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Show THE WESTERN WEB 91 Watkins and Dennis Chavez of New Mexico - who did not want litigation on the controversy. Their excuse as given to the press was that it might tie up the affairs of the river for a long period, and hold back planned developments in the Upper Basin states. Their real excuse was that litigation would probably halt tempor- arily passage of the Central Arizona Project bill, and in it were the drastic changes of reclamation standards and laws which would make possible the building of pro- jects that otherwise would be infeasible. Clark and Ford, fully cognizant of the political power of the senators led by Hayden and McFarland, played ball. They declined to approve the court resolu- tions in their present form, and suggested some amend- ments. However, there were legal questions involved that they could not, as federal officials and as lawyers, simply ignore, and their opinion contained statements and admissions that gave some hope to California. "An investigation of the situation," wrote Ford, "dis- closes that at the present time there seem to be con- flicting interests or claims. . . That conflict, among other things, would involve interpretation of the Colo- rado River Compact, the Boulder Canyon Project Act, and related statutory enactments." That was precisely California's view, but Ford pro- vided an escape hatch for the Justice Department by adding: "It appears . . . that there are no present conflicts in need of judicial determination between the United States and the states of the Colorado River Basin." One of the amendments Ford suggested was to waive the immunity of the United States to suit and permit the states to bring such actions as they might desire. |