Grand Coulee Dam seen as the answer. Efforts to build the Third Powerplant were also influenced by competition with the Soviet Union, which had constructed power plants on the Volga River larger than Grand Coulee. On , 1964, the Columbia River Treaty was ratified and included an agreement by Canada to construct the Duncan, Keenleyside, Mica Dams upstream and the U.S. would build the Libby Dam in Montana. Shortly afterward, Washington Senator Henry M. Jackson, who was influential in constructing the new power plant, announced Reclamation would present the project to Congress for appropriation and funding. To keep up with Soviet competition and
Grand Coulee Dam (song) the recommendation of Alan Lomax, the BPA hired Guthrie to write a set of propaganda songs about the federal projects to gain support for federal regulation of hydroelectricity. Although the intended documentary film was not completed until 1949, Guthrie's songs were recorded in Portland, Oregon in May 1941. The tune for "Grand Coulee Dam" is based on that of the traditional song, "The Wabash Cannonball". Guthrie's recording was reissued on the Folkways album "Bound For Glory" in 1956, and subsequently on numerous compilations of Guthrie's songs. The song was later recorded by British skiffle musician Lonnie Donegan, whose version entered