Theodore M.
When it made its recommendation for authorization of the Central Arizona
project, which was to be the primary user of Arizona's water, and if there
obviously wasn't enough water, the Bureau of Reclamation had a very simple
solution. In the same legislation, they proposed authorization of studies of
means of augmenting the water supplies in the Colorado basin. This could only
be interpreted by the people of the Pacific Northwest as a threat to their water
supplies by diversion from the Columbia River basin. Scoop Jackson stood
guard against this eventuality in his position as chairman of the Interior and
Insular Affairs in the Senate, so the authorization was not likely to be enacted.
The authorization of the studies could obviously have led to recommendations
for very expensive water projects, which was anathema to the Bureau of the
Budget. So in commenting on the Bureau of Reclamation's report on the Lower
Colorado River project, which is primarily the Central Arizona project, Elmer
Staats signed a letter saying before we authorize anything like this, we ought
to have a study of all the water problems in the whole country and evolve
policies for future water development so that we don't get into this procedure
of authorizing something which becomes essentially a blank check for a lot of
further studies, which will require a lot of money to implement and particularly
a lot of money to solve the problems.
So this letter was sent up to the Congress with the request for authorization of
the Central Arizona project. Carl Hayden was still in the Senate, still the
president pro tern, so there wasn't any question that the Central Arizona project
was going to be authorized. There were enough chits out on that, so the votes
were going to be there. And so the legislation for the National Water
Commission was authorized. The authorization for the commission at one time
was in the same bill as the Central Arizona project, but they took it out and
they had a separate bill.
There had been several earlier efforts on the part of a congressman from
California to authorize a water resources study. I cannot remember his name,
but he had introduced a bill calling for a national water commission to evolve
water policy. And it had probably been introduced in 1965 and again in 1967,
but no action had been taken. I don't even remember for sure who introduced
the National Water Commission Act on the Senate side, but it was probably
introduced by Wayne
by request on the House side.
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