Theodore M.
the fact that at one time they used some pretty fancy accounting on the basis of
a solicitor's opinion that, even though they had to collect interest on the power
allocation, that didn't mean they couldn't apply the interest also to subsidize
irrigation. And this infamous piece of legalese was called the "Solicitor's
Opinion" for years and years and years. And it just didn't make much sense,
but that was how the solicitor of the Department of the Interior interpreted the
law.
And this kind of thing generally turned some of the professional groups, such
as the American Society of Civil Engineers that I belonged to, and various
other groups of basically conservative people against the federal agencies. I'm
sure the argument was made by lots of people at the time that surely the federal
agencies are just trying to increase their clout and their size just for the purpose
of bureaucratic aggrandizement.
And nobody can argue against the fact that both the Bureau and the Corps had
strong congressional supporters. The Corps always had had an advantage over
the Bureau in this area because its program covers all
states and the Bureau
states; but
has been limited to-well, I guess counting Alaska and Hawaii,
for a long time, it was just the 17 contiguous Western states. And the Bureau's
projects came along with some strings. When they built a project, they
expected to get something back.
Not too much.
A: Not enough, except the local people always seemed to agree with the Bureau
when the Bureau said, "The law requires us to demand full repayment on this
project, ignoring the fact there was no charge for interest. There may have
been some justification for using interest-free money out of the reclamation
fund in 1902 with a lo-year reimbursement period. Ten-year reimbursement
without interest is one thing; 40 years is another thing. And then there was
another lo-year repayment free development period.
Anyway, the Bureau did get some reimbursement, usually about 12 to
percent of the actual total costs which is more than the Corps got on most of
its projects.
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