BOARD01045

• Board Meeting Date: 7/27/1977
• Description: Agenda, Minutes, Resolution
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

The basis for drafting these option papers is, apparently, a philosophy
of the President's staff tha~ all:past: laws and policies relating to the
use of water are inappropriate., Therefore, some new.scheme should be
adopted which will erase history and start anew, based upon some as yet
unknown federal policy which would determine how citizens of this
country can best utilize the water resources.

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A great many of the options are matters which have been reviewed thor-
oughly now for some YElars. As' a matter of fact, most of them come from
previous studies that have been made. The various option Rapers were
drawn up ,by different study groups. -In many cases:, they al:e amateur-
ishly prepared. The format varies in some ~ases from one~option paper
to another. The whole thing bears the earmarks of an extremely hasty
assemblage of ideas. In fact, that is exactly what occurred.

It is really not the fault of the team that was. directed t~ make't~is
study. That team itself has had very little time to prepa~e. a broad,
comprehensive, new federal water policy. We have heard .from indirect
sources that many of the people in the administration protested
vigorously to thE! President that the time schedule proposed by the
President was insufficient to either get adeq~ate public input or for
the federal agencies themselves to adequately: address this new policy.
Apparently, from the information we get, the President gave his famous:
smile, and said, "Do it anyway." .In effect, the:people in ,the administra-
tion were.ordered to.accomplish this within the time frame dictated by
the President.

There are some hundred options contained in the publication which came
out in the Federal Register. , I estimate that if I sat down for about
thirty days and did nothing else I could prepare an analysis of .each of
the options, at least those that can be understoodi I would end up with
something like, 250 to 300 typewritten pages .to ana yze the hundred or
so options and to prepare recommendations on them. : This we will attempt
to do as rap~dly as possible. It also will require a great deal of.
assistance ~rom interested people throughout- Colorado.. I have suggested
that we attempt to formulate a small team on each of the option papers
in order that we can get some consensus throughout the State of what the
State's position should be on each of the various options. There is no
way that we could do this prior to tomorrow or by the time that the
hearings are scheduled to close. As we view the option papers, it is
not within the President's authority ~nder the constitution of this
country to re-write the laws of this country. That matter is the
exclusive responsibility of Congress. For almost everyone of the _
hundred options, it will require some statutory action by the Congress.
Therefore, the battle will be fought in the halls of Congress. That is
what we must prepare ourselves for.

The President is expected to announce his decision on this new water:
policy in November. From that point on, we will have to determine
whethe.r or not we can support some of his::recommendations and whether or
not w~ should oppose others. Many of the recommendations are completely
valid. The Pres1dent has said that the cornerstone of federal water
policy should be conservation. . We know that. Many of the things
expressed in the papers are co~on sense goals that we should all strive
for. Others are designed to destroy, ~or all practical purposes, any

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