BOARD02242

• Board Meeting Date: 1/17/1962
• Description: Minutes and Resolution
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

I

Ohio has a different use for water than we
have. I don't think that the Investigation Com-
mission intended that we should lay down here a
national program of priorities. I think what
they had in mind more was that the bill should
preserve the priorities of such a state as Colorado
and the other states. That we should not, in
Colorado, be forced to accept a priority that
would fit into the needs of New York or Ohio, but
that Colorado, in some way or another, assume a
recognition of our local interests and our local
achievements and our local aspirations. That we
should have the right to have that kind of priority.
Anyway that's the way I understood the Investiga-
tion Commission's ideas on that, and I think they
are sound in that respect. I don't think they
would be sound for us to make irrigation, for
instance, the first priority nationally because
it isn't necessarily, although the time is rapidly
corning when they are going to have irrigation
east of the Mississippi even more extensively than
we have it out here in the west.

The drafting of this bill is going to be
important and I think we might very well start
with the objectives as listed by Congressman
Aspinall as those things that the bill should do
and the things that the bill should not do. I
feel strongly. I don't know, my interpretation
of the language of the bill may vary greatly
from experts on such matters, the drafting of
law, but that's my view.

I

Now, I'm glad that the Reclamation Associa-
tion recognized the seriousness of this bill and
I hope that this Board will recognize the serious-
ness of this bill. 1 repeat, it's not only a
planning bill but it's a policy bill. In the
absence of any other policy, planning must become
also a policy function.

I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for permitting
me to say these words. I want to repeat again,
for emphasis purposes, that I am heartily in
accord, I'm happy, I'm pleased,that national
planning is now being undertaken on an organ-
ized basis in Washington but I want those brothers