Proposed “Valley Authority” Legislation

Ten bills proposing the establishment of “valley authorities” comparable in some degree to the Tennessee Valley Authority are now before the Seventy-ninth Congress, and it is likely that others of the sort will be introduced in this Congress or later ones. Whether any will be adopted during the present session is problematical, but it seems almost a certainty that within a few years the regional authority idea which has received so much publicity as a result of the success of the TVA will be given further impetus by the enactment of additional valley authority laws. The end of the war and the consequent search for opportunities to cushion the shock of reconversion lend weight to this view.Since the debate over valley authorities seems in no danger of ending immediately, it should be fruitful to analyze the contents of the pending bills, to compare them with the act establishing the TVA, and to point out some of the issues involved. No attempt will be made to appraise the bills or to indicate conclusions as to their worth or lack of worth.The chief issues are, of course, whether any more valley authorities shall be established, and, if so, where. The range of thought on these issues is underlined by the diversity of the proposals. Two of the bills which are identical—S. 555 and H. R. 2203—provide for the establishment of a Missouri Valley Authority. Four more—S. 460, H. R. 2923, and two more identical bills, S. 1716 and H. R. 5083—would set up a Columbia River Authority. H. R. 2540 would establish an Ohio Valley Authority, and S. 737 would provide a Savannah Valley Authority. H. R. 1824, titled “The Conservation Authorities Act,” would apportion the entire country among nine “conservation authorities” by enlarging the area over which the TVA has jurisdiction and by setting up eight new authorities—an Atlantic Seaboard Authority, a Great Lakes-Ohio Valley Authority, and Missouri Valley, Arkansas Valley, Southwestern, Columbia, California, and Colorado Authorities. A tenth bill, formulated by the Department of the Interior, and presented to the Congress at hearings before the Senate Commerce Committee, would establish a Missouri Valley Authority and would facilitate the establishment of other regional authorities.