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<br />"~'--~,f"'''rt''i, <br /> <br />: ~~~"'T.i);,~I_. <br /> <br />,0025'1 <br /> <br />duced in the state Senate asking Congress not to enlarge the <br />boundaries of GrHnd Canyon National Park and not to block <br />the two dams.) <br /> <br />It's Doomed, Says Mr. Aspinall <br /> <br /> <br />The reaction of others involved in the Colorado River <br />struggle was by no means ambivalent. Save for Senator Jackson <br />of Washington, who saw in the Udall proposal a "sound basis" <br />. for resolving differences and getting a program through Con- . <br />gress, almost nobody' in the West liked it. ChHirm"n Aspinall <br />of the House Interior Committee said flatly that it would not <br />pass. "The executive department hRs the right to recommend <br />and that it hRs done," s~jd Mr. Aspinall. "Now Congress will <br />go ahead and dispose of the matter. But I want to say right now <br />that UdHlI isn't going to get the kind of bill he sets forth." Mr. <br />Aspinall s"id he objected strongly to several aspects of the <br />administration plan. "One is the capitulHtion to minority mem- <br />bers of conservation groups, Another is that there isn't anything <br />about Colorado projects or California guarantees. And Udall <br />is playing games apparently wit.h the desire of most 'Basin st.at.es <br />for some study of augment.ation of t.he river." <br /> <br />Congressman Hosmer of California called t.he Udall plan <br />"fant.astic" Hnd said, "Possibly Secretary Udall will next pro- <br />pos,e two l"rge gamblin,g cRsinos at Las Vegas as a substitute <br />for' Hualapai and MHrble Canyon Dam revenues. I. hope that <br />more st"tesm"nlike views prevail in Arizona. If t.hey do not.,.. <br />we' will have to slug it out in committee." A few days later Mr. <br />H osmer made a speech in the House' in which he charged that <br />Arizona had backed out of a seven-state agreement for Basin <br />development. He said that in drawing. up the ne,w administration <br />proposal, Secret"ry Udall had consulted only with "his fellow <br />Arizonans." And they, said Mr. Hosmer, "seem not. to lack in <br />imagination as to the way's and means for throwing monkey <br />. wrenches into the Pacific Southwest water machinery. Arizonans <br />now insist that. we forego any serious attempt to study means <br />to augment the Colorlldo, Hpparently with the wistful thought <br />that this can be done by :t. national water commission, not yet <br />created, whose duties will be so far-reaching and numerous that <br />it is pure Whimsy to imagine that a practical plan could evolve <br />before the ColorHdo River becomes an historic monument." <br /> <br />Senator Kuchel of California denounced what he called a <br />"hewildering intellectual somersault" by Se,cret.ary Udall. "The <br />regional Hpproach to solving the water problems of all the <br />Colorado Basin st:ttes, on which we h:t,d mHde such great prog- <br />ress, is now rudely shHt.t.ered," he said. He recalled that the <br />Secret.ary of t.he Interior previously had favored a water diver- <br />gion study, a 4.4-million-acre-foot. guarantee to California and <br />'. hydroelectric dams to "make regional development economic- <br />, llY Bound." "The principles he espoused then are suddenly <br />:anlloned now," s"id Sen"tor Kuchel. "We have a right to <br />"':Why the switch?' " <br /> <br />-42- <br />