43 U.S.C. § 485 — Declaration of policy

This section explains why the rest of this subchapter exists. Congress wants a workable, fair way to handle repayment problems for United States reclamation projects. It calls for construction charges — the costs of building these projects — to be repaid in variable amounts that people can actually afford, met regularly and in full year after year. Those amounts should be able to hold up during years of declining agricultural income and poor farming conditions, as well as during years of prosperity and good crop prices. At the same time, the plan must still adequately protect the government's financial interest in these projects. To reach that goal, obligations to pay construction charges may be revised, or newly created, under the rules laid out in the rest of this subchapter.