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<br />at the earliest possible stages in order to make it significant and <br />fruitfu;L." And then the President cites three or four different. reasons <br />why it is so critical to have state and,local. officials involved .at the <br />earliest. possible time. . Now, we assumed, af~er the event~of the last <br />three weeks, that any further cuts in the Pr~sident's budget t~at we <br />would first be allowed to at least .explain. our vi13wpoints, have a chance <br />to have dialogue with the federalgov13rnment on these. critical points. <br />From reading the newspapers for the last two days, it appears that the <br />administration has simply not learned from the past three weeks' experi- <br />ence. Lonnie McCain, who is on Senator Hart's staff, wants to briefly <br />comment on Senator Hart's discussion with Secretary Andrus because it <br />goes directly to this point. <br /> <br />I <br /> <br />MR. LON McCAIN: I would like to relate the conversation we had with <br />Secretary of the Interior Andrus. Secretary Andrus did not call our <br />office. We called him, in. fact, because of the rumor that we had <br />received second hand from a newspaper in utah that the Narrows Dam was <br />going to be recommended for budget cut. We thought that it was out- <br />rageous not to be notified of that. We called the White House staff and <br />could not get an answer from them. In fact, they were away from their <br />desks or out of the office or some such activity that they were carrying <br />on; and in 20 or 30 minutes we got a call back requesting that Andrus <br />meet with Senator Hart on Monday morning. After quite a bit of dancing <br />around, our administrative staff finally got Secretary Andrus to admit <br />that the Narrows and Dallas projects were going to be recommended for <br />budget cuts. We relayed that. the Senator thought this was a very un- <br />acceptable procedure and so forth. We issued a press release to that <br />effect, and yesterday afternoon Secretary Andrus called Senator Hart and <br />said that, in fact, that was now not the case. He was not going to <br />recommend budget cutting before hearings on the projects were held. I <br />am not sure that that clarifies it at all. <br /> <br />MR. STAPLETON: Who are the members of the Review Committee? <br /> <br />MR. SHERMAN: The Review Committee is to be chaired by a gentleman by <br />the. name of James Webb. He is newly on board at the Department of Interior. <br />My understanding of his background is that he was the city attorney in <br />Tuscon, Arizona. He will be coming to Washington to work, I believe, <br />on the Solicitor's staff. Right nOw, he is assigned as an Assistant <br />Secretary for Lands and Water. with him will be three or four others. I <br />I think that one of the members of the Bureau of Reclamation staff out of <br />Salt Lake will be on that Review committee; and I think an individual <br />who is part of the Secretary's staff, planning and budget staff, will be <br />on the review team and two others. An assistant secretary also was to <br />be with these panels at all times, but because of difficulties in getting <br />new assistant secretaries on board, my understanding is that there may <br />not be an assistant secretary joining this review team tomorrow. But it <br />will be reviewed by a team of five individuals. They don't plan to ask <br />any questions except for questions of clarification. If we ask them <br /> <br />-18- <br />