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The Upper Basins' Political Conundrum: A Deal is Not a Deal Such proposals had been broached by Congress in 1939 and 1941, but not enacted. Legislation had again been introduced in 1943 to authorize expansion of the channel. This proposed legislation, in combination with the 1940 and 1941 rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court noted above, caused great consternation among the upper basin states. Thus was the stage set for Congress to consider, in 1943-45, a series of legislative measures through which upper and lower basin water development interests would assert their respective "claims" to the benefits of federal water development programs and policies. The political agreement that was eventually forged emerged from the legislative process imbedded in two different statutes -- the Flood Control Act of 194411s and the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1945.1zo Upper basin water development interests had two principal legislative goals. First, they wanted any authorization of basinwide development to include the reclamation projects which they desired. Second, they wanted Congressional protection for their contemplated upstream consumptive uses as against the physical demands and the potentially superior legal claim of the downstream federal navigation improvements undertaken pursuant to the power of the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution -- particularly if the navigation channel was to be enlarged. The first goal was achieved, after much maneuvering during 1943 and 1944 between the Corps and Reclamation and the interests which they represented, in the merger of the separate Pick and Sloan Plans into a single Pick-Sloan Plan in October of 1944.121 The Pick-Sloan Plan at last, and in keeping with the tenor of the times, provided for the "comprehensive ultimate development" of the basin. Not coincidentally, it also represented a comprehensive political solution to the demands of competing interests. The Pick-Sloan Plan called for five mainstem dams, from downstream to upstream, as follows: Gavins Point, located immediately above Yankton, South Dakota, was in the Pick Plan. Ft. Randall was smaller than in the Corps' plan. The dam is located just above the Nebraska-South Dakota stateline. lls Flood Control Act of 1944, ch. 665, 58 Stat. 887. 120 Rivers and Harbors Act of 1945, ch. 19, 59 Stat. 10. '~' S. DOC. N0.247, 78th Cong. 2d Sess. (1944). 40