43 U.S.C. § 377 — General expenses of Bureau of Reclamation chargeable to general reclamation fund

This section explains where the money comes from to pay certain overhead costs of the Bureau of Reclamation, the agency that builds and runs federal water and dam projects. Starting after June 30, 1945, two kinds of costs must be paid out of the reclamation fund, the fund set up to finance reclamation work. First, the cost of running the Commissioner's office in the District of Columbia — the agency's Washington headquarters. Second, the cost of general investigations and of other offices outside the District of Columbia that are not tied to one specific project. This second category has one exception: if a cost outside D.C. is incurred on behalf of a specific project, this rule does not cover it. These office and investigation costs must not be charged as part of the reimbursable construction, operation, or maintenance costs of individual reclamation projects. In other words, the general overhead of running the Bureau's headquarters and its non-project offices is paid centrally from the reclamation fund, rather than billed to the specific dam or irrigation projects the Bureau builds and maintains.