rock mineral production on wilderness areas, is going to be substantially greater than it is, than the other things that are withdrawn, but they are not covered, the hard rock minerals.

I want to make that clear in this bill. There are broad implications that this takes place for those with less impact if we don't ultimately have them take place for those with more impact.

Senator NICKLES. Did I possibly mishear Senator Jackson? I thought he said this bill only affected oil and gas as a last statement?

Senator WALLOP. NO.

Senator NICKLES. I am aware it doesn't.

Senator WALLOP. Oil and gas and phosphate and sulfur and geothermal leasing and gilsonite, potassium.

Senator NICKLES. I see the list is on the bill, but I am thinking I heard him say that.

Senator WALLOP. No. It does more than oil and gas, but it does not do hard rock minerals.

Senator NICKLES. Mr. Matthews, you mentioned as far as exploration techniques, that industry has devised them now that are environmentally I guess sound and safe or aren't damaging to the envrionment.

I am familiar with these vibra-sized trucks that have almost nil or no impact. Are those useful or could be used?

Mr. MATTHEWs. Not in a roadless area; you have to have roads in order to drive them.

The other two techniques that I see as being feasible in these areas would be above-ground surface explosion techniques and using the portable drills to put the dynamite underground.

My recommendation is that the underground portable drill technique is one that can be used in these areas with a minimal impact.

Senator NICKLES. You also mentioned I guess your preference for private assessment of minerals which would be prohibited under this, and I believe the bill would provide for what, BLM to make, would be making that assessment? You are saying private industry should be making that assessment?

Mr. MATTHEWS. Yes, Senator. I have some very personal close friends in both the USGS and the BLM, and I have a great respect for their geological expertise, but the kind of techniques that have been developed by industry in this complex area of the Overthrust Belt simply is not the sort of thing that these agencies have been used to using, and they have not had the expertise of 5 to 10 years of exploration in the Overthrust Belt. I just don't think the technical expertise is there to do it.

Senator NICKLES. Plus the quality of assessment?

Mr. MATTHEWs. Yes. As a taxpayer I would rather see the money being spent by industry than by our Government.

Mr. DIBBLE. May I respond to that last question? Senator, our company served as a contractor for the U.S. Department of the Interior in exploring the national petroleum reserve in Alaska. We spent-I don't know what it is now-approximately close to $700 million of taxpayers' money and we think we did it in a reasonable manner, but we were only able to put down about one well every

million acres, and over a period of a number of years, and that really is not a good mineral assessment of that area.

When you have private industry do it, No. 1, taxpayers are not footing the bill; No. 2, they can do it in an environmentally sound manner; and No. 3, you get a multiple viewpoint on it. You also get a multiple discipline, and it is just like anybody else. No one always agrees where the best prospect is, least of all geologists, and this way you get a cross-check, and it is much more efficient and better mineral exploration.

Senator NICKLES. Thank you.

Senator WALLOP. Thank you very much, all very much. We appreciate the time. We have still not got permission to sit, and we will submit questions.

The next panel is Mr. William Turnage, executive director of the Wilderness Society, Russell Peterson, president of the National Audubon Society; Karen Sheldon, staff attorney for the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund; J. Michael McCloskey, executive director of the Sierra Club, accompanied by Mr. Tim Mahoney, Washington Representative.

Mr. Turnage?

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM A. TURNAGE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY

Mr. TURNAGE. Mr. Chairman, I am William Turnage, executive director of the Wilderness Society.

The Wilderness Society is a nonprofit conservation organization founded in 1935. Our expertise is the appropriate management of the public lands and the preservation of wilderness.

Let me state at the outset that we strongly support S. 2801, legislation which Congress must pass now in order to protect the integrity of our last remaining wild lands from the ravages of mineral exploration and development. We view this legislation as the most important public lands conservation bill of this Congress. An identical measure passed the House by a decisive 6-to-1 margin, 340 to 58.

Unless the Senate approves this legislation before Congress adjourns, nearly half of the Nation's wilderness areas could be opened to oil and gas leasing and development in a matter of months. If the Senate fails to act or fatally cripples the bill with amendments, Interior Secretary James Watt will have a free hand to make good his threat to start leasing the Nation's wilderness.

The Wilderness Society has just completed a comprehensive study revealing the Forest Service's timetable for possible wilderness leasing. It shows that 171 wilderness and potential wilderness areas in 24 States could be leased starting as early as January 1983, including areas near California's spectacular Big Sur Coast, near Yellowstone National Park, and within the legendary crown jewel of the wilderness system, Montana's Bob Marshall Wilder

ness.

Our study involved contacting each regional office of the Forest Service and determining how quickly applications for leasing in wilderness areas are being processed. Once applications are fully processed, recommended leases can be signed at the discretion of

the Secretary of the Interior Watt. Despite the current moratorium on wilderness leasing agreed to this year by Mr. Watt at the prodding of Congress, the Forest Service generally has been processing applications and preparing recommendations on leasing.

According to the Forest Service's timetable, 43 wilderness areas will be ready for leasing in the first 3 months of next year, 84 by September, and a total of 171 by the end of the year. Included in the 171 areas are 69 congressionally mandated wilderness areas, nearly half of the 144 national forest wildernesses in the lower 48 States, with the remainder being lands that are recommended for wilderness designation or under study as candidates for wilderness designation. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, this legislation is urgently needed.

Opponents charge that the bill would lock up wilderness lands from needed energy development. In actual fact, the Senate bill contains a provision that would allow the President to open wilderness to energy development subject to the congressional approval, in the event of a national emergency. Moreover, the Wilderness Act of 1964 itself allows for continuing surveys and studies to measure the energy potential of wilderness areas so long as their wilderness characteristics are not damaged or destroyed. The pending Senate bill further promotes mineral inventory activities that would not destroy wilderness.

Wilderness areas do not hold the answer to the Nation's energy needs. They constitute only 1.2 percent of the total land base in the lower 48, and contain only a negligible amount of the Nation's estimated supply of oil and gas. They ought to be the last lands to be developed, not the first.

An authoritative study done this year by Leonard Fischman, one of the Nation's foremost natural resource economists, indicated that wilderness contains only about 1 percent of America's potentially producible onshore oil and gas. These findings were corroborated at a congressional hearing by a similar study conducted for the U.S. Department of Energy by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Furthermore, this bill would withdraw only 33 million acres of wilderness and wilderness candidate areas. BLM has already leased 30 million acres this fiscal year and expects to lease an additional 5 million acres by the end of the fiscal year. This will bring to more than 150 million the total number of acres of Federal land already under lease and largely unexplored.

Mr. Chairman, this bill must not be gutted with amendments. It is already a compromise. To our chagrin, it does not withdraw BLM wilderness study areas and lands in Alaska, nor does it address potentially damaging hard rock mining development. Nonetheless, it is a minimally acceptable bill and we urge its passage as

is.

We are particularly opposed to any attempt to put a hard release amendment on the bill. Hard release is Mr. Watt's approach to wilderness-what we have now, and no more. Hard release would stop Federal agencies from studying lands for possible inclusion in the wilderness system and usurp the rights of Congress to determine whether or not lands should be protected and preserved as wilderness. Under hard release, after an arbitrary and rigid deadline, all

Forest Service lands that have been recommended to Congress for wilderness designation or are presently being studied as candidates for wilderness preservation would be opened immediately for development. That would be a tragedy, for once the wilderness values of these pristine lands are lost, they can never be recovered.

Mr. Chairman, the American people have spoken. They have spoken every time these lease applications have surfaced for wilderness areas-the Washakie Wilderness in Wyoming, the Caney Creek Wilderness in Arkansas, the Ventana Wilderness in California, the Capitan Wilderness in New Mexico. They have spoken as more than 500 witnesses in nine hearings held by the House Interior Committee across the country. They have spoken in the overwhelming bipartisan vote in the House in favor of identical legislation. They have spoken with one voice-do not despoil our last remaining wilderness areas in a damaging search for an inadequate amount of oil.

The House has done its part. Now it is time for the Senate to act. We ask you to move swiftly to protect America's last wild lands. Thank you.

Senator WALLOP. Russell Peterson?

STATEMENT OF RUSSELL W. PETERSON, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL AUDUBON SOCIETY

Mr. R. PETERSON. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I respectfully request that you enter my prepared remarks in the record and I will just make a few comments.

I am Russ Peterson, President of the National Audubon Society, here speaking on behalf of our nearly 11⁄2 million members.

I strongly believe that our small remaining wilderness deserves maximum protection. It is my view, Mr. Chairman, that this concern corresponds with the growing public sentiment as well. We will be doing both present and future generations a great disservice if we fail to adequately safeguard what is left of our wilderness

areas.

Legislative safeguards of the sort proposed in Senate bill 2801 are essential if the original intent of Congress in enacting the 1964 Wilderness Act is not to be reversed. Were it not for Secretary Watt's radical departure from policy established over the previous 16 years, this legislation would be unnecessary. The wilderness protection bill is a modest and reasonable response to his attempts to dissolve what remains of our wilderness resources.

Like its statutory predecessor, the 1964 Wilderness Act, it is a compromise. Although we support Senate bill 2801, here are three items we would have liked to have included.

First, the bill does not extend protection to BLM wilderness study areas, some 24 million acres under the Bureau of Land Management jurisdiction. This is canyon and plateau and desert country that I am talking about which is every bit as important a part of our natural heritage and deserving of protection as the rugged mountain and forest country that we usually associate with wilderness protection.

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Senate bill No. 2801 does not address the need for protection of wilderness lands for new hard rock mineral activity. This, too, is a regretable omission.

A third significant compromise is Senate bill 2801 prevents seismic exploration activites for oil and gas only in designated wilderness areas. It does not prohibit seismic exploration in wilderness candidate areas even though seismic blasting causes well-documented long-lasting damage to a fragile wilderness ecosystem.

It is a big concern to National Audubon that despite the compromises of Senate bill 2801, there continues to be strong interest in drastically changing the fundamental principles of this legislation with the addition of release language, language that would effectively torpedo all proposals for future additions to our wilderness system, now and forevermore.

I urge the committee to reject any such language in Senate bill 2801.

Secretary Watt stated his objective is to open up wilderness and proposed wilderness areas to oil and gas leases so as to provide us with adequate energy security. The National Audubon Society finds no justification for this. Analysis by our scientific staff of the energy situation in the United States indicates that by investing substantially in energy efficiency measures and in such alternate sources of energy as wind, hydropower, biomass, photovoltaics and passive solar, our Nation can reduce its need for oil by 30 percent by the year 2000. Following this safe economic course would more than obviate the need for that 4.4 percent of the Nation's oil that may lie within wilderness and wilderness candidate areas. I ask you even if that small amount of our potential oil is there, what is wrong with leaving it in the bank for future generations to consider? Do we have to squander every drop of our oil in our lifetime? The few remaining wildereness areas are a part of our great national heritage. We need to safeguard these unique areas so future generations will have the opportunity to explore this Nation's earlier wilderness or just have the satisfaction of knowing some of wild America is still there.

I urge the Senate to pass Senate bill 2801 in its present form before the 97th Congress adjourns.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. R. Peterson follows:]