OCR Text |
Show __2__ February 25 and 27, 1947, and witnesses were heard in behalf of the Navy Department, the city of San Diego, the San Diego County Water Authority, and the General Accounting Office. The Comptroller General contended that the Navy Department was not authorized by law to proceed as it did in constructing the aqueduct and disposing of it to the city of San Diego. The Navy Department cited to the Comptroller General as the source of its authority section 1 of the First War Powers Act (55 Stat. 838), Executive Order 9262, subdivisions (a) and (b) of section 1 of the act of July 2, 1940 (54 Stat. 712), and Section 201, title II, of the Second War Powers Act (56 Stat. 177). The Comptroller General held that these statutes and the order did not authorize the Secretary of the Navy to expend Navy funds for the project, and that such authority as he did have ceased when the aqueduct became a peacetime project by virtue of the termination of hostilities. In subsequent correspondence with the chairman of the committee, the Navy Department cited, and at the hearings relied more heavily upon Public Law 289, Seventy-eighth Congress (58 Stat. 189), and the Naval Appropriations Act, 1945 (58 Stat. 301, 311). The Comptroller General's representatives took the position that the Department did not bring itself within the provisions of these laws by coming into agreement with the Naval Affairs Committees with respect to either the construction of the aqueduct or the contract for its disposal to the city of San Diego, and that in any event it did not have authority under them to proceed with the construction after VJ-day. |
Source |
Original book: [State of Arizona, complainant v. State of California, Palo Verde Irrigation District, Coachella Valley County Water District, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, City of Los Angeles, California, City of San Diego, California, and County of San Diego, California, defendants, United States of America, State of Nevada, State of New Mexico, State of Utah, interveners] : California exhibits. |