Mrs. ARNOLD (the clerk). The letter from the Department of Agriculture, is dated March 7, 1947: Hon. ROBERT F. ROCKWELL, Chairman, Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation, Committee on Public Lands, House of Representatives. DEAR MR. ROCKWELL: This letter refers to Mr. Grant's letter of February 21 regarding H. R. 1977 a bill "To amend and reenact section 9 of the Reclamation Project Act of 1939." H. R. 1977 proposes a modification of existing Federal policy with respect to the determination of feasibility, authorization and repayment of costs of Federal reclamation projects. Another proposal to revise these same features of reclamation law is contained in H. R. 1886 which you recently referred to this Department for comment. Inasmuch as the two bills deal with the same general subject and the interest of the Department of Agriculture in these matters is set forth at some length in our report to you on H. R. 1886, we respectfully request that the opinions and recommendations of the Department expressed in that report be considered as covering our views relative to H. R. 1977. We are attaching a copy of our report to you on H. R. 1886 with attachment. Sincerely, The attachment is dated March 7, 1947: Hon. ROBERT F. ROCKWELL, CLINTON P. ANDERSON, Secretary. Chairman, Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation, DEAR MR. ROCKWELL: On February 18 we acknowledge receipt of a letter from your office regarding H. R. 1886, a bill "To Amend the Reclamation Project Act of 1939." We have subsequently had an opportunity to study the bill and wish to bring before you the views of this Department relative to the proposed legislation. H. R. 1886 would amend the 1939 Reclamation Act in a manner that would alter in an important way existing procedures under reclamation law. It would establish a method whereby Federal irrigation projects would be authorized by retaining with the Congress the sole authorizing power and would provide a greater degree of flexibility under which provision could be made for the particular needs of each project under consideration. The bill would also revise the basis on which the feasibility of proposed projects would be determined as well as the existing public policy with respect to the repayment of project construction costs. All of these provisions would result in definite and businesslike procedures for extending Federal assistance to irrigation agriculture—an objective with which this Department is in accord. However, we believe that the bill would not be complete in its present form and that serious consideration should be given to including some additional desirable provisions. We have previously discussed these matters with your committee and believe this occasion an appropriate one to bring them to your attention again. As you know, this Department has on many occasions in recent years demonstrated its cognizance of the need for some revision in reclamation law as it applies to the determination of the agricultural feasibility of Federal irrigation projects and we have given extensive testimony on the subject before the Committees on Irrigation and Reclamation in both Houses of Congress. In our testimony on such bills as H. R. 520, H. R. 5434, and H. R. 5654 introduced in the Seventy-ninth Congress, we attempted to lay before the Congress our views regarding the need for adequate consideration of the agricultural aspects of proposed irrigation projects with our suggestions as to how this need might best be satisfied without a serious duplication of facilities now available in the Federal Departments. Briefly stated, the position of the Department of Agriculture is that: (a) Irrigation projects are basically agricultural enterprises. (b) The success of irrigation projects is measured by their success as agricultural enterprises although power, navigation, and other public benefits are involved. (c) Lands to be irrigated are now, or will become, an integral part of the Nation's agricultural resources and the agricultural feasibility of the proposed projects should be considered within the framework of the whole of agriculture. (d) The Department of Agriculture, with its general Federal responsibility for the welfare of agriculture, should be a cooperating partner in the study and planning of Federal irrigation projects and is the Federal agency which should formulate and make recommendations to the Congress relative to the agricultural feasibility of, and agricultural development plans for such projects. We believe that while the foregoing has always been true, in the imminent future it will be more forcibly so. We are entering an era of multipurpose natural-resource development during which large-scale projects will be studied and proposed that will vitally affect the agriculture of local communities, regions and the Nation as a whole. It therefore seems good sound business on the part of Government that the resources of this Department be utilized in carrying out the irrigation aspects of these undertakings. There is in the Department of Agriculture and its cooperating State agencies a vast reservoir of agricultural knowledge, experience and information and a staff of trained persons who possess a large bulk of the agricultural knowledge of this Nation. These facilities, knowledge and experience have been directed toward the problems of the irrigated farmer for many years. From the standpoint of public service, the crop and livestock and other farm-management problems of the farmers now operating the 18,000,000 acres of privately developed irrigated land, as well as the 4,000,000 acres of land served in one way or another by Federal projects, are the concern of the Department of Agriculture and its cooperating State agencies today. Therefore, since this Department has in the past inherited the agricultural problems that have arisen on Federal irrigation projects after they have been developed, it would be in the best interests of farmers who will occupy new projects, and of the public generally, to provide in this bill for the participation of the Department of Agriculture in their planning and development. It is our opinion that the Congress, under the provisions of this bill, in its authorization of proposed projects, would be able to achieve a more efficient and effective reclamation program if it has the benefit of the services of the Department of Agriculture. To implement our foregoing suggestions, we have prepared a draft of section 1 of H. R. 1886 amended to accomplish what the Department of Agriculture deems is a desirable modification of the present bill. Our recommendations provide that the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture, acting jointly, would investigate and report to the Congress on proposed future irrigation projects. The Secretary of the Interior would be charged with the responsibility for the engineering and nonagricultural phases of the work and the Secretary of Agriculture would be responsible for the agricultural phases. The two Secretaries would jointly appraise the economic feasibility of new projects and the joint recommendations of both agencies would be transmitted to the affected States for review and to the Congress, with the recommendations of the States, for use in determining whether a project should be authorized for construction and the terms of such authorization. We are transmitting herewith copies of our suggested revision of the bill and earnestly request favorable consideration of it by your committee and the Congress. We shall be glad to offer testimony on the bill at the time of hearings before your committee. In view of the request that this report be submitted today, we have not had opportunity to obtain from the Bureau of the Budget advice as to the relationship of this proposed legislation, or report thereon, to the program of the President. Sincerely yours, CLINTON P. ANDERSON, Secretary. Mr. ROCKWELL. Mr. Brannan, will you take the chair, please? STATEMENT OF CHARLES F. BRANNAN, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, WASHINGTON, D. C. Mr. BRANNAN. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, my name is Charles F. Brannan, and I am Assistant Secretary of Agriculture. We have to present this morning a prepared statement which is not unduly long, and which I should like the privilege of reading to the committee. Of course, gentlemen, we do appreciate the opportunity of coming before your committee again and of being able to present the views and recommendations of the Department of Agriculture relative to H. R. 1886, a bill to amend the Reclamation Project Act of 1939. As a prelude to my comments on this bill, I should like to review with your committee the position of the Department of Agriculture with respect to Federal irrigation developments as it has been set forth previously on several occasions before the Congress. Over the past few years a legislative pattern has been developing which places increasing emphasis upon the agricultural aspects of Federal irrigation projects, and in accordance with this trend, Congress has enacted legislation bringing the resources of the Department of Agriculture to bear upon some of these problems. More recently, however, a move to reverse this trend has been initiated by legislative proposals which would place the responsibility for these agricultural aspects in the Department of the Interior and take it away from the Department of Agriculture where, in our opinion, it properly belongs. In this connection, I should like to emphasize that the Federal irrigation program with which we are concerned today involves the supplying of irrigation water to large areas of privately owned lands, a large percentage of which are already in crop production. In such cases we are simply changing the method of use. No longer is the development of public lands a primary consideration in formulating Federal irrigation policy. Several weeks ago I appeared before this committee in response to an invitation from your chairman and discussed the broad aspects of the Federal irrigation program. I particularly appreciated the questions which you raised at that time because they served to clarify the position of the Department of Agriculture and to emphasize the importance of irrigation as a major agricultural undertaking to the West and to the entire Nation. I shall not at this time attempt to cover the problem again in detail because you are already familiar with our views. With your permission, however, I will summarize the important points of our previous testimony as follows: 1. Resource development projects authorized by the reclamation laws are basically agricultural enterprises and the success of these projects is measured by their success as agricultural enterprises although, power, navigation, and other public benefits or interests are involved and are of major importance. 2. The Federal irrigation program now deals and in the future, will deal more importantly with the supply of irrigation water to private lands than with developments on public lands. 3. Lands to be irrigated are now or will become an integral part of the Nation's agricultural resources and, in the interest of formulating the most efficient irrigation program, plans for development of proposed projects should be geared into plans for the whole of agriculture. 4. The Department of Agriculture and its cooperating State agencies have the responsibility for serving and assisting all American farmers in all phases of agricultural research, extension, marketing, credit, price support and stabilization, conservation, and related work. Therefore, to secure the most effective and efficient Federal irrigation program, this Department, as a cooperating partner with the Department of the Interior in the over-all program, should be responsible from the very beginning on each project for the formulation of agricultural development plans and programs and for determinations of agricultural feasibility. With this as a background, I will now proceed to discuss the bill before us, H. R. 1886. This bill is designed to clarify and modernize the existing reclamation law with respect to land development and would tend to bring the Federal irrigation program more effectively to bear upon the problems of irrigated agriculture. It would establish a new procedure under which Federal irrigation projects would be planned, recommended, and authorized and would establish certain basic principles to govern the determination of project feasibility as well as the allocation of costs to the various beneficiaries. The Public Treasury would bear the cost of public benefits, including recreation, wildlife, and flood control. The bill would vest the power to authorize such undertakings exclusively with the Congress. As an aid in this function, the bill provides that all essential factual information shall be included in the project plans recommended to Congress for authorization. It also provides a more definite policy for contracts between the Government and the users of irrigation water and recognizes that in some instances the cost of installation for irrigation uses alone may exceed the measurable repayment ability of the water users and makes provision to offset such a situation. Because we believe that the objectives of the bill as they relate to agriculture are in the interest of irrigation farmers and the public welfare, the Department of Agriculture is in accord with these general objectives; however, we believe that the bill in its present form does not provide for the full and logical use of existing governmental facilities for administration of Federal irrigation activities and we have, therefore, suggested amendments to it which were transmitted to you, Mr. Chairman, as a part of the report on the bill by our Department. Our suggestions are in the form of a proposed substitute for section 1 of H. R. 1886. They are intended to strengthen the bill by assuring that the irrigation project plans submitted for authorization would include all the information and recommendations of an agricultural nature necessary to an adequate appraisal by the Congress. Our proposed amendment would also assist Congress to correlate irrigation development with the rest of the agricultural economy in the vicinity and throughout the Nation and to assure to the farmers who locate on the projects a continuity of service from the public agricultural agencies commensurate with that received by all other farmers. Briefly the Department's proposed substitute for section 1 of the bill does five things: 1. It would retain undisturbed all the provisions contained in section 1 in its present form except that certain functions of an agricultural nature would become the responsibility of the Secretary of Agriculture. 2. It would make the Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture cooperators in the investigation of proposed Federal irrigation projects. 3. It specifies those portions of investigations and reports to the Congress for which each Secretary will have exclusive responsibility. 4. It specifies those portions of investigations and reports to the Congress for which the two Secretaries would have joint responsibility. 5. It sets forth the terms and conditions under which the Secretaries would carry out their individual and joint responsibilities. It is generally agreed that all of the pertinent facts relative to a proposed irrigation project should be available at the time the project is considered for authorization. These facts should not be confined to those pertaining to engineering feasibility, to recreation benefits or to revenue from the sale of power and municipal water. Of utmost importance are those facts which determine the feasibility of the project as a going agricultural enterprise, and the judgment with which those facts are evaluated. The primary purpose of irrigation projects is the wise use of agricultural lands which are an important part of the agricultural plant of the Nation. The manner in which these projects are planned and developed affects importantly the future welfare of the people who will use these lands agriculturally, as well as the Nation's agriculture as a whole. Therefore, the agricultural facts, as well as the technical recommendations concerning them, that should be available to the Congress in reaching a judgment about any irrigation project proposal are those which can be most efficiently and economically supplied by the Department of Agriculture. The bill, if amended as we suggest, would provide that this part of the total task be performed by the Department of Agriculture. If the Department of the Interior should undertake this agricultural function, to do a creditable job it would of necessity have to create a large agricultural organization which would duplicate, at public expense, many of the functions and facilities of the Department of Agriculture. To such a proposal, our Department is unalterably opposed. It seems to us good, sound business on the part of Government to utilize the resources of the Department of Agriculture in carrying out these great agricultural undertakings. Irrigation farming is as much a part of our agriculture as is any other type of farming and the national agricultural programs, administered by the Department of Agriculture, serve the irrigation farmer as they do any other farmer. That portion of our total agricultural production that comes from irrigated land is as vital in our total production as is the production from other land and is closely related to the success or failure of much of our nonirrigated agriculture in the vicinity of irrigated areas. Irrigated or potentially irrigable areas cannot successfully be treated in isolation from the remainder of our agriculture. Let us remember that of the approximately 425 million acres of cropland in this country only some 22 million acres are under irri |