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<br />. 0235 <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />This argument, however, fails to recognize the problems <br />that would r~sult for federal agencies as 0ell as state <br />administrators and water right holders if the agencies were <br />allowed to ignore substantive state law in acquiring non- <br />reserved federal water rights. In discussing Congressional <br />insistence in the reclamation law that federal agencies <br />comply with substantive state law in acquiring and distri- <br />buting \-later from reclamation projects, the Supreme Court in <br />New ~jexico cited a statement from then Representative <br />Sutherland, as follows: <br /> <br />"If the appropriation and use were not under the <br />provisions of the state law the utmost confusion would <br />prevail." 77/ The Court noted that different \-later rights <br />in the samestate would be governed by different laws and <br />\vould frequently conflict... "The principal motivating <br />factor behind Congress' decision to defer to state law was <br />the legal confusion that would arise if federal water law <br />and state law reigned side by side in the same locality," <br />7..i/ <br /> <br />This is the result that would occur if the courts <br />upheld the Opinion's theory concerning non-reserved federal <br />water rights. Unless federal administrators determined that <br />state substantive lavl "recognizes federal appropriative <br />rights in all pertinent respects," 79/ so-called non-reserved <br />\,'ater rights "lOuld exist side by side \vith state appropri- <br />ative rights, both governed by different laws, leading to <br />precisely the kind of confusion that the Supreme Court found <br />inconsistent \-lith Congressional intentions concerning federal- <br />state relations in water law. <br /> <br />22/ 438 u.s. at 668. <br />7..i/ Id. at 669. <br />~/ Opinion at 577. <br /> <br />-21- <br />