become feasible from REA to build the cooperative's own source of power.

Mr. O'HARA. Thank you very much.

Mr. SELDEN. Mr. Fascell?

Mr. FASCELL. No questions, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SELDEN. Mr. Burleson?

Mr. BURLESON. I have no questions, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Mr. SELDEN. Mr. Fisher? Mr. Kilgore.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOE M. KILGORE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

Mr. KILGORE. Mr. Chairman, if I might, I will join with Mr. Reavley in the request that the table he has put into the record be submitted to the Boundary Commission for their comments. It is my recollection that the International Boundary Commission studies in which they project the flows of the river for a future period of years take into consideration the additional structures in the area of the watershed of the Rio Grande which have been built since the actual flow data was computed in the years of the study, so that such matters as the current runoff per acre-foot of water or per inch of water that falls on land as compared to the runoff experience at the time of those flows that such factors have been taken into account so their figures for the future indicate what may be expected under present conditions, very much as Mr. Reavley indicated in his statement, might be the explanation.

It would be well to have that information in the record.
Mr. REAVLEY. That may be.

Mr. Chairman, by the time we get down to one point in the report, the statement is made that the only water that will be available for generation at Amistad will be 1.1 million acre-feet. I do not know where all this has gone.

Mr. KILGORE. I am not familiar with the source of that figure. I think this information would be well.

Mr. SELDEN. Mr. Kilgore, without objection, exhibit 1 of Mr. Reavley's statement will be included as part of the record, and comments of the Boundary Commission on this chart will be included, also.

(The exhibit, and comments of International Boundary and Water Commission thereon, follow:)

INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARY AND WATER COMMISSION,
UNITED STATES AND MEXICO,

Hon. ARMISTEAD I. SELDEN, Jr.,

U.S. SECTION,

El Paso, Tex., March 29, 1960.

Chairman, Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs, Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. SELDEN: Pursuant to the request in your letter of March 21, 1960, I am glad to submit the following comments for inclusion in the record on H.R. 8080, the Amistad project, relative to exhibit 1, attached as page 10 to the statement by Mr. Tom Reavley, representing the Texas Electric Cooperatives, Inc.

Exhibit 1 is found to be substantially correct and, as described by Mr. Reavley, consists of a table listing in the first left-hand column, the annual "Historic (actual) Flows of the Rio Grande at Del Rio," (totals-United States and Mexico) as published by the State board of water engineers; in the second column, the "Year" corresponding to the historic flows; in the third column, the "IBWC Estimated Future Flow at Amistad Site" (from table 2, p. 72 of the Amistad report), and in the fourth column, the "Percent of Actual"; i.e., percent which the estimated future flows bear to the actual.

The answer to the question posed by Mr. Reavley in his testimony, on page 522 of the transcript, relative to the bases for estimating future flows at the Amistad

site, is completely developed and is contained in the report on the proposed project, Document 65, 86th Congress, 1st session, paragraph 33, entitled "Estimated Future River Flows," page 19. In substance, future flows at the site were estimated by modifying the actual quantities of flow for each year of record, to indicate what the quantities would have been with the present and anticipated future irrigation developments and storage works.

The source of the amount of 1.1 million acre-feet referred to by Mr. Reavley on page 529 of the transcript as the water available for generation at Amistad, is found in the report on the proposed project, paragraph 60, under the heading "Potential Hydroelectric Power Production," page 50. The stated amount represents the average annual quantity of releases which would be available to the United States for generation of hydroelectric energy and comprises one-half of the total releases for both countries, since the treaty provides that the energy shall be divided equally between the two countries. This figure was developed from extensive operation studies now in the files of the U.S. Section, International Boundary and Water Commission. These studies were available to representatives of the Rural Electrification Administration and the Federal Power Commission at the time our basic data were examined by these agencies. Should you have any further question or desire clarification, please advise. The transcript is returned herewith.

Very truly yours,

L. H. HEWITT, Commissioner.

Mr. KILGORE. Do I understand, Mr. Chairman-Mr. Reavley, do I understand the import of your testimony is that you believe a Federal powerplant should be constructed and the price for which the power would be sold under the preference clause would be the customary computation, so that there would be no surplus revenue to apply on the conservation features?

Mr. REAVLEY. I have not taken a position on that, Mr. Kilgore. I would rather not go into that right now.

Mr. KILGORE. Perhaps I am misinterpreting a portion of your

statement.

Mr. REAVLEY. I was simply saying what part of the Federal Government's investment is allocated to the cost of power and should be recovered over a period, I suppose, of 50 years. At that price the power should be available first to the usual preference customers. I did not

Mr. KILGORE. You do not at this time raise objection to the inclusion in the cost base of a portion of the conservation?

Mr. REAVLEY. I would like to stay out of that. I recognize some of the problem there. I read Mr. Smith's very fine statement. I have talked with them in the lower valley. I would not want to inject the electric co-ops into that problem.

Mr. KILGORE. I think without that additional comment the middle paragraph on page 3 of your statement could be otherwise construed. Mr. BURLESON. Mr. Chairman, you recall in earlier hearings, we touched upon the proposition at one time as to what the cooperatives in the area could do as a matter of being in a position to bid for power which may be produced at Amistad.

Now, Mr. Reavley, are we to assume that before the cooperatives in the area would be in a position to take power from Amistad, that it would follow logically it would be necessary for the distributing cooperatives to organize a transmission cooperative?

Mr. REAVLEY. Either that, or get their own loans for their own transmission lines. I think the cooperatives would have to have-if they could not get some sort of wheeling agreement from somebody else who had lines there and Central Power & Light Co. would be the only one I know of-they would have to build their own transmission lines big enough to carry 139 kilovolts, or whatever it would be. They do not have them now, would not have funds to build them, and I suppose they would either have to borrow it on an individual basis or, through that area, organize a separate cooperative.

Mr. BURLESON. It would not be likely each distributing cooperative would build their own lines

Mr. REAVLEY. They would work together on it, it would be planned together-whether they would seek their loans individually or together, I have no idea. Mr. Hurd's cooperative covers such a large area out there, it might be he could do his own planning for that area without going together with some of those over on the east.

Mr. BURLESON. Thank you, sir.

Mr. SELDEN. Any further questions?
Mr. Fisher, do you have a statement?

STATEMENT OF HON. 0. C. FISHER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

Mr. FISHER. Of course, this Amistad project, as I see it, is primarily a flood control project, and if it were not for the international agreement which requires conservation storage, Colonel Hewitt indicated it might be purely a flood control project. We are very much distressed by the loss of more than 200 lives in one flood in 1954, and we think that ought to be stopped. It is human carnage that this Nation can ill afford. As far as I am concerned, I would have liked for the IBWC report to have justified the Government in building a generating plant. But the report, as you know, based upon Federal Power Commission study, held that it would not be justified. If you want to put it on a purely scientific basis, rather than philosophical, then the FPC finding would prevent the Government from building a powerplant.

My primary interest in building that dam is to control those floods and save countless lives and protect property. I am, therefore, anxious to see the legislation advanced and see the project authorized regardless of who builds a generating plant, if one is built.

If it should be the will of the committee that regardless of the FPC report the Government should still bear the cost of the generating plant, that is fine with me. On the other hand, if it should be found otherwise, I would still like to have the project built, because

I want to stop the flood damage. I am wondering if your views would coincide with that!

Mr. REAVLEY. Sir. I assure you the electric cooperative, especially the people in that area, are familiar with that flood damage, and being human beings and Texans, we join with you in the interest that this dam be built to control floods. The only thing we add is that if there is here a site which provides valuable hydroelectric power availability, that it be used to the widest possible extent for the people there in that area. And if the committee cannot decide finally as of now as to whether or not they agree with the FPC expectation now for what facts might show in the future, at least the door ought not to be closed now on this being a Federal project which would be profitable to the Federal Government. If the decision cannot be made that the FPC recommendation is entirely scientific and made without any possibility of error, then at least do not close the door yet on that phase of it.

We do not want to delay this bill at all.

Mr. FISHER. Regardless of what the finding of the committee may be with regard to who should build the generating plant?

Mr. REAVLEY. We do not want to delay this bill: no, sir.

Mr. FISHER. I think that was the testimony of Senator Yarborough a few weeks ago: regardless of who builds the generating facility, we want to get this dam built

Mr. REAVLEY. And we believe the committee can send the bill on its way without resolving finally this issue. And the only way to do that would be to eliminate the second paragraph of section 2.

Mr. FISHER. As you know, the report of Colonel Hewitt was to the effect that if it should be determined by the committee to be the proper thing-and that is purely for the committee to decide that the falling water be sold, his computation, as I recall, was that in the course of the life of the project, proceeds from that would amortize the cost involved in the conservation storage. Unless the committee feels it proper to include a Government-constructed generating plant, despite the finding of the Federal Power Commission to the contrary, it may very well be that the deletion of section 2, as recommended by you, will jeopardize the passage of any bill at all. Because if there is no provision for a powerplant and no provision for the sale of falling water, as authorized in section 2, the bill will contain no provision for reimbursing the Government for cost of the conservation storage. That is, unless irrigators are required to reimburse. And we know from the testimony that to make that requirement would open a Pandora's box of uncertainty, and I understand from your testimony that you are not recommending that.

So that leaves us dependent on the power feature as the only recourse for reimbursement for the cost of the conservation storage, which is required by the treaty: the power potential is worth something and will pay for the whole conservation storage if it can be worked out on a feasible basis.