Warne v. Harkness

Decision Date12 December 1963
Citation60 Cal.2d 579,35 Cal.Rptr. 601,387 P.2d 377
Parties, 387 P.2d 377 Wm. E. WARNE, as Director of Water Resources, Petitioner, v. Robert L. HARKNESS, as Director of General Services, Respondent. Sac. 7496.
CourtCalifornia Supreme Court

Stanley Mosk, Atty. Gen., F. G. Funke, Asst. Atty. Gen., Philip K. Jensen and V. Barlow Goff, Deputy Attys. Gen., B. Abbott Goldberg, Elizabeth D. Henderson, Sacramento, and Preble Stolz, San Francisco, for petitioner.

Carlson, Collins, Gordon & Bold, Frederick Bold, Jr., Richmond, and Gerrit Van Benschoten, Beverly Hills, for respondent.

Charles C. Cooper, Jr., Los Angeles, John H. Lauten, Fresno, Donald J. Whitlock, O'Melveny & Myers, James L. Beebe, Pierce Works, James W. Beebe and Howard J. Deards, Los Angeles, as amici curiae.

GIBSON, Chief Justice.

The Director of Water Resources seeks a writ of mandate to compel the Director of General Services to comply with an order of the Department of Water Resources to print a resolution of that department concerning various facilities, including a dam, which are to be constructed in the vicinity of Oroville and are designated as the 'Oroville Division.' The resolution authorizes the issuance of Central Valley Project revenue bonds in the amount of $327,000,000 to meet such costs of features, units, and portions of units of the Oroville Division as are allocable to the generation, transmission and distribution of electric power. It is provided in the resolution that the bonds will be secured by a first lien on the revenues from those facilities. Respondent has refused to print the resolution, claiming that the department has no authority to issue the bonds and that the use of part of the proceeds in the manner specified is improper. 1

In adopting its resolution the department relied on the Central Valley Project Act (Wat.Code, § 11100 et seq.), enacted in 1933 and amended frequently thereafter. 2 Under the act the department is empowered to construct and operate various water facilities, among which are those authorized by section 11260 of the Water Code. Section 11260 provides that certain units or portions of units, including the Oroville dam and related power facilities, may be constructed and operated 'separate and apart' from other units of the Central Valley Project. The act further empowers the department to issue revenue bonds to carry out the objects of the act and provides that the bonds shall not be obligations of the state but shall constitute a first lien on revenues. (Wat.Code, §§ 11700, 11705, 11720-11722.)

Respondent claims that so far as concerns the department's authority to issue the revenue bonds in question the Central Valley Project Act has been superseded by the California Water Resources Development Bond Act, hereafter called the Burns-Porter Act (Wat.Code, § 12930 et seq.), which was passed by the Legislature in 1959, approved by the voters in 1960, and upheld by this court in Metropolitan Water Dist. of Southern California v. Marquardt, 59 Cal.2d 159, 28 Cal.Rptr. 724, 379 P.2d 28. 3 The Burns-Porter Act authorizes the department to construct and operate the State Water Resources Development System, and to that end provides for the issuance, in an aggregate amount not to exceed $1,750,000,000 of bonds which are of a different type from those authorized by the Central Valley Project Act. (Wat.Code, §§ 12931, 12935, 12938.)

The State Water Resources Development System is to consist of enumerated 'State Water Facilities,' including the Oroville dam, and of various additional facilities, including those which may now or hereafter be authorized as part of the Central Valley Project. (Wat.Code, §§ 12931, 12934, subd. (d), 12938.) In a general provision the Burns-Porter Act declares that the facilities authorized as part of the Central Valley Project 'or facilities which are acquired or constructed * * * with funds made available hereunder' shall be 'acquired, constructed, operated, and maintained pursuant to the provisions of the code governing the Central Valley Project.' (Wat.Code, § 12931.) The Burns-Porter Act makes no specific reference to the authority of the department to issue Central Valley Project bonds.

The bonds authorized by the Burns-Porter Act may be described as general obligation bonds supported by revenue. The full faith and credit of the state is pledged for their payment, and money is to be annually appropriated for that purpose from the General Fund if necessary. (Wat.Code, §§ 12936, 12937, subd. (a).) In connection with the payment of the bonds provision is made for transfers into the General Fund from a special revenue fund, and all revenues from the 'State Water Resources Development System,' including those from 'water or power,' are to be deposited in the special fund. (Wat.Code, § 12937, subds. (a) and (b).) That fund is to be used for certain limited purposes and in a listed order of preference in which the annual payment of the Burns-Porter bonds ranks second only to the operation and maintenance of the system. All revenues of the system are declared to constitute a trust fund and are pledged for the purposes and in accordance with the priorities set forth, and the pledge is to be binding on the state so long as any Burns-Porter bonds remain outstanding. (Wat.Code, § 12937, subd. (b).) 4 The California Water Resources Development Finance Committee, created by the Burns-Porter Act, is empowered to determine, upon the written request of the department, whether bonds authorized by that act should be issued and, if so, in what amount. (Wat.Code, §§ 12933, 12939.)

We reject at the outset the contention of respondent that the Oroville dam, because it is among the facilities enumerated by the Burns-Porter Act as 'State Water Facilities,' is no longer authorized by the Central Valley Project Act. As we have seen, the Burns-Porter Act expressly continues, rather than precludes, the operation of the Central Valley Project Act, and nothing in the Burns-Porter Act shows that a facility authorized as part of the Central Valley Project is no longer to be so regarded merely because it is also enumerated as one of the 'State Water Facilities.' It should be noted that, although the section of the Central Valley Project Act authorizing the construction of various facilities, including those at Oroville (§ 11260), was amended at the 1959 legislative session after the Burns-Porter Act was passed, no change was made to eliminate from the section the reference to the Oroville facilities. (Stats.1959, ch. 2043, p. 4723.)

There is likewise no merit in the assertion that the department's authority to issue Central Valley Project bonds has been terminated by the provision of the Burns-Porter Act under which an indebtedness of $1,750,000,000 may be created by the California Water Resources Development Finance Committee 'in the manner and to the extent herein provided, but not otherwise nor in excess thereof.' (Wat.Code, § 12935.) This provision was obviously intended only as a limitation with respect to the bonds authorized by the Burns-Porter Act, not with respect to any other bonds.

The principal problem arises from the fact that, on the one hand, the Central Valley Project Act contains provisions authorizing the construction of the Oroville facilities, the issuance of revenue bonds for that purpose, and the pledging of power revenues from those facilities for the payment of such bonds on a first lien basis, and that, on the other hand, the Burns-Porter Act includes those facilities as part of the State Water Resources Development System and contains provisions which pledge all revenues of that system in such a manner that the payment of the Burns-Porter bonds has a priority second only to maintenance and operation. The question is whether the pledge and priority provisions of the Burns-Porter Act repeal the department's authority to issue the proposed bonds under the Central Valley Project Act or whether, as petitioner urges, the two acts can and should be reconciled by construing the pledge and priority provisions of the Burns-Porter Act as applying to revenues from facilities constructed with funds made available under that act but as having no application to revenues from facilities financed under the Central Valley Project Act.

The pledge and priority provisions in the Burns-Porter Act, of course, are not to be read by themselves; the act must be considered as a whole. Nothing in it expressly repeals the Central Valley Project Act, and, to the contrary, it expressly continues the Central Valley Project Act in operation without any declaration that the department's authority to issue Central Valley Project bonds is affected. This, therefore, is a case more nearly akin to one where assertedly inconsistent provisions were contemporaneously enacted than to one where it is claimed that a later statute repeals an earlier inconsistent provision.

There are several considerations supporting the view that the Burns-Porter Act was not intended to set forth a complete method of financing to the exclusion of the one provided for in the Central Valley Project Act. The indebtedness of $1,750,000,000 authorized by the Burns-Porter Act represents only an estimate of what will be necessary, and this amount may well prove insufficient to construct all the facilities contemplated by that act. (See Metropolitan Water Dist. of Southern California v. Marquardt, 59 Cal.2d 159, 180-181, 28 Cal.Rptr. 724, 379 P.2d 28.) Moreover, the Burns-Porter Act, in specifying that water facilities are to be acquired, constructed, and operated pursuant to the Central Valley Project Act, mentions two separate groups of facilities, those authorized as part of the Central Valley Project and those acquired or constructed 'with funds made available hereunder.' (Wat.Code, § 12931.) It should also be noted that, although the Legislature did not insert a provision repealing any inconsistent portions of the...

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