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Show 90 to improve and protect navigable waters in the interests of navigation.97 With few exceptions, it has employed its commerce and spending powers in the enactment of these laws. And as we shall shortly see, their administration has been as- signed largely to the Army Engineers. By June 30, 1949, total expenditures on improvement and maintenance of rivers and harbors had exceeded $3,461,000,000.98 Total expendi- tures during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1949, exceeded $160,000,000, approximately 50% more than the total amount spent during all the years prior to 1882." Additional amounts have been allocated to navigation at reclamation projects.100 Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army.-From the beginning, fed- eral responsibility for navigation improvement of rivers and harbors has been the duty of the Army Engineers almost ex- clusively.101 In 1824, Congress authorized the President to cause surveys, plans, and estimates to be made of such "roads and canals as he may deem of national importance, in a com- mercial or military point of view, or necessary for the trans- portation of the public mail;" and to that end, to employ two or more skillful civil engineers and "officers of the corps of engineers."102 This authority to employ civil engineers was 97 For the most part, the laws hereafter surveyed in this section appear in three published volumes of Laws op the United States, Improvement of Rivebs and Harboes, covering the years 1790 to 1939 and totalling 2620 pages; Volume 1 (H. Doc. No. 1491, 62d Cong., 3d sess., 1913) from 1790 to 1896; Volume 2 (H. Doc. No. 1491, 62d Cong., 3d sess., 1913) from 1897 to 1913; Volume 3 (H. Doc. No. 379, 76th Cong., 1st sess., 1939) from 1913 to 1939. An index to these laws is contained in a separate volume (H. Doc. No. 379, 76th Cong., 1st sess., 1939). Subsequent laws are now being compiled by the Army Engineers. See Act of June 30,1948, § 106, 62 Stat. 1171,1174. 98 Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers, U. S. Army, p. 23 (1949). wId. p. 20. 100 See infra, p. 240. 101 Hereafter, the Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army, will be referred to as the "Army Engineers." For the participation of Mississippi River Commission, see infra, p. 98; the California DSbris Commission, see infra, pp. 119-120; the International Joint Commission, see infra, pp. 121-122; the International Boundary and Water Commission, see infra, pp. 122-123; the Tennessee Valley Authority, see infra, pp. 484-486; the Bureau of Reclamation, see infra, p. 240. 102 Act of April 30,1824, 4 Stat. 22. |