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Healthy Climate. Partnership means simply that Interior will help power projects, where possible, and might pay part of construction costs (for flood control and navigation benefits, both federal responsibilities). Henceforth, McKay said, the Federal Government will build only projects too big for any other outfit. Example: the $1.2 billion five-state Upper Colorado project.
The Colorado basin would benefit immensely; however, thousands of protests against the project have hit McKay's desk. Reason: professional nature lovers like Bernard DeVoto, Richard Neuberger and Wallace Stegner, all of whom wear shoes and live in houses while writing about the great outdoors, have raised an outcry because the project would flood part of Dinosaur National Monument.
McKay's reply: "As it is, 2,200 people a year see that park. On the other hand, 3,750,000 people in the Upper Colorado basin are thirsting for water. I'm all for wilderness areas, but when there is a choice between that and man's chance to earn a living on reclaimed soil, I'm for the working man's chance."
To McKay, partnership is based both on principle and on practical sense. The Northwest alone requires $3.5 billion worth of new power by 1974, and no conceivable Congress would pungle up that much money for one region. "This country," said McKay, "is growing so rapidly that we must have the effort of everyone. The Federal Government cannot do it all." And a federal dog-in-the-manger attitude holds off private capital.
Can local initiative and private capital produce the power? "You're damned right we can!" declared Kinsey Robinson, president of Spokane's Washington Water Power Co. "We could have done it a long time ago if the climate had been right." Superintendent Paul Raver of Seattle City Light, former chief of the federal Bonneville Power Administration, joined in a declaration: "We recognize our responsibility to produce 1.6 million new kilowatts in the next ten years, and we intend to do it."
Partnership may be paying off. Presently planned new projects in the Northwest alone total a thumping 5,249,000 kilowatts capacity. Construction cost: $1.5 billion, not at federal expense.
Power Politics. McKay's partnership power policy is a hot issue in several states. In Kentucky, concern for TVA could defeat Republican Senator John Sherman Cooper, although he does not share his party's position. In Wyoming, ex-Senator Joseph C. O'Mahoney is trying to come back with an all-out attack on McKay. In Idaho, where Hell's Canyon is a burning issue, some pro-McKay candidates lost last week's primaries. In Montana, Fair-Dealing Senator James Murray is campaigning against McKay rather than his opponent. In Washington, two Republican Congressmen (Walt Horan and Russell Mack) have disassociated themselves from McKay's policy. In Oregon, McKay's own state, he is blamed for the shortage of kilowatts which requires dimouts. The Oregon issue is as clear as mountain air: a victory for Journalist Dick Neuberger, the Democratic senatorial candidate, would be a stinging defeat, not just for Republican Senator Guy Cordon, but for McKay and Administration policy.