BOARD01706

• Board Meeting Date: 8/2/1961
• Description: Table of Contents, Agenda and Minutes
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

2433

I

'The hydroelect~ic power plants and trans-
mission lines authorized by this act to be
constructed, operated and maintained by the
Secretary - (speaking of the Secretary of the
Interior) - shall be operated in conjunction
with other federal power plants, present and
potential, so as to produce the greatest prac-
ticable amount of power and energy that can
be sold at firm power and energy rates .

Now there is nothing whatsoever in this law
or in any of the debate which preceded the passage
of this law which ever indicated that any part of
this transmission system would be constructed on a
private basis. The story is interesting as to how
the investor utility companies got their foot in
the door pertaining to this project. In 1960, and
I believe even preceding that, representations were
made to the United States Congress that it would
be foolish to duplicate existing transmission lines.
That if lines were already in existence - already
constructed by private utility companies - it would
be much cheaper to pool the joint resources, so to
speak, of the existing lines and that the federal
government would not have to build such lines.
Based upon that theory, the Appropriations Com-
mittee of the House of Representatives directed
the Bureau of Reclamation to consult with all in-
terested agencies in connection with the construc-
tion of these transmission lines.

I

Now the false premise upon which these argu-
ments were based is shown by the charts here.
These are ~ duplications of existing transmission
lines. These are proposed as new transmission
lines. I do not see how you can duplicate lines
which are not now in existence. So this fight was
predicated, and is still being predicated, upon a
false premise in its initial conception.

We have tried to review, as accurately as
possible, the various bits of information which
have been presented to us and which have been put
out for public consumption both by the Bureau of
Reclamation and the investor utility companies.
The only interest of our staff, and I am sure the
only interest of the people of the State of Colorado,