Statement of Stanley Mosk, Attorney General of California, on S. 1658 and Pacific Southwest Water Plan Before the United States Senate Interior and Insular Affairs Committee

Document: Statement of Stanley Mosk, Attorney General of California, on S. 1658 and Pacific Southwest Water Plan Before the United States Senate Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation, April 1964, page 8In nearly every case prior appropriation protects existing projects and existing economies. This may not always be true because of the principle of relation back, under which the priority of a water right is the date a right is initiated rather than the later date at which water is put to beneficial use. The Supreme Court has said that its interstate rule of equitable apportionment will be applied with flexibility to protect existing uses and existing economies, even when junior in priority. Nebraska v. Wyoming, 325 U.S. 589, 618 (1945). The amendment I have proposed has this flexibility. It would protect all existing uses from the main river, without regard to priority. Let me make clear, even at the expense of repetition, that the Supreme Court has said that it will not decide the priority issue, that this decision is for the Secretary or for Congress. I say that the Congress, the Secretary of the Interior, or anyone else entrusted with writing the rules must look to the experience and demonstrated necessity of the last 100 years of western water law in determining what the rules should be. I was greatly encouraged at one sentence in the letter by Assistant Secretary Kenneth Holum to Secretary Udall transmitting the January 1964 Pacific Southwest Water Plan. I wish it were written on the cover. He wrote: "The plan has to recognize the structure of water rights law in each affected state." That is profoundly true. Further, if it is true within each affected state, different principles or rules cannot well apply between the states. By way of illustration I call your attention to chapter 39 of the Arizona Laws of 1961 which appropriated $150,000 to investigate Bridge Canyon Dam site and the Central Arizona Project under contract with the Bureau of Reclamation. The statute includes this proviso: 8.Epson Perfection 4870 Photo, 400 dpi, 8 bit, 1,039,918 byte