CONTENTS Wesley R. Nelson, Assistant Commissioner, Bureau of Reclamation___ William E. Welch, secretary-manager, National Reclamation Associa- GENERAL STUDY OF IRRIGATION AND RECLAMATION PROBLEMS MONDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1951 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON INTERIOR AND INSULAR AFFAIRS, Washington, D. C. The committee met at 10 a. m. in the committee room of the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, the Honorable John R. Murdock (chairman), presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order, please. It is our custom at the opening of each session to devote some preliminary time to a survey of the work ahead for the committee. I notice this study is called in the Senate, as it was by my predecessor, a sort of seminar, but I have a dread of seminars, so I do not like to use that expression. I see that some of you know the reason why I have a dread of seminars. I had thought that we might have several days to devote to a general study, before the reference of any bills to subcommittees for consideration. I do not know but what that is a good practice, even if it were not the former practice of this committee and the Senate committee which corresponds to ours. At the opening of the Congress each year, according to the Constitution, the President is called on and expected to give a message outlining the things as he sees them from his standpoint. What Congress does with the message is something else, yet, of course, it is all a part of the legislative process under our institutions. I thought today that we might make a beginning. I had scheduled Tuesday for the Park Service, to continue their work, and the work of education, so to speak, by presenting some pictures along with their story. In view of the fact that we have to set up some machinery for that sort of thing I did not feel we could make any change, although it might be appropriate to do so. Perhaps our attendance will be better, and on Tuesday we will have the Park Service here to present pictures, slides, views and that sort of thing illustrating the work of the Park Service. Mr. D'EWART. Mr. Chairman? The CHAIRMAN. Yes, Mr. D'Ewart. Mr. D'EWART. During these reviews was it your thought to have Mr. Cook, the chairman of the present Water Resources Board, before us, in order to get his views? The CHAIRMAN. I think possibly Mr. Engle had that in mind, or something like that, in the Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation. It would be appropriate for the full committee also, of course. Mr. D'EWART. We have to give thought to those matters. 1 |