Senator WALLOP. Would you move that microphone up? The microphones in this room are very poorly oriented.

Senator STAFFORD. What I said so far doesn't make much difference anyway, Mr. Chairman! Let me repeat this part, though. Lease applications I believe are pending in 13 States east of the 100th meridian, including my own State of Vermont. I would like to discuss the leasing situation in Vermont, being unashamedly parochial about it.

On June 30, officials who run the Green Mountain National Forest announced that they had consented to issue leases for oil and gas exploration and conceivably development on 273,000 acres without any environmental impact statement at all. This parcel represents all the Federal forest acreage in Vermont except for 20,000 acres that make up our two existing wilderness areas, and some municipal watersheds. In these areas, the decision to lease was postponed but not denied.

Vermont, as you know, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, is not a petroleum-producing State. Such a sweeping approval of leases throughout the forest and all at once has stunned and alarmed both residents and visitors to our State.

The U.S. Forest Service has cleared this land for leasing but has yet to specify lease stipulations or to conduct on-site studies of different regions in the Federal domain. The Forest Service has not approved leasing in our two designated wilderness areas, Bristol Cliffs and Lye Brook in Manchester, Vt., but I fear the officials are only awaiting further instructions from the administration and/or Congress before doing so.

Leasing has been approved for all six roadless areas in the Green Mountain National Forest, including the two allocated to further planning and RARE II-Breadloaf in Ripton and Devil's Den in Wallingford.

Mr. Chairman, our congressional delegation has met to consider a wilderness package for Vermont. As you know, specific wilderness proposals and boundaries can become hotly contested, emotional issues. We are trying to work on this problem in an acceptable way to the majority of the people of our State. I firmly believe we will be successful unless we are torpedoed by this leasing operation.

The areas under consideration for wilderness designations by the delegation are among the most environmentally sensitive in the State. It is my belief that even the opponents of statutory wilderness protection do not wish to see them developed.

However, the burden of our negotiations is only increased when we see the Forest Service processing leases to grant new development rights to companies, perhaps to speculators, in these sensitive lands before we have made our decisions.

Issuance of these leases has been appealed to the administration by a number of local conservation groups-Sierra Club, Vermont Wilderness Association, Vermont Audubon Society, Vermont Natural Resources Council, Wilderness Society and Conservation Law Foundation. This intervention has provided a little breathing room for Congress to act.

The Jackson bill, S. 2801, takes a giant step toward solving our problem I believe by prohibiting outright any leases in wilderness

areas and by delaying any leasing in further planning areas during this critical time of wilderness consideration by the administration and the Congress.

I believe it is imperative that the Senate act quickly on this bill in the short time remaining of this session so that the Secretary of the Interior, who has asked us for guidance, and the Forest Service, will have the benefit of solid congressional direction before proceeding further.

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I thank you again for your courtesy in allowing me to proceed at this time.

Senator WALLOP. Senator Hart has expressed the same time constraint.

STATEMENT OF HON. GARY HART, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO

Senator HART. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you on this legislation, the Wilderness Protection Act, and I want particularly to cite Senator Jackson's leadership in bringing this bill before us.

I would like also to ask the committee's indulgence in introducing into the record in conjunction with my own statement a statement forwarded by our Governor, Gov. Richard Lamm of the State of Colorado, that generally endorses the points that I wish to briefly outline here this morning.

My own interest and that of our Governor is twofold, both as westeners and particularly as Coloradans. Although the bill applies, of course, to all States, as Senator Stafford has said, except Alaska, it is especially important as those of us who are westerners know, in our region. That is where most of our timber is and where there are the greatest number of potential conflicts between wilderness protection and oil and gas development.

This is even more true for those of us in Colorado than it is for most of the West. We have the second highest percentage of our land set aside as wilderness. Between 150 and 200 applications have been filed for leases in Colorado's wilderness areas. This total is matched I think in only one other State, that of Montana, as Senator Melcher has indicated, so Mr. Chairman, my interest in this bill is not just theoretical nor is the interest of the people that I represent. This legislation is of great practical significance to my region and my State.

I urge, Mr. Chairman, that the committee rapidly report S. 2801 to the full Senate, and I further urge the committee to avoid attaching any collateral amendments such as the so-called release language which would I think we all agree complicate final congressional action on this bill this year.

I make this recommendation for a few very simple reasons which I will outline. First, the moratorium that Secretary Watt has proclaimed on wilderness leasing will expire somewhere near the end of this year. I guess there is some clarification needed on when that will occur. In other words, the administration has given Congress only until the end of 1982 to resolve this issue legislatively if we elect to.

Second, unless this legislation is passed, it is clear the administration will lease vast tracts of the most magnificant, unspoiled wild lands left in this country. This leasing would be on a scale far exceeding anything previously anticipated I think by any Members of Congress. For example, officials in Colorado's San Juan National Forest are planning to make available for leasing all parts of the three wilderness areas in that forest except where slopes are steeper than 40 percent, high erosion or geologic hazard exists, endangered or threatened species are present, or the impact would be highly visible.

Using these very selective criteria, the Forest Service is planning to make available for leasing an average of one-third of the wilderness acreage in Colorado. This degree of leasing under these lax criteria I think may be legally possible under the original Wilderness Act, but I don't think anyone when that act was passed anticipated any administration would go to this extreme.

Third, Mr. Chairman, developing our wilderness areas is not necessary to meet this country's national energy needs. Barely 1 percent of the contiguous United States, that is to say, the part of the country affected by this bill, is wilderness. In setting aside wilderness areas, Congress I think in almost every case has always paid particular attention to oil and gas potential. For example, Senator Armstrong and others who drafted the 1980 Colorado Wilderness bill asked the Rocky Mountain Oil and Gas Association and other industry groups to tell us every instance in which a company had plans to explore for oil and gas in an area being considered for wilderness designation, then left out those areas of the wilderness boundaries.

Although their scrutiny has not been as rigorous, the executive agencies have also paid particular attention to the oil and gas potential of lands when designating them for wilderness study.

Mr. Chairman, I think enough other Federal lands are available for leasing to satisfy this country's energy needs. In fact, more than 80 percent of all Federal oil and gas leases expire without any drilling ever being undertaken. I think it would be preposterous to begin drilling in wilderness areas when so much of the nonwilderness land is not being developed.

In addition, the protection of the wilderness areas I think is too important to leave purely to administrative discretion. Unless prohibited by Congress, leases in wilderness areas would be valid even if they are issued by mistake of the agencies. We have seen examples of this happening. Leases have been issued by agency oversight in wilderness areas in my State, in New Mexico, in California

Senator WALLOP. One more minute.

Senator HART. When official agency policy has been to deny leases in wilderness areas.

The decisions on leasing in wilderness areas involve both the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service, and we all know that often the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. In my State, for example, there have been instances in which the Forest Service has not even been informed of applications for leases in national forest wilderness areas.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, the will of Congress on this issue I think is clear. The House passed the bill by a vote of 340 to 56. Over half the Members of the Senate have cosponsored Senator Jackson's bill. I think this congressional conscience should not be frustrated. Mr. Chairman, I urge the committee to faciliate a Senate vote on this bill so that we can resolve this issue once and for all.

I thank the committee for its indulgence, and I ask consent that the statement of our Governor be included.

Senator WALLOP. By all means.

[The prepared statements of Senator Hart and Governor Lamm follow:]

I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today in support of S. 2801, the Wilderness Protection Act of 1982.

Senator Jackson, I commend you for your leadership in bringing this bill before the Senate.

I'm especially interested in this bill both as a Westerner and a Coloradan.

Although the bill applies to all states except Alaska, it is especially important in the West. That's where most of our wilderness is, and where there are the greatest number of potential conflicts between wilderness protection and oil and gas development.

This is even more true for Colorado than it is for most of the

West.

Colorado has the second highest percent of its land set
aside as wilderness. (Over half of this amount was
designated by the 1980 Colorado Wilderness Act, which I
helped write and which this Committee helped enact.)

Between 150 and 200 applications have been filed for leases in Colorado's wilderness areas. This total is matched in only one other state -- Montana.

This

So, my interest in this bill is not just theoretical. legislation is of great practical significance to my region and my

state.

I urge the Committee to rapidly report S. 2801 to the full Senate. I further urge the Committee to avoid attaching any extraneous amendments such as so-called "release" language which would complicate final Congressional action on this bill this year.

I make these recommendations for five reasons.

First, the moratorium Secretary Watt has proclaimed on wilderness leasing will expire at the end of this year. In other words, the Administration has given Congress only until the end of 1982 to resolve this issue legislatively.

Second, unless the legislation is passed, it is clear the Administration will lease vast tracts of the most magnificent unspoiled wild lands left in our country. This leasing would be on a scale far exceeding anything previously anticipated.

For example, officials in Colorado's San Juan National Forest are planning to make available for leasing all parts of the three wilderness areas in that forest except where