BOARD00261 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

...J='..L"T MR. STAPLETON: MR. SPARKS: MR. JOHNSON: MR. STAPLETON: MR. JOHNSON: "This is the staff recommendation to what the legislation should be and you are asking that it be recommended only in principle?" "Only in principle, that is correct." "14r. Chairman." 1 "Senator Johnson." "May I ask a question? By becoming the banker for the Lower Basin on its power problem, and that's what this would amount to, they take our funds and then they repay them to us in full, principal and interest, but we are the barucer. I suppose there is some reason for this peculiar method of doing business. We furnish all the water and now, because they are running short on the water that is allocated to them by the compact, they don't have quite as much water as they had before and they made contracts w~th these private organizations, or public organizations in some cases, to use the power and now we have to make up the deficit which is no fault of ours, absolutely no fault, and as Mr. Sparks has said, there is no agree- ment or point of law requiring us to pay that deficit. This is my question, do we run any danger by the enactment of this peCUliar provision of assuming responsibility for the alleged power shortages; that is, the Lower Basin has made power contracts over and above the amount of energy that can be pro- duced by the amount of water that they are allocated under the compact? The Secretary of the Interior is author- ized to make these power contracts and he has made power contracts so that there will be a continuing shortage of power when we really get,down to a division of the wat~r on the basis of the compact. ~Vhen we deliver only 7,SOO,OOP a year or 75,000,000 every ten years, their contracts for power will be gr~ater than the energy that is created. So we are running into a permanent situation. 1