difficult to find. This total of 17,000 acres is what was left out of a much larger pool that we proposed to classify and it fell down to this figure because of objections by Government agencies and others to the classification of these lands, or because the values were not right.

Senator BIBLE. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator CHURCH. Thank you, Senator.

I have some questions, too, which I would like to ask about this withdrawal while we are on the subject.

As you know, Mr. Secretary, we have legislation up here for the disposition of these geothermal resources on public lands, and there is legislation pending now. I believe Senator Bible has a bill that is presently pending on this subject. Now, in view of that, why was it considered necessary to withdraw all these lands that might contain such a deposit?

Senator ANDERSON. Well, the necessity was prompted by the concern that more and more of these lands, more and more claims would be filed that would encumber the geothermal areas.

Senator CHURCH. How is the determination to be made as to what lands are prospectively valuable? That is the term you use?

Mr. ANDERSON. This is something to be determined by the Geological Survey in their investigation and research as to which areas. Senator CHURCH. How long will it take them to make that determination?

Mr. ANDERSON. I am not sure, myself, as to where they stand. Mr. Fishman advises me it is a continuing process, and they are now refining their work.

Senator CHURCH. But that does not answer the question.

Mr. ANDERSON. I appreciate it does not. It does not reach any final mapping or designation of areas. However, they do periodically, or will, as I understand, come out with their reports designating areas. Until an area is designated as such, it will not be a geothermal area. Mr. SENZEL. The first step the Geological Survey is taking is to determine areas that have no geothermal values. They are giving us those maps currently. They are refining data in the other areas as fast as they can. They are working on it now.

Senator CHURCH. When does the withdrawal become effective? Does that take effect after the survey has been made and the map of a given area has been settled upon?

Mr. SENZEL. The withdrawal is effective as of the date of publication-as of the date of notation of the proposal on our records. It is effective now as to any lands which have geothermal values.

Senator CHURCH. And yet those lands are not determined now? Mr. SENZEL. That is correct.

Senator CHURCH. And you cannot tell us when they are going to be determined or how long it will be, or give us any kind of calendar or information as to how long people must wait now to determine these lands which this order, which takes effect now or will soon take effect, will be applicable to?

Mr. SENZEL. As to any applications filed in the Land Office, that is done promptly. As for determining whether lands have values for minerals or for water, we have a system by which we promptly send notice to the Geological Survey of the need for the information, and they send it back to us. It is a current operation. The difficulty comes with mining claims. There is no application to the Government, and we have to get for the Land Office records detailed information of the location of the geothermal steam values.

I cannot tell you now when the Geological Survey hopes to have that available for us but we will certainly try to get it for the record. Senator CHURCH. Well, just suppose that I locate a mining claim on the public lands tomorrow. What effect will this proposed withdrawal have on my claim? Just explain it in those terms. I locate, tomorrow, a mining claim, and the land has not been classified yet by the Geological Survey. There is no indication on any map, nor any information I can get from the local BLM office, which will indicate whether or not this land is prospectively valuable for geothermal purposes.

Mr. SENZEL. If, in fact, the lands are valuable for geothermal purposes

Senator CHURCH. But if I locate on a given piece of land today on which no survey has been completed, what is the present effect of your proposal to withdraw?

Mr. SENZEL. I am trying to explain that, sir. It is a matter of fact. If, in fact, it is valuable for geothermal resources or prospectively valuable for them, it is null and void. If it is not valuable for those resources, it is all right.

Senator CHURCH. But how long do I have to wait before that determination is made?

Mr. SENZEL. If the miner wants to disclose to us, which he does not do now-the existence of the claim-the Geological Survey will make a report promptly on it.

Senator CHURCH. The mining laws require a person who locates a mining claim to do certain things. That is all the law requires him to do. He is not required to notify the BLM office.

Mr. SENZEL. That is correct, sir.

Senator CHURCH. So what is his status?

Mr. SENZEL. I do not know how I have not explained it.

Senator CHURCH. If you were locating a claim, you would know why your answer is hardly adequate. What you have simply said is the claim is null and void if, at some later time, Geological Survey decides that the land has prospective values for geothermal purposes.

Mr. SENZEL. Yes, sir. The situation is not new, unfortunately. It is a situation that results from the fact that the mining law is as it is. Now, between the period of 1920 and 1954, an application for a lease is not relocatable. The miner has to come to the Land Office and find out about it.

Senator CHURCH. But he has nothing to find out if he comes to the office before a survey is completed, before some boundaries have been designated. What can he find out if he comes and asks today?

Mr. SENZEL. Did I mislead you by using the word "survey"? It is not necessary for the Geological Survey to go on the ground and mark boundaries by survey. They do this from geologic records.

Senator CHURCH. But I do not care how they do it. If he goes to the office today, can he find out whether or not he has a good claim as of now?

Mr. SENZEL. Not as of the moment, but within a short period, unless

Senator CHURCH. But you have not told me how long it is going to take. I asked that question earlier and got no answer.

Suppose this miner goes ahead, thinking that under the law he has complied with all of the requirements he can ascertain and spends a million dollars developing the mining claim. Then later the Government tells him, "That is too bad because we have now completed a survey and we have some maps and we have decided that this land is prospectively valuable for thermal purposes; therefore, your original location, though it complied with all the laws you could comply with at the time, is null and void." Is that good government? Is that good government as far as dealing with the citizens of this country are concerned?

Mr. SENZEL. The Department is faced with two problems. One is to protect the public value in the geothermal resources, the other is to protect the miner and mining activities. We have a clash of interests here that the present law does not permit the Department to solve. I think you will find in the Department's suggestion for legislation techniques for eliminating this dilemma.

Senator CHURCH. Well, a clash of interests, I do not think, is ever justification for inequities. To proceed on a withdrawal of lands that could have this effect without ever ascertaining or giving any kind of notice to people who may be very badly hurt by the withdrawal or its impact upon their mineral rights, seems to me to be highly arbitrary.

Mr. SENZEL. Your comments are suggesting to me, perhaps, that you are suggesting that the withdrawal should not be effective except on notation of the specific land on the records.

Senator CHURCH. All I am suggesting is that with the withdrawal order should be sufficiently clear and definite so that people will know what lands it applies to and their own private rights can be measured accordingly.

Mr. SENZEL. If you did not have that in mind, it gave me that idea, and I certainly will make it of record and have it considered as we consider the comments on proposals.

Senator CHURCH. Well, I should think so. It would seem to me to be the first consideration that you would want to take up, if you do have in mind a prudent protection, a protection of the rights of individual citizens.

Mr. ANDERSON. Senator Church, as I recall, we had a similar situation from 1920 to 1954 with respect to oil and gas leasing areas where it was somewhat of a wonderland for people who filed claims.

Mr. Fishman of my office is here and familiar with this and I would appreciate it if you would give him an opportunity to explain how the situation existed at that time and how it relates to the present. I think as you have brought out, this is somewhat of a confusing state for a miner who files a claim that it is not incumbent upon him to go to the land office to look at the map, so he does not know that there is a geothermal reservation here or not. Or if he goes go to the land office, he will be able to secure information which is being refined.

Senator CHURCH. My concern goes further than that, because at the present time, as this is presently set up, I can envision him going to the land office and not being able to even get this information at the land office, because there is nothing in the record here to indicate how long

it is going to take for the determination to be made as to what areas will, in fact, be affected.

Mr. ANDERSON. True. However, maps are in the process of being developed, and there will be further refinements with respect to these areas by the Geological Survey.

Senator CHURCH. True; but you have not been able to tell me how long this will take.

Mr. ANDERSON. That is true.

Senator CHURCH. Can you tell me how much acreage, approximately, will be involved?

Mr. ANDERSON. I do not have the acreage or the timetable today, Mr. Chairman.

Senator CHURCH. Has anybody that information? (No response.)

Senator CHURCH. Why is it necessary to withdraw oil and gas deposits and deposits of locatable minerals that are not associated with geothermal steam for a permanent or indefinite period?

Mr. SENZEL. There is some question whether it is necessary to withdraw the oil and gas deposits. We have a suggestion for modifying the proposal in that respect, and we are going to give it very careful consideration.

As to the mining claims, that is a much more difficult problem. Under the mining laws, the mining claimant gets the full bundle of rights that are not otherwise reserved to the United States by law. There is no provision now in the law for reserving the geothermal values to the United States.

Now, how we could separate those under the present law is very difficult to see.

Senator CHURCH. Well, I understood you to testify just a few minutes ago that if I were to locate a gold mine in an area that was then declared to be within the withdrawal, my claim would be null and void. Is that correct?

Mr. SENZEL. That is correct, sir.

Mr. FISHMAN. Senator, I wonder if I might clarify something? Senator CHURCH. Yes, there seems to me to be a contradiction between the statement you just made and the statement you made immediately prior to it.

Mr. FISHMAN. If I may, sir, as you know, Senator, by the 1920 Mineral Leasing Act, the exclusive mode of disposal of leasable minerals was the 1920 act. So for the period from 1920 until the act of August 13, 1954, if a man went out and filed a mining location and had the gold sticking 2 feet out of the ground and it was ultimately determined that that land was valuable for oil and gas or some other leasable mineral at the time he had made his location, that mining claim was null and void. So the situation here, I think, is appreciably better, because there either are or there will be shortly some maps at the land offices that will delineate the known geothermal steam areas.

There is also another precedent for this type of withdrawal, if I may call it to your attention, sir. The 1930 oil shale withdrawal in terms withdrew all lands containing deposits of oil shale. Some time after the issuance of that Executive order, maps were put out delineating as specifically as the survey could the known oil shale deposits. But even there, it was made quite clear that the maps were a guide, that if lands in fact were valuable for oil shale, they were within the ambit of the withdrawal.

So this thing is not a new situation, Senator.

Senator CHURCH. No, but you have cited me one bad precedent, or what would seem to me to be mismanagement. It is hardly justification for another.

I think the most elementary concept of fairness must enable citizens to know whether they are operating within or without the law, whether or not their claims are good and valid and whether or not money spent on those claims is not to be lost when the Government later determines that the land falls within some other classification. I do not think this sweeping withdrawal is a proper way to deal with a citizen. Mr. FISHMAN. Well, sir, we are taking steps and we have been urging the Geological Survey to expedite this process so that a citizen will have the kind of information that we all believe he should have in this context.

Senator CHURCH. You have just cited a very bad precedent where you said that even after the maps in the oil shale case were made, that did not mean that this was a definitive demarcation of the scope of the Government's withdrawal. Now, is the same thing going to be true here? After the maps are completed, relying upon one bad precedent, are we going to move into another and assert that the maps in this case are not definitive, either?

Mr. FISHMAN. I do not know the answer to that, sir.

Senator CHURCH. Mr. Secretary, do you have an answer to that? Mr. ANDERSON. Mr. Chairman, I certainly hope we can avoid that. It is something I believe we should definitely explore. I do not believe in having any state of confusion that we can possibly avoid. I think people are entitled to know what areas they operate in. Of course, it is sometimes somewhat difficult to delineate exact areas, possibly. However, I do want to take this up with the Geological Survey. I think we should have as detailed information as possible so people can know where these areas are.

Senator CHURCH. I think that is most essential. I am disturbed, too, that this leaping kind of withdrawal is made under what you gentlemen call an inherent power of the President. I note that here again, the oil shale precedent can be cited. But if we are going to maintain our kind of government and let the Congress legislate with respect to the administration of public lands, then there is no concept that is quite as dangerous here and corruptive of the system as this inherent power concept that is being developed by the executive branch and extended all the time. You just cannot reconcile the inherentpower concept with legislative authority that the Constitution vests in Congress. When you base a sweeping withdrawal of this kind upon inherent power, you embark, it seems to me, upon a very questionable course.

Mr. SENZEL. Excuse me, sir, I think I said implied power. This is the power that was ruled on by the Supreme Court in U.S. v. Midwest Oil Company.

Senator CHURCH. Would you spell that out a little bit further for the record? I thought I understood you to say inherent power first. Mr. SENZEL. I meant to say implied power, sir.

Senator CHURCH. All right, would you spell out what you mean by implied power based upon the Court case?

Mr. SENZEL. After President Theodore Roosevelt started to make withdrawals of mineral lands and lands valuable for power values,