IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - March/April 2018 - 96

ever-insistent public opinion ... demanding its right and due in the form of cheaper
electricity" and promised that housewives
"will have the benefit of electric lights,
and of an electric refrigerator, an electric
range, electric vacuum cleaner, electric
radio, dishwasher, clothes washer," since
the proposed st. Lawrence waterpower
project could provide enough electricity
for half the state.
the st. Lawrence Power Development commissioners met with President herbert hoover, who was already
deeply embroiled in the issue of public
power; just then a consortium of contractors hired by the U.s. government
was beginning construction of boulder Dam, later renamed hoover Dam.
approved by congress and President
calvin coolidge in 1928 after years of
planning, the dam along the arizona-
Nevada border was the largest concrete
structure ever undertaken, creating
Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the
United states. but the most complex

hydropower issue was Muscle shoals
in the tennessee Valley, now the central arena between public power and
the monopoly owned utilities.
when roosevelt's Inland waterways commission report had asserted
federal control over navigable waters in
1908, it left regulation of hydropower
to the individual states, which usually
allowed private industries to build and
operate dams "for nothing and forever." During world war I, President
wilson had invoked his wartime authority under the National Defense act,
and to produce explosives nitrates, the
army began construction of wilson
Dam, the first of nine that would make
up the tennessee Valley authority's
hydropower system. after 1920, federal licenses were required for all dams
from the new federal Power commission (later the federal energy regulatory
commission). Meanwhile, opponents of
public power used the U.s. senate as their
means to block any further construction.

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96

ieee power & energy magazine

In the next decade, two congresses
had passed bills demanding that the
federal government should remain
in control of the Muscle shoals project
and operate its power facilities, and two
presidents, coolidge and hoover, had
vetoed those bills, as the latter insisted
that government-owned industries were
"socialistic." but while hoover supported development of a st. Lawrence
seaway, he adamantly opposed state
ownership of electric distribution, and
he knew that a broad coalition of private
power and railroad lobbyists could block
the undertaking, together with related labor unions and isolationists, who did not
want the country open to foreign vessels.
all those lobbying interests formed the
National st. Lawrence Project conference, an umbrella organization to oppose
the seaway. In canada, when Mackenzie
king became prime minister in 1921 for
the first of his 22 years in office, he
proved unwilling to even discuss the
seaway or hydropower.

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - March/April 2018
