Senator BUMPERS. What is the biggest city in your district?

Mr. THOMAS. It is Bakersfield. It contains the desert tortoise area. It contains Death Valley national monument and most of the land that everyone is looking at.

Senator BUMPERS. How many acres in your district are in S. 11?
Mr. THOMAS. About 2.3 million.

Senator BUMPERS. How about you, Congressman McCandless?
Mr. MCCANDLESS. I have approximately 500,000.

Mr. LEWIS. And almost the balance is mine. Much of the balance is mine, well over a million and a half acres.

Senator BUMPERS. What is the biggest city in your district?

Mr. LEWIS. Redlands, California, which is in the valley away from the desert.

Senator BUMPERS. How many acres are embraced in the California Desert Corporation Plan, Congressman Thomas?

Mr. LEWIS. Approximately 2.7 million.

Mr. THOMAS. Ábout two and three-quarters. I have almost a million acres in that particular plan. So, as you can see

Senator BUMPERS. Staff tells me there's 12 million acres in the plan.

Mr. THOMAS. For wilderness designation?

Senator BUMPERS. Three million for wilderness. I am talking about the total.

Mr. MCCANDLESS. I believe you will find that in the desert area currently a part of the existing legislation, that that would represent the area of study from which their recommendations have been forthcoming.

Mr. LEWIS. In terms of a pure wilderness designation, the S. 11 proposes in the neighborhood of almost three times as much land as the Bureau of Land Management proposal, a proposal which was developed after almost a full decade of very careful review by very high quality professionals with lots of public input, some 40,000 hours of public input.

It is fundamental to ask this question, it seems to me. If the Congress has established a process where there will be a whole series of hearings, people with interest in the desert have an opportunity to provide input and at the last minute one small group decides they do not like the compromise, can they walk into the room and essentially throw out all of that work and waste those millions of dollars spent?

It is such a fundamental violation of the process which I think is compromise in the environmental field that it totally destroys the credibility of that process.

Mr. MCCANDLESS. Mr. Chairman, if I may, I would like to correct the record. I told you 500,000 square acres. It is over a million in the study area. I was thinking in terms of miles, square miles.

Mr. THOMAS. Let me give you an example of the kind of compromise we are talking about.

When you compare the BLM desert plan and S. 11, one of the obvious comparisons beyond just pure acreage is the question of various national parks.

It would seem to me if someone was really interested in helping us take a look at Death Valley national monument, it is sixth in visitor numbers, but it is 15th in funding.

If someone really wanted to help us, yes, we could make it a national park, but I wish people had been involved earlier in helping to get money to try to run that program.

And when you say you can run cattle in wilderness, if you will examine S. 11, it puts significant numbers of acres in national park. You do not run cattle in national parks.

And so, when you count the total wilderness, you have to look at the conflict between how it is designated and for what purpose it is going to be used.

Sometime the offer that is offered is not there in real life.

Senator BUMPERS. One other thing that nobody has talked about is mining claims. As I understand it, S. 11 recognizes existing mining claims, does it not?

Senator Wilson mentioned grazing and mining. I was wondering what objection he had to mining because the bill recognizes mining claims.

Mr. LEWIS. Without presuming to presume all that is in S. 11, the bill, as I understand it, does recognize some mining claims, but there is many a mining claim. To make that point for my portion of the record, I have a letter that I will include in the record from the California Retired Teachers Association.

As you may know, teachers, the teachers' retirement system has made available to it alternate sections of desert land, and it is their concern that under S. 11 they could very well have undermined very significant portions of their potential mineral reserves that could benefit that retirement system.

Not only will retired teachers be addressing this question, I would suggest that a lot of California teachers in general will be addressing this question.

Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Chairman, to specifically address your question about mining claims, as you might guess, given the district that I have had for over a decade, that we have been involved with a lot of this mining, and the park was one of our early concerns.

There was an asbestos-free talc mine in the national monument area which we had difficulty in terms of trying to utilize.

Even though you may recognize current legitimate claims, it is just like we will address any legitimate conflicts.

Mining is a discovery operation, and although there is a large area of the desert that is fairly well known, there is still a significant possibility in this mineral-rich area for discovering valuable

resources.

I have no qualms whatsoever in preserving areas that ought to be preserved, but one of the things that S. 11 does in terms of its sheer volume of acres that it locks up is significantly hamper the possibility for discovering minerals, some of them strategic, that we may need in the near future.

Recognizing current mining claims and requiring all future areas to be off limits for prospecting are really two different things. Under the California desert plan the concerns of the miners, the concerns of those critically sensitive ecological areas were balanced through a process of compromise.

That process of compromise simply is not present in S. 11. It is a very slanted, one-sided view of what ought to be done.

Senator BUMPERS. The answer to the question is, it does recognize existing mining claims.

Mr. MCCANDLESS. I was going to address the subject, I think, in the manner in which you would like to have it addressed.

It is my understanding that if there is a valid claim currently existing on the record and being operated and there are certain conditions and criteria to define operations, then under the bill's language that is a permitted use.

However, in the proposed boundaries of the new Joshua Tree National Park, there is an exploration going on that has been going on since 1984. To date, no mining has taken place, but a great deal of money has been spent because it is a new mineral rare earth which can be used in a number of ways and other types of optical equipment.

They are proceeding through a course of events which will ultimately bring that into a mining state.

If the bill passes in its present form, that kind of mining would not be permitted. Another legislative act would have to take place modifying the existing language.

Senator BUMPERS. Why is it that the Department of the Interior has never finalized this plan. They have never signed off on it. Where is it?

Mr. MCCANDLESS. Mr. Chairman, the deadline is a completion of a time line which includes 1991. And, as my colleague, Mr. Thomas, pointed out, there were plateaus in the process, the last of which is 1991, submitting the final wilderness area recommendations to the Secretary of the Interior under the law that created the program to begin with.

Senator BUMPERS. These recommendations are not final, are they?

Mr. MCCANDLESS. They are up to the Secretary of the Interior. Senator BUMPERS. He has had them on his desk for eight months. What is the holdup?

Mr. THOMAS. I appreciate that, sir, but if you look at the last eight months, there was a whole new administration that came in, a new secretary was named, new staffers have been named.

In terms of a changeover, you get up to speed and you examine it. Last year BLM California completed the plan according to the timetable that Congress had approved. They are in the process of Interior in reviewing it.

It just seems to me that we ought to honor the timetable that Congress proposed.

I think the real concern is that some folks believe that the Secretary of the Interior is actually going to accept the compromise that all of the people of California agreed was the appropriate way to use the desert. Hence, the reason for this bill and the push to get it passed prior to the regular scheduled timetable for the completion of the process.

Senator BUMPERS. They told this subcommittee in 1987 that they would have them signed off on by 1989. We are getting pretty close to the end of 1989. And if there is any plan to sign off on it, I am not aware of it.

Mr. LEWIS. I understand the point you are making. We have similar concerns, but we have watched this process; that is, the

public hearing process, the evaluation of desert land planning process, for a lot of years as representatives of the desert. It is our concern that we not be rushed to judgment in this process.

Indeed, there has been over the years at Congressional direction a very clearly outlined procedure whereby the public could provide input whereby people throughout the state who had understanding of the desert could provide input.

At the very end of the process it would appear that there are many-there are some who want to bypass that congressional directive.

We will be, as a group, introducing a bill shortly that essentially would take what will be the BLM plan and then put it in statute form.

The only exception presently which we may contemplate to that BLM plan, as we understand it, is to provide for around the parks and monuments access roads that would allow people such as the aged, the disabled, the handicapped to have adequate access to those parks and monuments.

Mr. MCCANDLESS. Other than the backpacking end.

Mr. THOMAS. Whenever we look at government projects, we like to say they are on time and under budget. This one is clearly under the original budget. It has been funded at about half that level. It is still on time.

I appreciate the concern that it is not here ahead of time, but it still has time.

Senator BUMPERS. Gentlemen, thank you all very much.

Our next witness is our new BLM Director. I believe that this is his first appearance before the committee.

We are very pleased to have you, Mr. Jamison.

Mr. Jamison, the Director of the Bureau of Land Management, accompanied by Ed Hastey, State Director, California State Office of the BLM, and Ed Rothfuss, Superintendent, Death Valley National Monument.

Cy, please proceed.

STATEMENT OF CY JAMISON, DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ACCOMPANIED BY ED HASTEY, STATE DIRECTOR, CALIFORNIA STATE OFFICE, BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT AND ED ROTHFUSS, SUPERINTENDENT, DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL MONUMENT

Mr. JAMISON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be here.

Senator BUMPERS. You will summarize this Sears & Roebuck catalog, will you not?

Mr. JAMISON. Absolutely.

We are strongly opposed to the enactment of S. 11. The Department has completed its review of BLM's wilderness recommendations for California.

A final legal analysis is being prepared. When the administration's review is completed and the recommendations are forwarded by the President, we would certainly hope that the subcommittee would provide us the opportunity for a hearing on the President's proposal.

One must keep in mind we are following the exact procedures established into law by Congress.

Setting that aside, we are strongly opposed to the enactment of S. 11 for the following reasons.

The California Desert plan, costing $8 million to develop, was prepared as required by Congress and was approved by two administrations beginning with Secretary Andrus in 1980.

The plan is an excellent consensus developed from the ground up by the many users of the California Desert. Proposed boundary line enlargements of the National Park Service lands and BLM lands in S. 11 do not reflect sound on-the-ground management.

Also, S. 11 does not allow for future transportation and utility rights of way to meet the growing energy needs of Southern California.

Also, it does not address the potential loss of minerals critical to the economy and the security of our Nation.

Further, S. 11 does not realistically address the issues of land acquisition. For example, some 90 sections alone are held in private ownership in the proposed Mojave National Park.

Also, it does not address adverse economic impacts on communities. Take, for example, the livestock industry, that will be eliminated in some communities.

Also, it does not address the loss of viable wild horse and burro herd areas, and it does not address the loss of recreation opportunities. Currently there are over 21 million-and I underline 21 million-yearly visitors in the desert.

Also, it does not address the loss of hunting areas or the inability to improve wildlife habitat, both of which could have a negative impact on wildlife.

On the other hand, the California Desert plan addresses the above concerns and takes into account the following: first, careful development with broad public participation and input.

Also, the desert plan takes into account the needs and concerns of other Federal agencies such as the National Park Service and the Armed Forces, along with State and local governments.

In addition, it strikes a reasonable balance among competing uses for wilderness, recreation uses of all types, and enhanced wildlife habitat, just to name a few.

It also provides workable boundaries for cost-efficient land management and resource management. It considers private and State landholdings. It leaves open appropriate areas for mineral exploration that includes the rare earths and strategic and critical materials.

It provides for little-understood but very important energy and communication corridors serving one of the Nation's largest metropolitan areas.

It also provides for historical uses such as livestock grazing.

In addition, the desert plan takes into account the current and future economic growth of local communities. It provides for the management of special areas, 88 of which are already in place.

Mr. Chairman, I would also like to make a few comments on the General Accounting Office report on wildlife protection in the California Desert.