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. . Page 3 WRW washn x x x Washington CONSENSUS WITHIN UTAH CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION ON AGREEMENT Key to the Washington negotiations was the five-man Utah Con- gressional delegation. Sen. Jake Garn, R-Utah, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and a member of the Energy and Natu- ral Resources Committee, and Owens, a member of HIC, personally at- tended these negotiations, held here once every two weeks. Also at- tending were Robert K. (Bob) Weidner, Garn's legislative assistant, and Millard D. Wyatt, legislative assistant to Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah. James C. Barker, minority counsel on water and power for the House Subcommittee on Water and Power, represented Rep. James V. Hansen, R-Utah, ranking Republican member of the Subcommittee. The Third District Congressmen, former Rep. Howard C. Nielson, R-Utah, and Rep. Bill Orton, D-Utah, were represented by staff. It was agreed there had to be a consensus within the Congressional delegation on the agreement. After Orton was elected in 1990, some changes were made concerning Wasatch County that Orton wanted in the agreement. Others who were involved in the Washington negotiations were Edward (Ed) Osann and David Conrad of the National Wildlife Federa- tion, Marcus G. Faust, an attorney here representing CUWCD, and, in- itially, representatives of the BU/Rec. Bu/Rec was counted out after Weidner learned from William C. Klostermeyer, then the Bureau's bud- get officer, that 56 percent of CUP's 1985 appropriations had been spent on administrative costs, and that $80 million in CUP funds from 1980-86 had been transferred to other projects. "CUP money was spent on fishladders on the Yakima project in the state of Washington and on computers for the Bureau's Denver Engineering Center," Christian- sen told WRW. "Jake Garn went up in smoke," another informant told WRW. On all annual appropriations bills since then Garn has attached a rider limiting the amount of CUP funds that can be used for Bu/Rec administrative expenses related to CUP. By all accounts, Garn worked very hard to get annual funding in the water and power appropriations bills to move CUP construction forward, and he deeply resented the BU/Rec using CUP funds for other purposes. The Bu/Rec always has re- garded CRSP as one project, so it feels it has statutory authority to move money around within CRSP, including that appropriated for CUP. Interior Department's Inspector General has criticized the practice and has recommended terminating such transfers. Several informants told WRW, "Ed Osann wrote the conservation sections of the bill," adding that he and Conrad spent about a year working on them. The CUP agreement was concluded in the spring of 1990, and it took another half year to put in legislative language. Several changes have continued to be made in the agreement since then, and the House is scheduled to accept some changes in the omni- bus reclamation bill (HR 429) to conform with the CUP language in the bill as it passed the Senate on April 10. Then the CUP language will be the same in both the House and Senate versions of the bill and the CUP agreement will not be conferrable in conference committee. Meanwhile, representatives of Utah's Ute Indians, Director Dee C. Hansen of the Utah Department of Natural Resources, who represent- ed the governor, and the late Edward W. Clyde, a top Salt Lake City resources attorney, hammmered out an Indian water rights settl(ement. more)