162 MULTIPLE PURPOSE RIVER DEVELOPMENT 



light of the congressional stalemate in this regard, such a decision 

 "would serve to freeze the Middle Snake for hydroelectric develop- 

 ment for an indeterminate period in the future." ^^ Consistent with 

 the intention not to "freeze" developmental opportunities on the 

 Middle Snake, the examiner found in favor of issuing the license 

 for Brownlee project of the Idaho Power Company plans, but 

 denied the propriety of a license covering all three projects. The 

 rationale was expressed as follows: 



Section 13 [of the Federal Power Act] seems to prohibit the tying 

 up of power sites with no real prospect of developing them within 

 the immediate fiuure. It seems pretty clear from the legislative 

 history that one of the things concerning the people who con- 

 trived the Act was that some power company might try to stake 

 out a whole river considerably in advance of its needs, thereby 

 preventing someone else from utilizing the same water resources 

 in the meantime, and that such monopolistic activities would 

 be detrimental to the public interest.^^ 



Again: 



Even if it [Idaho Power Company] were to accept a license which 

 required the building of the three proposed projects in a mini- 

 mum of nine years as proposed by the Staff, if the market for the 

 power was not evident, there would be little difficulty under the 

 Act in amending the license to eliminate one or both of the 

 excess and unneeded developments. Neither the Commission nor 

 any other governmental regulatory body could lawfully and 

 effectively require construction of a hydroelectric project, a 

 market for which did not exist. 



Even so it would be clearly not in the public interest to license 

 the three proposed dams when there is only a market reasonably 

 predicted for the production of one of them.*° 



In spite of the presiding examiner's findings, the FPC in effect 

 reversed his decision with respect to preventing a private firm from 

 "tying up" the developmental possibilities in the Middle Snake. 

 Idaho Power Company was licensed by the Commission to under- 

 take all three of the projects for which it made application. In 

 light of the disparity between the plan of development proposed by 

 Idaho Po\ver Company and the economically more efficient plan, it 

 is apparent that the FPC valued private development quite highly. 



"^Ibid., pp. 56-57. 



"^Ibid., p. 29. 



^Ibid., pp. 27-28. See also FPC, Decision, Findings Nos. 46-49, p. 37. 



