Water Resources People and Issues
enhancement. You know, it's been so long since I've looked at this that I can't
remember all of the details.
I don't think there were so many differences between the definition of benefits
in A-47, for example, primary and secondary benefits, and but it pretty well
ruled out the use of secondary benefits on the grounds that they would come
from any federal expenditure, and so forth.
The big change that I see in A-47 from the Green Book and it's not so much
a change from the Green Book but it's a change in policy-is increasing the
reimbursement-the local cost sharing. The standards proposed were more
rigorous but I'd have to go through in detail to remember them-the standards
for recreation benefits, for example, and the repayment of irrigation costs.
A-47 made them more rigorous, whereas the Bureau of Reclamation tended to
adapt the policies to the project.
For example, when they reviewed a project that was already built and the
irrigation district people wouldn't sign a repayment contract because they didn't
have repayment ability, the Bureau would reevaluate the project and would
renegotiate the contract under the Reclamation Act of `39. If it took the local
people several hundred years to pay the project off without interest, the Bureau
would renegotiate on that basis. There was one project in Oregon, just west of
Pendleton, which was renegotiated on the basis that they'd pay back at 326
years. I think it was a little project that had been built years earlier, and they
couldn't get a repayment contract.
So A-47 attempted to eliminate any new projects like that by requiring a more
rigorous economic analysis.
Well, the circular, in a sense, does seem to anticipate some of the general
philosophical predilections of the Eisenhower administration. I'm talking
generally about the idea of what we'd call the cost sharing, the sharing of
financial burden, or more of an emphasis on smaller projects than larger ones.
So, you know, were they anticipating, do you think, what Republicans might
be bringing into town?
Yes, there's no doubt that Floyd Peterson and Charlie
anticipated that
the Republicans would move toward what I would call sound economic policies
and you might call them conservative policies. I don't really feel that
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