INTERIOR DEPARTMENT DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY, Washington, D.C., October 20, 1967. Hon. WRIGHT PATMAN, Chairman, Joint Committee on Defense Production, Washington, D.C. DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: We are pleased to submit herewith, in response to your request, a summary of the mobilization activities of the Department of the Interior during the past year (fiscal year 1967) for inclusion in the 17th Annual Report of the Joint Committee on Defense Production to the Congress. The 17th Annual Report of the Department of the Interior to the Joint Committee on Defense Production, Congress of the United States, summarizes emergency preparedness and defense mobilization programs and activities carried on during fiscal year 1967 (ended June 30, 1967) relating to products for which the Secretary of the Interior has been delegated authority under the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended. These products are electric power, petroleum and gas (including pipelines for their movement), solid fuels, minerals, and fishery products. Progress in emergency preparedness During the last year, further progress has been made in the long-continued programs designed to achieve and maintain readiness for prompt and effective mobilization of the industrial products and facilities within the purview of the Secretary of the Interior to meet needs in any type of national defense emergency. Improvements and refinements have been made in the structure, staffing, prepositioned delegations of authority, emergency procedures, and training of the standby emergency organizations previously established. These are the organizations which would become fully operative immediately upon the declaration of a civil defense emergency or upon attack on the United States. In any other type of national defense emergency, the extent of their operations would be specified by the Secretary of the Interior. Other emergency preparedness activities have included some new, defense-related mineral resource development programs and studies of availability of electric power, fuels, and minerals to meet requirements under differing emergency conditions. Use of Defense Production Act powers in Middle East oil crisis To cope with problems stemming from the interruption in world oil supply which arose out of the Arab-Israeli conflict, powers of the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended, were utilized in two actions taken by Interior in June, 1967. One was the initiation of operations under the long-standing voluntary agreement relating to foreign petroleum supply, established under authority of section 708 of the act. The other, employing authority contained in section 101 of the act, was the issuance of a regulation providing for the giving of priorities to orders placed with suppliers under standby or contingent delivery contracts for petroleum products entered into by the Department of Defense. Both of these actions and related activities are covered in the section on petroleum and gas which appears later in this report. Hearing before Joint Committee on Defense Production A review of the above-mentioned current action programs and the defense mobilization planning activities of the Department of the Interior was presented to the Joint Committee on Defense Production by the Assistant Secretary, Mineral Resources, J. Cordell Moore, and other Interior officials at a hearing before the committee on June 19, 1967. Their testimony and the comprehensive data submitted for the record have been included in the printed record of the hearing, published by the committee as Defense Production Act Progress Report No. 47. Three of the appendixes in Defense Production Act Progress Report No. 47 contain compilations, by the Office of Oil and Gas, of documents pertaining to the Middle East oil crisis, the determination of the petroleum emergency pursuant to the voluntary agreement relating to foreign petroleum supply, and actions of the Foreign Petroleum Supply Committee, its working subcommittee, and Federal agencies leading to the approval of the plan of action on June 30, 1967, by the Director of the Office of Emergency Planning. The fourth appendix is a reprint of a booklet entitled "What is the Emergency Petroleum and Gas Administration?" prepared by the National Petroleum Council in response to a request of the Department of the Interior. In response to questions and requests of Chairman Wright Patman, data on estimates of future mineral and energy consumption, the percentage of new supply of selected metals and minerals obtained from abroad, the minerals exploration program under Public Law 85-701, coal consumption and research, and other matters were submitted for the record, and these are included in Defense Production Act Progress Report No. 47. Assistant Secretary Moore's statement at the hearing summarized briefly the major features of the programs and activities which are also covered in this report. While most of these are treated in more detail and supplemented in this report, some subject matter incorporated in the record of the hearing is not repeated here. On the other hand, some data included in this report were not covered in the record of the hearing. Hence, to some extent, the two documents are complementary. Arrangement of this report The sections of this report which follow, in the order indicated, are headed: 1. Emergency preparedness and defense mobilization responsibilities. 2. Organizational units conducting programs. 3. Coordination of programs and interagency activities. 4. Staffing and funds. 5. Authority for programs. 6. Preface to reports of individual offices. 7. Electric power (Defense Electric Power Administration, Office of the Assistant Secretary-Water and Power Development). 8. Petroleum and gas (Office of Oil and Gas). 9. Minerals and solid fuels (Office of Minerals and Solid Fuels). (Included at the close are data and statements prepared by the Bureau of Mines and Geological Survey which are responsive to requests of the chairman, Joint Committee on Defense Production, relating to the supply outlook for various metals and minerals, the degree of dependence of the United States on foreign sources for certain materials, and research on light metals.) 10. Fishery products (Bureau of Commercial Fisheries). 11. Domestic minerals exploration (Office of Minerals Exploration, Geological Survey). EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS AND DEFENSE MOBILIZATION RESPONSIBILITIES The resources and industries to which the emergency preparedness functions of the Secretary of the Interior apply, except fishery products, are specified in Executive Order 10997. This order provides that the Secretary shall prepare national emergency plans and develop preparedness programs covering (1) electric power; (2) petroleum and gas; (3) solid fuels; and (4) minerals. Each of these products is defined in the order; for example, "petroleum" and "gas" are defined to include, among other things, "pipelines for their movement and facilities specially designed for their storage." The order specifies that the plans and programs shall be designed to provide a state of readiness in these resource areas with respect to all conditions of national emergency, including attack upon the United States. By assignment from the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of the Interior has emergency planning responsibilities for the production of fishery commodities or products. These five areas of industrial mobilization preparedness are the same as those with respect to which the Secretary of the Interior has been delegated authorities under the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended, including but not limited to the priorities and allocations powers. Therefore, he and other officials to whom he has delegated these powers have them available for exercise when necessary in the interest of national defense. The executive orders and other documents by which these delegations have been made to the Secretary of the Interior, and the documents through which he has delegated emergency authority to officials under him, are identified in the section of this report headed "Authority for Programs.' ORGANIZATIONAL UNITS CONDUCTING PROGRAMS The following organizational units of this Department carry on industrial mobilization planning and preparedness programs, with respect to the areas of responsibility indicated in parentheses, under delegations of authority from the Secretary of the Interior which include certain Defense Production Act authorities: (1) Defense Electric Power Administration, in the Office of the Assistant Secretary-Water and Power Development, which Administration has been established in readiness for active operation in event of a civil defense emergency (electric power); (2) Office of Oil and Gas, the functions of which include development and maintenance of the Emergency Petroleum and Gas Administration which would be activated in event of a civil defense emergency (petroleum and gas, including pipelines for their movement); (3) Office of Minerals and Solid Fuels, the functions of which include development and maintenance of the Emergency Minerals Administration and the Emergency Solid Fuels Administration which would be activated in event of a civil defense emergency (solid fuels, i.e., coal, coke, and coal chemicals produced in the cokemaking process, and minerals, except domestic minerals exploration); and (4) Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, operating under the supervision of the Commissioner of Fish and Wildlife to whom the Secretary's delegation runs (production of fishery commodities or products, as delegated by the Secretary of Agriculture). In addition to the above-mentioned units, the Office of Minerals Exploration, Geological Survey, has a delegation of Defense Production Act authority in connection with its administration of contracts, executed by the former Defense Minerals Exploration Administration, which utilized the borrowing authority of the act. The Defense Minerals Exploration Administration program, terminated on June 30, 1958, was succeeded by a long-range exploration assistance program under Public Law 85-701, the administration of which now constitutes the principal work of the Office of Minerals Exploration. Staff assistance in the coordination of certain features of Interior's industrial mobilization preparedness programs and representation of the Department on several interagency groups associated with emergency preparedness activities are provided by the Emergency Preparedness Staff Office, a small unit in the Office of Management Operations, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration. (During the last year, this unit was given its present name; previously it was designated as the Division of Emergency Preparedness.) COORDINATION OF PROGRAMS AND INTERAGENCY ACTIVITIES Much of the coordination of the Department's emergency preparedness activities by the Emergency Preparedness Staff Office, mentioned immediately above, is accomplished through its staff members' service as departmental representatives on interagency committees and boards and as designated focal points of contact for certain defense matters. The chief of this staff is the Defense Coordinator for the Department, and his deputy is the Alternate Defense Coordinator. The interagency groups on which these staff members represent the Department include the Interagency Emergency Planning Committee, which assists in the coordination and stimulation of emergency preparedness and advises the Director, Office of Emergency Planning, across the range of his responsibilities to the President; the Interagency Civil Defense Committee, an advisory group established by the Director of Civil Defense, Department of the Army; the Interagency National Defense Executive Reserve Committee, chaired by the Office of Emergency Planning; the Industry Evaluation Board, chaired by the Business and Defense Services Administration, Department of Commerce; the Interagency Advisory Committee on Essential Activities and Critical Occupations, now continuing its functions as provided for by National Security Action Memorandum No. 363 of the National Security Council (issued Aug. 8, 1967); and the Subcommittee on Industrial Security, of the Interdepartmental Committee on Internal Security. All of these interagency groups were active during the last year. (The OEP-chaired Interagency Committee on Essential Survival Items, on which a member of this staff had long served as Interior's representative, was formally disestablished by the Director of OEP on July 12, 1967, shortly after the close of fiscal year 1967.) Among the special projects for which the Emergency Preparedness Staff Office provided a focal point of contact and coordination during the last year was the continuation of conferences with the Office of Emergency Planning and Canadian officials in connection with development of an agreement with Canada on mutual assistance and cooperation in event of a war emergency. The chief of Interior's Emergency Preparedness Staff Office is a member of the Joint Emergency Resources Planning Committee, established during the preceding year with appropriate representation of both Canadian and United States resource agencies. He attended a meeting of this committee held in Ottawa in June 1967, accompanied by members of the staffs of the Defense Electric Power Administration and the Office of Minerals and Solid Fuels. In November 1966, the Defense Coordinator was designated to serve as Interior's principal representative on the Working Group on Emergency Readiness established by the Department of Transportation Task Force to assist it in planning for the emergency preparedness activities of the new Department, particularly in the interagency aspects of planning for transportation emergencies. Representatives of Interior's Office of Oil and Gas and Office of Minerals and Solid Fuels were designated as alternates. The Department of Transportation Act (Public Law 89-670) was approved October 15, 1966. Pursuant to authority vested in him by the act, the President issued Executive Order 11340 on March 30, 1967, prescribing April 1, 1967, as the date on which the Department of Transportation Act would take effect. Both prior to and following this effective date, the above-mentioned working group was active and its members participated in the review of various documents pertaining to matters within its assignment. Interior's departmental defense liaison officers (regular employees of the Department in the field who devote part of their time to defense activities) have continued during the last year to serve on the separate regional committees and boards established in the eight OEP-OCD regions by the Office of Emergency Planning and the Office of Civil Defense (Office of the Secretary of the Army, Department of Defense), respectively. The OEP committees are designated as Regional Preparedness Committees, and the OCD boards, as Regional Civil Defense Coordinating Boards. The Secretary of the Interior approved the use of all of the Department's regional coordinators as departmental defense liaison officers. Previously, some of these served in both capacities, but several of the DDLO's were field officials of bureaus whose day-to-day work did not involve performance of Department-wide coordinating functions. The coordination of defense activities of the Department's several bureaus and offices in each region fits well with other aspects of the work of the regional coordinators, who devote full time to their duties. The Emergency Preparedness Staff Office continued to coordinate the development and review of documents, proposals and reports on emergency preparedness and defense mobilization matters relating to the Department's areas of responsibility, particularly when they involved more than one such area or a novel problem. Among such activities during the last year were the following: (1) participation in development of the Memorandum of Understanding on the Post-attack Resupply of Food to the Territory of Guam, an agreement between the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior, the Governor of Guam, and the Office of Emergency Planning dated February 15, 1967; (2) review of drafts of several circulars and other documents proposed by the Office of Emergency Planning; (3) review of regulations on safeguarding classified defense information which implement Executive Order 10501: (4) participation in drafting of the report and recommendations of a subcommittee of the OEP's Interagency Emergency Construction Committee; (5) consultation with OEP staff on an OEP proposal which led to assignment to the Secretary of the Interior of the function of providing advice to industries within his purview concerning vulnerability of present or proposed plant sites, which function until recently had been exercised by the Office of Civil Defense; (6) participation in interagency conferences which led to agreement on the petroleum and gas and electric power communications requirements procedures, which are to be incorporated in OEP Circular 8500.4A ; (7) collaboration in preparation of three Departmental Manual releases pertaining to organization of and delegations of authority to the Defense Electric Power Administration, issued by the Secretary of the Interior on June 8, 1967, with certain provisions so shaped that similar ones can be incorporated in planned revisions of Departmental Manual releases covering Interior's other emergency organizations; (8) compilation of Interior's reports to OEP on objectives and progress of emergency preparedness programs; (9) in accordance with OEP guidelines. provision of budget guidance to Interior's offices conducting industrial preparedness activities, and (10) compilation of data and reports for the Joint Committee on Defense Production, Congress of the United States. STAFFING AND FUNDS The small Washington headquarters staffs engaged full time in emergency activities of the Department of the Interior were maintained at about the same strength during fiscal year 1967 as in the preceding year. It was necessary to curtail planned programs in the field, however, because of a reduction of funds for certain portions of the Department's emergency preparedness activities which are financed by allotment from appropriations to the Office of Emergency Planning for OEP delegate agencies. The allotment for fiscal year 1967 was $341.500, as compared with $359,500 for fiscal year 1966. As a result of this reduction, the number of regional mobilization representatives of the Office of Oil and Gas had to be cut from the seven employed as of June 30, 1966, to four. While no cuts had to be made in staffs of the Defense Electric Power Administration, which has only three field representatives, and the Office of Minerals and Solid Fuels, which has no field employees, the emergency preparedness activities which these offices were able to carry on in the field were necessarily limited. The amount of funds to be available for support of such OEP-funded activities in fiscal year 1968 had not yet been determined as fiscal year 1967 closed. AUTHORITY FOR PROGRAMS Authority for the nonmilitary defense programs of the Department of the Interior is derived principally from the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended, the Federal Civil Defense Act of 1950, as amended, and the National Security Act of 1947, as amended-all as affected by Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1958, as amended. Authority for certain aspects of the Department's activities related to stockpiling is provided by the Strategic and Critical Materials Stock Piling Act of 1946, as amended. Executive orders The principal Executive orders pertaining to responsibilities and functions of this Department under the above statutes are the following: |