Mr. CROWELL. Senator, I might interject here that the context in which the figures were given, the 8.1 figure that we have just referred to, is correct in the statement, but in the context that you are asking the question was its applicability just to this bill, and the figure would not be 8.1. It would be 5.9.

Senator NICKLES. The congressionally mandated study is the difference between the 4.2 and the 1.8?

Mr. CROWELL. I am advised that that's the explanation.
Senator NICKLES. 1.8 for the lower 48?

Mr. CROWELL. Yes.

Senator NICKLES. I have no further questions.

Senator WARNER. Mr. Chairman, if I might I would like to reserve the right for questions for the record, but I am trying to assist the Chair in expediting the hearing.

Senator WALLOP. I appreciate that, and the Chair will have questions for the record.

Mr. CROWELL. We will be happy to respond to those questions, Mr. Chairman.

Senator WALLOP. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. The next panel is Mr. George Dibble representing Rocky Mountain Oil & Gas Association and the Western Regional Council and Western Oil & Gas Association of Denver, Colo.; Mr. Richard Hughes, legislative and regulatory analyst, central region, Chevron, U.S.A., in Denver; Vincent Matthews III, division manager, Rocky Mountain Division, Lear Petroleum, Inc., Denver; and David Work, manager of exploration, western region, Amoco Production Co., Denver, Colo.

Gentlemen, what I will do is as the minutes roll around I will give one tap on the gavel so as not to interrupt your statement but you will know that you have 1 minute to go.

Mr. Dibble?

STATEMENT OF GEORGE S. DIBBLE, JR., ON BEHALF OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN OIL & GAS ASSOCIATION, THE WESTERN REGIONAL COUNCIL, AND THE WESTERN OIL & GAS ASSOCIATION Mr. DIBBLE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. My name is George Dibble. It is my pleasure to be able to participate in these hearings, and as you mentioned, this is the first hearing

Senator WALLOP. May we have order in the room, please?

Mr. DIBBLE. This is the first hearing on this issue. I am here today representing three groups-Rocky Mountain Oil & Gas Association, which is a group of 800 companies operating in the oil and gas business in the Rocky Mountain areas which is the heartland of public lands and lands that would be affected by this bill; the Western Regional Council which is an organization of businesses representing all industries throughout the nine State areas, not only oil and gas, but minerals and banking and utilities and a number of others; as well as the Western Oil & Gas Association, which is RMOGA's sister organization on the west coast and Alaska.

As you can tell by the composure of this group, they do operate in the area of heavy public land concentration and an area that

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would be severely impacted by S. 2801. I think it would be safe to say that in just trying to summarize my remarks for the committee, that we feel that S. 2801 is riding a wave of overreaction and emotion. It is not a balanced approach in looking at the disposition of public lands.

Our groups are in favor of wilderness areas. We think there is a need for them. We are also in favor of multiple use areas, but wilderness and mineral development is not mutually exclusive. We think they are compatible. Twenty years ago I probably would have had a different opinion. Today I think industry has learned a lesson that they can operate on public lands and particularly on lands with unique, specific environmental concerns, and do this in a husbandlike manner with concern for the environment and for the pristine beauty and still explore for the crucial resources that are needed by this country.

As you know, we are still importing petroleum at a cost of $77 billion a year to this country. We are still importing strategic minerals, almost 100 percent in certain minerals, and that there is a pressing need for national security to develop domestic resources. We feel that S. 2801 precludes the ability to inventory some of our public lands for these vital resources, and unfortunately when the good Lord made this Earth he didn't separate out the pristine beauty areas from the mineral resources areas. One oftentimes overlies the other, and as such we have to take a balanced approach. We feel that this bill does not.

I think to put this all in perspective, and many figures have been used here this morning and I won't repeat those, but 10 years ago we were looking at 16 million acres of wilderness and further study areas. Today there are approximately 229 million acres in the United States in these two categories, including Alaska, of course, so I think that means that approximately one out of every three federally owned acres is restricted from mineral exploration.

Just how much wilderness, you know, can we afford and not necessarily does it mean that the best wilderness system is the biggest one? We object to really the substantial withdrawals of the opportunity to make mineral assessments on wilderness areas as well as the further study areas which have been held in limbo for a number of years. We heard Secretary Crowell talk about the problems they have had with the California versus Bergland decision of lands that were supposedly to be turned back to the multiple use category that are now held up in court actions.

I don't know. Maybe this is a prelude to RARE IV and RARE V, let alone RARE III, so I think this bill does not even address those possibilities. I think, or we think rather there needs to be an end gate placed on these study processes, that these areas that are in de facto wilderness need to be released, turned back into the multiple use.

One of the things that permeates this bill is the fact that people fail to realize, or some of the proponents fail to realize that the Federal Land Management Act agencies-the Forest Service, the Department of the Interior and its agencies-still manage the public lands. Just because they issue a lease doesn't mean they go away and forget about it. We have talked about surface occupancy stipulations and other restrictions. Just ask anybody in our indus

try. They will tell you that they certainly manage the lands because we deal with them on a daily basis, and although we don't always agree with them, I have to agree that the Federal land managers are doing a professional job and the best job they can. I don't always tell them that so publicly. Maybe we can give them a pat on the back, but you talk about these further study areas, and you know in the Forest Service EIS they say the best way to determine whether or not there are any other values in addition to wilderness values is to explore.

In fact, I quote from the EIS of the Forest Service. It says:

For the above reasons, having laid out the basis to try to assess the mineral potential for oil and gas and mineral exploration, including drilling, where adequate exploration requires it, will be considered an integral part of the further planning process.

Now how in the world under this bill can you further study these lands without being able to explore them? I think there is an inconsistency in and of itself there.

As I said, we need to have in this bill an end to the wilderness study, and we also need some strong release language that lands must not be kept in limbo. They must be turned back for the multiple use management, that such management is compatible with preserving the unique characteristics of these areas.

I think also that the emergency provisions in this bill are dangerous. They have what I call a Manhattan-project mentality. All of a sudden we may need some minerals, whether it be oil and gas or some strategic minerals, and then it's man the torpedos, full bulldozers ahead, and that is not the way to do it. The way to do it is through a systematic process of exploration. It takes 8 to 10 years from the discovery of an oil and gas field to bring it on stream. It took 50 years from the first well that was drilled in the Overthrust Belt, and then 500 dry holes later a significant discovery was made in 1975.

It is not an overnight operation. You can't turn it on and off.

I will conclude by saying that we also must keep in mind that the Government may be a good lands manager, but they are a very poor explorer. The best exploration is done by private industry who has an incentive to do so through multiple disciplines. More will be said about that later on this panel.

In summary, we oppose S. 2801 for the reasons I have listed. It is not a balanced approach. It fails to consider other values other than wilderness. It precludes gathering information to make an intelligent decision, and ignores the release of land back into the multiple use category.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and anything we can provide you or your staff or other members of the committee we are happy to do so.

[The prepared statements of Mr. Dibble follow:]

STATEMENT

OF

GEORGE S. DIBBLE, JR.

REPRESENTING

ROCKY MOUNTAIN OIL AND GAS ASSOCIATION

AND

WESTERN OIL AND GAS ASSOCIATION

My name is George Dibble. I am Vice President of Husky Oil Company, Denver, Colorado. I am also a past President of the Rocky Mountain Oil and Gas Association (RMOGA), and a member of the RMOGA Executive and Operating

Committees.

I am pleased to be here today to present the views of RMOGA and the Western Oil and Gas Association (WOGA) on S. 2801, the Wilderness Protection Act of 1982.

RMOGA is a trade association which was organized more than 60 years ago to provide a unified voice for oil and gas companies on public lands issues and problems. Today its membership is comprised of 800 individuals and companies, large and small, which are actively involved in all phases of the oil and gas industry throughout the Rocky Mountain West.

RMOGA has traditionally worked towards developing balanced policies for land management which consider the benefits of multiple use, mineral development, and environmental protection. Activity on the public domain is an integral part of the energy business in the Rocky Mountains, and reasonable access for mineral development is a matter of paramount importance to our members.

While we have and will continue to seek a balanced approach to policy development, we are strongly opposed to the legislation under consideration here today. In our opinion, S. 2801 is an overreaction to the emotional issues surrounding wilderness, and constitutes a grave policy error which will have long lasting and far-reaching adverse effects on both our domestic mineral supply capabilities and our ability to soundly and effectively manage the nation's public lands.

2

The issues involved in this legislation have not received adequate con

sideration.

While no one would argue that protection of wilderness areas is not a worthwhile and desirable goal, consideration must be given to balancing wilderness values with other resource values and land uses. The withdrawals proposed by this legislation, along with the tremendous amount of other lands already withdrawn from mineral entry, constitute such a vast land base that this country's ability to explore for and produce domestic energy supplies would be seriously undermined.

This legislation withdraws more than 36 million acres of land from mineral leasing. When added to the lands already withdrawn from mineral leasing through such designations as national parks, wildlife refuges, historic trails, and recreation areas, to name a few, this bill amounts to a 75% increase in the amount of land in the lower 48 states that is presently offlimits to mineral activity. This is occurring at a time when the United States continues to import over one-third of our total petroleum needs at an annual cost of $76.7 billion (1981). The national security implications of this fact must be considered in any decision to further limit our ability to provide domestic energy supplies. Recent events in the Middle East underscore the importance of the U.S. maintaining a reliable domestic energy development

program.

While there are numerous land classifications which account for the vast amount of acreage in restrictive management categories, none paints so clear a picture of what is happening to our public lands as that of wilderness and wilderness study areas. Let me put this into perspective: Ten years ago, there were 16 million acres of land in wilderness and wilderness study class