Reorganization. I hope these hearings signal the beginning of a comprehensive congressional examination of our natural resource needs.

NATURAL RESOURCES ARE DISAPPEARING

Despite much public understanding and concern, however, it is doubtful if the Nation truly comprehends the magnitude of the natural resource problems which we face.

Time is running out on this once virgin land. The lush Potomac Valley is drained by a river of mud, sewage, and floating debris. The remains of unreconstructed strip mínes scar Appalachia. The unique redwoods are disappearing at an increasing rate. Many of our richest minerals are becoming maximum use. The lifeblood of the West, water, is often put to less than its maximum use. Our two largest cities, New York and Los Angeles, are covered by vast, noxious clouds of smog. Our cities are in desperate need of recreation space. Citizens travel hundreds of miles to escape the noise and concrete of the city. Attendance at our national parks continues to break records. The once empty forests of Yosemite National Park are now filled with so many people on some weekends that every campsite is filled. And the smoke from their campfires throws a layer of smog over this beautiful park.

But pollution abatement, and conservation in general, are only part of the problem. We must have more land and more water for use at the same time that we are preventing their despoilation.

URGENT NEED TO CONSERVE RAW MATERIALS

Our need for raw materials is truly tremendous and expands every year. In 1952, the President's Material Policy Commission noted that American consumption of most of the fuels and other minerals has been greater since the beginning of the First World War than total would consumption for all the centuries before.

Resources for the Future, a Washington-based research organization states, and I quote:

The projections indicate . . . a tripling of requirements for both energy and metals by the year 2000, almost a tripling for timber and almost a doubling for farm products and for withdrawal depletions of fresh water

Increasing demands on land space for outdoor recreation, urban growth, highways, airports, and perhaps forests by the year 2000 will far exceed any relief provided by possible reduction in land needed for crops and the amount of now unused land that can be pressed into service . . . land requirements, if each use is counted separately, would add up to 50 million more acres than the country has, and this assumes no increase whatsoever in forest land.

Resources for the Future also tells us that, by the year 2000, demand for domestic forest products is projected at 29 billion cubic feet with net growth less than half of that. A dramatic example of the demand for forest products is our prodigal use of paper. Gross annual consumption of paper and paperboard in America is now close to 1 ton per family. Altogether, our use has gone up from 15 million tons in 1929 to some 40 million used today.

FEDERAL ORGANIZATION FOR PLANNING RESOURCE CONSERVATION

Providing more materials while we are conserving the environment will take an effort of great magnitude. It seems obvious that the trend

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of resource deterioration will not be reversed without planning and management that are both efficient and forward looking. With this in mind, let me discuss briefly our existing Federal organization.

Water resource development is the area of most critical need. In this field, we have three major departments with primary responsibility; the Department of Defense; the Department of Agriculture; and the Department of the Interior. Until recently, there was a fourthHealth, Education, and Welfare, but last year the President transferred the Water Pollution Control Administration from HEW to Interior.

SEVERAL AGENCIES DEAL WITH WATER RESOURCES

The functions of these agencies in the water resource field were initiated to provide answers to specific problems. The Army Corps of Engineers began with an appropriation of $75,000 to remove sandbars and "sawyers, planters, and snags" from the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers to aid navigation. The Bureau of Reclamation was created in 1902 to reclaim the land of 17 States for agriculture. Their beginnings came in earlier days of the technological revolution of which I have spoken, when it appeared unnecessary to pay much heed to resource destruction. With the passage of the years, and our increase in population and wealth, their tasks have necessarily grown in both scope and complexity. Today, they perform many similar or identical tasks, with a minimum of overall direction.

It is instructive to note that the Bureau of the Budget-which was never assigned water policy function by Congress-has assumed more and more control on the grounds of fiscal policy. Because no national planning agency exists, and because of the vacuum of responsibility in this field, Budget has become an unofficial planning agency which finds its influence constantly expanding.

WATER RESOURCES COUNCIL HAS WEAKNESSES

The need for coordination in water planning has long been recognized. In 1965, we took a significant step forward with passage of the Water Resources Planning Act. It provided for consideration of water resource needs-on a national scale-by a council consisting of the Secretaries of the Army, Agriculture, Interior, HEW, and Transportation, and the Chairman of the Federal Power Commission. Its functions include preparation of a biennial report on the adequacy of the Nation's water supply, and a review of all developmental plans made by river basin authorities.

Even though it was a step forward, the weakness of such an arrangement will be evident to this subcommittee. First, it places authority in a committee of Cabinet Secretaries, rather than in an individual whose primary responsibility is resource protection and development. Secondly, it involves a number of men who have more than full-time jobs running their own departments, and who usually serve on several other high-level committees.

Such an arrangement might have worked quite well years ago. But it can hardly be expected to function adequately when overall planning of water resources is essential to prevent actual deficiencies in many areas of the Nation.

LAND MANAGEMENT IS A NATIONAL CONCERN

After water, the next major problem is that of land management. First, we need to determine our national goals and objectives which relate to all land-such matters as soil conservation practices, strip mining activities, use of the land and water conservation fund, and the open spaces program under HUD. Involving the Federal Government more completely is another category-the management of the public domain. Although located predominately in the West, there is public domain acreage in every State. It includes national forests, the lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management-some of which are forested-wildlife refuges, and units of the national park system. The national forests and BLM lands are managed for a multiplicity of purposes, and the wildlife refuges are used for timber harvesting, oil and gas extraction, and recreation, in addition to their primary purpose.

There are two large agencies engaged in the management of the public domain-the Bureau of Land Management in the Department of the Interior, and the Forest Service in the Department of Agriculture.

OVERLAP OF LAND MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS

For reasons which I will not go into at this time, their separation was deliberate. Since the emergence of the modern concept of a national land reserve, however, their functions have become almost identical. Both manage lands for multiple use, both deal with range protection, range use, and range rehabilitation. Both build roads and trails. Both have participated in a tremendous expansion of recreation activity.

The National Park Service and the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife also manage land. There are differences, of course, in the character of the lands managed by these agencies. But if it is desirable to reflect these differences in organization, this should be done at the Bureau level. One Under Secretary reporting to one departmental secretary should have responsibility for all major Federal land management functions, and for the submission of Federal policy recommendations to the President and the Congress.

Parenthetically, it should be noted that coordination is also needed between land management and water management, since water production is to a great degree dependent upon land condition. The headwaters of many eastern streams are located on the national forests. The water supply of the West is produced almost entirely on the public domain, more than half of it on national forest land.

OUTDOOR RECREATION PROGRAM

Most agencies engaged in water development or land management are engaged also in outdoor recreation. In accordance with the recommendations of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, Congress established the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation to promote as well as coordinate outdoor recreation resource development. BOR is in the Department of the Interior. Yet, two non-Interior agencies, the Army's Corps of Engineers and Agriculture's Forest Service, serve

more recreation seekers than does any agency in the Department of the Interior.

It is perhaps in the field of land management that the citizen is confronted with the greatest inconvenience resulting from two or more agencies. In the West, many timber operators and livestock men find themselves negotiating and contracting with both. Often, policies differ and almost always the differences in the regulations of the two complicate the operations and waste the time of citizens dealing with them.

BALANCE NEEDS BY COORDINATING ACTIVITIES

Governmental reorganization is often thought of in terms of eliminating "duplication" with consequent reductions in costs. This is an important consideration, of course. But I would reemphasize to the subcommittee this morning that, in the resource field, the significant question is our capability to meet our physical needs and, at the same time, prevent resource deterioration.

The result of uncoordinated activities can be seen in the recent history of the Florida Everglades. Here, the National Park Service has come into headlong conflict with the Corps of Engineers.

The Engineers have built massive levees to contain runoff from Lake Okeechobee and constructed 1,400 miles of drainage canals in the name of flood control. Park Service officials complain bitterly that the Engineers have drained Everglades National Park almost dry in their efforts to halt wetlands flooding and reclaim glade country for agriculture.

Flood control advocators have said that reclamation is for people and Everglades Park is "for the birds." But I do not believe that is the question. The park is for people and the farms are for people. The real question is how shall priorities be established for the best use of limited

resources.

SOME AREAS OF CONSERVATION HAVE BEEN OVERLOOKED

One detrimental effect of the multiplicity of agencies is that some important areas have been permitted to fall between the cracks, so to speak. An instructive example of this is our mounting concern for the wetlands. The distinguished chairman of the subcommittee has this year introduced a bill aimed at the preservation of the Nation's estuarian areas and the natural resources of these areas. The estuaries furnish environment for unique and valuable forms of aquatic life besides being prized for recreation use. They are peculiarly subject to impairment by pollution and can be destroyed irrevocably by filling for real estate development. Representative John Dingell has pointed out that "Estuarian areas are rapidly disappearing from the face of this earth on this continent."

RIBICOFF BILL TO PRESERVE ESTUARIES

In introducing this bill, the chairman, Senator Ribicoff, provided the shocking information that in his State of Connecticut nearly 50 percent of the coastal marshes had been destroyed by 1965. It is my belief that, had a natural resources department been in operation, much more would already have been done to save this unique resource.

1 See exhibit 4, pp. 26-31.

POLLUTION OF CONTINENTAL SHELF WATERS SHOULD BE ELIMINATED

And beyond the estuaries lies the Continental Shelf-the region from which the great preponderance of the commercial fish catch is taken. Last year, the American Littoral Society reported that fish stocks in Atlantic coastal waters had suffered a loss of "critical proportions" from water pollution and decay of coastal marshes. Catches of 18 species along the coast were said to have dropped nearly 50 percent from 1960 to 1965.

In the field of oceanography-as with the estuaries-proposals have been made leading to better resource management. But a department with responsibility for natural resources would in all probability have prevented much of the deterioration of the fish life of the Continental Shelf.

NEW DEPARTMENT WOULD HANDLE MAJOR RESOURCE PROGRAMS

Turning briefly to the provisions of S.. 886, the bill in essence sets up a Department of Natural Resources and assigns to it all major Federal responsibilities having to do with water, power, land management, wildlife, outdoor recreation, minerals and fuels, ocean resources, and clean air.

The bill provides for a Secretary of Natural Resources and a Deputy Secretary. It provides for two Under Secretaries, one for water and one for land.

The jurisdiction of the Under Secretary for Water includes: the functions exercised by the Bureau of Reclamation; the civil works functions of the Corps of Engineers in the Department of the Army; the work of the Soil Conservation Service under the Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Act; the Water Pollution Control Authority; coordination of river basin plans with the Federal Power Commission; the Bonneville Power Administration; the Southwestern Power Administration; and all agencies in the Department of the Interior that have water resource matters as their principal concern. The Under Secretary for Water will supervise an Assistant Secretary for Oceanography.

An office might also be created to coordinate efforts of our other mineral resource agencies in development of the minerals in and under the ocean.

While I have not provided for further administrative division in the bill, it would appear logical to divide the responsibility of the Under Secretary for Land into four branches, each headed by an Assistant Secretary.

The Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management could report to an Assistant Secretary for Land Resources. The National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation could report to an Assistant Secretary for Recrea tion and Wildlife. The Bureau of Mines, Geological Survey, the Office of Coal Research, and the several other agencies in the Department of the Interior with responsibility in the fields of minerals and fuels could report to an Assistant Secretary for Minerals and Fuels. The fourth Assistant Secretary would supervise our air pollution abatement program.