194 BOULDER CANYON PROJECT ADJUSTMENT ACT Fund. There is hereby authorized to be appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, such sums, not exceeding said aggregate amount, as may be necessary to permit the Secretary of the Treasury to make such readvances. All such readvances shall bear interest. SEC. 6. [Interest to be computed at 3 per centum.]-Whenever by the terms of the Project Act or this Act payment of interest is provided for, and whenever interest shall enter into any computation thereunder, such interest shall be computed at the rate of 3 per centum per annum, compounded annually. SEC. 7. [First $25,000,000 advance to be made to flood control without interest to be repayable 1987 as Congress determines.]-The first $25,000,000 of advances made to the Colorado River Dam Fund for the project shall be deemed to be the sum allocated to flood control by section 2 (b) of the Project Act and repayment thereof shall be deferred without interest until June 1, 1987, after which time such advances so allocated to flood control shall be repayable to the Treasury as the Congress shall determine. SEC. 8. [Secretary authorized to promulgate regulations and enter into contracts-no allotments heretofore promulgated to be modified or changed without consent of allottee.]—The Secretary is hereby authorized from time to time to promulgate such regulations and enter into such contracts as he may find necessary or appropriate for carrying out the purposes of this Act and the Project Act, as modified hereby, and, by mutual consent, to terminate or modify any such contract: Provided, however, That no allotment of energy to any allottee made by any rule or regulation heretofore promulgated shall be modified or changed without the consent of such allottee. SEC. 9. [Secretary authorized to negotiate for termination of existing lease of Boulder Power Plant-If lease terminated, operation and maintenance and replacements authorized-Secretary to agree that (a) lessees be designated agents for operation of power plant, (b) agency contract not revocable, and (c) suits or proceedings to restrain termination may be maintained against Secretary.]-The Secretary is hereby authorized to negotiate for and enter into a contract for the termination of the existing lease of the Boulder Power Plant made pursuant to the Project Act, and in the event of such termination the operation and maintenance, and the making of replacements, however necessitated, of the Boulder Power Plant by the United States, directly or through such agent or agents as the Secretary may designate, is hereby authorized. The powers, duties, and rights of such agent or agents shall be provided by contract, which may include provision that questions relating to the interpretation or performance thereof may be determined, to the extent provided therein, by arbitration or court proceedings. The Secretary in consideration of such termination of such existing lease is authorized to agree (a) that the lessees therein named shall be designated as the agents of the United States for the operation of said power plant; (b) that (except by mutual consent or in accordance with such provisions for termination for default as may be specified therein) such agency contract shall not be revocable or terminable; and (c) that suits or proceedings to restrain the termination of any Ze BOULDER CANYON PROJECT ADJUSTMENT ACT 195 such agency contract, otherwise than as therein provided, or for other appropriate equitable relief or remedies, may be maintained against the Secretary. Suits or other court proceedings pursuant to the foregoing provisions may be maintained in, and jurisdiction to hear and determine such suits or proceedings and to grant such relief or remedies is hereby conferred upon, the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia, with the like right of appeal or review as in other like suits or proceedings in said court. The Secretary is hereby authorized to act for the United States in such arbitration proceedings. SEC. 10. [Act to be effective when Secretary finds existing lease power plant terminated and allottees have entered into contracts consenting to operation-if contracts not entered into prior to June 1, 1941, act shall be of no further effect.]-This Act shall be effective immediately for the purpose of the promulgation of charges, or the basis of computation thereof, and the execution of contracts authorized by the terms of this Act, but neither such charges, nor the basis of computation thereof, nor any such contract, shall be effective unless and until this Act shall be effective for all purposes. This Act shall take effect for all purposes when, but not before, the Secretary shall have found that provision has been made for the termination of the existing lease of the Boulder Power Plant and for the operation thereof as authorized by section 9 hereof, and that allottees obligated under contracts in force on the date of enactment of this Act to pay for at least 90 per centum of the firm energy shall have entered into contracts (1) consenting to such operation, and (2) containing such other provisions as the Secretary may deem necessary or proper for carrying out the purposes of this Act. For purposes of this section such 90 per centum shall be computed as of the end of the absorption periods provided for in regulations heretofore promulgated by the Secretary and in effect at the time of the enactment of this Act. If contracts in accordance with the requirements of this section shall not have been entered into prior to June 1, 1941, this Act shall cease to be operative and shall be of no further force or effect. SEC. 11. [Any contractor refusing to modify its existing contract to conform to this act, shall continue under its existing contract.]-Any contractor for energy from the project failing or refusing to execute a contract modifying its existing contract to conform to this Act shall continue to pay the rates and charges provided for in its existing contract, subject to such periodic readjustments as are therein provided, in all respects as if this Act had not been passed, and so far as necessary to support such existing contract all of the provisions of the Project Act shall remain in effect, anything in this Act inconsistent therewith notwithstanding. SEC. 12. [Definitions of terminology employed.]-The following terms wherever used in this Act shall have the following respective meanings: "Project Act" shall mean the Boulder Canyon Project Act; "Project" shall mean the works authorized by the Project Act to be constructed and owned by the United States, exclusive of the main 196 BOULDER CANYON PROJECT ADJUSTMENT ACT canal and appurtenances mentioned therein, now known as the AllAmerican Canal; "Secretary" shall mean the Secretary of the Interior of the United States; "Firm energy" and "allottees" shall have the meaning assigned to such terms in regulations heretofore promulgated by the Secretary and in effect at the time of the enactment of this Act; "Replacements" shall mean such replacements as may be necessary to keep the project in good operating condition during the period from June 1, 1937, to May 31, 1987, inclusive, but shall not include (except where used in conjunction with the word "emergency" or the words "however necessitated") replacements made necessary by any act of God, or of the public enemy, or by any major catastrophe; and "Year of operation" shall mean the period from and including June 1 of any calendar year to and including May 31 of the following calendar year. SEC. 13. [Secretary to submit to Congress each January financial statement and complete report of operations.]—The Secretary of the Interior shall, in January of each year, submit to the Congress a financia) statement and a complete report of operations under this Act during the preceding year of operation as herein defined. SEC. 14. [Act shall not in anywise limit or prejudice any right of any State in or to waters of the Colorado River system under the Colorado River compact.]-Nothing herein shall be construed as interfering with such rights as the States now have either to the waters within their borders or to adopt such policies and enact such laws as they may deem necessary with respect to the appropriation, control, and use of waters within their borders, except as modified by the Colorado River compact or other interstate agreement. Neither the promulgation of charges, or the basis of charges, nor anything contained in this Act, or done thereunder, shall in anywise affect, limit, or prejudice any right of any State in or to the waters of the Colorado River system under the Colorado River compact. Sections 13 (b), 13 (c), and 13 (d) of the Project Act and all other provisions of said Project Act not inconsistent with the terms of this Act shall remain in full force and effect. or SEC. 15. [Laborers and mechanics shall be paid not less than prevailing rate of wages.]-All laborers and mechanics employed in the construction of any part of the project, or in the operation, maintenance, replacement of any part of the Boulder Dam, shall be paid not less than the prevailing rate of wages or compensation for work of a similar nature prevailing in the locality of the project. In the event any dispute arises as to what are the prevailing rates, the determination thereof shall be made by the Secretary of the Interior, and his decision, subject to the concurrence of the Secretary of Labor, shall be final. SEC. 16. [Short title of act.]-This Act may be cited as "Boulder Canyon Project Adjustment Act". 197 STRAWBERRY WATER USERS' ASSOCIATION REPAYMENT CONTRACT An act to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to accept payment of an annual equitable overhead charge in connection with the repayment contract between the United States and the Strawberry Water Users' Association of Payson, Utah, in full satisfaction of delinquent billings upon the basis of an annual fixed overhead charge, and for other purposes. (Act of August 27, 1940, 54 Stat. 862) SEC. 1. [Payment of an annual equitable overhead charge.]-That in connection with any amendment heretofore or hereafter made to the repayment contract between the Strawberry Water Users' Association of Payson, Utah, and the United States, dated September 28, 1926, as amended, to pay construction charges under the provisions of the Federal reclamation laws providing for payment annually of an amount as is determined by the Secretary each year to be sufficient to cover the Strawberry Valley project's equitable portion of the expense of the Chief Engineer's office, the field legal office, and the other detached offices of the Bureau of Reclamation, the Secretary of the Interior is authorized, subsequent to the effective date of such an amendment, to accept in full satisfaction for all flat overhead charges owing or allocable to the period up to the effective date of the amendment under the contract provisions in effect prior to such amendment a sum determined at the rate of $400 for each year. 198 AMENDMENT OF EIGHT-HOUR LAW [Extract from] An act making supplemental appropriations for the national defense for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1941, and for other purposes. (Act of September 9. 1940, 54 Stat. 729) SEC. 303. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the wages of every laborer and mechanic employed by any contractor or subcontractor engaged in the performance of any contract of the character specified in the Act of June 19, 1912 (37 Stat. 138; U. S. C., title 40, secs. 324, 325), shall be computed on a basic day rate of eight hours per day and work in excess of eight hours per day shall be permitted upon compensation for all hours worked in excess of eight hours per day at not less than one and one-half times the basic rate of pay. NOTE The Acting Comptroller General in decision B-13125, dated October 31, 1940, held: 1. The provisions of the above quoted section 303 are applicable to work on or after September 9, 1940, under contracts executed prior thereto which contain the requirements of the eight-hour law of June 19, 1912. 2. Contractors who work their laborers and mechanics in excess of the eight-hour limitation provided for in the act of June 19, 1912, and fail to pay time and one-half for overtime, are subject to the penalty specified therein. 3. The act of September 9, 1940, does not have any effect upon the BaconDavis Act, as amended, or the stipulations required by such act to be inserted in contracts covered thereby, and there is no authority in cases where contractors fail to pay time and one-half for overtime to withhold from payments to contractors the difference between actual overtime pay and time and one-half pay. 4. Contractors who work their employees in excess of eight hours due to an extraordinary emergency are not required to pay time and one-half for such work in excess of eight hours, and such employment will not be in violation of the act of September 9, 1940, or the eight-hour law of 1912. References-G. O. 1123, dated December 3, 1940. |