We trust the information provided in this letter will meet your needs for information pertaining to the relative benefits of fee collections at Corps' projects. Your continued concern for the well-being of the Land and Water Conservation Fund is appreciated. Sincerely yours, The CHAIRMAN. Senator Kuchel. EDWARD C. CRAFTS, Director. Senator KUCHEL. Mr. Secretary, I, too, congratulate you on your statement. I am the coauthor of the bill before us, S. 1401. I do have some questions I want to ask concerning it. Mr. Secretary, first of all, raising a problem that we do not deal with in S. 1401, I refer to an editorial appearing in the Santa Barbara NewsPress on December 27, 1967, which was sent to me by the executive editor of that paper, Mr. Paul Veblen. The editorial says in part: It is reasonable to ask that the Federal Government, which expects to receive some $300 million in bonus money from companies bidding for the 110 leases to be offered for sale on February 6, and additional millions in royalties in future years, set aside a percentage of this income as a pollution insurance fund to provide compensation for any damages resulting from the development of such leases. It seems to me that this is a splendid idea. I recognize that your Department and you perhaps have not had any opportunity to study the effect of the creation of such a fund in the legislation we have before us. I want to take the position that it is in the public interest to set aside an appropriate sum from the expanded land and water conservation fund to be used for just such a purpose; that is to say to permit you to take appropriate steps to prevent a tragedy along the beaches in the given area and to compensate landowners for damages which might occur. Could you supply to the committee the views of your Department and yourself on such a recommendation? Secretary UDALL. I will be glad to supply this to the committee. I would like to do it in writing because you are suggesting a major change. I would like to say this, however: We are very much concerned about this problem. We have a piece of legislation pending addressed to it that grew out of the Torrey Canyon disaster last year. In fact, Senator Muskie and the Public Works Committee have already enacted a piece of legislation and I would like to call your attention to it because this revealed we were not prepared to deal with disasters like the Torrey Canyon accident and thing of that kind where great damage can be done to beaches, to marine life, to the environment. Among the things proposed in this legislation is not only research but to give us a special fund where if anything like this happens we can move in with the very best technology that is available on an emergency basis and correct the situation as well as possible. I am aware that the Santa Barbara people and many others were very concerned about this oil leasing program. I put my very finest marine scientist on it and we are going to have a lot of precautions taken. The oil industry has shown that it can operate with great care. They are going to have to do this even more than they have in the past so that we can have oil development and at the same time protect our other vital resources. Senator KUCHEL. I am familiar with the Muskie bill. I rather imagined that the public interest might well be served by our dealing with that problem in this legislation in a fashion that would supplement the legislation which has already passed the Senate. For example, the Muskie legislation. I previously placed the entire text of the editorial in the record. (The editorial referred to appears on p. 35.) I want to say, Mr. Chairman, that the theory which is espoused by the Secretary and which is reflected in this bill is precisely that which, as the Secretary knows, was used by the government of California for many, many years during which the bulk of the tideland oil revenues in my State, which accumulate under State law, were earmarked for the acquisition of parks. This is one reason why we have an excellent system of State beaches and parks in California. We observe that it is suggested in the next decade the fund presently would be deficient on the order of $2.7 billion. We observe also the feelings of the administration that some ceiling should be put on the earmarking of moneys otherwise going into the Treasury as miscellaneous receipts, and also the provisions of existing law that, where funds that accumulate in the land and water conservation fund are not subsequently appropriated within 2 years, they reenter the general fund of the Treasury as miscellaneous receipts. I am not so sure I approve that kind of provision in our bill. First of all, the $200 million annual figure would, of cou course, at the end of 10 years represent only in round figures about two-thirds of what apparently would be the deficiency if no action were taken by the Congress at all. I will say very frankly, Mr. Secretary, and I know you agree with me on this, that I have in the back of my mind an earnest and sincere desire to see the Redwood Park legislation enacted into law and then appropriate steps undertaken to acquire the properties which we wish to acquire as soon as possible. So, I shall, at the proper time when we consider this bill, raise the question of the wisdom of recommendations for a ceiling which the administration has sent to us. I like very much the idea of giving to the head of an agency limited obligational authority by which he might contract in advance of the appropriation process to acquire park property. I think we ought to develop that, however, while we have a fair number of Senators here. Under the $30 million authorization, Mr. Secretary, let us assume that you would feel the public interest might indicate that $15 or $20 millions of the moneys be used at a given moment to contract with the XYZ Co. to acquire certain property. Let us assume we get into a hassle in the appropriations process where all the moneys which you in good faith, and with the approval of the committee, wish to obligate were not made available to you, what would happen? Would the contract simply lapse? Secretary UDALL. Senator, you serve on the Appropriations Committee and you know how we function. I think we are going to have a classic case if we get, as we must, a redwood bill before this Congress quits. Here we are going to have a park created with boundaries. There will be important forest products industries, companies that are affected. We will want to and they will want to, I feel, sit down and work out contracts, maybe even a contract for payment over a period of time. But if we can move in and do that immediately, we may find that we can save very substantial sums of money because it is in their interest and ours to act as quickly as possible. Senator KUCHEL. I quite agree with you. I am wondering, however, whether you and the Department would be averse to our liberalizing the language of the bill on this subject by perhaps adding to fiscal years 1968 and 1969-maybe 3 more, for example-so that you are talking about half the next decade, something like that, where you would have a little more authority, a little more flexibility. Secretary UDALL. I hear signs of approval from Dr. Crafts here. It must mean that it would be a good move. Senator KUCHEL. Now, without trying to upset our Swedish friend from New Mexico, it is true that we have had great trouble with Point Reyes in California. We authorized the acquisition of this magnificent park in good faith, setting a price tag on it. That price tag was imprecise. The CHAIRMAN. That is a generous way to cover it. Senator KUCHEL. We finally were able to wangle an additional authorization, a rather puny amount, and it is true there is going to be a problem there. I assume you envision your authority to purchase and to lease back with respect to the Point Reyes situation to be an admirable technique by which a park could be created but by which some of the pastoral functions in the area would continue and the Government would be out little or no money. Am I right on that? Secretary UDALL. You are absolutely right. Let me discuss this because it illuminates the whole problem. As the members of the committee will remember on Point Reyes, and in some ways it is a classic case, near a large urban center, good prospects for development and so on. You will remember some of the dairy farmers and others who had ranches wanted to be left out of the park. Then we finally at the end put them in with the understanding that we would only acquire, as I recall it, their lands if they wanted to sell. What happened, at least in my judgment-we may get into controversy here with the Marin County people these ranches were not zoned at all; there was no zoning whatsoever. So, lo and behold, the park was established and some of the farmers and ranchers, at least, suddenly decided they did not want to do what they said they had wanted to do because they said leave us alone, we want to remain part of the pastoral scene. They suddenly decided they wanted to subdivide their land since the county had not zoned it and I think the county owes us some help on this and the values skyrocketed. Nothing has been done. They have not subdivided. They have not sold. If the Marin County people would cooperate with us, we might be able to work out with a lease-back arrangement-something that would permit those who wish to remain doing what they are doing because they don't detract from the park, they actually add to the scene. At the same time we would not have to pay some of these millions of dollars that some have talked about. It would save very substantially in enlarging the park to its full boundaries which I would like to see us ultimately do and the Senator knows that, I am sure. Senator KUCHEL. I do, indeed. I think that is important because, regardless of the fact that the appraisal of the property in the original instance was not sound and regardless of the fact that there was unhappily an intervening period between authorization and the time any money was available which left the land speculator to come in and build houses and skyrocket values, the fact of the matter remains it is the people out there who will be short-changed if we don't change it. I respectfully call attention to my fellow Senator from New Mexico, there are millions of people in the San Francisco area who would use expanded facilities. I just seek his counsel and guidance when we are going to be dealing with that particular subject. In fairness to the people of Marin County I believe that the record should show that they are at least as interested in preserving Point Reyes as is the Department. I am informed that the county counsel advised them that creation of the national seashore deprived the county of authority to zone within its boundaries. I do know that they have taken other steps to impede real estate development on the peninsula. Purchase and sell-back may or may not be the answer. What is clear is that the problem must be solved. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Senator ANDERSON. I am very happy, Mr. Secretary, with your testimony. I am very glad to say to my friend from California we are all entitled to our thoughts on the situation. The CHAIRMAN. Senator Allott. Senator ALLOTT. I have just one or two questions, Mr. Secretary. I have in my hand here a booklet entitled "Recreation Land Price Escalation," put out by the Department of the Interior. It is covered by a letter from you on January 19, 1967, about a year ago. In that, on page 6, paragraph 2, the recommendations of the Department are to deposit into the fund the receipts from public lands received pursuant to the mineral leasing laws except receipts from lands in naval petroleum reserves and the Outer Continental Shelf, national forests and national grasslands. You have now modified this to include, as I understand your testimony, only the outer shelf. Secretary UDALL. That is correct. That was our position a year ago. We shifted to the outer shelf as a better solution. Senator ALLOTT. You included the outer shelf but you dropped the others? Secretary UDALL. That is right. Senator UDALL. May I inquire as to the reasons for dropping the others, particularly the mineral leasing? Dr. CRAFTS. Frankly, Senator Allott, the reason we dropped it goes back to the Secretary's testimony when he pointed out that consideration was given to three different levels or alternatives, the size at which this fund should level off. One level was $200 million a year; another level was $300 million a year; and the third level and the one that we are talking about in this report, averaged about $400 million for each of the first 5 years and something less in the second 5 years. The total needs as we saw them at that time showed the deficit of $2.7 billion. We thought to meet that deficit it was necessary to draw on the income from the mineral leasing laws. Since the administration subsequently adopted the lower level of $200 million a year, it was unnecessary to draw on income from the mineral leasing laws. There is more than adequate income from the Outer Continental Shelf receipts. Senator ALLOTT. Now, Congressman Edmondson, in his statement on December 14, 1967, said that the National Park Service estimates that it cost $701,315 in 1966 to collect $6,455,943. Are those figures accurate, to the best of your knowledge? Mr. HARTZOG. They are accurate, to the best of our knowledge. Our cost collections run about 11 percent. Senator ALLOTT. Do we have in the record here the chairman handed me a breakdown by departments which says receipts by source and department. May I ask, Mr. Chairman, if this is in the record? The CHAIRMAN. It is not in the record at this point. Senator ALLOTT. May I ask that it be put in the record so that we will have a picture of the receipts of each of the departments? |