Upper Colorado River Basin Fund 2007

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funding may be described as authorizing "payment of two bills with one check," since the monies will be treated as having been repaid and returned to the general fund of the Treasury as costs assigned to power for repayment under section 5 of the CRSP Act and will be used for Upper Basin and San Juan Recovery Programs base funding. The practical effect of this provision is that once the power revenues are used to fund recovery programs base funding costs, the Upper Division States would have to seek congressional appropriations to fund future participating project development. Apportioned Revenue for Future Projects Attached is a table provided by Western Area Power Administration entitled "Aid to Participating Projects Irrigation Repayment Obligations and Apportioned Revenues Applied." The "open" boxes show money required to repay the costs of irrigation projects in the years shown down the left side of the paper. A second table entitled "Using Full 50 -Year Repayment Period for Each Block" is also attached. This table shows the project or "block" of a project that triggers the repayment obligation shown on the Western table. The green boxes on the Western table show funds available through apportionment to the other three States when a repayment obligation is triggered by apportionment in the fourth State, shown by the amounts in the yellow boxes. The Western table shows that no later than the year 2015, all obligations to repay debt on the mainstem units will have been met, and mainstem revenues will be apportioned to begin repayment to the United States on the irrigation investment debt resulting from the construction of the participating projects. The repayment of projects in Utah currently drives the power rate by requiring $4.65 of revenue to be generated for the repayment of each $1 of costs invested in Utah projects. As a result, more revenue is apportioned to the repayment of participating projects in the other Upper Basin States than is required to just meet the debt obligations. Thus, funds needed to pay obligations in these states will accumulate in the Basin Fund before the obligations are due for repayment. For example, it is anticipated that funds necessary to repay the irrigation costs associated with all constructed participating projects in Colorado (including the Animas -La Plata Project) will be in the Basin Fund by the year 2050. For projects constructed in New Mexico, it is anticipated that funds required to repay project obligations will be in the Basin Fund by the year 2025. Since the repayment of projects in Utah will continue through the year 2057, revenue amounts apportioned to the other Upper Basin States will continue to accumulate in the Treasury after all the funds required for repayment of participating projects in these states have been gathered. Congress anticipated this accumulation of revenue in the Treasury due to apportionment; this accumulation is addressed in Section 5(c) of the CRSP Act. Section 5(e) requires that these revenues be credited to the repayment of irrigation costs on any future projects authorized for construction in the state to which they are credited. Any use of these credits for the construction of a project must have the project authorized by Congress as a participating project of CRSP and must have the relevant appropriation legislation. Based on Fiscal Year 2007 costs, the estimated accumulation of revenues in the Treasury for future projects is as follows: 2