Now, this particular provision does not apply to the vast majority of our highway projects, where no land-taking of this type is involved. But where the 4(f) requirement has applied, there has resulted a considerable extension of the preconstruction planning and review time. That, incidentally, is the section to which Mr. Cleveland was referring, in his earlier remarks, and which he will comment on further in the statement this afternoon regarding Franconia Notch, that the project is involved with this 4(f) requirement that I am now mentioning.

Mr. WRIGHT. Mr. Howard.

Mr. HOWARD. Mr. Turner, concerning the highway that will go through these parklands, are there several steps to that? I refer to one of the Interstate roads in New Jersey that will go through a State park. There is a disagreement at the present time in the State between the State Department of Transportation and the State Department of Environmental Protection. They both agreed, and I believe that the Highway Administration here in Washington agreed, that the route of the road must go through the park. They have a disagreement as to where an interchange should be, whether it should be in the park or just west of the park, with the Department of Transportation taking the environmental position, I believe, and putting the interchange west of the park, and the State Department of Environmental Protection wanting it in the park.

Apparently the Department of Interior, which must get involved in this down here, as well as the Department of Transportation, both feel that it should be west of the park. And there seems to be a mixup because the Department of Transportation in Washington has said that they are waiting for the State authorities to agree on where the interchange should be, so that they may go ahead with the other plans for construction of it. But I have heard that this is a two-step procedure; first of all, that the State Department of Transportation must say, "OK, you may put the road through the park," but the question of the interchange deals with design, which must come later.

It is a two-step procedure, the general approval-approval of the general route of it, and then later another application as to particulars, like interchanges, which would come under a subsequent application? Mr. TURNER. Yes. Normally the first public hearing-we will show you a block on this in a few minutes-involves a selection of corridor or location. Then you proceed to details of design which would involve the questions of location of interchanges, types of interchanges, grade, widths of road, widths of right-of-way, and all the many other things that would be involved in the construction and design details of the project. Normally this would be a two-stage process in terms of the public hearing.

I am familiar with the particular project that you have reference to, and you recited the circumstances quite accurately. The project is still delayed. I hope that there will be some resolution of it, though, because there are differences of opinion between Department of Transportation staff here in Washington, the State authorities and us with respect to the details of design. These in turn are brought back into this location controversy on the basis that if you did not need the interchange, then perhaps you could go through the park on the location

that was proposed, but you could not. What the State authorities and the Department of Transportation environmental groups are opposing is the question of the interchange within the park. If you could solve that, then you could probably solve the location question at the same time. But there is still disagreement on that question.

Mr. HOWARD. Mr. Chairman, this is a red tape problem. We have requirements now for additional information if we put a highway through a conservation area or a park.

Just the location of a road going through is one step, and this requires general location approval. Then the fact that the road is through a State park requires an additional report that it will not do damage or will do minimal damage to the park area. This makes a double requirement there. I wonder if the fact that then, later in the design, we get to an interchange problem, and since that may be also in the park, would there have to be another additional report on the effect of the interchange on the environmental situation? Would this make a normally two-step operation, if it were not in a park, into a fourstep operation? If this is so, could we combine the operations into one or two?

Mr. TURNER. Well the actual procedure is really in one step, Mr. Howard, because the point at issue is related to the requirement of the statute that if you make a finding that you must take some of the land, then you must design the facility in such a way as to minimize any damage or impact to the area. And the point at issue is whether or not you can minimize the damage with an interchange at that location in the park. The position being taken as the way to minimize the damage is to move the interchange out of the park. To do this, however, results in problems with respect to traffic flow, connection of this road to other parts of the highway system, and what services the road network is going to provide.

Obviously we could move all the interchanges out to someplace in the middle of the Nevada desert somewhere and build them up in multiples and they wouldn't have any effect on a park anywhere, but they wouldn't serve anybody either. The only reason you build interchanges is to provide traffic service. This is a question of differences of values. We in the transportation business and the State department of transportation think that we are building highways to provide transportation. In so doing, we want to minimize the adverse impact on other things. Environmentalists, however, are looking at it from a park standpoint, not worried much about transportation. They say preserve the park first, and then you can take care of the transportation at the same time; fine and dandy. So we have a conflict of philosophies and values here, which we eventually have to resolve.

Mr. HOWARD. As a representative of that area, of course, I agree with all my people. [Laughter.]

I think this, Mr. Chairman, points out the type of situation that makes it very difficult to speed up a program by cutting down on the redtape. Therefore, I think these hearings that you have called are most important, but I also think our testimony will point out that we are not going to be able to just hold hearings and thereby very easily speed up our Federal projects.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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Mr. WRIGHT. The gentleman is exactly correct. On this particular point, Mr. Turner, permit me if you will, to pursue this question of 4(f) requirements a bit further. I happen to be a member of the conference committee which wrote this section. It was not done hastily, I assure you. It was the result of several sessions and at the first four or five of which we had great difficulty agreeing. The language ultimately incorporated into the law was a result of a compromise suggested by Mr. Edmondson and myself at that conference committee.

If you would refer to section 4(f) of the Department of Transportation Act, it directs that the Secretary shall not approve a project which requires the use of publicly owned land or public park or recreation area of National, State, or local significance, as determined by the Federal, State or local officials having jurisdiction thereof. Unless-et cetera.

In other words, we are trying to say that the officials having jurisdiction over a park or recreation area would be the logical people to decide whether it had any significance within their area and within the meaning of the law.

In the course of preparing for these hearings, I wrote to all the Governors asking each of them to give us his ideas on the basis of the experience of his particular State and cite any examples of unreasonable or burdensome time-consuming deadlines in review procedures. Let me cite one that has come from the State of Texas. You may be familiar with this particular project, though it is a relatively small

one.

This is Sulphur Springs. I am not going to burden you with San Antonio or Fort Worth.

Mr. TURNER. I am familiar with that particular project.

Mr. WRIGHT. Let me read to you a letter from Governor Preston Smith. He did not identify the project. I later asked Miss Hay to call and find out what project it was related to. The letter reads:

The following is offered as an example of unreasonable, burdensome and time consuming guidelines and review procedures. A proposed highway project in a city involved the acquisition of a small strip of right of way from the city park. An opportunity was afforded for a public hearing, but no one requested the hearing. The necessary data was submitted to the Federal Highway Administration in June, 1969. The data submitted indicated the wholehearted support of this city for the right of way acquisition from the park, rather than from the other side of the highway, since that would result in higher cost to the city and cause the displacement of residents and businesses and the movement of utilities. In October 1969, the mayor of the city was questioned by telephone from Washington to confirm that the city did actually support the project as proposed. The mayor reported the city's support and indicated that the city was anxious to proceed with construction. Approximately six months later the Federal Highway Administration requested additional information, including a detailed analysis of the number, type, and size of trees that would be affected by the acquisition of this ten foot strip right of way from the park.

This additional information was submitted in June, 1970. However, the Federal Highway Administration's approval was not received until April, 1971. From the date of the original submission, it took twenty-two months and six days to receive approval to proceed with further development of the project. The extended delay in the processing of this project was primarily due to the involvement of the Federal Bureau of Outdoor Recreation of the Department of the Interior, which referred to various other agencies and subagencies of the Federal Government for review.

I suppose that is an atypical situation. You wouldn't normally take almost 2 years to make this determination for 10 feet out of a city's park.

Mr. TURNER. It unfortunately is typical of a number of situations. It is exactly the same kind of situation that Mr. Howard is talking about in his State. You have some more in the State of Texas. We have some more in other places where this decision or judgment process has been preempted by other officials reviewing the occasion and those referred to in the statute that you read.

Mr. WRIGHT. How does anyone

Mr. TURNER. We do have some problem in that regard and this is in most cases a cause of delay.

Mr. WRIGHT. How does anyone intrude himself into making an interpretation under section 4(f) of the Department of Transportation Act. It refers to the Secretary, and that means the Secretary of Transportation by definition in the act.

Mr. TURNER. I guess the answer to how is just to refer back to the letter you just read. It happens.

Mr. WRIGHT. In other words, in this case, it was the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation of the Department of Interior, which was not called into play by the terms of the act itself, though of course under interagency review and under the Environmental Act, which was passed last year, they come into judgment on environmental impact, but not on park land questions.

Mr. TURNER. There is a basic requirement, however, that the Secretary of Transportation shall consult with other affected departments in making his decision. This does not transfer from him to any other Secretary the responsibility for the ultimate decision, but he is charged with consulting and seeking advice from other affected departments and programs in making his decision. In this particular case, I think it is desirable to point out that the Sulphur Springs illustration you are using there is not an interstate project, I don't believe.

Mr. WRIGHT. Would it be different if it were?

Mr. TURNER. It might or might not be. But in this particular case it is actually a project that is a purely local project in the sense that it affects almost entirely the local citizens, the taking of the property, and in the traffic service that is later to be rendered.

Mr. WRIGHT. This is the thing that struck me as singular and highly unusual, certainly unintended so far as Congress was concerned. We had clearly spelled out in the law that the official having jurisdiction over the parkland would be the one to make the determination as to its significance. I think I could understand a delay of almost 2 years if it were merely contested. I would be in the position of my colleague, Jim Howard, of trying to reconcile all elements in the area. If there had been people in the area who said, no, we can't afford to lose this park, I think I could understand it, but I questioned at some length the highway department people in Texas and was assuredor Miss Hay was assured-that in this instance there was absolutely no objection at all. No voice was heard from any source objecting to the taking of this 10-foot strip and thus saving a great deal of money to the city.

In a case of this kind, I cannot understand why it takes almost 2 years for various agencies of the Government to more or less argue with themselves about whether or not they should permit the city to go ahead and acquire that right-of-way.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Chairman, you are dealing with a fundamental philosophical question which I think is a little bit more than the simple situation you just described. There are a number of other delayed or controversial projects that fall pretty much in the same category. The one that Mr. Cleveland referred to, Franconia Notch, also had the approval of the local authorities. The San Antonio project, which you passed over lightly, also had the approval of local authorities. A recent project in Harrisburg, Pa., had the approval of local authorities.

The well-publicized cases that went to the Supreme Court on a park in Memphis also had the approval of the local responsible authorities, but nonetheless, all of these have been challenged.

Mr. WRIGHT. Are we, in the Federal Government, setting ourselves up as Monday morning quarterbacks and second guessers as to whether the locally elected officials know what their people want or not?

Mr. TURNER. I believe it isn't really a question of what the local people want. It is a question of some of the reviewing federal agencies named in the statute, but which I shall not name, attempting to exercise a general surveillance over the taking of parklands anytime, anywhere, on the theory that these are irreplaceable lands and that there may be local pressures which will allow those lands to be eroded away for nonpark, nonconservation, non-open-space purposes.

And they feel a strong mission to protect those as a general philosophical principle. With this, I couldn't disagree, but I think you have to exercise some considered judgment in the individual case in the application of that fine broad principle.

Mr. WRIGHT. I think I can understand that and the zeal of an agency to protect all areas for outdoor recreation; in that sense it is very commendable. But I am wondering if this agency which you do not name but which I believe was named probably by the officials in the State of Texas, who wrote to me, intrudes upon the rights of a local citizenry for a 10-foot strip; the local citizenry probably has a better knowledge of how much parkland is available or should be available for Sulphur Springs. Sulphur Springs has a good bit of land all around it on all sides, for quite an area, I might add.

If this were in the midst of downtown New York, and we were talking about 10 feet of Central Park, I think I could understand and sympathize with that situation. Apparently there was no local objection at all, and yet it caused a delay of almost 2 years in approval. Don't you think that is a little excessive?

Mr. TURNER. Yes, sir, I do.

Mr. WRIGHT. I shouldn't be putting myself in a position of somebody who is not in favor of protecting parkland.

Frank Koisch, now Chief of Civil Works, was at one time Chief of the Corps of Engineers, District Engineers at Fort Worth, and at that time they were talking about putting a floodway through Trinity Park and Forest Park, botanical gardens, and I should like to commend the highway department of my State and the Federal Highway Administration for not insisting on going through the botanical gar