HEARINGS BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON IRRIGATION AND RECLAMATION HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES SIXTY-NINTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION ON H. R. 6251 and H. R. 9826 BILLS TO PROVIDE FOR THE PROTECTION AND 92066 APRIL 12, 16, 19, 21, 23, 28, AND MAY 1 AND 17, 1926 PART 2 WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1926 FOREWORD EXPLANATORY DATA The committee on Irrigation and Reclamation of the House of Representatives held 19 meetings to consider the Boulder Canyon Dam and other Colorado River legislation during the first session of the Sixty-ninth Congress. Of this number 13 were in open session and 6 were in executive session. The first meeting of the committee to consider the Colorado River bills was on January 22, 1926, and all meetings up to and including the one on March 19 are printed in the revised print of part 1 of the hearings. All subsequent matters are placed in part 2. The first bill before the Sixty-ninth Congress having to do with the development of the Colorado River (H. R. 6251) was introduced by Mr. Swing on December 21, 1925. This measure provided for the authorization of an appropriation of $70,000,000 from the unappropriated money of the Treasury. Mr. Swing prepared a committee print of the bill during the early part of February showing proposed amendments, which provided for the sale of bonds to finance the project, which bonds were to be retired from revenues secured from the project in not to exceel 50 years. On February 27 it was introduced by Mr. Swing and numbered H. R. 9826. This plan of financing the works was submitted to the Secretary of the Treasury, who suggested and later submited a substitute method of providing the funds. The tentative plan of the Secretary of the Treasury was incorporated in the committee prints of April 10 and April 14, which provided for the establishment of a special fund known as the "Colorado River Dam Fund," into which money would be placed by appropriation as the work progressed. Hearings were given to the representatives of the upper basin States who proposed a number of amendments, part of which are in the committee print of April 10 and all of which can be found in ⚫ the committee print of April 14. By a vote of 9 to 6 on May 22 the committee resolved to give no further consideration to H. R. 9826 and all other bills relating to the development of the Colorado River until the second session of the Sixty-ninth Congress. III COLORADO RIVER BASIN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON IRRIGATION AND RECLAMATION, Sixty-ninth Congress, First Session. Hearings held by this committee on H. R. 6251 and H. R. 9826, to provide for the protection and development of the lower Colorado River Basin, by Mr. Swing of California. The following is H. R. 9826, introduced by Mr. Swing on February 27, 1926: A BILL To provide for the protection and development of the lower Colorado River Basin Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That, for the purpose of regulating the lower Colorado River, controlling the floods therein and equating and stabilizing the flow thereof, providing storage of the waters thereof for reclamation of public lands and other beneficial uses within the United States, and for the generation of electrical energy as a means of making the project herein authorized a self-supporting and financially solvent undertaking, the Secretary of the Interior s hereby authorized and directed to construct, operate, and maintain a dam and incidental works in the main stream of the Colorado River at Black Canyon or Boulder Canyon adequate to create a storage reservoir of a capacity of not less than twenty-six million-acre feet of water and a main canal and appurtenant structures located entirely within the United States connecting the Laguna Dam or other suitable diversion works to be located and constructed by the said Secretary on said river as a part of said canal with the Imperial and Coachella Valleys in California; also to construct and equip, operate and maintain at or near said dam a complete plant and incidental structures suitable for the fullest economic development of electrical energy from the water discharged from said reservoir; and to acquire by proceedings in eminent domain, or otherwise, all lands, rights of way and other property necessary for said purposes. SEC. 2. That the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized to borrow on the credit of the United States from time to time as the proceeds may be required to defray the expenditures authorized by this act (such proceeds when received to be deposited in a subfund of the reclamation fund established under the reclamation law and to be designated “Colorado River Dam Fund" and to be used only for the purpose of meeting such expenditures) the sum of $125,000,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary, and to prepare and issue therefor coupon or registered bonds of the United States, in such form and denomination as he may determine, redeemable in gold coin at the pleasure of the United States after fifteen years from the date of their issue and payable in not to exceed fifty years from such date, and bearing interest at a rate not exceeding 4 per centum per annum, payable semiannually in gold coin: Provided, however, That the Secretary of the Treasury, in his discretion, may, at the request of the Secretary of the Interior, issue said bonds in series maturing in successive years commencing not earlier than fifteen years from the date of their issue, but all maturing in not to exceed fifty years from such date. SEC. 3. That the sum of $105,000,000 is hereby authorized to be appropriated from said subfund from time to time upon estimates of the Secretary of the Interior for the construction of the works herein authorized; and the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized to pay out of the unappropriated 85 |