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r ~" . . . '6~~'5"1s Senate made ready to hold public hearings on the go-it-alone bill, a prominent figure in Arizona water matters spoke out on it, :lnd what he, had to say was sharply critical. Speaking at Casa Grande, former CAPA Chairman of the Board Lawrence Mehren said the bill had "many questionable provisions." One, he said, stipulated that "no commission, department officer or agency of the state or any political subdivision thereof shall have any jurisdiction, control or power over any of the acts or things to be done by the Stream Commission and Power Author- ity" in building CAP. "Just how powerful can you get?" asked Mr. Mehren. (The Phocn-i.1! Gazette shared Mr. Mehren's appre- hension on this point, contending in an editorial that the pro- vision in question might well lead to a "high-flying super bureaucracy answerable to no one.") . Other points made by Mr. Mehrel'): . -There was no "trigger" to flash :1 green light for a go- ahead on CAP. "Once passed, action can start immediately. Is this fair to the congressional delegation laboring for a solution in Washington? Should the 'trigger' be the' decision of the governor, the congressional delegation, the House speaker, the . Senate president-or all collectively?" -CAP needed both dams for payout. Yet "there are many of us who have serious doubts" that FPC would license the dams. "Congressional pressures have mounted to either elim- inate or reserve the sites :on the Colorado River to the federal government. . . In this' event, sho'uld not the state biII face squarely the hct thllt Arizona may need to construct its own power facility, large enough to provide salable power, and above pumping requirements to provide some revenue? And must it not provide for taxing authority to make up any defi- ciencies in revenue to meet bond and operating requirements?" Mr. Mehren said he was convinced that, in cutting back the Colorado River development plan; the White House had "bowed to the Sierra Club e'xtremists." "I am firmly convinced," . he said, "that Interior Secretary Stewart Udall had this program forced down his throat." Powers of Bonding Authority Debated The question Mr. Mehren raised in his speech at Casa Grande, i.e., how broad the powers of the bonding authority should be, emerged as the principal sticking point when the bill came UP for hearing in the Senate. Several witnesses ex- pressed similar doubts. One of them, J. A. Riggins, Jr., counsel for the Salt River Project and the San Carlos Irrigation District, called it "open-ended, blank-check" financing. But two bonding experts, John G. Monzani, investment banker, and Frank E. Curley, bond counsel for the Power Authority, thought CAP would be attainable by the go-it-alone route only if the author- ity had such broad powers. Mr. Curley said the language con- tained in the bill was st:lndard and, in fact, was the same -47-