mittee concerning the terms upon which this should be accomplished, if it is determined to be in the common interest to do so.

While I do not want to analyze the specific provisions of the Senate bill as passed, I would like to indicate on behalf of the subcommittee that we acknowledge the impact that the bill may have on California where approximately 5,745,000 acres of federally owned land might become eligible for inclusion in the wilderness system. These lands will be comprised of national forest land previously designated as "wilderness," "wild," and "primitive," together with elements of the national park system.

We are looking forward with interest to the comments that we are to receive here today and want to assure you that we will give careful consideration to your views.

Now we have quite a number of witnesses who desire to be heard today. The committee must be back in Palm Springs at a relatively early hour this evening. I therefore ask your cooperation to enable us to move along as quickly as possible. I can assure you that your testimony will be studied completely and thoroughly. Also, these statements will be of benefit to the other committee members who were unable to attend these hearings.

For your information, the wilderness legislation hearings will be continued next year in Washington, D.C., and the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, of which I happen to have the honor of being a member, as does Mr. Rivers of Alaska, will have its report ready the latter part of January 1962.

This committee will not be taking action on the wilderness legislation until after this report is available for study.

Our first witness is Mr. Edgar F. Norby, administrative officer, Madera County Board of Supervisors, Madera, Calif.

Before you start, Mr. Norby, in order to explain to the people in the audience, we are taking the witnesses in the order in which they have requested to be heard. Normally, the procedure of this subcommittee is to hear all of the proponents first and then the opponents, dividing the time equally. We have found it is a little more fair to take them in the order of their requests reaching our Washington office. Several people came up to have their names added to the list this morning, but because we had to start the hearings, we were unable to list their names. At noon today we will repeat the process of adding these names to our list of witnesses. Therefore, in the order in which they have been listed, your name will be called. You may proceed, Mr. Norby.

STATEMENT OF EDGAR F. NORBY, ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER, MADERA COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS, MADERA, CALIF.

Mr. NORBY. Madam Chairman, members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen, I am Edgar F. Norby, county supervisor from the Fifth District, Madera County, Calif. I have been authorized by the Madera County Board of Supervisors to speak on their behalf in opposition to the wilderness bill at your hearing today.

Madera County lies on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada Range in central California. Approximately one-third of its area is under Federal ownership. This Federal land is composed of na

tional forest land, a national monument and part of a national park, a wild area, and a wilderness area, so understandably any change in the status of these areas is of utmost concern to this county.

The tax base from which our county must provide the necessary local responsible services, as well as the mandatory services required by State and Federal statutes, is made up largely of agricultural lands, their associated industries, the lumber industry, and public utilities. The cattle industry, with its grazing privileges on Federal land, is one of the most important agricultural businesses. The lumber industry is responsible for the existence of our third and fourth largest centers of population. The public utilities, which provide 33 percent of our assessed valuation, and for the most part hydroelectric installations located on Federal land.

I will limit my remarks to section 6, subsection C-2 (a) and (b) of S. 174. Under subsection (a) our objections are twofold: First, let us suppose that the President was a strong proponent of public power at the time an application for expansion of an existing utility was presented. If this proposed facility should be in a wilderness area, we feel that said application would be denied.

The result of such action would be an additional tax burden on our property owners to provide the money to pay for the ever-increasing cost of local government, and have been derived from the new facility. Such facilities could not be built economically as public power projects as they are planned additions to existing public utility systems.

Second, under this act, our highly mineralized back country would become wilderness area and for all practical purposes would stop the development of mines. In our opinion, it would be foolhardy to lock up these resources when a national emergency could very well demand them. A mine of any significance cannot be put into production on as short notice as might be required if we were to find ourselves in a major conflict. During World War II one of the largest tungsten mines in the United States was developed in this area. Our war effort was hindered while roads were built, mill equipment installed, and the mine developed. We should not allow this situation to recur.

As to subsection (b) of this section, we feel that the present grazing privileges which would be affected by this act would be in jeopardy because there is no provision to prevent the restrictions and regulations from becoming so stringent that this use would cease to be economical, thereby adversely affecting the cattle industry in our country.

Our board is on record by appropriate resolution in support of the Multiple-Use Act of 1960 and we feel that it serves the best interest of the Nation and the people.

Therefore, we wish for the record to show that the Madera County Board of Supervisors does oppose the enactment of the wilderness bill by the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress.

Thank you.

Mrs. Prost. Thank you, Mr. Norby.

Are there any questions of Mr. Norby?

Mr. James G. Stearns, supervisor, Modoc County, and chairman, Public Lands Committee, County Supervisors Association of California.

Will Mr. Merelman come to the front row, please?

You may proceed.

Mr. MERELMAN. Madam Chairman, in the interest of time, Mr. Stearns and I will make the one statement for the supervisors. Mrs. PFOST. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF JACK M. MERELMAN, LEGISLATIVE CONSULTANT, COUNTY SUPERVISORS ASSOCIATION OF CALIFORNIA, SACRAMENTO

Mr. MERELMAN. I will read Mr. Stearns' statement. [Reading]: My name is James G. Stearns. I am a member of the Board of Supervisors of Modoc County, Calif., and chairman of the Public Lands Committee of the County Supervisors Association of California. At the national level, I serve as chairman of the Federal Real Property Committee of the National Association of County Officials and as vice-president of the Western Regional District of the National Association of County Officials.

The brief statement before your committee today is more in the nature of a report on action taken, rather than the traditional form of testimony. My purpose is to report the action of the Public Lands Committee of the County Supervisors Association of California, taken last Friday, November 3, 1961.

I do not purport to state the policy position of the County Supervisors Association, the board of Directors of the Association not yet having had the opportunity to review and pass upon the action of the public lands committee. Nor do I purport to state the position of the National Association of County Officials on the subject legislation.

The Public Lands Committee of the County Supervisors Association of California is composed of elected supervisors representing 22 of California's 58 counties. As may be expected, represented are the counties with huge public lands areas; as may also be anticipated, these are the counties in which the elected boards of supervisors must wrestle with huge public lands problems.

With this background, I now report the action and thinking of the public lands committee on S. 174 for such weight as your committee might afford it at this time:

The public lands committee has recommended that the board of directors of the County Supervisors Association of California take a policy stand in opposition to the wilderness bill (S. 174) in its present form.

Madam Chairman, we respectfully submit that this proposed legislation is an attempt at but a partial answer to a much larger and much more complex problem of government. The matter of preservation of wilderness areas cannot be divorced from a simultaneous consideration of all the interrelated public lands problems; nor can the public lands problem itself be considered in a vacuumapart from the total interrelated problem of government.

The elected board of supervisors must consider all of the needs of all of the people, and how those needs can be met and how they can be financed. Any wilderness bill, properly conceived, must look at the big problems of government meeting all the needs of a soaring populace.

To do this, a wilderness bill soundly conceived must provide machinery for Federal-State-county partnership. Counties must be a partner in planning and directing any wilderness program and the elected boards of supervisors of counties must have the voice of a full partner in the designation of wilderness

areas.

We submit that the boards of supervisors are in a better position than either the Congress or Federal administrators to make a proper assessment of the impact on a county which would be brought about by the designation of wilderness

areas.

The boards of supervisors-the elected officials who must live with and are close to local problems-are best able to determine what impact the designation of a wilderness area would have on government, on taxation, and on revenues in support of government and on the local economy. The boards of supervisors can most accurately judge whether a multiple-use approach in a given area, for example, would best enable local government to carry on while, at the same time, meeting outdoor needs of present and future generations.

Madam Chairman, county government does today here offer itself as a full partner with the Federal and State Governments in the development of a wilder

ness approach which will adequately and fairly meet all the needs of all of the people.

We make this offer with full awareness that with partnership recognition comes partnership responsibility. County government is willing and ablethrough our local boards of supervisors, our State associations, and our National Association of County Officials-to assume that responsibility.

By the opening of the 1st session of the 88th Congress in January of 1963, I am reasonably certain that county government, through the National Association of County Officials, will come forward and place before you a constructive plan of Federal-State-county powers and responsibilities in a wilderness program. We believe that county government has the maturity, the working experience, the dedication, and the closeness of the American people to make a lasting contribution.

That is the statement, Madam Chairman, of the chairman of our public lands subcommittee.

Thank you very much.

Mrs. ProST. Just one moment, Mr. Merelman. I want to inquire whether or not you favor these wilderness, primitive, and national park areas as they are today, or do you advocate a change in this system?

Mr. MERELMAN. Madam Chairman, the subcommittee actually took no position. The only policy to date we have would be one supporting the multiple-use concept, but the committee did not go into that specific feature of approval of the existing designated areas.

Mrs. PrOST. You are aware that at the present time you are restricted on your wild, wilderness, and primitive areas as well as national park areas, are you not?

Mr. MERELMAN. Yes.

Mrs. Prost. The gentleman from Alaska, Mr. Rivers.

Mr. RIVERS. You spoke of a county partnership with the Federal Government not only in designating these areas, but in management. Are you speaking of areas within the national forests, for instance? Mr. MERELMAN. No, sir.

Mr. RIVERS. Are you speaking about areas on the public domain? Mr. MERELMAN. I think this committee had in mind a partnership in the planning aspect, the total program, how they would lay out these various areas and designate them.

Mr. RIVERS. You spoke of designation and management, or control or some such. You do not want to share with the Secretary of the Interior the management of a forest area, do you?

Mr. MERELMAN. No, that was not involved in the recommendation. It is the earlier stage of planning, a partnership-wilderness approach.

Mr. RIVERS. Not management?

Mr. MERELMAN. Yes, we do not include management.

Mr. RIVERS. Thank you.

Mrs. ProST. Thank you, Mr. Merelman.

Mr. MERELMAN. Thank you.

Mrs. Prost. Our next witness is Mr. Max Wilson, soil conservation district supervisor, Lompoc, Calif.

Is Mr. Max Wilson in the room? Apparently he is not here.
Our next witness is Mr. Sheldon P. Fay; you may proceed, Mr. Fay.

STATEMENT OF SHELDON P. FAY, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES PUMICE SUPPLY CO., INC., LOS ANGELES, CALIF.

Mr. FAY. Madam Chairman and honorable Members of the Congress of the United States, my name is Sheldon P. Fay. I am president of the United States Pumice Supply Co., a California corporation. I have been engaged in the mining business for 28 years. We are opposed to wilderness bill S. 174, and to H.R. 8237.

I represent a voice crying in the wilderness. A voice crying in what was the wilderness, now called New Frontier. They would change to "No Frontier." A wilderness with a big "keep out" sign on it is no frontier.

The voice is crying: "Let there be freedom. Let there be reason. Let there be mines." Yet the wilderness bills, S. 174 and H.R. 8237, close the wilderness to claim location and mining.

The voice cries: "Why?" Who wants these bills? From reading the hearings before the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs-439 pages-we find they are so-called conservationists or preservationists.

Conservationists want to lock up the wilderness, and this is a reality. These areas will be only available on foot or horseback. Yet S. 174 on its cover states:

To establish a national wilderness preservation system for the permanent good of the whole people, and for other purposes.

What other purposes could be more important than the whole people? And this means everybody, not one special group. The voice cries in the wilderness, "For one group, unfair.

Multiple use: The proponents of the wilderness bill say it allows multiple use. We say it is single use-squeezed to restricted recreation-under the guise of preservation. We have the word for it by Senator Clinton P. Anderson, the bill's sponsor, during Senate hearings. Mr. Leonard E. Pasek said:

I think perhaps I got that impression because the bill accents the one single use of wilderness for this vast area.

Senator Anderson, the chairman, replied:

That is right; preservation.

And the voice cries in the wilderness, "Goodby multiple use.' Preservation? What do they mean preservation? How can you preserve without roads to take in firefighters and equipment? And to fight beetle damage? And there will be fires for the lightning hand of God cannot be legislated against. Yet pure wilderness must not be disturbed by the hand of man. Let it burn, let it die: Is that preservation? Is that the purpose of this bill? Then it contradicts itself. It is not a preservation system.

They say mining is protected in the bill. It is not. The provision that one must seek an Executive order from the President to prospect and mine puts a damper on such procedure as to make it impossible. He hasn't time-and neither have we. An amendment made to allow prospecting but no claim location and mining is ridiculous.

The prospector now has the right to locate a claim and mine on the wilderness and primitive areas. This bill takes it away from him. Some conservationists are afraid of a population explosion and,