The enabling treaty with the Canadian Government has been ratified, the surveys have been made, the plans and specifications have been drawn and the American people are entreating the Congress to develop these projects in the same way as they have the Grand Coulee, the Bonneville, Boulder dam, and many others.

The Senate Joint Resolution 27 provides the remedy for keeping the Northeast in a stable position and in line to produce the food and fiber so much needed for defense in the present emergency.

I have also four different cooperatives from New York State which have petitions here if you wish to hear them.

The CHAIRMAN. The next witness.

STATEMENT OF FRANK M. SAHLMAN, PRESIDENT, NORTHEASTERN ASSOCIATION OF ELECTRIC COOPERATIVES

Mr. SAHLMAN. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, my name is Frank Sahlman. I am president of the Northeastern Association of Electric Cooperatives, an organization representing the rural electric cooperatives in New York and New England. These cooperatives serve some 25,000 members. I am also manager of the Washington Electric Cooperative in East Montpelier, Vt., serving the rural areas in northern central Vermont.

We have with us today from Vermont some of the people who represent the rural thinking of Vermont. Mr. Arthur Packard, president of the Vermont Farm Bureau, Donald L. Cook, past president of the Northeastern Rural Electric Cooperative Association and manager of the Vermont Electric Cooperation. All of those people they represent have passed resolutions in favor of the St. Lawrence.

I have also a letter from John C. Lawson, international secretary and treasurer of the United Stone and Allied Products Workers of America, CIO, placing their organization in favor of construction. You probably realize that New England and New York are one of the highest cost areas for electricity in the Nation. In this area, there is some of the greatest potential for development of low-cost power in the Nation of which the St. Lawrence is the best and which needs our immediate attention. We need that power and need it badly.

The CHAIRMAN. All the people you represent are cooperatives? Mr. SAHLMAN. Yes, except the Allied Stone and Products Workers. They gave me a letter to come down here and represent them today. The CHAIRMAN. I thought you were representing the cooperatives. Mr. SAHLMAN. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. All right, next witness.

You have 2 minutes.

STATEMENT OF WESLEY S. THOMAS, MANAGER, SULLIVAN COUNTY RURAL ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE, INC.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am Wesley S. Thomas, manager of the Sullivan County Rural Electric Cooperative, Inc., and Secretary of the Pennsylvania Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

ELECTRIC POWER VERY COSTLY

Mr. Chairman, I will just briefly mention the high cost of electric power in our area. It stands at 15 mills. I do not believe there is any other area in the country that will produce that cost.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you have a regulatory commission in Pennsylvania?

Mr. THOMAS. We certainly have.

The CHAIRMAN. Don't they regulate your rates!

Mr. THOMAS. No.

The CHAIRMAN. What do they regulate, if they do not regulate rates?

Mr. THOMAS. They regulate the rates, or the rates are filed with the commission. The opposition is quoting us with a surplus from time to time.

The monopoly existed in the Northeast which includes the area east of the Mississippi and north of the Mason-Dixon line. It is strangling the economy of the whole area.

To give you an idea of the load growth, the Electric Utility Advisory Committee just recently released an estimate of 13,000,000 kilowatt-hours to put into production in 1952, 1953, and 1954.

They also say that the growth will exceed the production.

I would venture to say that the hydropower, if it can all be produced

The CHARMAIN. Your time is up, they say.

Mr. THOMAS. Time is up? O. K.

The CHAIRMAN. We are glad to have had you.

Senator WILEY. Do you have a statement there?
Mr. THOMAS. Yes; I think it is on the table.
Senator WILEY. Will it be incorporated?

The CHAIRMAN. He has already had the same statement printed in the record. All right, put it in the record.

(The statement submitted by Mr. Thomas follows:)

STATEMENT OF WESLEY S. THOMAS, MANAGER, SULLIVAN COUNTY RURAL ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE, INC., AND SECRETARY OF THE PENNSYLVANIA RURAL ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATION

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am Wesley S. Thomas, manager of the Sullivan County Rural Electric Cooperative, Inc., and secretary of the Pennsylvania Rural Electric Cooperative Association.

The wholesale price of electric power stands at $0.015 per kilowatt-hour in my area and is exceedingly high in the entire northeastern United States.

The potential of the St. Lawrence is the last frontier with respect to hydropower development. It is the greatest undeveloped resource of kilowatt-hour daily going to waste, and it is greater by far than any other development in the country.

The rural electric cooperatives in the Northeast in addition to paying a high power cost have no assurance of adequate, dependable power for their farm operations. Their electrical load requirements are developing at an unprecedented rate. This in a large measure is caused by the necessity of the substitution of electric power for farm labor. Added comfort and convenience in the farm home accounts for the rest.

The purpose of the Rural Electrification Administration to bring service to unserved rural properties is at this time greatly hampered by price. The only means of meeting the situation is by making more hydropower available to make a price the farmers and others can afford to pay. The St. Lawrence project is the medium in the Northeast whereby the agricultural and industrial economy of this important section of our country can contribute its fair share to our national welfare.

The CHAIRMAN. The next witness, please.

STATEMENT OF ARTHUR PACKARD, PRESIDENT, VERMONT STATE FARM BUREAU

I am a dairy farmer. We of the Vermont Farm Bureau have been working for the St. Lawrence seaway and power development for nearly 20 years. We are still for it and stronger than we have been in the past because the cost of power on the average Vermont farm is nearly 1 cent above the national average. It costs our electric cooperatives about 1.3 cents wholesale. We are for it because the St. Lawrence is the only large low-cost source that we have in the Northeast. We are for it because we have helped other parts of the Nation to harness low-cost power and we think now that other sections of the United States should give us equal treatment.

Senator WILEY. Hear! Hear!

Mr. PACKARD. The farmers are the railroads' best customers. All of our feed and fertilizer are shipped by rail. Therefore, we think that they should help us rather than block us in helping to save our cost on electric power. The people of Vermont are frugal and thrifty and we don't like the idea of waste.

Why should we be forced to produce power from coal when there are 30 billion kilowatt-hours as estimated by engineers, running down the St. Lawrence River annually? This is a project which will not only benefit us internally here in this Nation but will make us a stronger Nation. We are strongly for this project.

I thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much.

The next witness.

Senator GREEN. A very pointed statement.

STATEMENT OF HARRY H. NUTTLE, SECRETARY-TREASURER, CHOPTANK ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE, INC.

Mr. NUTTLE. My name is Harry H. Nuttle. I am regional executive committeeman of region I of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association which includes Maine to North Carolina. Representatives from various States north of Maryland are here to present their views, so I will confine my statement to how we in Maryland feel about the St. Lawrence.

I am a citizen of Maryland, secretary-treasurer of the Choptank Electric Cooperative of Denton which serves 10,000 rural people on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

We, in Maryland are very much interested in this seaway project because of the possibility of getting some electric power.

Last

year we paid to the Eastern Shore Public Service Co. $286,000 at a rate or cost of 122 mills per kilowatt.

MARYLAND BENEFIT FROM PENNSYLVANIA'S RATES

We think this generating plant on the Great Jump Rapids will benefit a good deal more than just Bonneville by this additional power, in the northeast. Some of the benefits of it will come down to us in lower

cost. That is the reason we, in Maryland, are very much interested in it. We think it should be passed.

We also are concerned about our power. Last year we used 17 percent more current than we did the year before. Some of these days we are afraid we will not be able to get enough, and we think that this St. Lawrence development will protect our future and, at the same time, give the farmers, who are fewer in number and yet must produce more food and fiber, an assurance of increased power.

The CHAIRMAN. You figure that you are going to get some electricity from this plant if it is built?

Mr. NUTTLE. We think if it comes down into Pennsylvania it will help our prices in Maryland.

The CHAIRMAN. You do not expect to get any from this development?

Mr. NUTTLE. We do not.

The CHAIRMAN. You are perfectly willing for sea commerce to be diverted from Baltimore and go on up to New England?

Mr. NUTTLE. We think lower electric rates in Maryland would more than make up that difference.

The CHAIRMAN. How are you going to get it lower? You do not get any power, you say, from this.

Mr. NUTTLE. We think additional power will help lower the rate in the whole area. It has happened that way in the rest of the United States. Whenever you get a hydro-development you get lower rates. The CHAIRMAN. You do when you get close to it, but I am talking about this being up on the St. Lawrence.

Mr. NUTTLE. We are about five or six hundred miles from that. The CHAIRMAN. Is that all?

Mr. NUTTLE. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Just shoot that over five or six hundred miles? Mr. NUTTLE. They can carry it three to four hundred miles for a mill.

The CHAIRMAN. That is not five or six hundred.

Mr. NUTTLE. The lowering effects will drift down to us. If they are going to get their power up there for 2 or 3 mills less, we will certainly get some benefit.

The CHAIRMAN. All right. You are excused.

Mr. NUTTLE. Thank you, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. The American Farm Bureau Association gets 10 minutes.

Mr. ELLIS. I believe you omitted one. We will make it very short. The CHAIRMAN. Bring him around.

Mr. ELLIS. I guess I am he, sir.

STATEMENT OF CLYDE T. ELLIS, EXECUTIVE MANAGER, NATIONAL RURAL ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATION

Mr. ELLIS. I am Clyde T. Ellis. I am executive manager of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, which is the service organization of the rural electric systems of the United States.

Nine hundred and nine farmers' electric cooperatives and rural power districts are members of this service organization, with a consumer membership of approximately 3,150,000 farm families in 42 States and Alaska.

Our national organization has gone on record several times in favor of the St. Lawrence development, and of the development of all the feasible hydro power of the country. That is consistent with our general policy. We have specifically recommended the St. Law

rence.

I think, Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask at this time your permission to file my statement.

The CHAIRMAN. All right.

(The statement of Clyde T. Ellis is as follows:)

Mr. ELLIS. May we ask this, also? Sixteen of our people, including the Farm Bureau and representatives of another cooperative group in Vermont, came here hoping to say something. Time will not permit, but several of them have very short statements. None of them I think, runs over 2 minutes. May they insert them in the record?

The CHAIRMAN. How many are several?

Mr. ELLIS. There are 17 altogether and 5 of them have testified.

The CHAIRMAN. Do they not all testify to the same thing? Why cumber the record with 17 statements-A, B, C, and D which repeat the same things over and over. Is not that true?

Mr. ELLIS. They may be cumulative but they are not repetitive. There would be only about six more which have them prepared, I guess, in addition to those already in.

The CHAIRMAN. If they are short, put them in.

Mr. ELLIS. If possible, we would like the record to note the names of the others who came, Mr. Chairman, but who do not have state

ments.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not see why we should take a census and put the names of everyone in. If they have a statement or if they want to testify, we will put their names in. You could bring 50 up here and put their names in.

Mr. ELLIS. I said, sir, they had hoped to say something for the record.

The CHAIRMAN. All right, put them in.

Mr. ELLIS. Thank you, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Wait a minute. I want to interrogate you a little. Where do you live?

Mr. ELLIS. I live here, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. You used to live in Arkansas?

Mr. ELLIS. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. How much salary do you get from the cooperatives?

Mr. ELLIS. Sixteen plus 10 percent; $17,600.

The CHAIRMAN. All right. Any other questions?

All right, Mr. Ellis.