Theodore
Modification of Public Law 566, The Hope-Aiken Act
Q: So you're talking about the modification of Public Law 566, the Hope-Aiken
Act.
A: I'm talking about the amendment which eliminated the cost sharing on flood
control.
Q: Yes, that's what I was asking about.
A: The Hope-Aiken Act, Public Law 566, had cost sharing, and in 1957, they
were considering removing that cost sharing on small reservoirs. At the same
time, the Bureau of Reclamation was trying to get its Small Reclamations
Project Act through, and those three bills moved down through the
congressional committees and came up to us as enrolled bills for advice as to
whether the President should sign them or veto them. Our staff took a position
against all three of those bills, because of our feeling that they were all
liberalizing federal policy and would result in increasing demands on the
federal budget, even though on the small reclamations project bill there was
going to be repayment, it would be without interest.
So our staff recommended that all three of these bills be vetoed. Of course, the
Bureau of the Budget also asked all of the agencies for comments on all three
enrolled bills. I didn't handle this directly, but our Office of Legislative
Reference, as it was then called, handled that routinely. That office was headed
by Roger Jones, and he gave us an opportunity to review all of the comments
before he made the Bureau of the Budget's recommendation to the President.
Well, interestingly enough, the Bureau of Reclamation recommended that both
the SCS's bill and the Corps' bill be vetoed, and each agency did the same:
recommended that the other two be vetoed. One of the things I remember
particularly was that the Corps, in its comments on the SCS's bill said, "This
act would take away the one significant indicator of the value of a flood control
project: the willingness of the beneficiaries to pay a share of the costs."
Well, I took great delight in using those very words in drafting the President's
veto message on the Corps of Engineers' act. I think those words must have
been written by either Gene Weber or Howard Cook.
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