Table 4.-The State management of natural resources-Agencies and functions Explanation of symbols.-The asterisk (*) indicates that the function is performed by the principal resources agency reported in the first column. The use of "X" indicates that the function is performed by an independent agency. The subsymbol (a, b, or c) indicates that the function is performed by an agency in association with some other function as identified by the same subsymbol. The use of "G" refers to a geological survey which is frequently interested in land and water problems, although this has not been specifically indicated. Illustration.-In Ohio the Conservation Division of the Depart ment of Agriculture is concerned with wildlife, water, parks, and forests, while one independent agency is concerned with wildlife and forests, another with land, parks, and forests, while there are 2 other agencies concerned with water, and 2 with minerals (including the geological survey)} Table 4.-The State management of natural resources-Agencies and functions-Continued 1 Arkansas has a conservation commission (1933, Acts 234) but its functions are limited to minerals and publicity (identified as "X"). * Also concerned with archeological remains. Maine's development commission (1935, c. 180) is concerned with wildlife, water and parks (identified as "Xa"). Maryland has a conservation commission (1916, c. 682) but its functions are confined to wildlife (identified as "X"). Also concerned with State publicity. • New Hampshire's planning and development commission (1935, c. 6) is concerned with wildlife, water, parks, forests, and mineral resources. NOTE.-The names of these agencies will be found in appendix D. Most of the State planning boards are more or less concerned with all the phases of natural resources, but this has not been specifically indicated on this table. While the State conservation of natural resources is sufficiently complex in the 27 States reporting some "principal agency," the situation is much more complicated in the 21 States having no such agency. This conclusion is borne out from the following facts: 1 State is reported to have 13 independent agencies; 2 States to have 12; 1 State, 11; 1 State, 10; 4 States, 9; 6 States, 8; 2 States, 7; 3 States, 6; and 1 State, 5. The average number of independent agencies in this group of 21 States is 9, 4 more than the average in the group having a "principal agency." It would appear that the problem of the State management of resources in this latter group is not merely one of complexity; it is one of adequacy as well. Where the number of independent State agencies tends to be large, it will prob ably be found that no one agency has very many powers or much money. Unfortunately data are not available to determine the validity of this hypothesis. It should be clear that there is a very definite problem of coordination of State activities in the field of natural resources, both in the 27 States having a "principal agency" and in the 21 States without such an agency. Such data as exist tend to suggest that the problem is more difficult in the 21 States because of the fact of sheer number and the absence of any agency that may become the nucleus for such coordination. No suggestion is here made that all the natural resources should be governed by one "grand department" and by no other agency.3 36 The facts of modern government are like all modern facts, they do not admit of mu tually exclusive classifications. The problem of coordinated management of resources is typically one of "more or less," varying from the case of a single agency exercising exclusive control of all resources to a large number of legally independent agencies performing a multitude of overlapping functions. One of the fertile fields of inquiry and action by the emerging State planning agencies may well be the invention, adoption, and provision of various devices for achiev ing some degree of order out of the chaos that still characterizes the management of natural resources in some States. Agencies Organized for the Primary Purpose of Comprehensive Planning. The purpose of the conservation agencies is not primarily planning but the conduct of the day-to-day activities of the State in the management of its resources. Incidentally to the performance of this task some of the State agencies have definitely engaged in planning activities, but planning has not been their primary function. An efficient administrative agency must plan in order to do its job, but its job is not planning. Some of the abortive State conservation commissions of the earlier period could perhaps be termed State planning agencies, in view of the fact that they did not assume any administrative respon sibility for the conservation of State resources because they were not sufficiently long-lived to begin their job of conservation administration. It is apparent from their reports, however, that they were planning to do the job of conservation, if the job would only materialize. In more recent times, however, prior to 1933 a few States had begun to experiment with organizations whose primary function is planning, not planning incidental to the performance of an administrative job.37 This concluding section is designed to discuss this recent trend. In the period before 1933 New York, New Jersey, and Wisconsin had taken official steps to recognize planning as the primary function of a State agency. An account has already been given in chapter I of the New York Commission on Housing and Regional Planning (1923–26) and its brilliant report on the "forces which have shaped the economic history of the State" in order to "find 35 "Conservation is not a function; it is rather a policy, an attitude of mind. Oil conservation involves one sort of tech nology; water conservation, another. They have nothing in common except an idea, and they may be accomplished by different means. There is, therefore, no reason why oil conservation should not remain where it is-in the Corporation Commission." Brookings' Survey of Oklahoma (1935), p. 167. 37 See Bassett, Williams, Bettman, and Whitten, Model Laws for Planning Cities, Counties, and States (1935), pp. 28-30, 53-54, 73-74, 114-119, 131. 38 a basis for State Planning" as a permanent function of the State government.3 In 1929 both New Jersey and Wisconsin passed laws to provide for the organization of a State agency of regional planning. The immediate precedents for this legislation were city and metropolitan planning, and the function of the State agency was conceived in terms of the promotion of this type and level of planning. 39 Thus, the Wisconsin law provided that the "director of regional planning" should cooperate and assist all local planning agencies in the State to the end that their activities may be properly coordinated in the interest of the State as a whole; to gather and disseminate city, town, and regional planning information * * * The duties of the director of regional planning also included cooperation with the State conservation commission in "the development of a recreational system plan for the State" and with the State board of health in "the regulation and control of lake and stream platting." The director must be a civil engineer with practical experience in city planning. His office was attached to the highway commission. It was an expansion of this office that resulted in the present State planning commission. In New Jersey the legislature did not designate its special commission of 1929 as a planning commission until the supplemental appropriation act of 1930, but the functions were set out in the 1929 act as to "study and recommend to the next legislature a plan or plans to carry out and administer intermunicipal, intercounty, and interstate projects" and generally to effectuate "cooperation and coordination" in the construction and operation of public-work projects affecting more than one governmental unit." The commission sponsored a bill before the legislature dividing the State into four regional districts, each with authority to issue bonds for the construction of public works; but the bill failed of passage because of the strong opposition of local officialdom, and nothing more apparently resulted out of this regional planning commission." On the unofficial side, the Illinois Chamber of Commerce in 1931 retained City Planner Jacob Crane to outline "comprehensive planning for the development of Illinois." His report included a discussion of the major natural resources (land, minerals, and water), balanced distribution of population, localization of industry, and high water and airways. 43 Such were the State precedents at hand when the National Planning Board in December 1933 called the attention of State officials to the possibilities of financing State planning under the emergency-relief grants. The response of the States to this suggestion was immediate and overwhelming. All but one State (Delaware) has provided for an official State planning agency, by act of the legislature or executive order of the Governor, to serve as a "technical instrument of democratic government," in the words of the Iowa law, in planning the most effective utilization of the natural and human resources of the State.44 18 Supra, p. 15. 39 Cf. Charles A. Beard, "Some Aspects of Regional Planning," American Political Science Review, XX: p. 273 (1926). 40 Wisc. Laws, 1929, c. 276. 41 N. J. Resolves, 1929, No. 13; 1930, No. 7. 41 See City Planning, VII: p. 264. The reports of the New Jersey Planning Board have made no reference to the activities of this earlier committee, so far as the present author is aware. 43 The report was apparently made in January 1931, but the report examined by the author is dated 1934 and mimeographed "by courtesy of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce for the use of the Illinois State Planning Commission." In 1933 Mr. Crane prepared for lowa a 25-year conservation program, involving parks, wildlife, landscaping, land and water use and the selection of botanic and historic sites. See his article on "State Planning in Illinois and lowa," City Planning, VIII, pp. 89-98. In the same years the Brookings Institution in its survey of Iowa recommended the establishment of a research and planning council, with the director of legislative reference as its executive officer. Report (1933), pp. 606-607. This same recommendation was made in its Oklahoma survey, along with the recommended abolition of the existing State planning board. Report (1925), pp. 405-406. The Conference on State Planning, held by the American Society of Planning Officials in Chicago, December 12-13, 1935, vigorously objected to the Brookings proposal for confusing the functions of a planning board with those of a legislative reference agency. 44 Iowa Laws 1937, c. 235. Also Clifford J. Hynning and McDonald Salter, "Laws of Planning." State Government, June 1936. Source: (1) A National Plan for American Forestry (1933), as supplemented by data furnished by Prof. Joseph Illick of Syracuse University; (2) U. S. Geological Survey Bulletin No. 465 (1911) and National Research Council Bulletin 88 (1932); (3) original examination of State session laws; (4) T. S. Palmer, Chronological Index of the More Important Events in American Game Protection (U. S. Biological Survey Bulletin No. 41, 1911), as supplemented by data in the files of the U. S. Biological Survey and examination of State session laws; (5) data supplied by the National Park Service, as supplemented by Beatrice Nelson, State Recreation (1928). G signifies that a game agency was first set up independently of the joint fish and game agency. F signifies that the duties of the fish commission (reported in column 3) were extended to subsume game protection. 105 |