsible for the execution of the trans- portation policy enunciated in the act of 1940. In regard to water transportation, the Engineers, TVA, and other agencies to a smaller degree, are charged with its pro- motion through the improvement of the Nation's harbors and inland waterway system, while, on the other hand, the use of thte improved waterways is restricted through the regulatory activities of the ICC. And both types of activity are often in conflict with the aim of recognizing and preserving the inherent advantage of each mode of transportation.2 Furthermore, there are the basic conflicts between opti- mum water resource developments and the requirements of a national transportation policy. The former calls for maximum river improvement and canal construction and encouragement of water transportation; the latter demands a careful balancing of the advantages of water transporta- tion in comparison with other modes of transport, prin- cipally railroads. The question of toll charges highlights the conflict. From the viewpoint of the development agencies such as TVA, the levying of toll charges would prevent the full utilization of improvements made for the purpose of stimulating water transportation-improve- ments which are an integral part of the over-all water de- velopment plan. From the viewpoint of a national trans- portation policy, the fact that water carriers are not re- quired to pay their own way at present whereas railroads are * required to do so, constitutes a barrier to the goal of traffic allocation among the competing types of carrier service according to inherent economic advantage.* While domestic water navigation projects are in the midst of a tremendous conflict in both policy and admin- istrative jurisdiction, the former is not the result of ad- ministrative policy making and the latter is not the result of an unauthorized poaching on the reserves of one execu- tive agency by another; the policy conflict is a policy con- flict expressed in the laws of the land; and the conflict over jurisdiction is the inevitable result of apportioning among several agencies what is basically one job. The policy of not charging tolls is clearly stated in rivers and harbors legislation, more specifically in the act of July 5, 1884, as amended by the act of March 3, 1909. And the policy of preserving the inherent advantage of each mode of transportation is just as firmly expressed in the Transportation Act of 1940. The policy of promoting waterway development is stated in the Transportation Act of 1920 as well as in river and harbor legislation, and the policy of restricting and conditioning water carrier service is authorized by the Interstate Commerce Act, as amended in 1940. Instead of a situation in which policy making by executive agencies creates frictions in a unified legisla- tive program, the reverse situation exists in that the basic incompatibility of present waterway development policy and national transportation policy has been obscured by lack of appropriate executive consideration and action on the latter. In regard to administrative conflicts, none exists on single-purpose navigation projects. These are and al- ways have been the job of the Army Enginers. Conflicts on past multiple-purpose projects are not so much due to a difference in method, but, at least in the case of navigation, to a division of responsibilities and overlapping of jurisdictions of various agencies. Pressure to allocate costs to a nonreimbursable use such as navigation would be eliminated through the establish- ment of a policy of toll charges.6 1 Interior and Agriculture, mentioned with respect to water- resource development, are also among the agencies concerned with the transportation aspects of waterways, because of their interest in the hauling of mineral products and farm produce, respectively. 2 A more sp>ecific inconsistency is the practice of charging tolls on the Panama Canal while no user charges are made on the inland waterway system ; the important role of the Canal in international trade and its competitive position vis-a-vis the Suez Canal ar« cited to justify this special treatment. 3 In their development stage, the railroads received huge subsidies, but Congress has concluded that these have all been amortized, so that the rails now stand on their own feet. 4 In theory, a fair test of economic efficiency between the various domestic carriers would be provided either by sub- sidizing them all to the same extent (for example, financing all fixed costs) or by having no subsidies at all. 5 Flood control would still remain nonreimbursable, of course. Probably, benefits are too widespread to make a policy of recovering costs by user charges practicable or de- sirable. 432 |