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Show 176 having Lower Basin interests. Thus, Congress would have said: "The Lower Basin is entitled to a total appropriation in the amount of 8,500,000 acre-feet. This apportionment is divided among the five states having Lower Basin interests as follows," giving ceilings on appropriations within the Lower Basin for each of the five states. But Congress did no such thing. It dealt only with three of the five Lower Basin states, the three states which, significantly, are geographically accessible to mainstream water. This strongly indicates that the congressional intention was to provide only for the apportionment of mainstream water. Furthermore, Senator Pittman made it perfectly clear that Section 4(a) of the Project Act was designed by Congress to apply only to the mainstream and to apportion water only among the three states that could utilize mainstream water. Thus Senator Pittman, in discussing the Phipps amendment, stated: "The Senate has already determined upon the division of water between those States. How? It has been determined how much water California may use, and the rest of it is subject to use by Nevada and Arizona. Nevada has already admitted that it can use only . . . 300,000 acre-feet. That leaves the rest of it to Arizona. As the bill now stands it is just as much divided as if they had mentioned Arizona and Nevada and the amounts they are to get... ,"35 This statement by Senator Pittman obviously reflected the congressional understanding that the limitation on California in the first paragraph of Section 4(a), along with the fact that Nevada could use no more than 300,000 acre-feet of water from the mainstream because of physical limitations, as her representatives continually stated to the Congress, would leave the remaining water available to Ari- 3570 Cong. Rec. 468 (1928), Ariz. Legis. Hist. p. 80. |
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Original Report: State of Arizona, complainant v. State of California, Palo Verde Irrigation District, Imperial 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 |