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<br />1687 <br /> <br />I <br /> <br />As a matter of fact, as far as the <br />project is concerned, the private plan would <br />reduce the cost to the Federal Government <br />from $157,000,000 to $42,000,000. That's <br />about $115,000,000 in savings to the Federal <br />Government, which is a lot of money. The <br />importance to us is that then, instead of <br />the transmission lines competing for money <br />from the Bureau of the Budget, that money <br />could then be utilized to build water proj- <br />ects, essentially the business of this <br />Board. In other words, the tentative sav- <br />ings that would be realized from this private <br />system would mean that we could more than <br />construct Curecanti and several other proj- <br />ects with the savings that would be made. <br />So from that point of view, the private power <br />companies' plan has a tremendous attraction. <br /> <br />I <br /> <br />On the other hand it is filled with a <br />number of pitfalls. The law states that the <br />preference users are entitled to this project <br />power, and I believe that it is encumbent <br />upon this Board to make every effort to see <br />that the intent of the law is carried out. <br />The private companies' answer to this is: <br />'We know this, we know this has to go to <br />the preference users, but you are going to <br />have more power than you can market in the <br />initial stages of the project development <br />and you have got to sell that power and the <br />only people that can take it are the private <br />power companies. We are willing to take <br />this power and as the demand increases by <br />the preference users, we, of course, will <br />have to turn that power over to them and we <br />will have facilities available to give them <br />power at the points they want it'. That's <br />the argument they use for getting into the <br />picture. <br /> <br />The part about there being surplus power <br />when the project starts in op~ration is en- <br />tirely true. We will have to market a large <br />quantity of power when it becomes available. <br />But bear in mind this - the Bureau has not <br />included the State of Arizona in any permanent <br />allocation for power, but when there is excess <br />power, the Bureau says, and I think correctly <br />so, then here is a tremendous market that is <br />ready-made for the excess power. So the State <br />of Arizona is included in the initial market- <br />ing of power and the inclusion of Arizona has <br />the additional advantage of hooking up Hoover <br />