Water Resources People and issues
mountains to bring water into Santa Barbara. And they eventually called it the
Cachuma project. The Bureau of Reclamation fought that project through in
spite of the Bureau of the Budget's objections and made a finding of feasibility
on it, because it was one of the really good Bureau projects. It was fully
reimbursable, except for the interest, because they were growing avocados and
nuts on the agricultural lands. Most of the water was going to be municipal
water.
Q: Right.
A: Anyway, what happened most of the time was that the Bureau of Reclamation
fought, and if they lost, would take their arguments to the White House and
lots of times win over there, even in the Eisenhower administration. The Corps
never did that. They never went to the White House to get something
reconciled. They always said, "Yes, sir. "Yes, sir." And they agreed to put
it in the budget, or the letter or whatever we were arguing about. Of course,
then on the Hill, the Corps always got what it-mostly always got what it
wanted-through the committees.
Executive Order 9384
Q: Let me ask you a question about that. I have to go back and although I don't
like to intrude myself in an interview, but I need to repeat some information.
As I understand it, beginning in 1940, actually, President Roosevelt directed
all federal agencies to send their reports and studies through what was then the
Bureau of the
A: That was under Executive Order 9384.
Q: Right. And the Bureau of the Budget was to submit the comment on that report.
What I'm trying to get to is this: throughout this period, beginning with 1940,
the federal agencies would submit reports to the Bureau of the Budget, and the
Bureau of the Budget would-could do one of three things: have no comment
on the report, say that the report was not in accordance with the policy of the
administration or words to that
A: They could say it was not in accord with the program of the President.
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