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Show 264 legislation.25 Furthermore, in an 1899 repetition and strengthening of the prohibition of the 1890 River and Harbor Act, Congress absolutely forbade the construction of obstruc- tive dams and other structures in navigable waters without its consent and the approval of plans by the Chief of Engineers and the Secretary of the Army.26 But from the requirement of Congressional consent, it excepted state-authorized structures to be built in waters, the navigable portions of which lie wholly within the state. The ensuing 20 years record a number of pertinent events of significance as signposts leading to enactment of the 1920 Federal Water Power Act.27 In the first place, many valuable power sites on public lands had already gone to patent before 1901 without federal attention to their peculiar value.28 In 1901, however, Congress delegated broad authority to the Sec- retary of the Interior to permit use of rights-of-way across public lands and forest and other reservations, "for electrical plants, poles, and lines for the generation and distribution of electrical power," and for dams and reservoirs used to promote irrigation or to supply water for domestic, public, 28 Act of March 5, 1898, § 1, 30 Stat. 253; Act of February 27, 1899, § 1, 30 Stat. 904, 905 (provision also made for "suitable fishways."). See infra, pp. 265-266. 26 Act of March 3, 1899, § 10, 30 Stat. 1121, 1151, 33 U. S. O. 403. 27 See First Annual Report op the Federal Power Commission, pp. 44-50 (1921) ; Kerwin, Federal Water-Power Legislation, ch. 5 (1926). 28 "Prior to the act of February 15, 1901, there was no legislation on the subject at all; water-power sites, went to patent unmolested either as parts of homesteads or by purchase, and were given no Federal attention whatever. Under this procedure a large number of the power sites on the public do- main were frittered away and have passed into private ownership beyond regulation, beyond control. As we look back on this procedure it seems like criminal neglect. Many of the valuable water-power sites of the country passed as fast as eager private concerns and persons could grab them under the several lax laws then in existence. These are now forever, in part, to be enjoyed by the few who at will may practice extortion and monopoly upon the consuming public, subject only to inadequate State regulation where the business is intrastate and with little or no regulation where the concern is doing an interstate business. The titles to these sites have forever passed out of the hands of the Federal Government and the people." Water Power Development and Use of Public Lands, H. Rep. No. 16, 64th Cong., 1st sess., p. 8 (1916). |