the cost of transportation. Therefore you would increase the cost if we placed a charge on waterborne traffic as recommended in the Hoover Commission's recommendation No. 8.

Mr. MURRAY. I still am of the opinion that a portion of this cost should be shared by the

Mr. JONES. The user?

Mr. MURRAY. By the user. As to how much and as to how to go about it would take someone who is better informed than I am at this time.

Mr. JONES. That recommendation is complete within itself. Let me read it to you:

That Congress authorize a user charge on inland waterways except for smaller pleasure craft, sufficient to cover maintenance and operation, and authorize the Interstate Commerce Commission to fix such charges.

So if the ICC were fixing the charge for waterborne traffic over the Tennessee River it would have to take the cost of operation and maintenance of all the facilities engaged in lockage and affording transportation, such as the dredging of the canal, and seeing that the 9-foot channel is kept clear, and snagging, and bar removal, and operation of the locks. All of that would be an amount which would be determined annually by the Interstate Commerce Commission and be taken into consideration in establishing a rate to cover that maintenance and operation. It would be different on the Warrior system, because on the Warrior system you have locks and dams which are almost totally inadequate, so they would be high in operation and maintenance costs. Therefore you would have a different rate on that stream.

Mr. MURRAY. I do not know that I fully agree there for this reason: As I understand it, and if I am incorrect in this I ought to be corrected for instance, the Wilson steam plant I understand was a rather high-cost operation plant. Whether TVA charged more for the current that came out of that plant I do not know, or whether they lumped all of that plant together with the others and figured a cost for that I do not know. But it is possible such a system could be worked out for all navigable streams.

Mr. JONES. You mean compute the total amount?

Mr. MURRAY. Possibly.

Mr. JONES. The total amount of Federal investment for all of the navigation on the inland waterway development projects?

Mr. MURRAY. Possibly.

Mr. JONES. To arrive at a figure?

Mr. MURRAY. Possibly.

Mr. JONES. And even though the coal operators and shippers are carrying one of their most important commodities, coal, you would have the increase in coal charges imposed on the producers who ship that coal?

Mr. MURRAY. I would be for that. Yes.

Mr. JONES. Let me ask you another question. The President transmitted to Congress a request in the form of legislation which was subsequently considered by the Senate and passed there, but not in the House, and which will be considered again in the second session. That proposed legislation was that the Federal Government appropriate some $24 billion, of which 90 percent would go to the inter

state road system for use on a 40,000-mile system of superhighways to be used by the people of this country. Do you think, since that is a Federal investment, that the users of that highway should pay for the cost of construction, maintenance, and operation of that project? Mr. MURRAY. I am not prepared to answer that question.

Mr. JONES. Would it not fall in the same category as making Federal funds available for the transportation system of this country where those funds are being invested in the navigation features of the streams of this country?

Mr. MURRAY. It might possibly be construed that way. It might possibly.

Mr. JONES. If a trucking business is hauling over the highways, do you think that the coal trucks should bear the cost of the movement of coal over and above that of the ordinary users of the highway in paying for the highways they use?

Mr. MURRAY. I have heard of some cases where the tax runs rather heavy on a commodity where the tonnage is over a certain amount on a highway.

Mr. JONES. Of course, the steamships operating on an inland waterway pay taxes on their property and pay the Federal excise taxes on fuel and oil and grease and other commodities, which taxes the Federal Government gets. It also goes into the Federal Treasury of the United States; does it not?

Mr. MURRAY. I would think so.

Mr. JONES. Therefore the water shipper is making a contribution in the same manner and in the same way that a user of the highway is, with the exception of having rates fixed by the Interstate Commerce Commission; and also for the difference in ad valorem tax that he pays on the property employed in the transportation system. However, your chief complaint is against the disadvantage you suffer from competing mine operators in the western part of Kentucky who sell coal to the Colbert steam plant. Is that correct?

Mr. MURRAY. We say in that case it works a very bad inequity. Mr. JONES. What is your freight rate from the producing area up to the Colbert steam plant?

Mr. MURRAY. Our freight rate from the producing area to the Colbert steam plant is $1.15.

Mr. JONES. How does that compare with a bauxite shipmentwith one coming from the Mobile area to Muscle Shoals, Ala.

Mr. MURRAY. I do not know.

Mr. JONES. Do you know what railroad company ships that bauxite from Mobile to Sheffield?

Mr. MURRAY. It is possible it could be the Southern, possibly.

Mr. JONES. Isn't the Southern also the railroad which serves the area where you would expect to ship most of your coal from Birmingham?

Mr. MURRAY. That is correct.

Mr. JONES. In the Warrior field?

Mr. MURRAY. That is correct.

Mr. JONES. What rate reduction has been made to the operators in that area by the Southern Railroad Co. for the shipment of coal to Pride, Ala.?

Mr. MURRAY. What is that question?

Mr. JONES. What rate reductions have been made to put you in a competitive position to sell coal to the TVA Pride station?

Mr. MURRAY. There was formerly a rate of about $1.59, and there is now a rate of about $1.15. There was a rate of $1.59 to the Wilson steam plant, as I recall it.

Mr. JONES. Were there not negotiations between you and the TVA and the Southern Railroad to try to arrive at a figure which would put you in a competitive position to sell coal?

Mr. MURRAY. Yes.

Mr. JONES. Did that agreement bear fruit?

Mr. MURRAY. We have not-they were not able to make us a rate as cheap as we told them it would take to get in there. We appreciated what they did. We think they went as far as they could go, but they were not able to meet what most of us

Mr. JONES. Your immediate problem in favoring recommendation No. 8 is to see that a user's toll charge be placed on the shippers on the Tennessee River and leave all of the other rivers free. That would suit you more than imposing tolls on all of the inland waterways, would it not?

Mr. MURRAY. That is not what I said.

Mr. JONES. That is in substance what you would have to conclude based on your testimony, would you not?

Mr. MURRAY. I do not think so.

Mr. JONES. Then you are for imposing the toll on all other coal operators and the shippers who are going to use these inland waterways for the dispatch of the coal produced in these areas?

Mr. MURRAY. We are for imposing a toll on all inland waterways. The amount of that toll, I would go so far as to say, we are not well enough informed on. But we do agree with the principle of this recommendation here. We agree with it in principle.

Mr. JONES. Are there any further questions?

(No response.)

Mr. JONES. Thank you very much.

Mr. MURRAY. Before leaving I would like to see if there is anyone who disagrees or who wants to make a correction to anything I have said. Any of these gentlemen whom I represent? Mr. Craig? Mr. Stabler? Mr. Lee?

Thank you very much.

Mr. JONES. Thank you, Mr. Murray.

Our next witness is the distinguished Governor of the State of Tennessee, the Honorable Frank G. Clement.

STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK G. CLEMENT, GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE

Governor CLEMENT. Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to be with you and I want to thank you for this opportunity to appear. Mr. JONES. It is a pleasure to have you, Governor. We know of your great interest in the water resources not only of Tennessee, but we know that you are dedicated to the proposition of improving our water resources and the use of water wherever it may be throughout the country.

Governor CLEMENT. Thank you very much. I want to thank you and each member of this committee for the privilege of being with

you. I am delighted to be here in the presence of the two distinguished Senators from Alabama, Senator Sparkman and Senator Hill, both of whom have certainly shown not only a great deal of interest in this problem, but have contributed a great deal constructively.

Before I get into the testimony I would like to submit for your consideration, I would like to make another observation.

I received a memorandum recently from the commissioner of public health of the State of Tennessee, Dr. Hutchinson. He is well known to the health authorities in your respective States. He is a career man who served under several of my predecessors, and is a distinguished man in the field of public health. I do not know what prompted him in sending me such a memorandum, but he did send me a memorandum in which he said that within a very few years this water problem that you are considering today will be the No. 1 problem with which nearly every public official and the people interested in the welfare of the community, State, and the Nation, will have to concern themselves with. He went on to say that it would be a problem which would be not just one of the problems, but in his opinion it will be the biggest problem probably of the day.

So I offer you that from a man who did not know of this hearing. It was given to me long before this hearing was even scheduled. As I say, I have not seen him to find out what prompted the memorandum, but I thought you would be intereted in it.

Congress is to be congratulated on the creation of this subcommittee, and you committee members are to be congratulated on the energy with which you are prosecuting your assignment. There is no more important subject among those that congressional committees have undertaken to investigate in recent years, than is yours, as I tried to indicate in my preliminary remarks. There is no graver physical concern confronting this Nation today than that of its future water supply and control. Not only our industrial and agricultural welfare, but our national life itself is involved. And our concern is measured not alone by the essential nature of water, but by several very serious problems that confront us in our efforts to plan ahead for an adequate supply and control for the future.

Keeping pace with the explosion of population and the vast expansion of industry that the middle years of the 20th century have brought to the United States has become an increasingly pressing matter. More than 1,000 American cities and towns have water-shortage problems. Underground water tables are reported to be lowering in most of the country. I am told that from Texas to California the average drop in the water table is 40 feet. Our industry has become a gargantuan consumer of water. I am told that it takes 320,000 gallons of water to produce 1 ton of steel-600,000 gallons of water to produce 1 ton of synthetic rubber. And so on.

Stream pollution is perhaps an even more serious aspect of the water problem than the quantity of supply itself. We are told that millions of citizens-31 million, in fact-live in cities with no water treatment facilities at all. And there is another forty-odd million that have facilities in varying degree inadequate.

I would not tax you gentlemen with facts that I am sure are already familiar to you, but I recall these merely to circumstantially frame the cause and occasion that brings us together in this hearing. It was in response to so grave a situation that the President of the United

States 2 years ago gave into the hands of his Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government the problem of water resources and power in its relation to our political life. And it is for a resolution of our imperative water problems that this Commission and the task force named by its Chairman to study this specific assignment, have compiled and presented their three-volume report to the Congress and the public.

I am not competent to speak on all matters reported and commented on and recommended about in these volumes that your subcommittee is concerned with. Moreover, I can speak merely as a layman and a public official. But there is one enterprise and area in particular that come into the considerations of the Commission and the task force about which I do feel that I am capable of bearing witness. And that enterprise is the Tennessee Valley Authority, and that area is the area in which we now are gathered, that of the Tennessee Valley.

However, in reviewing the Commission report and adding to this my examination of the report of the task force on water resources and power, I gain the general impression that Mr. Herbert Hoover and his associates are recommending for the remainder of the country, on the subject of water resources and power, the New England systemthat is, private-power lobby paralysis and yearly flood washouts.

Now we have known something of that system in the Tennessee Valley, though it was a long time ago. And those of us who have any knowledge, direct or indirect, of that earlier day, I am sure do not want to see its return. I don't even believe that the people of New England, just after the recent costly floods they have suffered, would want to wish the New England system on anybody else.

Mr. JONES. Governor, we have just returned from a hearing up there.

Governor CLEMENT. Is that right?

Mr. JONES. Of course, I think the people of New England are paying for their indifference toward their water-resources problem. We were cheered by the fact that it looks now as though they want to do something about it.

Governor CLEMENT. I will say this to you, Congressman. I do not claim to have the answers to all of the problems and I do not believe the Governor of Tennessee should attempt to tell the governors of the States of New England what they should do; but I do think that all of the people of all the country must be concerned about the terrible situation which they have been confronted with.

Speaking for the people of Tennessee, we are willing to do whatever-in the framework of our Government and our Constitutionwhatever is morally right and legally proper. We are willing to bear our share in trying to see that the people of New England get not only charity from us after the floods, but help from us so that they will not occur in the first place.

Ladies and gentlemen, as I understand the significance of the Hoover Commission report, I would say that while its recommendations are briefer, more indirect, and more abstractly worded, they would be scarcely less destructive of the TVA and the idea behind it than those of the task force itself. The Commission did not openly and militantly and specifically and by name assail the Tennessee Valley Authority, its operations and aims, but at least two items

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