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The last question Bob Johnson asked is, "How bipartisan do you think the water policy is and do people from different administrations tend to make the same decisions?" From my point of view, the end of traditional water projects was looming, it simply took Carter to declare that it was over. And, as I often like to say, Jimmy Carter made the mistake of saying, "I don't like water projects very much. They're environmentally damaging in many cases, they're not economic and they often have safety problems." Ronald Reagan came in and, without changing very much in terms of actually putting these projects back on the line, said - I'm obviously interpreting this broadly - "I kind oflike water projects but, unfortu- nately, we just don't have very much money to help Out on them." It was obviously a better strategy. Two other things. As to Mexico, I don't think we spent a great deal of time worrying about Mexico. I remember one incident in particular. I was being briefed on the Yuma Desalter, surely one of the most atrocious projects ever to come down the pike. I had never heard of the Yuma Desalter, I was an Alaskan, for God's sakes. I was briefed on it and what it cost and I said something like, "This is an outrage of a project and I can't imagine why we'd want to support it in the budget." Instantaneously, about 40 guys from the State Department materialized in my office and told me that we were going to support the Yuma Desalter, regardless of how ridiculous and how much of a white elephant it was. The other thing I would mention is that there was also one piece oflitigation ... it was an Environmental Defense Fund suit which sought to require water quality standards for Colorado River salinity. The Carter Administration did something that was controversial and that is, they settled that lawsuit. As I recall, the promise of the settlement was that an EIS would be done on Colorado River operations. Now, all these years later, we understand that EISes have to be done on that issue plus all kinds of sub-issues. But at the time, that settlement was considered an unbelievable breach of what was expected so in the very next appropriation bill, a rider was put on to forbid such an EIS. That bill was not vetoed so it stood. After all is said and done, I think the Carter actions on water policy, and the project challenges, resulted in a series of wholesale changes about the way in which the federal government approaches water projects, and a number of specific projects as well. The CAP deal was ultimately made and the CAP was funded. In South Dakota, we stuck by our guns and we ultimately negotiated a deal there for a rural water supply. Garrison never gave up, and so it goes, area by area. But overall, many of the projects basically are reformed. The classic example, of course, is the Central Utah Project, which fundamentally reinvented itself in many respects following its challenge in the water project list. Sponsors went back and did what they probably should have been doing all along but it took that pressure to do it. JOHNSON: We had planned to have Bob Broadbent here as part of this panel to talk about the approach to the Colorado River during the Reagan Administration. Unfortunately Bob had some sickness in his family, and he had to decline at the last minute. We tried to find a replacement and were unable to do that. In lieu of that, I thought I might mention a couple of things I recall about what happened during the Reagan Administration. Guy hit on some of it. I think the rhetoric about water projects changed significantly with the Reagan Administration and its policies. In practice, as an observer, in terms of moving forward with water projects, I don't think much changed. The cost sharing requirements from the Reagan Administration were much higher than the cost sharing requirements of the Carter Adminis- tration. We changed what was called "Principles and Standards" and a Water Resources Council under the Carter Administration to "Principles and Guidelines" under the Reagan Administration. I worked in planning, and I applied those guidelines, and there was very little difference between the detailed guidelines. Now I know some of you may disagree. You'll have a chance to ask questions and we can have some discussion because I look at it from maybe more of a narrow perspective as a career water person. A couple of things happened on the Colorado River during the Reagan Administration. One is, we finally filled Glen Canyon Dam, and we had the floods in 1983, which was just a practical event, but we were scrambling in terms of our operations. We had Congressional oversight hearings on operations of the river. We ultimately had a Floodway Task Force Act by Congress which required us to do some work in the floodplain in the lower river, so we had to deal with practical issues associated with river operations. Funding for the Central Arizona Project was full speed ahead. We developed cost-sharing agreements on the regulatory storage facilities. We moved ahead with those decisions, so we moved ahead with construction of projects. In terms of the relationships among the states, during the period from 1968 to about 1988 - at least in terms of the traditional issues about water alloca- tion on the Colorado River - I think there was a period of relative peace. The Supreme Court Decision I TitlE CHA~rGING ROLE ~F TH E SECRETtRY ON THE CO~ORADO RitER SYMPOSIUM PROCEEDINGS SEPTEMBER 1999 <9