He must also pay the remainder of the bonus bid, the first year's rental, and the total cost of publication of the notice of lease offer.

Bidder's attention is called to Section 5 of Coal Lease Form 3130-1 which requires protection of the surface, natural resources and improvements on all lands, including the privately-owned surface, in this lease offering. As a condition to lease issuance, the attached stipulations for the protection and reclamation of the surface resources of all lands in the offering must be signed by the successful bidder.

The lessee will be required to comply with all State laws and regulations concerning coal mining, including laws and regulations pertaining to the protection and reclamation of surface resources and protection of the air, land, and water environment.

Bidders are warned against violation of Sec. 1860, Title 18 U.S.C. prohibiting unlawful combination or intimidation of bidders. No particular form of sealed bid is required, but all bids must show the total amount bid, the amount bid per acre, and the amount submitted with the bid.

J. Elliott Hall, Chief, Division of Technical Services, Colorado State Office, Bureau of Land Management, Colorado State Bank Building, Denver, Colorada 80202.

STIPULATIONS

1. Before any mining operations or activities may be authorized, the lessee must post a $5,000 bond to cover estimated reclamation costs and to insure compliance with surface protection stipulations of the lease. In addition, bond coverage in the amount of $10,000 is required in compliance with 43 CFR 3504.2–1(b). An increase in the amount of the bond may be required at any time during the life of the lease on approval of mining plan or an approved change in plan or to reflect changing surface conditions.

2. All disturbed areas must be returned as nearly as practicable to their original condition, or to a condition to be agreed upon by both the lessee and the Regional Mining Supervisor, Geological Survey, after the Supervisor has agreed with the District Manager, Craig, Colorado, as to the satisfactory standards for such restoration.

3. All operations must be conducted so as not to change the character or cause pollution of streams, lakes, ponds, waterholes, seeps, and marshes or damage to fish and wildlife resources. No contaminants or pollutions will be allowed to enter streams, springs, stock water, or ground water. No water will be used from stock ponds or springs without the written consent of the owner. The lessee will be required to comply with all Federal and State laws, regulations, and standards relating to air, water, and land pollution.

4. The lessee shall be required to comply with all Federal and State mine safety laws, regulations, and standards.

5. All new roads and trails shall be constructed and maintained in such a manner as to control and minimize channeling and other erosion. Roads and trails shall be constructed only at locations approved by the Regional Mining Supervisor.

6. All existing improvements including fences, gates, cattleguards, roads, trails, culverts, pipelines, bridges, public land survey monuments, and water development and control structures shall be maintained in serviceable condition to the degree practicable. Damaged or destroyed improvements shall be replaced, restored, or appropriately compensated for. When it becomes absolutely necessary, and only upon prior approval of the Regional Mining Supervisor, the lessee may disturb a public land survey corner marker or monument; however, the lessee shall bear all costs of any surveys required to preserve the true point for the marker.

7. Grazing or resting livestock will not be unnecessarily disturbed.

8. All garbage and foreign debris must be eliminated by removal or burial. Burning is permissible only by prior written consent of the Regional Mining Supervisor.

9. The clearing of timber, stumps, and snags will be kept to a minimum and due care will be used to avoid scarring or removal of ground vegetative cover. 10. The lessee shall comply with the Moffat County Planning Resolution which requires written approval from the Moffat County Planning Commission prior to commencing any on-the-ground activities.

11. Drill holes and other excavations shall be conditioned at all times so as to prevent injury to persons, livestock, and wildlife, and upon completion of explora85-197-73-7

tions, will be permanently sealed or filled to the satisfaction of the Regional Mining Supervisor.

12. No explosives may be used without prior written consent of the Regional Mining Supervisor.

13. Excavations used for the permanent impoundment of water shall be graded to provide safe access to the water for persons, livestock, and wildlife.

14. The mining plan shall include provisions for housing and other service facilities related to community or urban development. At the termiantion of the lease, the lessee agrees to remove or otherwise dispose of any such facilities to the satisfaction of the Regional Mining Supervisor.

15. Where compatible with operations conducted by the lessee, the lease area shall be available for other public surface uses, including livestock grazing, hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, and picnicking.

16. Mining or exploratory operations shall not be conducted on the lands which, in the opinion of the Regional Mining Supervisor, Geological Survey. would constitute a hazard to oil and gas production, or which would unreasonably interfere with the orderly development and production under oil and gas leases issued prior to the date of this lease.

17. When American antiquities or other objects of historic or scientific interest, including but not limited to historic or prehistoric ruins, vertebrate fossils or artifacts, are discovered in the performances of this lease, the item(s) or condition(s) will be left intact and immediately brought to the attention of the District Manager through the Regional Mining Supervisor.

18. Prior to commencing any on-the-ground activities the lessee shall submit to the Regional Mining Supervisor a mining plan which considers these stipulations and includes those items listed in Sec. 1, Coal Lease Form 3130-1.

(Lessee)

Senator Moss. I have had a number of people communicate with me. about the delaying of issuing of leases by the Department. Why are the coal permits and preference rights being delayed the way they are?

Mr. LOESCH. There are several reasons, Mr. Chairman.

I don't think we have issued an exploration permit-well, I don't know, for quite a long time, for 18 months. About the same time we had our last coal sale, we quit issuing exploration permits.

As to preferential leases, I can't think-I think we have issued very few of those within the last year or so, but nothing like the backlog that we have backed up.

The reasons for this are primarily concerned with the National Environmental Policy Act and the overall land use planning that we are doing.

I know the committee will be interested in when that logjam is going to break. Again, I can't give you any particular date. We are working at it. I hope within 6 months we will be able to lick it, but I can't guarantee you.

Senator Moss. Well, we are under this pressure of energy needs and at the same time it is pretty hard to explain the delay to those people who want to proceed to extract the coal.

Mr. LOESCH. That is very true. I am fully aware that all of the Senators and Representatives from the intermountain west where these coal resources are getting kicks from their constituents because of the Department's position or failure to issue preferential leases these days. I get the same kind of heat.

All I can say is that I think we will be compelled to adhere to our present view until we can get square. with the Environmental Policy Act.

Senator Moss. You say this is tied in largely with the need for land use planning in the States and by the Federal Government, is that true?

Mr. LOESCH. Yes. I think it is. And I agree, Mr. Chairman, there is quite a dichotomy between the current actions of the Department and the energy problem which confronts the country as a whole.

Of course, I should point out to you that the issuance of a preferential right lease really has little or no bearing on meeting the energy problem because our experience also that the percentage of production off of preferential leases is quite small. Producing preference right leases make up approximately 5 percent of the total number of outstanding coal leases.

In other words, the problem of holding for speculation applies with even greater force to the preferential leases than it does to the competitive leases.

Senator Moss. Well, this committee is now considering and is very near the mark-up stage on a surface mining bill that will apply particularly to coal. Is this going to delay further the leasing of coal by the Department?

Mr. LOESCH. I suppose it depends, Mr. Chairman, on what standards the bill provides. It seems to me that it would be possible that the bill would cause further delay. If the State required standards were such as to discourage the proposed operator.

Senator Moss. Of course, the impact, I guess, would be on the operator because he is the fellow that has to file the plan and post the bond and things of that sort.

Mr. LOESCH. Right.

Senator Moss. But if he can't get any coal leases to begin with, he can't draw up his plan.

Mr. LOESCH. That is very true. That is so. I don't see how that would have any as I consider it, this is a new idea to me but as I consider it. I don't see how that bill would affect the situation.

Senator Moss. Thank you.

I must not monopolize all of the time. My colleagues have some question, I am sure.

Senator Anderson?

Senator ANDERSON. I want to commend the Secretary for very good testimony. You have been given a great many questions and you have handled them very well.

You mentioned the question of coal. Isn't there a vast difference in the way coal is mined?

Mr. LOESCH. Yes, there certainly is, if I got the question. There is a vast difference in how coal is mined. Of course, there is a great clamor these days about strip mining which is by far, and particularly in the West where the coal seams are thick and broad, by far the most efficient way of mining coal.

But also the most dangerous if not properly managed to the environment. The underground coal mining methods in use today, of course, are very different from those our fathers knew, requires huge expenditures by the operator for modern machinery.

Senator ANDERSON. Well, a great many mines are now operating where the original person mining in the area was several generations before.

Mr. LOESCH. Yes, sir. In my State and I believe in yours, Senator, there are a number of small family-owned coal mines which meet a simple, local, more or less residential demand.

Senator ANDERSON. Also Dawson has a coal mining area that has been leased for a large number of years and it is still going. I think this question of royalties pertains to that situation.

Mr. LOESCH. Of course, the policy has always been on the oldest of Federal coal leases, where production is going, those leases are always, and always have been automatically renewed.

Senator ANDERSON. Well, I think the leasing program has many differences.

Thank you very much.

Senator Moss. Thank you very much, Senator.

Senator Jordan?

Senator JORDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, I do want to compliment you on a very fine and detailed answer to questions concerning the committee. I think you have given us a good statement for the most part.

Just one or two clarifications.

Your answer to question 2, what are the principal goals and objectives of the Government with respect to management of each resource and you listed those 1, 2, 3: No. 1, to assure orderly and timely resource development: No. 2, to protect the environment; and No. 3, to insure the public a fair market value of return on disposition of its resources. Then you go on in great length to tell us the delays and the difficulty in obtaining environmental reports on various and sundry leasing propositions.

Wouldn't it be better to combine No. 1 and 2 and say that the Department of Interior's major goals and objectives are to insure orderly and timely resource development compatible with due protection to the environment or something? Because I think you are so tied in with this, as we all know, with the need for having EPA's reports and environment analysis about every resource development plan that is proposed. I think they are inseparable. This is my point. Wouldn't you agree?

Mr. LOESCH. Well, I think that is true, Senator Jordan.

As you are aware, the new thrust on environmental matters, which is epitomized in the National Environmental Policy Act, has necessarily caused us to do a lot of solving in the Department and to develop new techniques and new requirements for selling.

I think in an effort to carry out the letter and spirit of that law, we have tended to make protection of the environment a separate objective.

But I think the national requirement of this country for large increasing amounts of energy does require that we consider the orderly and timely development of energy resources as compatible as may be with the protection of the environment, if that is what you are getting at.

Senator JORDAN. Well, I think they are inseparable. I believe it is a fact of life that we do have to use these resources and develop them wisely and well, but in consonance with the protection of the environment insofar as possible. Sometime perhaps something is going to

have to give a little bit one way or the other, but that has to be one of our main goals.

Mr. LOESCH. Well, I think so. Let's relate that to the Secretary's pipeline decision which seems to be unpopular in some quarters. It is certainly my opinion that the Department has knocked itself out finding ways in which the construction of that pipeline will be done to the least possible degradation of the environment.

It is this sort of effort that we are being required to make and should be required to make across the board in the question of all energy resources development.

I would be the last to say-I get impatient once in a while, of course, about the problems that we run into that we didn't used to have to meet, I guess, in energy development, energy resource development, but I would fully agree we didn't do a lot of things before that we should do. It is my expectation that we are doing them now.

Senator JORDAN. I think that is right. In some instances there are simply going to have to be a trade off, whether we have development or

no energy.

Mr. LOESCH. Right.

Senator JORDAN. That decision is going to have to be made to the best advantage of perservation of our resources in the best way that we can, consistent with the overall needs of the country.

You went through all of the sources of energy and the thing outstanding in your presentation to me was the fact that all of the fossil fuels, oil, gas, coal, Outer Continental Shelf, the drilling, onshore drilling, all are under some kind of a leasing system, is that correct? Mr. LOESCH. Yes, sir. The only energy source or resource that isn't under some kind of leasing system is uranium.

Senator JORDAN. That is what I was leading up to. Even geothermal steam, while it is not a fossil fuel, is a mineral energy source and it has its own leasing system under the act of 1970.

Mr. LOESCH. Yes, sir.

Senator JORDAN. So standing alone as an energy source is uranium coming under an altogether different procedure for its development? Let's speculate about that a little bit. Do you have a better control of those energy sources that come under a leasing system than you do uranium which comes under the mining act of 1872?

Mr. LOESCH. Yes, sir, I don't think there is any doubt about that. Senator JORDAN. I notice you make some recommendations of various leasing acts in order to give you a better management control. What amendments would you recommend to the mining act of 1872, either its amendment or repeal in order to give you a better handle on it as you presently have on other sources?

Mr. LOESCH. Well, Senator Jordan, the administration's mining act, proposed mining act, S. 2727, sets up a system which, while keeping the location pattern skeleton, writes in the kind of controls that the Secretary could use to have the management handle that he needs.

Of course, what I am speaking of, there is written into that act the provisions that would allow us to require land reclamation after the mining operation is completed or even during its operation, the kind of environmental concern we have over access and so on.