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\ C'tilUH8 -18- consent of Congress. In that role, in many cases if not all, a compact may well serve the ends of bRsin-wide water developmp.nt in the fcllc~d~g ~~yv: 1. It may provide for the equitable apportionment of the use of the water supply of an interstate river and its tributaries. 2. It may specify the method and extent of the measurement of stream flows and the method of determining the uses of water in the signatory states. 3. It may make provision for the installation, maintenance and operation of water-gaging stations on the streams subject to the compact; for engaging in cooperative studies of water supplies of such streams; and for making findi~gs as to certain matters of vital importance in the utilization of water and opera- tion of project facilities. 4. It may determine the preferential use of water among the states. The Colorado River Compact of 1922 specifies that the use of 'vater for power produc- tion shall always be suoservient to irrigation requirements. In this connection provision may be made for reserving water for upstream irri~ation potentialities against an earlier power installation dovmstream. It is not clear that this can effectively be done through a Federal Act. Since the control of water in the interest of navigation is .nthin the power of the United States Government, it was possible for the Congress in the 1944 Flood Control Act to protect future upstream irrigation and other consumptive uses of Nater in the Missouri Basin against do~~stream navigation development. This was done through the exercise of the CO~~erce clause of the Federal Constitution by placing a li~itation on the water Vl'hich needed to be released from the upper irrigation states to serve navigation purposes in dmlllstream states. But in the Western states the right to appropriate 'later for power, as well as for other purposes, is controlled by the state laws.