Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1938-01-13
SEEN
HEARD
around the
NATIONAL
CAPITAL
By Carter Field y
By Carter Field

@OdrICT T1cIQ ~
Washington.-Ver interesting in
connection with all the talk from
the White House that only fear is
restraining investors from going in
to new enterprises, and particular
ly in connection with the admins
tration charge that the electric in
dustry has been withholding ex-
penditures for expansions, ETC., at
the rate of a billion dollars a year
for the last three years, are some
recent actions by the federal pow
er commission.
Act l was the application of the
Carolina Aluminium company for
permission to construct hydro
electric project on the Yadkin river,
near Tuckertown, N. c. This was
denied, on the ground that the Yad-
kin river was a navigable stream,
and hence a license must be OBJ
tanned.
But the contention that the Yadkin
river was navigable seemed absurd
not only to the Aluminium company,
but to the state officials of North
Carolina, in view of the fact that
there were already three dams
below the proposed site on the Yad-
kin river, and one above it!
So North Carolina joined the COM
pany in appealing.
Nv, ~ <bn
rejected the appeal, and also in a
separate action provided for an in
quiry into the other four dams, in
sisting that they be required also to
obtain licenses.
Why all this stress on licenses?
To read the statements of the COM
mission one might suspect it was all
in the interest of navigation. Pre-
sumably the commission might tell
the operators of the plant, on some
occasion, that they could not op-
crate because that might reduce the
depth of water down in the nav
igable part of the stream. Pre-
sumably the amount of water evap-
grated by being run through a
hydroelectric plant would be suf-
fciently in excess of that evaporat-
ed if nature took it's course to affect
this depth farther down.
Gets Power. to Intervene
1t seems little far-fetched, but
that's how the federal government
gets it's power to intervene, under
f1Io
eminent has jurisdiction over nav
igable streams. The original idea
of the founding fathers, of course,
concerned bridges, which, unless
there were some regulation, might
be built so close to the water that
ships could not pass under them.
But actually that is a lot of apple
sauce so far as the present conten-
ton is concerned. What the power
commission wants is to force these
plants to have licenses in order to
impose recapture provisions. Under
the federal power act, as amended in
1885, a formula is set up for the
government taking over any Ii
censed hydroelectric plant at the
end of fifty years.
It is to pay, under the provisions
of this act, precisely the amount
outlined by President Roosevelt in
his prudent investment theory
money honestly and wisely invested
no allowance for mistakes, how
ever honestly made, no allowance
for brides, no matter how wise it
seemed to pay them, no allowance
for promotion costs, and no allow
ance for any increased value in the
land! With the further retroactive
provision that if it shall be discov-
cred, when the government is taking
them over, that the companies
charged too much during the fifty
years, the amount of this excess
profit shall be deducted from the
amount paid the owners by the gov
eminent.
Needless to say, if the project
was losing one, the government
does not have to take it over. So
it's the old ''heads you lose, tails
the government wins" formula.
So some skeptics here think the
prudent investor" will have no
part in anything the prudent in
vestment" theory governs.
Trouble Ahead
Plenty of trouble impends for
President Roosevelt in the regular
session of congress. This was made
certain in recent press conference
in which the President stated his
views about what was causing the
"fear" on the part Of investors.
The point is that Mr.. Roosevelt's
ideas are widely at variance with
what a very large number of sena-
tors and representatives think is the
reason.
This will affect the very essence
of a number of measures which the
regular session of congress must
consider-all of them, in fact, which
have anything to do with business.
Of these taxation is the most impor-
tant. The President in his remarks
to the press strengthened the hands
of those senators and representa-