Power Policies of the Roosevelt Administration

Report Outline
Early Applications of Roosevelt Power Policies
Improvement of State Utility Regulation
Competition Through Public Operation
Special Focus

Early Applications of Roosevelt Power Policies

The Power Commission and the National Power Survey

Relinquishment by George Otis Smith of his office as a member of the Federal Power Commission on November 1, 1933, at the request of President Roosevelt, opened the way for final reorganization of that commission td make it fully responsive to the desires of the President and an effective instrument with which to forward his power policies. Smith had been appointed to the commission for a five-year term in December, 1930, to carry through a reorganization of the commission in accordance with the power policies of President Hoover. At the beginning of the Roosevelt administration he was succeeded as chairman of the commission by Frank R. McNinch, Democrat, who, with Commissioner Draper, Republican, had formed a minority on the commission during the previous administration. Two places on the commission, left vacant by the refusal of the Senate of the 72nd Congress to confirm Hoover appointees, have been filled by the appointment of commissioners in full sympathy with the Roosevelt power policies.

Early Applications of Roosevelt Power Policies

The Federal Power Commission was designated by the President, in an executive order of August 19, 1933, as “an agency to aid the Federal Administrator of Public Works,” and an allotment of $400,000 of public works funds was made to the commission for this purpose. The terms of this order went much farther, however, than its title implied. The commission was directed by the President:

1. To make a national survey of the water power resources of the United States as the basis of a program of public works.