Sen. Muskie Calls for Coordination In Resolving Metropolitan Problems

Many of America's great urban centers lack coordinated metropolitan planning, Sen. Edmund Muskie (D-Me.) told a gathering of Young Democrats and Muskie fans at the Union last night.

He complained that there is a "reluctance to share the other fellow's problems" on the part of many local communities. These neighboring communities make up great metropolitan areas, such as the Boston-New York-Washington complex, which "spill over city, county, and even state lines" and create new problems government and urban planning.

Muskie is chairman of the Senate Inter-Governmental Relations Subcommittee. He is the author of a bill passed by the Senate and now awaiting House approval which would require that any plans for urban development which request federal aid be reviewed by an inter-community "metropolitan planning agency."

"The metropolitan economy can become more important than even that of the state," he said, and problems such as "inadequate highways and air and water pollution" overlap the jurisdiction of towns and cities. The existence of these problems was "not foreseen in the Constitution," he pointed out, and new policies must be worked out on all government levels.

Asks State and Federal Action

Muskie called for the Federal government to "emphasize and stimulate the exercise of responsibility on the part of local and state governments," and asked that states enact "model legislation," already worked out, which would combine and coordinate "local jurisdictions."

A member of the pro-civil rights bill "team," Muskie said "we have just about finished presenting our case," and he expected that the first attempt to invoke cloture would come "about the last of April," although it "may not succeed till May or June." He felt that much of the public opposition was a result of "distortions being spread about the meaning of the bill."