laws upon completion of the repayment required under a contract with
the United States. The specific question asked is: ". . would the Ele-
phant Butte Irrigation District be considered to have completed 're-
payment required by the terms of any contracts with the Secretary
relating to the delivery of water supplies to such landholding for agri-
cultural use'?"
 The provision in question in S. 14, as currently drafted, provides
 that:
 The acreage limitation provision and residency requirement of
 the Federal Reclamation Law shall cease to apply to any land-
 holding upon completion of the repayment required by the terms of
 any contracts with the Secretary relating to the delivery of water
 supplies to such landholding for agricultural use.
 The repayment obligation of the Elephant Butte Irrigation District
 under its repayment contract with the United States dated November
 9, 1937, was $5,698,012. Repayment of this obligation to the United
 States by the district was completed in September 1971. This contract
 obligation represented the remaining balance of the repayment obliga-
 tion of the district at the date of the contract for the delivery of water
 supplies for agricultural use; therefore, in our opinion, the Elephant
 Butte District has completely paid its repayment obligation to the
 United States.
 We note an important difference between the provision cited above
and similar provisions contained in other bills on the same subject.
The exemption provision in S. 14 allows an exemption simply upon
payout of charges according to contract terms, but is not dependent
upon the repayment contract having a so-called "payout" provision
which specifically provides for cessation of regulation upon full pay-
ment of construction charges. Most of the other proposed exemption
provisions we have dealt with so far called only for the validation
of these payout articles.
 The problem with Elephant Butte is that payout clauses are con-
tained in some individual recordable contracts, but not in the District
contract. An exemption based on the individual recordable contracts
containing payout provisions would not cover all of the land in the
district, and would create a "checkerboard" effect of exempt and non-
exempt lands in the district.
 The S. 14 provision would seem to solve the "checkerboard" prob-
lem in Elephant Butte and would exempt all of the district's lands.
 Parenthetically. you should be aware that the S. 14 provision does
not appear to exempt Elephant Butte's sister district, El Paso Water
Irrigation District. While El Paso has the same form of individual
recordable contracts which could be validated, it has not completed
"repayment required by the terms of any contracts with the Secretary
relating to the delivery of water supplies to such landholding for
agricultural use," (emphasis added) because the district (as well as
all of its landholders by joint obligation) has not paid out a $7 mil-
lion rehabilitation and betterment loan which is scheduled by con-
tract for repayment. A fair interpretation of S. 14, one we prefer, is
to require repayment of that rehabilitation and betterment loan prior
to an exemption:being granted.
 You should also note that, even after construction or other capital
charges have been paid out, many districts must still pay an annual