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I I The suit was initiated in the District Court in Washington, D. C., to enjoin the construction of any further projects on the Colorado River, pending the preparation of a programmatic EIS, whatever that is. That complaint requested that the programmatic EIS include any planned project in the future on the Colorado River, whether by the government or private parties. To prepare such a statement is virtually an impossibility and would be out of date by the time it was prepared. One obvious remedy to that lawsuit was to attempt to get legislation through the Congress which would state that there was no such require- ment for a programmatic EIS. There is no such requirement in the law. You have to stretch the existing law considerably to say that we have to file an EIS for a whole river basin. If it is true on the Colorado, then it is true on the Mississippi and the Missouri, and whatever. so you eventually have three or four environmental impact statements which cover the entire United states. It is an absurdity on the face of it. It was not easy to get any legislation through congress. From the state side, IvaI Goslin, representing the Upper Colorado River commission, has been working practically all session in the Congress to get some legis- lation enacted. We did have a coalition of western state senators that helped considerably in this matter. One:of the leaders in that was Senator Hart, of Colorado. Practically all of the western senators worked diligently on that committee. We had similar help in the House, primarily through Congressman Evans. But the entire delegation -- and I might say that in this case, Mrs. Schroeder also voted in favor of this legislation. We had a unanimous delegation from Colorado on this issue. The environmentalists put up a fierce battle in the HOuse. This is where they made their final stand. It Mas led by Congressman Dingell of Michigan. The Senate did enact the amendment that we had requested, without too much difficulty. But in the House, it turned out to be a real battle. It was only in the closing days that the senate-enacted version of the bill was passed by the House, and the vote was quite close. The separation was about 30 votes. There were 30 more in favor than against. The voting was on that single ~ ilOisue. They s<;jparated that issue out of the bill and voted strictly on the issue of this amendment, which, in effect, states that Congress has determined that a programmatic impact statement is not necessary in order to proceed with projects on the Colorado River. That amendment was added to the Interior .appropriations bill in the Senate. The Interior appropriations bill is not to be confused with the Public Works bill. The Interior appropriations bill is .the one. that funds the activities of the Interior Department itself. That is how the employees get their pay. We figured that was a pretty safe bill. Well, it did pass in the closing days and was signed into law by the President. -33-