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Show Congress Session Vital To Westerners; Opponents Still Fighting Echo Park; President Expected To Plug For Project Utah's lawmakers have returned re-turned to Washington in preparation prepar-ation for the reconvening of congress, which was scheduled to open on Wednesday, January 6. This term of the congress is expected to be one of tremendous tremen-dous importance to the West and especially to Utah and the Uintah Uin-tah Basin. Expected to be in the limelight lime-light during 1954 is the vast Upper Colorado storage project, including the controversial Echo Park dam and Central Utah reclamation project. Now before the President's Bureau of the Budget for approval ap-proval is this huge program for development of the Upper Colorado Colo-rado Basin, the biggest reclamation reclama-tion and power project to be recommended so far by the Eisenhower Administration. When Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower Eisen-hower delivers his January message mes-sage to Congress, it is expected to include a strong plug for this project. "Save Dinosaur Park" During the past week the opposition op-position kicked off their attack on the Echo Park dam when the Sierra Club of California organized or-ganized a committee to "save Dinosaur National 'Monument." This group, like other conservation conserva-tion interests, contends that the dam should not be built because Hs reservoir would flood a por-;on por-;on of the national monument and thereby open the floodgates for further invasion of the nation's na-tion's parks and monuments. Both Senate and House sub-"oTmittee sub-"oTmittee headings are scheduled sched-uled to start early in the year nn authorization of the Upper Colorado proaram and from all rirMcations the conservationsts will be on hand in force to' try qnd block the program. Other legislation of special 'rfit)OTance to the Intermoun-tain Intermoun-tain West which will be on the congressional calendar for next year inoludes: Modification of the Atomic Energy Act to permit industrial development of civilian atomic power. The omnibus rivers and harbors har-bors legislation which includes flood control, navigation and hydroelectric hy-droelectric power projects. Federal assistance for construction con-struction of schools in areas with defense industries or installations. in-stallations. Existing legislation expires June 30, 1954. A bill to create more than a score of new federal judgeships is expected to receive final approval. ap-proval. The Senate authorized one additional ad-ditional judge for Utah, Idaho and Nevada. The bill now is before a Senate-House conference confer-ence committee. Due for special consideration is a series of bills relinquishing federal supervision over Indian affairs, including some of the Mountain States tribes and bands of Indians. They are being be-ing drafted by Sen. Arthur V. Watkins (R., Utah), chairman of the Indians subcommittee. Of wide interest to the mining industry will be legislation extending ex-tending the reciprocal trade agreements which expire June 30, 1954. A bitter fight on the Senate floor now appears to be in the offing with opposition led by Sen. George Malone (R., Nev.). Another effort also is expected ex-pected to be made to get through the so-called Simpson Bill which proposed a sliding scale tariff on lead and zinc. Such a bill was defeated in the House last year. Healthy Appropriations Especially Utah and Idaho are due for some health appropriations appropria-tions for federal projects. One of the largest is expected to be for Palisades dam on the Upper Snake River. |
