| OCR Text |
Show -74- The negotiations at the Denver meeting vere completed on December 3 and a new draft known thereafter, as the Denver draft was agreed upon. The draft in- cluded the paramountcy clause but was free of most of the other objections pre- viously directed against provisions of, or omissions from, the compact formerly proposed. The preliminary draft .had been circulated among the Federal -agencies con- cerned; so was the Denver draft. Those agencies were asked to inform me whether they approved the. provisions in the Denver draft; and if not, to provide me with whatever suggestions as to changes might seem portinent, so that such changes could be given consideration preferably in Washington before the next meeting, which was scheduled to be in Lincoln on Decenber 29* Some of the agencies did provide suggestions which were threshed out among their represen- tatives and some headway made toward determining wherein the Federal interests lay. The Lincoln meeting convened on December 29, 1942» and legal advisers of the State commissioners and Federal representatives of the Departments of Agri- culture, Interior, and War were present. In addition, upon my request, an ob- server detailed by the National Resources Planning Board was present. After preliminaries, the first order of new business, was presentation of a substitute draft recommended by the Federal .Power Commission. That draft made no reference to beneficial consumptive use, or. to the paramountcy concept which had been prominent features in all previous drafts, nor did it attempt in any way to meet the problers of possible conflict between Federal ard State interests. At that sta^e of the meeting a. recess was taken, during which separate caucuses oi"* Federal and State representatives were held to discuss the practi- cability of accepting the Federal power Commission draft. The concensus anion,1?; the' Federal representatives was that, although sane features of the Federal Power Commission draft mi~ht net be entirely satis- factory/" to individual agencies in carrying out their present and prosi-ective responsibilities in the Republican River T-asin, those agenoies would probably not be warranted in objecting to that draft if it were acceptable to the States. Upon reconvening, the State commissioners and their advisers discussed ex- tensively the points at variance between the Denver draft and the one proposed by the Federal Power Commission. Eventually, however, the State coi:siissioners voted to reject the Federal Power Commission draft. Thereafter, suggestions made'by representatives of the otner Federal.agencies were reviewed, discussed, and worked into a final draft. The paranountcy clause is not included in the final draft, hut another means of composing and correlating Federal and State interests was de-vised. ¦,. .Senator* HcCarran. "That did --ou say ivas not incorporated? Mr. Par*ker. The so-called paramountcy clause. Senator- UcCarran, Oli, yes. |
