Advisory Functions Research Articles

The Canadian National Energy Board: Economic "Jurisprudence" in the National Interest or Symbolic Reassurance

The author of this article offers comprehensive examination of the scope and practical effectiveness of national regulatory efforts with respect to the Canadian natural gas industry. The scope and power of the controls available to the National Energy Board, and the practical use made of them, have been described. After first setting out the general historical and political background to the passage of the National Energy Board Act in 1959, the author undertakes an examination of the NEB's general powers, advisory functions with respect to the Governor-in-Council, specific control powers over pipeline companies, import and export controls and the like. The Board's progress concerning the four major gas export complexes is appraised. This discussion is followed by detailed consideration of four major administration difficulties confronted by the regulators: the development of procedural criteria with respect to the calculation of "exportable surpluses", the protection of domestic gas markets vis-a-vis price structures, the deter mination and application of "just and reasonable" export pricing, and finally, the promotion and maintenance of mutually beneficial co-operative undertakings with the United States. It is generally submitted that the NEB, on the basis of its past performance, has proven itself unable to effectively discharge the enormous responsibility of giving effect to the national interests at stake. Its inability to solve problems relating to the uncertainty of reserve estimations and the rate at which the domestic market would expand are suggested as probable causes of this failure. Improved methods of calculating reserves, coupled with clarification of the Board's constitutional position, would do much towards alleviating some of the difficulties presently being experienced.

INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT OF THE GREAT LAKES‐ST. LAWRENCE BASIN1

ABSTRACTNeither Canada nor the United States attach much importance to the International Joint Commission (IJC) judging by the size of staffs and annual budgets. The Commission has been restricted to a relatively minor number of functions in the Great Lakes‐St. Lawrence. It has investigated: the degree and causes of water and air quality deterioration; the effects of hydroelectric and navigation projects on water levels; the impacts of water‐level fluctuations; and the feasibility of a deep waterway from the St. Lawrence to the Hudson River. Projects approved by the Commission have produced less than might be expected through no fault of the Commission. The Great Lakes Fishery Commission has promoted little international management. Budgetary limitations restrict its lamprey control program; institutional limitations restrict its ability to deal effectively with fishery problems. Commission responsibilities are limited to coordination and advisory functions. Since Canada and the United States have not chosen to refer most aspects of river basin management to international bodies, an institutional void exists in the Great Lakes Basin to consider these questions on a continuous basis. There is a need for expanded international cooperation.

Criteria for Biological Research to Improve Agriculture in Less Developed Countries

The views expressed in this paper are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the Department of State. An expanding interest by biologists in the United States in the problems of less developed countries is quite evident. For example, almost every university now has an office, or more than one, dealing with international studies, foreign students, and contracts or grants involving its staff in other countries. The National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges has established an International Rural Development Office in Washington, D.C. Universities, professional, and other organizations sponsor seminars and workshops on international problems and suggest solutions. In late 1963 the International Council of Scientific Unions appointed a Special Committee for an International Biological Programme, which includes participation by biologists in our universities and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The USDA also is engaged in foreign work, not only by their Agricultural Attaches but also in developing training and educational programs for foreign visitors and students. In addition, the International Agricultural Development Service of the USDA administers numerous Participating Agency Service Agreements, financed by the Agency for International Development, through which their scientists perform advisory and research functions in many less developed countries. Added to the above efforts are those of several philanthropic organizations such as the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Agricultural Development Council, religious groups, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Federal Support of Schools of Public Health

T HE UNITED STATES has 12 accredited schools of public health, 6 public and 6 private. Each is part of a university that operates a medical school. The six public schools are at the Universities of California at Berkeley and Los Angeles and the Universities of Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Puerto Rico>. The six private school's are at Columbia, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Pittsburgh, Tul,ane, and Yale Universities. All six of the private schools were included in this study but only five of the public schools. The school of public health of the University of California, Los Angeles, was not included because it first became a separate, accredited school during the period covered by this study and its sources of support were not comparable to those of the other schools. Schools of public he.alth have a unique public service function in that their major responsibility is to give advanced training to physicians, nurses, and other health workers who are preparing for or are engaged in public service in Federal, State, and local health agencies, or in public health services in other countries. Since the number of schools is so small, each of the 12 accredited schools has a regional, or indeed a national, role. In addition to training students for work in many geographic areas', the schools through their faculties perform a variety of advisory and service functions for public healtl and related agencies. Enrollment in the schools of public health has increased substantially in the past 4 years. Between 1957 and 1961 enrollment increased by 13 percent, with a rise in graduate enrollment of 28 percent. Despite this increase, however, output of the schools falls far short of meeting the demand for trained public health workers. As new areas of public health responsibility emerge, the problem of providing adequate training to meet the manifest public need increases in urgency. The major teaching emphasis and operational cost in these schools relate to graduate education of professional personnel-the most costly level of education. In 1961 the 11 schools in full operation had 1,257 full-time equivalent graduate and special students, of whom 751, or 60 percent, were federally sponsored (table 1). Two part-time students are counted as equivalent to one full-time student. The figure 1,257 was derived from the total of 1,489 full-time and part-time graduate and special students reported by the schools of public health and is very close to the number of equivalent full-time students reported in computations for formula grants from the Public Health Service. Seven percent of the graduate and special students were sponsored by international agencies and foreign governments. These proportions were much the same in the public and private schools. In addition to the training of graduate students, the five public schools provide undergraduate training which is largely public health training for nurses. About a quarter of the undergraduate students were federally sponsored. Of the total enrollment, 52 percent were sponsored by Mrs. West is chief of the Health Service Requirements Branch, Division of Public Health Methods, Public Health Service. Dr. Gooch and Miss Raup are members of the staff of that branch. Data on students and sources of funds were obtained from the schools of public health in November 1961 by means of a mailed questionnaire.

The Fiscal Advisory Functions of United Nations Technical Assistance

Economic development involves the whole society of the developing country. The help that foreign countries can give in the process of development is necessarily limited, both in amount and in character. The United Nations has concentrated its aid to developing countries on “technical assistance”—a term that covers a wide range of activities. Along with help and instruction in particular techniques of industry and other such activities, UN technical assistance has also encompassed help and advice in matters of public administration and the execution of public policy in matters affecting development. Public finance is a field of special importance in this connection, both because of its direct importance to the process of development and because its complexity provides the need and opportunity for international assistance. The process of financing is intimately linked with every single activity in the economy and, therefore, the study of these problems affects every phase of economic development. Moreover, in countries which are still at the early stages of development, public finance must necessarily be used to support a nascent private enterprise sector. There is a need for providing social overhead and a necessity for adjusting the revenue system to the requirements of productive investment without eroding the base to an extent which would make it impossible to mobilize the funds needed for economic expansion.

The United Nations and National Loyalties

many years, attempts to establish international standards of law, government, and administration, have had to struggle with the traditions and prejudices of nationalism. International lawyers and reformers have been preoccupied with the problem of national sovereignty, the unwillingness of nation states to surrender any power of decision to another body. In recent years earlier efforts to work out blueprint constitutions for world government, world federation or other forms of direct assault upon national sovereignty have receded. Hopes have been centred upon the functional approach, the international institution which is concerned with a specific problem such as defence, food distribution, settlement of refugees, education or international aviation. The tension between international and national sovereignty has not lost any of its importance, but the strategy has changed. The predominant pattern of post-war international organization has been along these lines. A series of functional agencies has been grouped around the United Nations Organization. Most of them, like the Food and Agricuture Organization, the World Health Organization, the International Labour Organization, have only advisory functions, but they have struggled, and to a considerable extent succeeded, in laying the foundations of a genuine internationalism, of enterprises in which men and women of different nationalities work together in a common task. Most of these agencies follow the same pattern. The general assembly consists of national delegations which usually meet once every year. A smaller executive board is formed from these delegations, but without any doubt the heart of all these international agencies, and in particular of the United Nations itself, is the permanent secretariat, the full-time staff of international employees under the direction of a director-general, or a secretary-general. The permanent staff of the League of Nations had developed a genuine esprit de corps, and the I.L.O. was able to preserve itself beyond the collapse of the League of Nations and through the second world war because it has a nucleus of international civil servants. Article 100 of the United Nations Charter reflects the importance attributed by the founder members to the independence of the Secretary-General and his staff : 1. In the performance of their duties the Secretary-General and his staff

A report by the AEC General Advisory Committee

The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 provides in Section 2(b) that “There shall be a General Advisory Committee to advise the Commission on scientific and technical matters relating to materials, production, and research and development, to be composed of nine members, who shall be appointed from civilian life by the President.” The Act further directs that “The Committee shall designate one of its own members as Chairman. The Committee shall meet at least four times in every calendar year.” Beyond that, the Act does not specify how the Committee is to perform its advisory functions, how it is to obtain the information and analysis on which to base its advice, nor how to determine the issues to which it should direct its attention.

Commission Regulation of the Issuance and the Accounting Treatment of Security Issues for Water Works Purposes

Two of the most persistent problems in regulating water utilities are, first, working out a practicable balance between home rule sentiment and state control; second, devising practical means of fairly spreading the cost of water service among classes of customers and between water users and taxpayers. As to the first problem, strong home rule sentiment is natural because of our political traditions and because of the predominantly local character of water utility service. Under these circumstances a wise state control will pool experience and tend to improve standards of water works practice. In working out this reconciliation between home rule sentiment and state control, the Wisconsin Commission has blended its regulatory functions with advisory functions. In some respects the Commission has. served in much the same way as a management servicing organization ina holding company system. It has furnished advice and assistance along many lines, not the least of which is assistance in water utility accounting. The second problem is divisible into two parts. One angle is to fairly spread the cost of service among classes of users. This is primarily a matter of rate design, although it ties in closely with the second related problem of spreading costs fairly as between water users and taxpayers. This second problem is a factor in both rate-making (determining whether rates shall yield enough revenues to finance additions or retire city advances) and financing (choosing a financial policy respecting acquisition of or additions to plant which determines the relative burdens to be assumed by the water users as distinct from the taxpayers). Rate-making is a large subject by itself. In may remarks I shall focus upon financial problems and methods that involve security issues, with occasional reference to accounting practices.

The Teutonic Origins of Representative Government

Representative government, as every student of political science well knows, is now under fire. While it is not necessary to take too seriously the statements made by delirious purveyors of new remedies for old discontents, we cannot fail to take note of the fact that a strong tide of opinion has set in against this famous institution of democracy. On the continent of Europe, dictators either reject it entirely or seek to reduce it to purely advisory functions. In England, rumblings are heard to the effect that the Mother of Parliaments is not well herself; propositions for drastic changes come from members of the House of Commons; and if economic depression and unemployment continue for another ten years it is highly probable that some radical experiments will be made in the direction of concentrating economic powers. The United States is not without its troubles. When in the summer of 1931, with the deepening of the industrial crisis, it was urged that a special session of Congress be called to deal with national distress, President Hoover rather tartly rejected the petition and indicated that our great representative body was more likely to retard than to help “the process of recovery.”