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. . All of these issues, and many others, are interrelated and are defined, modified, and explicated by a variety of decrees, memoranda, minutes, State decisions, Solicitor Opinions, as well as the Operating Criteria and various statutes, especially the Indian Water Settlements. Other statutes, such as the Endangered Species Act, further complicate any attempt to define exactly what the Law of the River is at any time, and ultimately may affect the extent to which any state may develop its entitlement. There is what could best be described as a creative tension among the seven Basin States and between the two Basins. The Law of the River has provided a general framework which has never fully satisfied any State, but which all have agreed is better than the open warfare which would ensue in its absence. The remainder of my remarks will address the important and inextricable relationship between the Lower and Upper Basins. I will also discuss how important water management questions in the Lower Basin are currently being approached by the seven basin states and ten tribes from within the stabilizing and essential framework of the Law of the River. Finally, I conclude with a brief stat'ement about the rationale behind the Law of the River and why it is so important in sOlving problems in the Lower Basin and to defining this all-important Lower Basin-Upper Basin relationship. This discussion should give Congress and the Department of the Interior a reason to stop attempts to fundamentally change the laws and procedures that control the Colorado River. Before I address the "bigger picture" concerning the Law of the River and efforts to accommodate emerging trends within the framework provided by the Law of the River, I want to emphasize the consequences which Lower Basin operations have on the Upper Basin. The best way to do this, frankly, is to illustrate the . rel~tionship through four veri specific examples of operational concepts that are in affect or have been proposed in the Lower Basin. I will only briefly outline these examples. 1. Water banking in groundwater reservoirs in Arizona may cause the water levels in Lake Mead to be reduced, thereby increasing the rate of drawdown in Lake Powell under the equalization provisions in the 1968 COlorado River Basin Project Act:.. Drawdown of Lake pewell depletes the "bank account" of the Upper Basin available to insure deliveries at Lee Ferry to meet its obligation under the 1922 Compact. 2. Increased use of tributary water in the Lower Basin, for example from the Virgin or Gila Rivers, affects total system use which rebounds to the Upper Basin. Specifically, the 1922 Compact refers to the potential use of an additional million acre feet in the Lower Basin. This reference is to Lower Basin tributary develop~ent. not to water use from the 3 OOOif03