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<br />0378 <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />, <br /> <br />_. <br /> <br />of actions the Department proposed to take, but has not. in <br />fact, taken. Six of the audits took an average of 28 months to <br />close, while the seventh. Central Valley Project, Municipal and <br />Industrial Water. remains unresolved after 56 months. (See <br />Chapters 3 through 9.) <br /> <br />9. Congress has failed to give sufficient attention to the <br />financial status of Federal water projects, the recovery of <br />costs from water and power users. and the disposition of IG <br />audits. Although the relevant committees of Congress have <br />received regular semi-annual reports from the Office of the <br />Inspector General, not a single hour of oversight hearings has <br />been scheduled on this subject in the last five years. Such <br />inattention has left Departmental officials free to assume that <br />the current Congress has little interest in improving the rate <br />at which the Treasury is reimbursed for costly Federal water <br />projects. <br /> <br />Recommendations for the Secretary of the Interior <br /> <br />We recommend that the Secretary of the Interior should act <br />promptly to: <br /> <br />o Withhold the awarding of any further construction contracts <br />on the Bonneville Unit of the Central Utah Project and the <br />San Felipe Division of the Central Valley Project until <br />local interests commit to repay the costs now being <br />incurred by the Bureau of Reclamation to build these <br />projects; <br /> <br />o Personally review the disposition of all seven Reclamation <br />project audits. and employ all legally available options <br />for securing additional cost recovery at this time; <br /> <br />o Request that additional audit effort by the Office of the <br />Inspector General be directed toward Reclamation project <br />accounts, to verify the financial status of all major <br />Reclamation projects within three years. <br /> <br />o Abolish the policy of the continuous postponement of <br />repayment deadlines, known as "rolling repayment," and <br />require that all irrigation repayment, including repayment <br />assistance from power revenues, and all municipal water <br />supply repayment, be made in regular annual installments. <br /> <br />o Eliminate the use of hypothetical irrigation projects not <br />authorized for construction as a pretext for reducing the <br />cost of hydroelectric power now being generated at Federal <br />dams. <br /> <br />12 <br />