BOARD00158

• Board Meeting Date: 12/12/1973
• Description: Agenda or Table of Contents, Minutes, Memos
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

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require a restudy of the project and that is the reason we never get
anywhere. As fast as we get a project ready, a new standard is
applied and we have to back up and start allover again.

The good news is that Congress is now considering a bill which would
curtail the power of the President to impound funds. If Congress can
develop some backbone, perhaps we can return to a representative form
of government, rather than government by executive order. This
executive process has been growing for a number of years. It started
even before this Administration, but not on the same scale. Congress
has been spineless in the matter of running the country. Perhaps
now there is a growing tendency on the part of the Congress to re-
assert its rightful authority. There is a bill pending which would
make it mandatory for the President to release funds that the Congress
appropriates. I think that bill reads that if the President impounds
funds, then Congress has a certain time by a simple majority vote to
order that those funds be released. It does take an affirmative
action on the part of the Congress. If that bill passes, then it
will limit the heretofore uncontrolled authority of the President to
ignore Congress.

On one of our projects, the Dolores project, we are having problems
that are not entirely the fault of the federal government. We are
having some internal problems concerning the water supply allocations
for that project. We hope to present a memorandum to the board at
the next meeting with recommendations as to how the project's water
supply should be allocated. The conflict is between an existing
irrigation company, the Montezuma Valley Irrigation Company, and the
Dolores Water Conservancy District. As a result, we are almost at
an impasse on that project. So I think that this board has to take
some affirmative action in the matter. Either they resolve their
problem or we should move on to other projects. We have enough
handicaps without having local problems. When we run into those along
with the national problems, there is no chance of getting a project
built. We have assigned a man to help that board on a full-time
basis now for the last two years. It is a good project, but there
comes a time when we can no longer afford to spend time on a losing
effort.

On the streamflow decrees, Ray did a very fine job. He got the decree
on the Fryingpan River in record time. We have the first environ-
mental water appropriated under the new law. In the very near future,
we will have more complex filings to present to the board for the
San Juan River. We are having problems with. the operation of the San
Juan-Chama project, a New Mexico project. We feel that because of
the critical problems which have originated in that area we should

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