OCR Text |
Show the last-mentioned contracts being dated April 26, 1930, not April 28, as stated in your letter. But the making of contracts was not the first duty delegated to you by the Boulder Canyon project act. Section 5 of the act authorizes, or purports to authorize, you to make contracts; but it says you shall do so under such general regulations as you may prescribe, and that general and uniform regulations shall be prescribed for the awarding of such contracts. This clearly contemplates that the regulations shall be prescribed first and the contracts made afterwards. Otherwise there would be no point in prescribing regulations. Now, the fact seems to be that you, in your haste to award these contracts, have awarded them before prescribing any general and uniform regulations or any other regulations on the subject. Indeed, so far as I am aware, you have never yet prescribed any general or other regulations concerning water contracts. Your so-called general regulations for lease of power bear date of April 25, 1930, the date preceding the date of the power contracts made by you, but it is common knowledge that all these contracts were actually negotiated, completed, agreed upon, and signed by the contracts prior to the issuance of your so-called general regulations. In thus getting the cart before the horse you have acted not only in haste but in apparent violation of the act itself. Under the terms of the act, assuming its validity, you could not lawfully award any contract until after you prescribed general regulations on the subject. Even assuming that your so-called general regulations were actually issued and the contracts actually executed on the dates which they respectively bear, the fact would still remain that you awarded these contracts on the very first day that you could legally award them. How, then, can you deny the statement that you acted hastily? |
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. |