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3 in support of the legislation and offered to use their existing trans- mission facilities and future transmission lines as might be necessary to deliver project power to preference customers in the market area. Recognizing the merits of these offers Congressional Committees directed that the Department of Interior take cognizance of the utilities' offer to a maximum degree, stating that they expected, ". . . the proposal by the private power companies to be carefully considered by the Department of the Interior and the electric power and energy of the Project to be marketed, so far as possible, through the facilities of the electric utilities operating in the area. . ." The Department of the Interior advised these Congressional Committees that it was sympathetic to the private power companies' proposal and indicated that if the Project were authorized, the proposal would be given consideration. This history is related in order to focus your attention on the true intent of the legislation, that is to develop water - not power as some people believe and to give the background leading up to the present situation with respect to the question of whether a combination investor- owned and Federal transmission system or an all-Federal transmission system should be used to market project power. After authorization of the Project in April, 1956 the investor- owned utilities continued their engineering studies related to the trans- mission facilities associated with the Colorado River Storage Project. Early in 1959, Congress directed the Bureau of Reclamation to confer with the investor-owned utilities in the planning of a transmission system for this Project. On July 10, 1959, the Bureau invited the regional electric utilities and other interested parties to meet with them and give consideration to the problem of integrating the operation of the Colorado River Storage Project plants with the generating and transmission facilities in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Utah. The Bureau at this meeting presented a proposed 345,000 volt single-circuit transmission system for this Project. After reviewing the information presented by the Bureau, engi- neering studies made during the past five years by the investor-owned utilities were brought up to date. On October 1, 1959 these utilities presented a comprehensive plan for transporting project power to the Bureau of Reclamation. On October 13, 1959, at the request of the Bureau, this plan was presented to the preference power users in the area, This combination plan, which is basically a multi-circuit 230,000 volt system provided for both utility and federal transmission lines to fully utilize the present and future facilities of the area with- out duplication. In the latter part of 1959, these interested parties agreed to make a joint engineering study of electric transmission problems related to the Colorado River Storage Project. The major share of the cost of this study was paid for by the five investor-owned utilities. It was