2-07 House Committee Lay Over Unamended

• Title: 2-07 House Committee Lay Over Unamended
• IBCC - Doc Type: Legislation

2-07 House Committee Lay Over Unamended

Page 13 of 49

Madam Chair:

Russell George:

I think a lot of it will have to do with the people that come to the
table. If they are talking about dealing in good faith and in
goodwill.

But I have a question for you and it comes towards the end of the
bill where it requires the General Assembly to essentially ratify the
contract to the recommendations of the compact committee. I
think now if we look at the Colorado River compact, a lot of
people say well, that obviously was negotiated in a time of good
years, wet years and that maybe those figures aren't quite suitable
for where we ought to be.

That gets me to the question of flexibility and adaptability. If the
General Assembly ratifies anyone of these recommendations that
the compact committees bring forward, is there some process for
flexibility? Do you have to go back to the General Assembly?
Carry another bill? I understand if you want to change any of our
river compacts that exist now, all the paliies have to agree to that.
As I've heard some people say members of Congress have to agree
too, to allow us to change that contract. Would we be looking at a
similar process here?

Director George.

The key is predictability over time. Flexibility is also essential
because we can't see that clearly into the future. We understand
that. The reason for the reference to ratification by legislature was
partly to assure that the public process had a full play. There is no
more representative body in the state than the legislature. The
whole idea here was for this to come from the ground, from the
people in the local communities to build whatever agreement and
relationship they wanted.

By bringing it back to legislature, first of all, there's of course
accountability, which is always appropriate when we start a
process here. If it can have the dignity of being in statute, you've
enhanced predictability.

Now the flexibility part is by process automatic because it can be
brought back to the legislature any time in the future. The hard
pali of that is what does that do to your predictability.

So, where I am in my thinking on that is those questions are much
better answered later in the process than now. Like anything else
that we work on, you don't have to know what the end looks like at
the beginning. You need to know what the beginning place is and

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Page 13 of 49