[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 98 (Friday, June 28, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S7326]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                BURLEY IRRIGATION DISTRICT TRANSFER ACT

 Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, last evening I introduced S. 1921, a 
bill to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to transfer certain 
facilities at the Minidoka project to the Burley Irrigation District. 
The introduction of this legislation results from a hearing I held in 
the Senate Energy Committee on May 23, 1995, on S. 620, a generic bill 
to transfer reclamation facilities. At that hearing, it became obvious 
a general transfer bill would not work; each reclamation project has 
unique qualities, and projects should be addressed individually or in 
distinct groupings. S. 1291 addresses one specific project in Idaho.
  The Reclamation Act of 1902 was part of the history of Federal public 
land laws designed to transfer lands out of Federal ownership and 
settle this Nation. The origins of that policy predate the Constitution 
and derive from the early debates that led to the Northwest Ordinance 
of 1787. The particular needs and circumstances of the arid and 
semiarid lands west of the 100th meridian led to various proposals to 
reclaim the lands, including the Desert Land Act and the Carey Act. In 
his State of the Union Message of 1901, President Theodore Roosevelt 
finally called for the Federal Government to intervene to develop the 
reservoirs and works necessary to accomplish such irrigation. The 
reclamation program was enormously successful. It grew from the 
irrigation program contemplated by one President Roosevelt to the 
massive works constructed four decades later by the second President 
Roosevelt. For those of us in the Northwest, there is a very personal 
meaning to a line from Woody Guthrie's song about the Columbia that 
goes: ``Your power is turning our darkness to dawn, so roll on 
Columbia, roll on.''
  If what is known now had been known then, some projects may have been 
constructed differently. However, that is not the question we have 
before us. The central question is whether and to what extent the 
Federal Government should seek to transfer the title and responsibility 
for these projects. Has the Federal mission been accomplished?
  As I noted in my introductory statement to S. 620, the best transfer 
case would be the single purpose irrigation or municipal and industrial 
[M&I] system that is fully repaid, operation has long since been 
transferred, and the water rights are held privately. That is the case 
with the Burley Irrigation District transfer.
  The transfer of title is not a new idea. Authority to transfer title 
to the All American Canal is contained in section 7 of the Boulder 
Canyon Project Act of 1928. General authority is contained in the 1955 
Distribution Systems Loan Act. Recently, Congress passed legislation 
dealing with Elephant Butte and Vermejo.
  The Burley Irrigation District is part of the Minidoka project that 
was built under the authorization of the 1902 Reclamation Act. By a 
contract executed in 1926, the district assumed the operation and 
maintenance of the system.
  All construction contracts and costs for the canals system, pumping 
plants, power house, transmission lines, and houses have been paid in 
full. Contracts for storage space at Minidoka Dam, Jackson Dam, 
American Falls, and Palisades have been paid in full, along with all 
maintenance fees. This project is a perfect example of the Federal 
Government maintaining only a bare title, and that title should now be 
transferred to the project recipients who have paid for the facilities 
and rights of the Burley Irrigation District.

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