I think should be covered in this Congress, that I feel is essential to irrigation and the success of the projects, and especially to the new developments in my own State. I have no fault to find, that is just my own personal opinion.

But the new bill comes along and it is very short, but I would prefer still and would still insist, Mr. Rockwell, that you take the good parts out of your own bill and add them to what you have, and then we will fight out the issue we have before us here as to what should be done with the interest component.

Mr. ROCKWELL. Mr. Cole, do you have anything further to say? Mr. COLE. I wish to thank you, gentlemen, for the opportunity of appearing before you.

Mr. ROCKWELL. Thank you, Mr. Cole.

Mr. J. T. Sanders?

STATEMENT OF J. T. SANDERS, LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL,

THE NATIONAL GRANGE

Mr SANDERS. My name is J. T. Sanders. I am the legislative counsel of the National Grange and come here as a representative of the Grange.

The National Grange has always been favorable to the reclamation work in the Western States. We have favored the provisions in the Reclamation Act which made it possible to develop irrigation farms at the least economical sound expense to the individual operator. We have been favorable to the provisions of the act which limited the maximum amount of land on which water is supplied to individual farmers from the reclamation projects; and have likewise been favorable to supplying electrical energy at the lowest possible cost rate to agricultural, industrial, and municipal users of electricity.

The view of the Grange has always been that the principal function of reclamation was to develop high-type family-size farms on reclamation projects.

To this end we have felt that it was very important to reduce the cost of water delivered to the farmer to the minimum and have, therefore, supported the interest-free provision of the act.

Although we have considered the agricultural aspects of reclamation to be the main purpose of reclamation, we have realized that the generation of electricity is indeed an integral and inseparable part of sound reclamation projects. We have advocated and supported maximum early development of electrical power so long as this did not impair agricultural uses of water. As such, we have contended that electric energy should be supplied at the minimum wholesale cost rate to farmers in the projects, to farmer cooperatives, to municipalities, and to public agencies accessible to the supplies.

We have felt that the first call on the use of this electricity was as an adjunct to the development of the agricultural enterprices in the area. Although we have contended that farmers should obtain the electricity at the lowest possible cost, we have never contended that the rate paid for electricity should be lower than the cost of generating and distributing it by the Government.

Grange policy has also advocated acquisition of any necessary generating and distribution facilities, whether existing at present under

private ownership or whether newly installed facilities, if these are needed for the full development and distribution of the power resources of the projects.

We have not felt that it was proper and desirable that the electricity should be disposed of solely at the point of generation, but have contended that the Government should be allowed to distribute this electricity to the various wholesale users of electricity in the different communities served by the project.

The Grange has never taken the attitude that either the power or the irrigation segments of the reclamation project could be wholly separated in consideration of cost allocation.

For this reason, we shall support, as we have always supported, interest-free funds for irrigation. We believe, however, that revenue from power should be considered as an integral part of the revenues from the project as a whole.

In other words, we look upon a reclamation project as an entity intended primarily to develop the agricultural resources and, at the same time, develop maximum efficient use of power resources of the project. Only in this manner can sound community life be established. This being the case, we believe that the total revenues from the entire project should be used to liquidate all the indebtedness to the Government and that no differentiation should be made between power and irrigation revenues since both irrigation and power are an inseparable part of a successful project.

Although we contend that the principal function of reclamation is that of developing the undeveloped agricultural resources of an area, we realize that the commercial aspects of power development is an ever-increasing portion of most of the major reclamation projects.

A portion of the financial difficulties of irrigation development in the past has arisen from the fact that irrigation has not been planned as an integral part of the development of an entire watershed.

Many other advantages flow from the construction of reclamation projects other than advantages to farm land, such as for example the generation of electric power, the prevention of siltation of channels, harbors, and other waterways, the prevention of flood damages, the improvement of navigation, reduction of alkalinity, and improved underground water supply as well as water supplies for urban and other uses.

If all the advantages that result from the sound reclamation projects on an entire watershed were properly evaluated, the total cost justifiably chargeable to irrigation would thereby be reduced. The mere fact that such planning and development has not been the rule in the past justifies, in part, the provisions that heretofore prevailed in allowing interest-free funds for irrigation development.

Nevertheless, it emphasizes the need for a more fully well-rounded plan of development for large watersheds where irrigation, power, and all other beneficial results from such well-rounded development can be properly evaluated and charged their proportionate share of the cost.

In the absence of such full, well-rounded developments, the Grangebelieves that it would be a mistake to undertake to charge many of the supplemental benefits of reclamation dams and other installations up to the cost of irrigation. Whether these nonagricultural ben

efits are properly evaluated in an over-all plan of the watershed or not, they accrue to the general public and, therefore, should not be included as costs of irrigation developments. The failure to make a proper plan of the watershed as a whole offers no excuse for shouldering all the present costs of reclamation projects onto users of irrigation water or electricity.

The Grange has a deep-seated economic basis for its opposition to any move that will reduce the total amount of electricity generated by reclamation projects, or any move that will add unjustified costs to it. Cheap and dependable quantities of electricity have for many years been important on irrigated farms; but the last decade has brought unbelievable importance to electricity as a great service to

all American farmers.

More than half of all the labor required to carry on the production of American farms is labor not done on major field crops, but is such labor as taking care of livestock, feeding, pumping water, cleaning, packing, and preparing products for marketing, handling manure, spraying, grinding, digging, mixing concrete and feed, cleaning out barns and hen houses, cutting and sawing wood, painting, and a thousand and one other jobs.

Peculiarly enough nearly all of these tasks, constituting more than half all farm work, lend themselves to the application of electric power, light, and heat in such ways as to reduce greatly the total amount of labor required per unit of product and to increase the quality and amount of farm products.

For example, a quarter-horsepower motor on a water pump will do the work of a man on a pump handle at the insignificant cost of 312 cent per hour. By supplying 34 poultry farms with electricity and modern equipment, a 35-percent saving of labor was made the first year and total products were increased 15 percent.

(1) The economies and saving resulting from mechanization of this 50 percent of miscellaneous farm jobs within the next decade or so undoubtedly will aggregate a greater saving of labor than has the mechanization of field crop jobs. It would be a profound mistake to retard the greatly needed increase of electric energy to farmers or to unduly increase the cost of this great boon to them.

It was estimated that an investment of each dollar in 1943 and 1944 in field power and field equipment would save a half-hour of labor each year; whereas for each dollar invested in improved equipment to do the work with livestock and the work on miscellaneous other farm jobs, farmers would be able to save over 3 hours.

(2) This saving of labor is almost six times as much per dollar of equipment as the average dollar put in field equipment. Yet the greater saving is in the field where use of electricity is peculiarly applicable. Is there any wonder that farmers will fight to the finish for more and more electricity at the cheapest feasible rates?

Since we regard the irrigation development program, carried out under reclamation law, as fundamentally an agricultural activity, we believe that it is imperative to coordinate the agricultural work on reclamation projects with the general work of agriculture conducted at the county, State, and national level.

The planning and construction of engineering works to furnish irrigation water supply is an important requisite in the program and

requires the services of a highly competent technical organization which the Department of the Interior has. Because the construction of dams, canals, and related works is spectacular, it catches the public's fancy and, unfortunately, tends to obscure such important factors as soils, crops, markets, credit, and community services which ordinarily do not receive the attention they deserve in testing feasibility and justification for a project.

Since the Grange is an organization of farmers, it is natural for us to see all the component factors in balanced perspective. We never lose sight of the fact that irrigation of lands, whether served by water developed by private or Government enterprise, is strictly an agricultural undertaking of utmost importance to the farmers of the arid and semiarid States. Our comments on this aspect of the pending bills are being offered with these ideas in mind.

We are of the opinion that the bills in their present form do not provide for the full and most efficient use of existing governmental facilities for planning and developing the agricultural possibility of Federal irrigation projects.

We recommend that they be amended to provide that investigations and studies of the agricultural feasibility of proposed irrigation projects and plans for agricultural development be the joint responsibility of the United States Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior. But we believe that the scientific and technical staff for this agricultural work should be drawn in the main from the Department of Agriculture, which staff should be compensated for their work on reclamation projects out of reclamation funds by reimbursable vouchers drawn on the reclamation funds of the Department of the Interior.

The administrative responsibility of this work, however, should remain wholly with the Department of the Interior, which Department should not reserve the right to invalidate the conclusions of the agricultural feasibility formulated by the assigned agricultural experts. As far as possible, the Department of the Interior should make use of the services of personnel of the Department of Agriculture in all work normally falling within the field of agriculture on a reimbursable basis. We do not believe that the Department of the Interior should build up a staff of agricultural experts that will duplicate those of the Soil Conservation Service, the Forestry Service, the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, and other phases of the Department of Agriculture that are necessary to the full development of the agricultural aspects of reclamation projects.

However, the Grange recognizes that since the Department of the Interior is administratively responsible for the construction and the final liquidation of the debts for the development of these projects, it is necessary that it be made finally and entirely responsible for the administration of, planning, construction, and developing the projects and, finally, for clearing them of any indebtedness to the Government.

We do not believe that the best administrative results would result if the responsibility of administering the agricultural aspects of the project were divided between the Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior. We are sure that marked economies. could be secured and quality of service improved if arrangements

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such as we suggest could be made for the agricultural work on a project.

In view of the previously mentioned general policies of the Grange, we are opposed to any measure now pending which will increase the burden of cost of irrigation water or electric energy.

We are furthermore, opposed to any change in the pricing structure for electric energy that would raise the total cost of electricity above the minimum generating and distribution cost level. We definitely are opposed to any effort to overload power charges by requiring higher rates than are needed for replacement of investment in power facilities, maintenance, and current-interest charges. We do not oppose the allocation of cost of power that would cover both the cost of installation of facilities and a reasonable interest rate on this investment.

However, we do believe that these costs would be treated as an integral part of the revenues of the reclamation project and should be used for any purpose either for irrigation repayment or for repayment for the investment of the power plus an interest on power, so long as the total due the Government is not thereby reduced.

Mr. MURDOCK. Mr. Chairman, I want to say that I regard this as a splendid statement. You are getting on a little controversial ground here at the very last, and I am going to have to read that last sentence before agreeing with it 100 percent, but it is a splendid state

ment.

In the last page of your statement you have called for a species of cooperation between departments of this Government that I think we ought to demand and get, even if we have to get a little rough about it. This has been a matter of controversy here for some little time.

Maybe I am regarded as being on one side of it. I am not so onesided in my view. After all, I want to make use of the facilities of the Department of Agriculture because it has been built up for that purpose and it has the facilities, but, of course, I do not want to turn the whole reclamation program over to the Department of Agricul ture. It is a matter of degree, is it not?

I think you did a splendid job there in showing the part electric power plays in future farming.

Mr. SANDERS. Thank you.

Mr. MURDOCK. We simply have to have it.

Mr. SANDERS. We just cannot afford to do without it, and it must be put out there with the greatest facility and with the least possible cost. Everybody will benefit by such a program.

Mr. MURDOCK. That is right.

Mr. LEMKE. May I ask what State you are from?

Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Lemke, I am a native-born Texan, and an Oklahoman. I have known you for several years through Mr. Simpson. Mr. LEMKE. I wish we had more like Mr. Simpson, he was certainly a real battler for Agriculture.

In regard to this proposition to the Department of Agriculture and the Interior, you have no objection to the people living on the irrigation project, getting the general help from the Department of Agriculture that other farmers do?