OCR Text |
Show DIXIE PROJECT, UTAH 1Q1 These are high charges. They are the kind of charges that very few irrigation farmers would want to undertake, but these people do want to. They are family farms. They operate pretty largely with family labor, and they are willing to tighten their belts and sign a contract to pay at these rates, because they want this project so badly. I hope that we do get authorization to include this project in a basin account as part of a southwest water plan. Mr. ROGERS. NOW, if one was included in such plan what would be your position if provision wTas made for these power revenues in that basin plan to be utilized for the payment of interest on the agricultural on this project, as well as other projects, before any of that money was used for anything else ?, Mr. DOMINY. I do not understand your reference to the payment of interest. Under present reclamation law there is no interest on the allocation to irrigation. Mr. ROGERS. I understand that. You are changing it. Mr. DOMINY. You propose to have the power revenues used first to pay the equivalent of an interest charge on the irrigation allocation ? Mr. ROGERS. TO make my position very clear, I think this: I think that you can call it subsidy, you can call it anything you would like, but the interest- free money that is being furnished by the U. S. Government for irrigation and reclamation, for irrigation in general areas constitutes a grant or subsidy to that particular area, and I am doing some thinking on the possibility of working out a situation that if these power revenues are going to be used to pick up part of the tab, that they certainly ought to be utilized to pick up part of the tab, or pick up the tab further insofar as interest costs on the irrigation, before they are utilized for other purposes that involve other grants and other subsidies. Mr. BURTON. Will the chairman yield ? Mr. ROGERS. I will be happy to. Mr. BURTON. When you say these power revenues, you do not mean just those in that particular area. Mr. ROGERS. NO. r :;.: :, Mr. BURTON. If the chairman had such proposal it would apply to the whole Nation ? Mr. ROGERS. That would depend upon whether or not they wanted to continue the basin account theory, whether or not you wanted each basin to stand on its own or whether or not you wanted to use this as an overall revenue receipt. That is something else. There is no need to waste time with that here now. .: o Mr. DOMINY. Well, of course I have repeatedly said and I will say it again, that I look to Congress to decide the policies under which we will operate and if an adjustment in reclamation law of that magnitude were to be undertaken, of course we would plan and pay out our projects in accordance with the revised law. The interest- free feature of reclamation has been so widely accepted, for 62 years, that it had not occurred to me that there was consideration for abandoning it, although I recognize that the reason the chairman brings this matter up is because we are loading a sizable percentage of projecting costs onto power revenues for reimbursement in many cases. It is not true in the instant case. This project pays 36- 351- 64 8 |