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. . 5 MR. CA~SON: Mr. Chairman, I would like to first make a report on the status of the CFntra1 Arizona Project Authorization Bill. It has now been re- ported faVOrab1[ by the Senate Committee. It has not yet been reported by the House Committee nor has any action been taken on the floor of either House. We deeply apprecia:e the help that we have received from all the members of this Com- mittee and the ~tates here represented and request that it be continued. We are! faced wi th what we eonsider to be a vicious campaign of propaganda emanating from ~ertain interests in Southern California against Arizona and the Central ArizonajProject, which we think also adversely affects other states in the Basin. We t~hink it is part of the same plan. It is apparently ,very well financed and ve y effective. They have a big propaganda organization and are spending money ,ery freely. They have been sending mats to various newspapers over the country for publication in their papers with illustrations and cartoons, which must costla great deal of money, They are getting out pamphlets--I see Mr. Bliss has one t~ere--which are very misleading and which are, as their whole cam- paign seems to ds, based on half-truths and outright falsifications. , Now itiis difficult for us to combat it in any'public way or publicity way. We have, ~owever, in the hearings before the various Congressional Commit- tees, made fu11iand complete presentations and we are preparing summaries or synopses and di~tributing them as we can. We are also getting some other articles prepared by ourlGovernor and by some other people, and we have received some ex- cellent supportlfrom these states and people here represented, and various members of Congress. Wq will try to send copies of what we get made available to all the members of this ICommittee and to anybody else that you would suggest. But we ~rould appreciate your writing us the names and addresses of any- body to whom YOUj think we should send any literature or synopsis or summary of facts or other nlatters. We promise that so far as we are able to determine, Arizona will no~ send anything to anybody except that which is absolutely true. The only way we !know how to fight it is wi th the truth. Then I had one other thought in mind--and I have not had an opportunity to discuss this kith any members of this Committee--but it seemed to me in Washington last ~pring that there were concerted efforts being made to take from the Bureau of R~c1amation some of its traditional activities on which the develop- ment of the Colotado River Basin and the entire West depends. I conceive the Bureau of Reclam~tion to be the agency for the development of the West upon which we must all rely~ So I think we should take whatever action we can think of that would aid it. 1 Then rei'entlY I am informed that the President vetoed the Authorization Bill that would uthorize the Vermejo Project in New Mexico, and signed the Authorization Bi,l for the Weber Project in Utah but did so somewhat reluctantly and then only onlthe assurance that the basic Reclamation Law would be amended or the policy there; clarified. Now neither one of those projects is in the Colorado River Basin; but anv,~ national pOlicy or clarification or formula or financial setup that is made to , apply. generally over the country will of course directly affect developmen~ in all of the Colorado 'iver Basin States.