amendments which I think will help the bill. I have a copy of the bill with these amendments set out, which I will leave with the chairman, and when you go into executive session I hope someone on the committee will be good enough to offer those amendments to the bill, because it will improve the bill. Then I think no one will object to the language of the bill.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Robertson, if the committee adopts the amendments, then all of these conflicting interests are in agreement?

Mr. ROBERTSON. They are all in agreement except to this extent: On page 2 of the bill, line 15, the bill says, starting there in section 2: Whenever the waters of any stream or other body of water are impounded, diverted, or otherwise controlled

And so forth

adequate provision

and the language they object to is

consistent with the primary purpose of such impoundment, diversion, or other control shall be made for the use thereof, together with any areas of land, or interest therein, acquired or administered in connection therewith, for the conservation, maintenance, and management of wildlife, resources thereof, and its habitat thereon.

They would like for that language to be cut out. But I told them frankly I could not agree to that, because that subordinates your power projects, your flood-control projects, and all other projects to the wildlife interests. I couldn't go that far. There may come a time in our history when it may be desirable to go that far, but at this time that would just bring opposition to this bill. . I don't think you gentlemen would report it out, and if you did, I don't think we could get it through the House.

The CHAIRMAN. Who is making that suggestion?

Mr. ROBERTSON. The western game commissioners. They say, however, they are not going to insist on that. They would have preferred that that be out, but they recognize the factual situation that we couldn't put through a bill in Congress, when we have already authorized a billion dollars for flood control, and five or six hundred million for rivers and harbors, and all that sort of thing, if those projects would be subordinated to the wildlife. We do not ask that. They are not going to take any exception on that ground; they know we can't put that in, and it is not in the present law.

Mr. HILL. You speak all along in your argument here concerning the work of the Army engineers. Do you include also the development in the West of irrigation projects by the Bureau of Recla

mation?

Mr. ROBERTSON. In my opinion, those projects would not really be involved. I must plead a certain degree of ignorance of the great West. I have been in the West a little bit, but I haven't made any careful examination of the irrigation projects there. I know that we tied in a refuge there in Utah with the irrigation project in the Bear River marshes, and it was a good thing for everybody concerned. But my impression is that most of your irrigation projects are diversion projects where you take the water out of a stream and run it into a smaller stream, and then take off little streams from there on.

Mr. HILL. But you must remember that we built dams. I have in mind one where we impounded enough water to make a lake of 6,000

acres.

Mr. ROBERTSON. Well, it might be that a lake of 6,000 acres would come under the provisions of this bill. But the Fish and Wildlife Service would have no control over the fishing in that lake. If it should be used for migratory birds, they would have the first say-so on what would be done about the migratory birds but consistent, as I have already indicated, with your State license laws. I can't see where there would ever be any conflict with an irrigation project any more than there would be a conflict with a power project, or a flood-control project. Because all this bill does is to say that when you plan to impound water in an area for any such development, you should give consideration to what you are liable to do to the wildlife interests in that particular area and work out the best plan you can not to unduly injure those wildlife interests.

Mr. HILL. Suppose the wildlife folks had not been in there at all, and assume the engineers of the Reclamation Service decided to impound lot of water down a stream and build a series of dams, which would result in a number of lakes that would be or could be used for either fish or wildlife, and the Fish and Game Department, after they had recognized and understood what the plans were to be, came along and say they would like to take this thing now and put it under their wing-after the project had been fully planned, we will say, by the Army engineers and the Reclamation Bureau.

Mr. ROBERTSON. That is the situation now. The Army engineers can plan a project and start construction on it before anybody knows what they are up to, and then it is too late, sometimes, to find out what is going to happen. Under this bill they have to notify the Fish and Wildlife Service they are going to do this work.

Mr. HILL. Even though there was not any activity there on the part of the Fish and Wildlife Service before the project was started?

Mr. ROBERTSON. There is always fish in every stream. You can't make a dam without a stream, and if you have a stream you have fish, and you can't make floodwaters over five or six thousand acres without affecting fish or other wildlife. There may be nothing there but a groundhog or a gopher—

Mr. HILL. I am talking about fish-mountain trout.

Mr. ROBERTSON. I will tell you frankly that that is my favorite fish. If it is a speckled trout it is the best ever.

Mr. HILL. The rainbow trout is the best fish in the world.

Mr. ROBERTSON. The rainbow, where you have cold water, is just as game as the speckled trout. But our streams are too small for our fish to reach the size that yours do. You seem to have more food out there for them. But any fish that abounds in cold water and can get enough live food to make his meat pink, is a fighting fish. You can't go out there and dam up one of those mountatin streams without adversely affecting something.

Mr. HILL. Our Fish and Game Department of Colorado communicated with me yesterday, and I have a wire from them in support of this measure with the amendments.

Mr. ROBERTSON. That is right.

Mr. HILL. They attended that meeting you spoke of.

Mr. ROBERTSON. They had a preliminary conference with Mr. Day and they agreed they were going to Salt Lake City for that meeting. They wrote me that they had agreed, and Mr. James O. Beck, who I think is now the president of the Western Game Association, wires me that Mr. Day will present these amendments and they are the ones I am asking you to adopt.

Mr. HILL. Mr. Pitt talked to me yesterday over the phone, and said that these amendments seemed to fit in with the ideas of the western boys in fine shape.

Mr. ROBERTSON. No doubt about that.

Mr. ANDRESEN. I am very much interested in your bill, but there are certain things I would like to have mandatory in the legislation, and I want to point out the situation in the Upper Mississippi Wildlife Refuge. That was created in 1924 by an act of Congress. We recognized that up until a few years ago the War Department and the Board of Engineers were only interested in navigation.

Mr. ROBERTSON. That is right.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Some years ago the late President Roosevelt issued an Executive order, taking land that the War Department had acquired for flowage rights, and turned that land over to the Biological Service, at that time, so that they could use it as a refuge, or for conservation purposes for wildlife. After the dams were completed and the pools created in the upper Mississippi River, from St. Paul down to Cairo, Ill., we have gone into an annual controversy with the War Department and the Board of Engineers about the draw-down of the pools in the river. Many of these pools have been completely drained so that tens of thousands of tons of fish have been either suffocated or killed; muskrats and other wildlife has been destroyed, the vegetation for migratory birds has been destroyed, and all up and down the river there has been tremendous complaint against this practice of the War Department in drawing down these pools so as to destroy this wildlife. I brought it up in our special committee. We have had the same situation this year. Fortunately we had some rain out there this year and the pools have been raised again and there will be no further draw-downs. But if we have to come up against this proposition every year, due to the failure of the Board of Engineers to cooperate, the wildlife in that area will soon be destroyed.

Now, what I would like to see in connection with this bill, and I am sure it won't have the support of the conservationists up and down the river, unless something is put in here in the shape of a mandatory provision requiring the Board of Engineers to maintain pool levels so that fish and other wildlife and vegetation can be maintained in the interest of conservation.

Mr. ROBERTSON. No doubt that would be a very desirable program, but that is just a little bit out of the scope of this legislation.

Mr. ANDRESEN. I don't think so.

Mr. ROBERTSON. This legislation deals with what plans you are going to make when you start a new project, and we say on page 2, under the amendment agreed on at Salt Lake City

Whenever the waters of any stream

and so forth

are to be impounded, diverted—

such department or agency as is going to do this work shall first consult the Fish and Wildlife Service and the head of the agency exercising administration of the wildlife resources of the State wherein the project is located. Then on page 3 we say:

No impoundment, diversion, or other water-control facility shall be constructed by any agency of the Federal Government, or by any public or private agency under Federal permit, that does not include adequate means and measures so far as practicable, as approved by the Fish and Wildlife Service, in cooperation with the constructing or authorizing agency, to prevent loss of and damage to fish or acquatics dependent upon the waters affected by such impoundment, diversion. or other control facility.

That is as far as we can go without saying that the Fish and Wildlife Service shall come first, and I say we would never get that through. Mr. ANDRESEN. I don't claim that, but there must be some reasonableness in the entire program.

Mr. ROBERTSON. Yes.

Mr. ANDRESEN. Now, if there be a uniform draw down in the pools without draining certain pools completely, we could probably reach some agreement, but the trouble is that certain pools are completely drawn down, and others are left in the areas where they are drawn down completely to the dam level, so that it becomes the normal stream flow again. In those areas vast quantities of territory are drained and this wildlife and vegetation is destroyed. Would you have any objection to a section added to this bill requiring the type of cooperation which I have mentioned, and which I seek, so that on existing projects the War Department and the Board of Engineers would be required to cooperate to that end?

Mr. ROBERTSON. If you could frame such an amendment that wouldn't go beyond the provisions that we have in this bill for new projects, we, of course, would have no objection.

Mr. ANDRESEN. This bill doesn't touch existing projects at all. Mr. ROBERTSON. I believe that the passage of this bill will so center the attention of these construction agencies on the wildlife interests that it is bound to extend to existing projects as well as to new projeets. And we say, "as far as practicable," and we say over on page 2, "consistent with the primary purpose." I don't believe you are going to get any bill through that takes those words out. What we are after is the protection of the wildlife interests, but consistent with the primary purpose of the project, and what is going to be done-if it is a flood-control project, a power dam or an irrigation dam that is what it is being built for. The second thing is that they must not do anything on that project to injure the wildlife if they can work out some practicable way not to do it.

Mr. ANDRESEN. That is on future projects.

Mr. ROBERTSON. I will ask Mr. Day if he doesn't think the language of this bill will be so construed by the construction agencies that they would apply it to all their projects. Or do you think it is necessary to have an amendment to this bill relating to existing areas?

Mr. DAY. I doubt it would make this bill apply to existing areas on the upper Mississippi River.

Mr. ROBERTSON. I will ask the counsel for the Fish and Wildlife Service if it would be difficult to frame an amendment to carry out what the Congressman suggests.

Mr. DONALD J. CHANEY (counsel, Fish and Wildlife Service). No; I don't think it would.

Mr. ROBERTSON. We have revised this bill three different times, and it is not an easy matter to get a bill that will meet all the objections that could possibly be raised to it. I would be happy to have such an amendment included in the bill, provided it so framed that it would not be a millstone on the bill when it comes up on the floor.

Mr. ANDRESEN. I can assure you it would not be a millstone, because I think the majority of the Members in the House are conservation minded, and they want to do everything they can to protect the wildlife of the country. I don't believe there will be any difficulty in that respect, and if I may have the cooperation of the gentlemen you just mentioned

Mr. ROBERTSON. They will be happy to assist you with such an amendment.

Mr. GRANGER. After all, the flood control work is in the interest of the property and life of the individuals, as compared to the fish and wildlife. I would go as far as we can go, if it would not have the effect of confusing it.

Mr. ANDRESEN. I don't think so, because it would be in the interest of the people, too. During these days when we have meat shortages, it is a crime to see hundreds of thousands of tons of fish smothered and other wildlife and vegetation destroyed.

Mr. GRANGER. I know it, but when you have a flood control project, you don't want to have the reservoir already filled with water so that you can't put any more in it.

Mr. ANDRESEN. This doesn't have anything to do with flood-control projects. This is on the upper Mississippi River.

Mr. GRANGER. Under the provisions of this bill it would bring in every little reservoir, it wouldn't make any difference who built it, if it were used for migratory birds, under the jurisdiction of the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Mr. ROBERTSON. No; the first thing in the bill is that it only relates to land owned by the Federal Government. You just can't go out and build a dam on any land you want to. It is a Federal project and on a federally owned area. The next thing, the primary purpose of this bill is that when they make those plans, the Federal agencies must give due regard to what they are going to do to the wildlife interests and not needlessly injure the wildlife interests. That is all that it does.

Mr. GRANGER. I suppose in the migratory sense, the wildlife is confined to birds, is it not?

Mr. ROBERTSON. Migratory birds, as the name implies, are birds that fly across boundary lines. This committee, in its wisdom, put the eagle on the protected list. I was very happy to see you do it, but you didn't have any jurisdiction over him except as a migratory bird, and he is not, in my opinion, a migratory bird. But he is our national emblem. On some of the occasions when this committee considered those bills, I reported to the then chairman that I doubted the jurisdiction of the Federal Government to legislate on the eagle, because I didn't think the Federal Government had any power or control over any game or any type of bird unless it is migratory, and