DIGEST OF CERTAIN SUPREME COURT TRANSMITTED TO THE MEMBERS OF THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON BY SENATOR CLINTON P. ANDERSON CHAIRMAN OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON JUNE 20, 1957 Printed for the use of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs 20267 UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON: 1958 OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY LAW LIBRARY AT SEP 17 58 COMMITTEE ON INTERIOR AND INSULAR AFFAIRS JAMES E. MURRAY, Montana, Chairman CLINTON P. ANDERSON, New Mexico GEORGE W. MALONE, Nevada SUBCOMMITTEE ON IRRIGATION AND RECLAMATION HENRY M. JACKSON, Washington GEORGE W. MALONE, Nevada RICHARD L. CALLAGHAN, Chief Clerk STEWART FRENCH, Chief Counsel N. D. MCSHERRY, Assistant Chief Clerk GOODRICH W. LINEWEAVER, Committee Assistant for Reclamation STATEMENT OF THE CHAIRMAN To the Members of the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs The members of the committee will recall that during our extensive hearings in the 84th Congress on S. 863, Senator Barrett's western water rights settlement bill, I suggested that a digest of the decisions of the United States Supreme Court pertinent to the issues raised by the proposed legislation would be helpful to the committee. Senator Barrett himself stated that in enacting his bill the Congress would be "acting as a court of last resort" with respect to certain recent decisions of the Supreme Court, such as, for example, the Pelton Dam, First Iowa, and Twin City cases. We are in effect overruling the Supreme Court over hereSenator Barrett stated in describing his bill— and to my way of thinking the Supreme Court is legislating. So we have to get back on the beam, and we will attend to our business and pass the laws and it would be better if the Court would stick to its job and construe those laws. That is the whole thing in a nutshell. It was in order to try to understand both the recent decisions and prior rulings with respect to the relations of the Federal Government and the States in the acquisition, control, and use of waters within the States that I requested Elmer F. Bennett, then Legislative Counsel to the Department of the Interior, to compile a digest of the leading cases. I repeated the request in the hearings this year on the Hells Čanyon bill (S. 555). Mr. Bennett, who is the Solicitor of the Department of the Interior, has sent me such a compilation. In my opinion it is excellent, and in the hope that it may be as helpful to other members of the committee as I know it will be to me, I am having this committee print made of it. Publication of the digest in this form has Mr. Bennett's approval. III CLINTON P. ANDERSON, Chairman, Subcommittee on Irrigation and Reclamation. |