THE JUDICIARY: Hell's Canyon & the Law

An outfit called the National Hell's Canyon Association, Inc. blossomed and bristled like a desert cactus last year, soon after the Federal Power Commission turned down an eight-year-old proposal that the Government build a single high dam in Idaho's Hell's Canyon, instead licensed a private utility to build three small dams in the area (TIME, Aug. 15, 1955). Turning furiously to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, the association charged that the FPC action amounted to "administrative lawlessness" and de manded that the court order the license revoked. Chief argument: under the terms of the Federal Power Act....