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4 agreed that these studies would not cover questions of ownership of lines or transmission costs. These studies made during early 1960 indicated that an integrated transmission system similar to the one proposed by the investor-owned utilities in October, 1959 was the best engineering solu- tion to the problem of marketing project power., During 1960, the five investor-owned utilities submitted to the Bureau firm wheeling rates for transporting project power and energy that would flow over their transmission facilities. The term "wheeling" as used in this sense applies to charges made for transporting electricity over transmission lines owned by one supplier for another supplier. This type of arrangement is not new. The Public Service Company of Colorado has performed this type of service for the Bureau in the marketing of Colorado-Big Thompson power for the past 10 years. A new contract which provides for a continuation of this wheeling service for the next 15 years at even lower rates has recently been executed. There are many other examples of such wheeling arrangements throughout the country. The wheeling rates offered to the Bureau for transporting Colorado River Storage Project power are as follows: Mills/kwh $/kw-Year Arizona Public Service Company 1.177 or 6.74 Public Service Company of Co lorado 1.00 Public Service Company of New Mexico 1.25 or 6.00 Utah Power and Light Company 7.75 Pacific Power and Light Company 1.00 The composite rates, based on these wheeling rates and load schedules furnished by the Bureau of Reclamation, would be 1.1 mills per kilowatt-hour. These rates give full consideration to the dual purpose use of the utilities' lines. Since these facilities will be used to transport power :to utility company customers as well as project power to prefer- ence customers, the Bureau would only pay transmission charges for line capacity used. This type of arrangement makes the optimum use of trans- mission facilities and saves the Bureau needless operating costs on their own facilities. On May 18, 1960, the Secretary of the Interior announced power marketing criteria and an all-Federal "Yardstick" transmission system for the Colorado River Storage Project. The term "yardstick" goes back to the early days of the Tennessee Valley Authority when its rates were sup- posed to be a measure for electric utility rates. This fallacy has long since been exposed. TVA can be a yardstick - not of the cost of electric power, but of the distance an authority can go. These marketing criteria established delivery points for project power which are shown as triangles on the all-Federal Yardstick system (Figure 1.) These criteria stated that Upper Basin Preference customers would be served first and that any surplus power would be sold to preference users in the Lower Basin. The all-Federal "yardstick" transmission system, Figure 1, was for the announced