Senator BARRETT. I do not know whether the Secretary is aware of the fact or not, but I put in the record I think about half a dozen editorials from the Portland Oregonian and from the State Grange of Oregon, endorsing the objectives of this bill, and I know that they will be happy to hear that Secretary McKay supports the objectives of this bill.

Senator ANDERSON. Senator Watkins?

Senator WATKINS. I have no questions except to say that I think the Secretary has made an excellent statement on principles that certainly would be concurred in by all westerners.

Senator ANDERSON. Senator O'Mahoney?

Senator O'MAHONEY. Mr. Chairman, I am sorry I was called to the telephone before the Secretary had finished his statement. I note that the last paragraph of the letter sent up here calls attention to the adverse report of the Bureau of the Budget.

Has the Interior Department endeavored to argue this question out with the Bureau of the Budget?

Secretary McKAY. I do not recall that, Senator.

Senator O'MAHONEY. I am under handicaps this morning because I came without my glasses.

Senator ANDERSON (reading):

We are advised that the Bureau of the Budget has no objection to the submission of this report. However, your attention is called to the adverse report on S. 863 submitted by the agency March 15.

Senator O'MAHONEY. That is what I meant. I thank the chairman for having read the sentence.

Senator ANDERSON. Justice and Defense and the Bureau of the Budget have reported adversely, but the Bureau has taken a more enlightened view?

Secretary McKAY. That is right.

Senator O'MAHONEY. That is what I wanted to make clear.

Secretary MCKAY. Agriculture is on our side. They better be. Senator BARRETT. I am quite sure the Department of Agriculture favors the bill.

Senator O'MAHONEY. That, of course, raises my question as to whether or not the Interior Department had had any sessions with the Bureau of the Budget to prevail upon the Bureau of the Budget to adopt the Interior's more liberal point of view, as expressed by the Secretary?

Secretary MCKAY. I cannot answer that. I think we did.

May I ask Mr. Bennett, do you know what the story was?

Mr. BENNETT. Well this matter was discussed at great length with representatives of the Bureau of the Budget.

As you will note, the Bureau of the Budget report is predicated on the recommendation of a study. It does not profess to deal with the merits of the bill either way. I think that is the answer on that. Secretary MCKAY. Does that answer your question, Senator? Senator ANDERSON. Senator Dworshak?

Senator DwORSHAK. Senator O'Mahoney raised the question that I had in mind. Whether I should elaborate on it might embarrass the Secretary, because I understand he is planning to leave his position as Secretary of the Interior at an early date. But I particularly wanted to commend him for the forthright position he takes in this apparently official statement as Secretary.

I was just wondering whether there was any conflict between the position taken by the Department of the Interior and his own personal views predicated upon his longtime residence in the State of Oregon and in the approach which he has to this highly controversial problem?

Secretary MCKAY. Well, Senator, if I get your question rightSenator ANDERSON. Excuse me just a second.

You are appearing this morning as Secretary of the Interior? Secretary MCKAY. I am appearing as Secretary of the Interior. Senator DwORSHAK. That is why I say I do not want to embarrass him, and if he prefers not to answer that, that would be satisfactory. Secretary MCKAY. No, Senator, nobody embarrasses me. I have been embarrassed by experts.

Senator BARRETT. Mr. Secretary, I think you ought to amend that answer. You mean to say that the experts have tried to embarrass you, unsuccessfully I may say. The Senator from Idaho is in your corner, Mr. Secretary.

Senator MCKAY. I change my statement on advice of counsel.

Senator O'MAHONEY. I think the Senator from Idaho ought to have an attorney here for I object to the implication that he is not an expert. I do not believe he should be so stigmatized.

Senator DwORSHAK. Senator Barrett is also my counsel.

Senator ANDERSON. The only point I want to make is that this testimony must be regarded as the official testimony of the Secretary of the Interior, not his personal views.

Secretary MCKAY. That is the official testimony and it is agreed by everybody in our Department, Under Secretary Davis, Assistant Secretary Aandahl, and the Reclamation. I have full authority to make it, too, from the man I work for.

Senator ANDERSON. Now, to follow Senator Dworshak's question and reverse emphasis, do you not as a private individual, based on your experience in Oregon, also subscribe to these views?

Secretary McKAY. Absolutely.

Senator ANDERSON. So, personally and officially, you endorse the bill?

Secretary McKAY. Yes, sir.

We are not a big reclamation State. I guess we have not had the right kind of representation.

Mr. Chairman, I always like to cite the case of Owyhee Dam which Reclamation built many years ago when prices were cheap. It cost $18 million, and that was the biggest cow county, 80,000 head of cattle, that the assessor found each year, and that is the big county and is hard to find. That is right across the river from Henry's

area.

Today there are 20,000 head of dairy cows over in Tillamook, Clatsop, and my own county of Marion, and there they have only 22,000 or 23,000 head of cows.

The Secretary of Agriculture might not like us producing so much butter, but irrigation does bring dairy products. In addition, the additional taxes that the farmers pay in and around the area of Fayetteville and Nyssa will more than amortize the dam.

Senator ANDERSON. Plus the income taxes which they will pay which will start putting dividends into the Federal Treasury.

Secretary McKAY. There are communities built there churches, schools, highways, and county governments-and even today on the higher prices of building, there is plenty of opportunity.

By the way, I want to say one more thing.

There are about 25 million acres of irrigation in the 17 Western States, of which 7 million were put under production by reclamation, and the rest were put in by private enterprise. Some of these people who tried to throttle us in reclamation. It has taken us 54 years to get 7 million acres, but the day is coming when we will need it badly. Senator ANDERSON. Senator O'Mahoney?

Senator BARRETT. Senator, will you yield to me for a moment?
Senator O'MAHONEY. Certainly.

Senator BARRETT. There is something that was said by the Secretary a moment ago that I am afraid might have been overlooked when he was making his statement.

As I understand, Mr. Secretary, you said that you made this statement as Secretary of the Interior, with the complete approval of Under Secretary Davis, Assistant Secretary Aandahl, the Commissioner of Reclamation, and by the authority of the man you are working for?

Secretary MCKAY. Not directly, but by some of the staff who I know are familiar with the statement.

Senator BARRETT. They know that you are making this statement and they did not raise any objections to your coming up here.

The only reason I had in bringing that out, Senator O'Mahoney, is that you raised the point of the conflict with the Bureau of the Budget.

Senator O'MAHONEY. Yes.

Senator BARRETT. I am sure, at least I am personally sure, that if this legislation is enacted that the executive arm of the Government is going to approve it. I feel very confident about that and so, regardless of what the Bureau of the Budget says or what the Attorney General says, we have our responsibilities, and while we will consider their contentions, still I think that in the final analysis we will have to decide the policy questions when we consider the legislation.

Senator O'MAHONEY. That is exactly the point, Senator Barrett, that I was about to make and I wanted to make it by quoting from the letter of the Assistant Director of the Budget, Mr. Rappaport, which is here before us and is an official part of this record. It is the letter of March 15, 1956, addressed to the chairman of this committee, the last sentence of which was called specifically to our attention in the Interior Department report.

I read on page 2 as follows:

However sympathetic the executive agencies may be to such a declaration of policy by the Congress

I call special attention to that because the Congress of the United States under the Constitution is the only policymaking branch of this Government. That principle is at the very heart of this bill.

The purpose of this measure is to declare without any ifs, ands, or buts, that the Congress of the United States and no other authority shall write the water law of the West. We are fearful that it is being overthrown by executive action. So I read again from the letter of the Bureau of the Budget:

However sympathetic the executive agencies may be to such a declaration of policy by the Congress, the fact remains that serious problems of Federal policy regarding the exercise of water rights, particularly in the arid and semiarid areas of the West, have existed for a long time, and there are basic conflicts which must be resolved.

That is what we are trying to do, to resolve these basic rights here in this committee and we have before us the measure to do it. The Budget letter continues:

Most recently this matter was considered by the President's Advisory Committee on Water Resources Policy.

Now, of course, the Executive has the right to gather experts around him to determine what his point of view may be, but we are dealing here with a bill which the Congress is being asked to enact into law, a bill which attempts to state, and I think does accurately state, what the policy of Congress is and has been and what we want it to continue to be.

It came to the conclusion

That is the President's Advisory Committee on Water Resources Policy

It came to the conclusion that the complexity of the problem required further study under the leadership of the Federal Government ***

Now, the words "Federal Government" here are used in the sense of the executive branch of the Federal Government, because every agency to which this bill has been submitted except the Department of the Interior has taken an adverse stand against it.

Senator WATKINS. Agriculture has gone the other way, I understand.

Senator O'MAHONEY. I have not seen the Agriculture report. I remember Secretary McKay referred to that, but the Bureau of the Budget feels that the problem requires "further study under the leadership of the Federal Government"

but in collaboration with State and local entities. The Bureau of the Budget believes that such a study is essential to the proper evaluation of legislation along the lines of S. 863.

This language means, if it means anything, that it requires further study for the executive branch of the Government to make up its mind. That of course is apparent since there are these conflicting reports from various executive departments. The Budget letter proceeds:

Meanwhile, however, we believe that individual problems should be solved in the light of circumstances peculiar to them.

This is a plain suggestion by the Bureau of the Budget that our problem should be settled piecemeal. What we complain about is that there has been a Federal policy initiated by Congress, established by law during all of the year when the West was being built up, and that by the use of this device of applying different policies to individual problems as they arise, there is a gradual change of this overall policy. As an illustration of that, I am reminded of the fact that in 1954 the Bureau of Reclamation and the Department of the Interior were seeking to compel the State of Wyoming to give up certain water rights on the Kendrick project to deliver them to Nebraska, although, when the law was passed and when the reclamation project on the North Platte was authorized, the representatives of Wyoming in the Senate,

the representatives of other Western States, were all in agreement that the State water law was the superior law.

So I fear that unless the agencies of Government come to a speedy conclusion now, we will be in danger of having our western rights eroded away by the gradual assertion of an alleged Federal paramount power which does not exist. I continue to read:

The Bureau of the Budget believes that such a study is essential to the proper evaluation of legislation along the lines of S. 863. Meanwhile, however, we believe that the individual problems should be solved in the light of circumstances peculiar to them. Therefore, the executive agencies will work out solutions to specific situations in cooperation with the States, without prejudice to any broader policy ultimately developed.

That last sentence is of the utmost significance to anybody who supports this measure

Therefore, the executive agencies will work out solutions to specific situations in cooperation with the States, without prejudice to any broader policy ultimately developed.

It may not have been intended to declare in that sentence the independence of the executive agencies from the Congress of the United States but that certainly is implicit in the words that were used. This is particularly true when one considers the sentiment expressed in the previous sentence. After asserting that a study is essential before Senator Barrett's bill can be properly evaluated, the Bureau tells us that individual problems should be taken up under the special circumstances of each case. The sentence reads:

Meanwhile, however, we believe that the individual problems should be solved in the light of circumstances peculiar to them.

What the West needs is a reassertion of the present policy and not a deviation from it to be worked out by the executive branch of the Government “in the light of circumstances peculiar to" the individual problems.

So I am glad, Mr. Secretary, that speaking as the Secretary of the Interior, you have declared in support of this measure and I hope that the Department of Justice will listen to your statement and that the Department of Defense will do likewise.

Of course, where public defense is concerned and emergencies arise, Congress has not been loath to act as, for example, in the condemnation law. A new change was made in condemnation proceedings for the Federal Government because of the emergency of war.

Under the old laws, title to the property to be condemned could not pass from the private owners to the Federal Government until after the value had been fixed in court and all the issues settled. A war law was passed by which the mere filing of the condemnation suit itself transfers the title to the land and I have known cases where in some States, because this passage of title takes place only in the office of the Federal court, notice is filed only there and not in the county where the land lies, and it has been impossible to write at the county seat an abstract of title to cover the land which has been condemned, and the owner and occupant of the land would be in complete ignorance of what had been done, unless he should happen to go to the city in which the Federal court is located and found that title had passed by condemnation though the value had not yet been determined.

It was to bring this out that I made the first question to which Mr. Bennett made his usual very clever and lucid reply.