Senator DwORSHAK. I have one question, Mr. Penfold.

You say in the next-to-last paragraph:

** and, most importantly in our judgment, including the opportunity for people to enrich their lives and their understanding by participation in wilderness experience.

Actually, you do not think that restricting wilderness areas will make them more accessible and more usable by more people, do you? Mr. PENFOLD. That is a separate question, Senator.

Senator DwORSHAK. I just want you to clarify the very definite statement you make that one reason you support this is because you want to enrich the lives of more people. I share your concern in that regard, but I am not yet been able to convince myself from judging by the experiences we have had in Idaho with about 3 million acres of primitive areas, that there has been afforded an opportunity to more people to enjoy the recreational facilities which have been restricted within these areas.

Mr. PENFOLD. Of course, Senator, my statement here relates specifically to wilderness experience itself, not some other kind of recreation experience, but wilderness experience.

I might point out that in my home State of Colorado, where I am most familiar, we have a very fine primitive area at the present time, something in the neighborhood of 60,000 acres which, because of the development of roads, which came from mining access, over which the Forest Service, of course, has no control, recreation use has developed on those roads. It is impossible to stop. The area is no longer a primitive area. The Forest Service is going to take it out of the primitive classification because of that.

Granted that there are more people at the moment going into that area with the use of jeeps and cars, and so forth. What they are getting is not a wilderness experience.

Senator DwORSHAK. This is the point I am trying to develop, that when you build a wall around these areas that in reality you are making them restricted, so far as increased use is concerned by more people.

Mr. PENFOLD. We are providing the very highest type of recreation opportunity for everybody who is interested enough to go there.

Senator DwORSHAK. How do people get into these areas if you prevent roadbuilding?

Mr. PENFOLD. I have always gotten in by-
Senator DwORSHAK. Helicopter or what?
Mr. PENFOLD. I walk in.

Senator DwORSHAK. You walk in.

Mr. PENFOLD. Or take a horse.

Senator DWORSHAK. How many miles?

Mr. PENFOLD. Well, never far enough because the area-I was not being facetious, Senator, but none of these areas are so large that if you go very far, why, you start coming out the other side.

Senator DwORSHAK. Of course, you would not want to do that.
The CHAIRMAN. Any other question?

Thank you very much, Mr. Penfold.
Senator HICKEY. Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Senator Hickey.

Senator HICKEY. Mr. Penfold, I was interested in one remark of yours that is not on your written statement, that is, that the expanding of this wildlife-wilderness area would have an effect and would be desirable to you as an official of the Izaak Walton League; the restriction of recreation would have the effect of restricting hunting and fishing. And this you approve of?

Mr. PENFOLD. I approve of trying to provide the people of the country with a whole range of outdoor recreation experience of the very highest quality, which will be found in wilderness areas such as the Bridger of your own State, the Tetons, as well as the recreation that is more readily accessible and available to them.

For example, in Colorado with the proposed elimination of the Uncompahgre wilderness and the probable elimination of the Flat Tops due to the beetle-killed timber and the Forest Service decision that it should not be harvested, areas under all types of classification as wilderness will be reduced to about 4 percent of the national forest in the State of Colorado.

Consequently, for those who do not have the interest nor the opportunity to go to wilderness areas, they have 96 percent of all the national forest to which they can go. We certainly support further development of timber access roads, and so on, in the forests. There are not enough roads, but they are being built. They are being made available to all these other areas.

Senator HICKEY. Then did I draw the wrong conclusion from your statement that actually the creation of the wilderness area will restrict the present recreational use to other than for the purpose of walking in?

Mr. PENFOLD. More people are walking into wilderness areas every

year.

Senator HICKEY. But this proposal to eliminate some of the roads in areas would be included into a wilderness area, it would have the effect of making less land available for the recreational use both in your State and mine. I notice in one of these statements here a tabulation which indicates that in your State and my State, particularly in my State, putting certain lands that are not wilderness areas now into the system under this act would increase about 15 percent the lands owned by the Federal Government. Would that, in effect, reduce the areas now used for all recreational purposes by 15 percent? Mr. PENFOLD. I do not think that S. 174 provides for the acquisition any lands which are not now owned by the Federal Government. Senator HICKEY. But is it not a fact, as I understand it here, that the effect of this bill would be to put in wilderness areas some lands that are not now wilderness areas for a period of 15 years, or so long as it takes to study them?

of

Mr. PENFOLD. No, sir, that is not quite correct.

The only areas we are talking about in S. 174 are areas which are now within the present wilderness system. They consist of wild, wilderness, primitive, and canoe areas, but they are all of them are. Senator HICKEY. I agree with you.

Mr. PENFOLD. They are all in it now.

66737-61-8

Senator HICKEY. But the primitive areas today are not restricted to just one type of use, hunters and fishermen go in there and there are roads in there. Is not that true, in your area as well as mine?

Mr. PENFOLD. No, sir. The areas classified by the Forest Service as primitive at the present time are administered under the same prime regulations that apply to the present wild and wilderness areas, so there are not roads except where roads have encroached principally from mining.

Senator HICKEY. That is my point. Are not you saying that roads have encroached on these areas?

Mr. PENFOLD. Roads have encroached.

Senator HICKEY. Are not you saying that?

Mr. PENFOLD. Yes, sir, they have. You are making a very fine point for me in support of the bill. Every time that the Forest Service at the time of its present procedures, such as in the Uncompahgre case, restudies the area they find that areas which have been within the primitive area before must now be cut out because roads have encroached. So they are cut out. That is one of the first things that the Forest Service does when it studies one of these primitive areas as the start and procedure to either make it a wild or wilderness area, or not make it a wild or wilderness area is to look at the roads that have encroached.

Senator HICKEY. Under this bill some of those areas that are primitive areas and into which roads have encroached will become wilderness areas if the bill is passed and the roads will be permitted to go back to their wilderness-type condition. Is that not true?

Mr. PENFOLD. I think, judging by past experience, that would occur in a very limited number of cases. I think that the rule will be that where roads have been developed and have developed at considerable use, they will be retained and that particular area will be cut out of the wilderness.

Senator HICKEY. Then, it is your opinion that after the 15-year study these areas that have been encroached upon would be eliminated by the agencies that study it from the wilderness areas. Is that correct?

Mr. PENFOLD. I think that would be the case for the most part.
The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Penfold.

Mr. Gray is our next witness.

STATEMENT OF W. HOWARD GRAY, CHAIRMAN, PUBLIC LANDS COMMITTEE OF THE AMERICAN MINING CONGRESS

Mr. GRAY. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is W. Howard Gray. I am an attorney at law of Reno, Nev., and have been engaged in the practice of mining law for over 33 years. As chairman of the Public Lands Committee of the American Mining Congress, I am here to state the opposition of the mining industry to the pending bill, S. 174. I wish to express our appreciation to the committee for the opportunity to present the industry's views on this

measure.

The American Mining Congress, a national organization comprised of both large and small producers of metals and minerals in the United

States, adopted in October 1960, a declaration of policy, which in part reads as follows:

Productivity and full utilization of the public lands should be a fundamental principle in the maintenance of our military strength and economic growth.

We believe that the public interest is served by assuring that the public domain is kept open for prospecting and the location of minerals. We, therefore, oppose the withdrawal of any area or any extension of a closed area unless it is established that the closing of an area is of far greater importance to the national welfare than the full utilization of such area for the development of its potential mineral resources. We believe that existing withdrawals should periodically be reviewed and reduced, and the area of new withdrawals strictly limited, to the end that public lands closed to prospecting shall be kept to a minimum.

The enactment of any measure or establishment of any rule or regulation, or the determination of any executive agency, which would preclude or obstruct or limit access to or utilization of the mineral and other natural resources on the public domain, is contrary to the public interest-not only of the States directly affected, but of the Nation-and is vigorously opposed by the American Mining Congress.

This statement of the industry's views is a reiteration of the position the industry has consistently taken over the years. This position of the mining industry is not arbitrary nor does it stem from self-interest. It is based upon the fact that our standard of living, our national defense and welfare, and our strength in international affairs requires, and in fact, demands adequate availability of mineral resources. Access to these resources must be unobstructed.

Contrast the objectives of the wilderness bill to the U.S.S.R. where it is a national goal to achieve as great a self-sufficiency mineralwise as is possible and without reliance on satellite nations. In Communist Russia today there is a Ministry of Geology and Conservation of Natural Resources represented at the Cabinet level. According to reports received in this country, there are some 400,000 people engaged in exploration and geological work throughout the U.S.S.R. There is an intensive mapping program underway to determine the nature. and extent of the mineral resources of Russia. In conducting this program, the Russians are locating the mineral resources which are of economic use to them today while at the same time determining the existence of reserves of submarginal grade minerals which may be brought into use as conditions dictate. They have gone a step further and are devoting great energy and research to ways and means of making these submarginal minerals economic. Cannot the philosophy of locking up mineral resources, as contained in S. 174, create a mineral gap?

The effect of S. 174, sections 3(a) and 3(b), if made law, would be to blanket into the wilderness system all areas in the national forest presently designated as wilderness, wild, or canoe areas. As to these areas the bill fails to provide any method for reviewing the prior determination that they are wilderness or wild areas.

Under S. 174, section 3(b) (1), only primitive areas within the national forest would be reviewed by the Secretary of Agriculture as to the suitability of such primitive areas for reservation as wilderness. The President is required to report to Congress his recommendation with respect to the continued inclusion within the wilderness system of each area. These recommendations become effective unless Congress, by the adoption of a concurrent resolution of both Houses, expresses its disapproval of such recommendation.

The CHAIRMAN. May I pause there and ask, since you are our lawyer, what opportunity do you now have if the law does not pass, of reviewing the determination if they are wilderness areas?

Mr. GRAY. We have no opportunity, but we still have the right to go in and mine in these areas at the present time.

The CHAIRMAN. In the wilderness areas?

Mr. GRAY. In the wilderness areas, and in the wild areas as well.
The CHAIRMAN. You will not have an opportunity later on?
Mr. GRAY. We would not if this bill became law, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Can you mine the wilderness now, Mr. Crafts?
Mr. CRAFTS. Yes, sir; you can.

The CHAIRMAN. And he is stopped under this proposed law? Mr. CRAFTS. Under this bill, if it became enacted, there will be no further mining claims in the wilderness areas unless the President opens them up.

The CHAIRMAN. He can authorize mining. Page 12 lets the President go in there and authorize prospecting, mining, and so forth. What is severe about this? Is there any mining now in the wilderness?

Mr. GRAY. There is none in my State. There may be some in some other State, Mr. Chairman, that I do not have any knowledge of. I know that under the law we have the right to do so. Under the present setup we have the right to do so. And I would like to deal with the provision in regard to the President's permission later on or if you would like to have me take it up I will take it up now.

The CHAIRMAN. Later on.

Mr. GRAY. Thus by the passage of this act, approximately 7 million acres of land presently designated as wilderness and wild would be incorporated in the wilderness system without any opportunity of reviewing its present classification. In addition, almost 8 million acres of land presently designated as primitive would be incorporated in the wilderness system by the passage of this act and could be removed only by Presidential recommendation. As stated above, so far as primitive areas are concerned, the President's recommendations become final unless such recommendations are not approved by the adoption of a concurrent resolution by both Houses of Congress expressing its disapproval of such recommendation.

Subsection (c) of section 3 authorizes the Secretary of Interior to designate continuous areas of 5,000 acres or more without roads in the national park system as areas which should be incorporated in the wilderness system. The procedure for incorporation is that the President's recommendation to Congress becomes effective unless Congress adopts a concurrent resolution disapproving such recommendation.

Section 3(d) of S. 174 provides that such portions of the "wildlife refuges and game ranges under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Interior as he may recommend for such incorporation to the President within 10 years following the effective date" of the bill will, if such recommendations become the recommendations of the President to the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, become part of the wilderness system, unless Congress adopts a concurrent resolution to the effect that it does not approve such recommendations.