Hell's Canyon & the Law

An outfit called the National Hell's Canyon Association, Inc. blossomed and bristled like a desert cactus last year, soon after the Federal Power Commission turned down an eight-year-old proposal that the Government build a single high dam in Idaho's Hell's Canyon, instead licensed a private utility to build three small dams in the area (TIME, Aug. 15, 1955). Turning furiously to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, the association charged that the FPC action amounted to "administrative lawlessness" and de manded that the court order the license revoked. Chief argument: under the terms of the Federal Power Act. the FPC was required to choose a project "best adapted to a comprehensive plan" for public-resource development. Declared the association: a federal high dam would meet that requirement, the Idaho Power Co.'s private project does not.

Last week the court gave its answer: "We find no instance in which the com mission [violated] the governing statute" --which gives it "broad discretion" to approve whatever projects it judges best suited to the nation's needs. Before exer cising this discretion, said the court, the FPC gave "mature consideration" to both plans and concluded--on the basis of the evidence--that each was "equally comprehensive." Weighing in favor of the private project was the fact that Congress has consistently refused to authorize a federal dam. Hence, the FPC "chose between a $400 million plan, which nobody was offering to undertake, and another comprehensive development for which private capital in the sum of $175 million is immediately available, so construction can begin at once." Concluded the court: the FPC's right to make such a choice is legally unassailable.

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