way and it appears to me, therefore, that such charges as that the Engineers are to be hurt by the bill ought to be left out of account as we consider the bill.

In the next place, I can see no logical reason for objecting to the bill on the ground that it is going to mean that we are going to take away States' rights or local authority.

After all, as the bill is drawn, it means that these planning authorities will take all of the facts regarding conservation and proper use of our resources into account and will make reports on that basis to the Congress after which the Congress will pass upon those reports and will itself inaugurate such constructive action as is to be taken.

I am inclined to feel that this is one of the most important measures that has been proposed in this Nation for some time.

I think it involves the preservation of all our resources. I think in a way it involves the whole question of our keeping in America a large number of people on family-sized farms and I, of course, along with the rest of you, am very anxious to do that.

I have seen the migration of labor at first hand; the problem of the moving of people from one part of the Nation to another, and I believe that that is involved in this question.

First of all I would like to say that I am for the bill because I think it may help to carry forward the work of soil conservation.

I have one chart here prepared by the Department of Agriculture which indicates that since the coming of the white man to America that half of the fertile top soil has been depleted and that 300,000,000 acres of it have been practically destroyed.

Now, this can only be stopped by the application of the greatest effort. We have the soil-conservation program in the Department of Agriculture, it is true; but I am convinced that the most constructive work of all has been done in the Tennessee Valley, where great attention has been given to it, and where the Authority there has bent its efforts in that direction.

I am informed by people who are much better qualified to speak about such things than I that the development of nitrates and phosphates and the process of preparing phosphates in an easily transportable form which is being done in the Tennessee Valley may be of tremendous importance to the whole of agriculture of America in the future, making it possible for the deposits to be used at considerable distance from the place where they are and at cheap cost to the farmer.

This problem of soil conservation, it seems to me, is one to which we must give our very most earnest attention. Along with it goes the problem of land use and reclamation.

I know that this committee has heard a great deal about those problems. I merely want to suggest that the very genius of reclamation lies in the possibility of a more economically sound agriculture; the possibility of enabling people to work land which is ready to be worked; the possibility of settlement where the cost of production is not as high as it is in other regions, where possibly the land ought not to be farmed at all, but ought to be allowed to go back to grass, or where the top soil's fertility has been destroyed to such an extent that no man, however hard he works, may be able to make a living from it.

Those, I believe, are matters of national development; but I agree we cannot just have reclamation projects every time somebody has an idea that it would be nice to have one somewhere, and it seems to me that the passage of this bill would give us a medium through which this whole question might be considered on a national basis with the idea of doing justice to all parts of the Nation.

The CHAIRMAN. Your point is that we should not displace present agencies, but should continue them so that they will all work for the same end.

Mr. VOORHIS. Yes, sir; and that whereas at present we have, it seems to me, the very situation which has been complained about in arguing against the bill where instead of having the chemical laboratory with all of the elements brought together for a purpose, we have precisely the opposite.

I also believe that it is necessary today for Congress to have the advantage of the constructive thinking of people who can put their minds to the many specific problems. I do not know about the members of the committee, but, for my part, I certainly realize that it is impossible for me to master more than one or two subjects at most that come before us. If I could master one of those, I think I would be very well satisfied.

The CHAIRMAN. You would be a genius if you could.

Mr. VOORHIS. And so if we can see it clearly, I believe that we, as Members of Congress, are called upon to pass judgment on many, many different things, and are not surrendering our prerogatives or anything of the kind when we give people specifically the task of studying scientifically some of these questions and reporting back to us their findings.

Of course the matter of flood control comes first to our attention and is one of the most immediate of all of the conservation problems. Everyone is for flood control.

I merely want to say two things: In the first place, that flood control should include not merely the building of dams, but ought to include upstream flood control as well; and that unless you have a large view of the question you may not get a balanced floodcontrol program.

I have explained how I feel about the Army engineers. But I do not understand that it is the function of Army engineers to do anything like this bill provides for these planning authorities to do, namely to coordinate the work on our natural resources, conservation, and development. They have their job and no one, so far as I know, proposes to interfere with them.

Now, in the second place, about flood control, I do not claim, and I do not suppose that anyone else does, that every time you build a flood-control dam you should build a multiple-purpose dam. That is obviously ridiculous. But it is equally ridiculous to say that there are no sites where we need flood-control dams, where we should not build multiple-purpose dams as a matter of plain good business. In other words, that is entirely a matter which must be decided on the basis of the facts as presented regarding the particular place where the dam is constructed. It depends upon the region, the climate, and many other questions.

Mr. DONDERO. On the basis of this bill, who is going to decide it?

Mr. VOORHIS. I think with a bill of this kind perhaps that the very best minds of the Nation could be consulted about a question of that kind.

Mr. DONDERO. Well, who will decide that? Would the Army engineers still be in the picture under this?

Mr. VOORHIS. I think that they still would be.

Mr. DONDERO. Have you a planning commission in California? Mr. VOORHIS. I believe we do.

Mr. DONDERO. Suppose that the regional authority decided one way and the planning commission of your State another, who would have the last say, the controlling, deciding vote? I mean, under this bill.

Mr. VOORHIS. Those are matters that would have to be worked out as we go along. There are many different things that would have to be worked out.

Mr. DONDERO. Under this bill, who would have the deciding vote, the regional planning authority, or your planning commission?

Mr. VOORHIS. If the California Planning Commission were to decide a question where only the State of California were concerned and where it could be shown that only the State of California was concerned, I think that the regional planning authority would leave them alone.

Mr. DONDERO. Do you know that under the wording of this bill it simply says that they shall be consulted only so far as practical? Mr. VOORHIS. Well, I do not even object to that, I will say frankly, for the reason that I believe in the United States. I believe in the United States as a nation, and I do not think that because my State, for example, is in a position where it could insist upon certain things being done for its benefit, but adverse to all of the western region, that we should do so. Nor do I believe, as a matter of fact, it would be our inclination to do so.

Mr. DONDERO. Is that not a subject that is involved in this bill? Mr. VOORHIS. Well, the main purpose of the bill, Mr. Dondero, is to coordinate the work of many different agencies, each one of which has done a good job, in my opinion; but we hear a great deal today about overlapping governmental agencies on all sides.

Now, if we can have a whole picture of this job that needs to be done, it seems to me that we will be ahead.

Mr. DONDERO. Suppose that some work was needed in San Francisco Bay and Harbor. Would you transfer that from the Army engineers to the regional planning agencies?

Mr. VOORHIS. Well, I do not think that that is involved at all.

Mr. DONDERO. Have you read the bill carefully?

Mr. VOORHIS. Yes, sir; I have. The regional planning agency might decide and report to Congress as to what is a desirable thing to be done in connection with a subject of that sort.

Mr. DONDERO. Well, it refers to navigation which is involved in this bill.

Mr. VOORHIS. Yes.

Mr. DONDERO. Would the judgment of the Army engineers or the regional planning agency be the one to control?

Mr. VOORHIS. May we take a possible practical case.

Mr. DONDERO. Yes.

Mr. VOORHIS. Supposing that you were a member of a regional planning agency yourself and a problem came up which involved navigation; a problem in which the Army engineers were recog nized authorities, who would you go to and consult about the matter? Mr. DONDERO. The point is, who is going to decide it? Suppose that the regional planning agency took a different view from the Army engineers. Have we not two bodies working in direct conflict with each other?

Mr. VOORHIS. Well, the regional planning agency in the first place has got to report back to Congress and the Congress ultimately would decide the question.

Now, I will say this much, that it appears

Mr. DONDERO (interposing). Well, under this bill they do not. They report back to the President, and the President will select whichever project he sees fit.

Mr. VOORHIS. But is it not true under the terms of this bill that before projects are selected, the Congress must approve them?

Mr. DONDERO. Those that are submitted to the Congress by the President after the regional planning agency reports to him. They do not report to Congress under this bill.

Mr. VOORHIS. Well, the President would report to Congress.

Mr. DONDERO. We both have agreed upon one thing, and every member of this committee, and that is what is best for our Nation. You and I do not see the thing alike.

We are placing this matter in the hands of politically appointed boards in contradistinction to what is well known to be the nonpartisan attitude of our present Board of Army Engineers. That is where you and I differ.

Mr. VOORHIS. Let me ask the gentleman, regardless of whatever his other opinions may be, do you believe that the Tennessee Valley Authority, for instance, has had a partisan administration?

Mr. DONDERO. That is such a large subject that we ought not to begin at 11 o'clock in the forenoon to discuss it.

Mr. VOORHIS. Well, then, will the gentleman let me continue? Mr. DONDERO. I think that it has.

Mr. VOORHIS. We have a tremendous problem to deal with, in which I believe we are going to need coordinating planning for all resources and likewise agriculture. I refer to the growing industrialization of our agriculture, which has led already to the uprooting of large numbers of people and to the necessity of their moving from one region to another. We have got to have a place for these people to go to.

Now, coming back for a moment to the question of flood control, it seems to me that the thing that should govern that is that every dollar we spend for flood-control dams should be made to go just as far as it possibly can.

Now, the question of power development comes into this, it seems to me, from two standpoints. In the first place, I am convinced that the business life of our Nation would be much more healthy if the damage of monopoly control could be removed. In other words, I simply believe in the yardstick principle.

May I say that I believe that Government power development, where it is made in connection with any of these projects, should

have its rates fixed on such a basis that it will pay the cost of the project. I have some figures here which you may already be entirely familiar with. At Boulder Dam, for instance-(I suppose it is useless to repeat these; but, I would like to have them put in as a part of my testimony)-at Boulder Dam in a period of 60 years it will have not only amortized its entire cost at 4 percent, but will have paid to the States of Arizona and Nevada, $30,000,000 each, and will have provided a fund of $60,000,000 for development in the Upper Basin States, and that means that it will have paid off the entire cost of that project, including the part charged to flood control.

In addition to that, the city of Los Angeles-to be brief (more brief than I had intended to be) has since 1929, when they first constructed their municipal system, been able to reduce rates seven times, with a total saving to the consumers of something like $71,500,000. In spite of the very long transmission distances of power for Los Angeles, the rates today are 45 percent less than the national average for residential rates; 75 percent for commercial; and 35 percent less for large power consumers.

Now, the main reason that I advert to this-there are two reasons: In the first place, to show that as a matter of fact it is possible through a project of this kind to literally free consumer purchasing power in large amounts for use in other lines of business which amounts to a transfer of that consumer purchasing power from what might be monopoly prices into the bread-and-butter purchasing power of the people.

And to show in the second instance that where practical and feasible and where you can do it, that if you can associate a power development with the effort to accomplish these other conservation objectives that it is decidedly advantageous to do so, because of the fact that you can then carry on flood control, reclamation, navigation development, soil conservation, and so on, without cost to the Government in the long run.

One other thing: Prior to the time that Los Angeles City brought out the competitive private plant which they did last January, so far as I know, to the entire satisfaction of everyone, the city plant had a plant cost value of $106,766,000 with outstanding indebtedness of $52,000,000, which is to say it had already retired 50 percent of its indebtedness. I could cite other examples, but I believe one of the things that should be borne in mind in this connection is the fact that a public power development or a municipal public power system will attempt to pay off its indebtedness as quickly as it can, whereas that is not true of a private utility. This is one of the main reasons why it is possible, over a period of time, for electric current to be furnished more cheaply in that way.

I believe that that is all that I want to say in my main state

ment.

Mr. SEGER. In connection with what you say about eroded land, we saw in this picture The River, where the lands had been all cut to pieces by floods. What is your remedy for that, and what would you do to rejuvenate that land?

Mr. VOORHIS. Well, in the first place, I am not an engineer; but in many cases I think the only thing to do is to get the people off of it if they are still trying to farm it. In the second place, if it is in a region of the country where it will naturally grass over again, of itself, why that could be allowed to be done, but if it is not, we are