opower projects if necessary, and also be able to protect the public from uncontrolled water power monopolies. After fifteen years of deliberations, the Federal Water Power Act was passed in 1920 (now the FPA), ensuring long term federal control over the nations water resources (Costenbader,1998). The act imposed federal regulatory control over the conditions of private hydropower development, at the same time allowing the licensees security in their investments with a fifty year license term. The FPA granted the Commission broad authority to administer the FPA. The FPA also contained a provision which allowed FERC to transfer a project from one licensee to another at the end of the license term. What Congress neglected to address was the possibility of having to order a dam decommissioning, probably because at that point in time nobody thought that a river in its natural state would be more important than the energy produced by a hydropower dam. In a Congressional hearing on the FPA, one Senator Walsh raised the possibility of a decommissioning, then promptly answered the question himself by saying But, of course, it is unthinkable that the federal government would do anything of that kind, and constantly we must dismiss that. (59 Cong.Rec.1474(1920), Statement of Senator Walsh). The next evolution of the FPA that is relevant to the Edwards Manufacturing Companys case took place in 1967. The essential key to the FPA is whether the project of concern is in the public interest, a term which until 1967 had yet to be defined. The Supreme Court case of Udall v. Federal Power Commission supplied a broad definition that incorporated the factors of future power supply and demand, alternate power sources, preservation of wild rivers and wilderness areas, preservation of anadromous fish runs, and protection of wildlife as the matters of public interest(Udall v. FPC, 387 U.S.428,450(1967)). In 1986 Congress added an amendment to the FPA...
