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001175 , .., 1957J THE PELTON DECISION 239 Niagara to the exclusion of existing users."64 Thus, the Chandler- Dunbar case was distinguished, According to Mr. Justice Burton: The Act treats usufructuary water rights like other property rights. While leaving th~ way open for the exercise of the federal servitude and of federal rights of purchase or condemnation, there is no purpose expressed to seize, abolish or eliminate water rights without compensation merely by force of the Act itse\f,65 . And further: The references in the Act to preexisting water rights carry a natural implication that those rights are to survive, at least until taken over by p"rchase or otherwise. Riparian water rights, like other real property rights, are determined by state law, Title to them is acquired in conformity with that law. The Federal Water Power Act merely imposes upon their owners the additional obligation of using them in compliance with that Act.66 THE REQUIREMENT OF SECTION 9(B) As it had in the original Reclamation Act of 1902, Congress inserted in the Water Power Act a provision to ensure compliance with the laws of the state or states in which a project was to be constructed, This was section 9(b), reading: Each applicant for a license. . , shall submit, , , (b) Satisfactory evidence that the applicant has complied with the require- ments of the laws of the State or States within which the proposed project is to be located with respect to bed and banks and to the appropriation, diversion, and use of water for power purposes and with respect to the right to engage in the business of developing, transmitting and distributing power, and in any other business necessary to effect the purposes of a license under this chapter.67 In 1940, the First Iowa Hydro-Electric Cooperative filed an applica- tion with the commission for a license to construct a hydroelectric power plant on the Cedar River, at Moscow, Iowa. The proposed project was to consist of several reservoirs and was to divert practically the entire stream of the Cedar River at Moscow and carry it, via various works, to the Mississippi at a point about twenty miles north of the natural junction with that river. The state of Iowa objected to the license and the commission, taking the position that the courts were the proper place in which to determine the laws of Iowa, dismissed the application without prejudice. Thus, when the Supreme Court ruled that compliance with Iowa law was not necessary or required by the act, it adopted a contention largely of its own devising,68 Mr. Justice Frankfurter, an authority on administrative law, dissented, and in so 64347 V,S. at 251. 65 Id, at 251-52, 66 I d. at 252, (Emphasis added.) 6741 SrAT. 1068 (1920), 16 VSe. sec, 802(b) (1952). 68 First Iowa Hydro-Elec. Cooperative v, Federal Power Comm'n, 328 V,S, 152 (1946).