whether we could not draft the same type of bill as the Cape Cod bill that could be used for the Virgin Islands. He implied to me while I was down there and meeting with several of the islanders there that they were satisfied with the boundary, but they wanted to pin the boundary down because you know the basic act says not to exceed so many acres to be established by the Secretary of the Interior. He felt he wanted a bill that would set the boundary, set it by Congress so it would not be changed. I told him we were not interested in any bill, but we would be glad to do that. My letter of January 29 to him definitely states those facts.

Mr. ASPINALL. Thank you very much.

Mr. WIRTH. I am leaving this for your files.

Mr. ASPINALL. Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent that the copy of the letter to Senator Moorhead, who is a member of the Virgin Islands Legislature, be made a part of the file.

Mr. MORRIS. Hearing no objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. ASPINALL. Mr. Chairman, our colleague, Mr. Kyl, who is necessarily absent this morning, asked me to ask the Director of the National Park Service what, if any, progress has been made to date on Point Reyes, and has there been any increase, as far as the National Park Service knows, in the cost of the land proposed for inclusion in that area.

Mr. WIRTH. I feel very strongly about it, and I do know the cost of land has gone up. Just what it is, I do not know. We have set up a project office out there and we are now taking options. We do not have any money for land acquisition. There was a $5 million item in the supplemental bill when Congress adjourned which failed to pass. I understand it will be submitted again. However, we are taking options subject to the availibility of funds and trying to negotiate options so that when money is available we can start buying and get it as cheap as we possibly can.

Mr. ASPINALL. Maybe I did not understand your statement.

Did you say you were asking for additional authorization or additional appropriation?

Mr. WIRTH. No, sir. I think the authorization bill is 16

Mr. ASPINALL. Whatever it is, do you think it is still enough?

Mr. WIRTH. It is $14 million. We are asking $5 million cash this year. I do not think the $14 million will buy the land, no, sir, I do not. If everybody came in and wanted to sell their land now, we would not have the money.

Mr. ASPINALL. That is the same position that you took, if I remember, during the hearings.

Mr. WIRTH. That is correct. We are seeking and we shall continue to seek donated funds, if we possibly can, to complete the project. If we cannot, I think we may have to come back to Congress with our problem.

Mr. ASPINALL. I have a question of my own. It has to do with the question of the elk herd in the Yellowstone area.

This committee took jurisdiction of the problem, had a subcommittee hearing in that area this last winter. The bill has been referred to the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries of the House. Would this in any way tend to cause any embarrassment as far as the National Park Service control and position in this matter?

Mr. WIRTH. We have stopped our elk reduction program in Yellowstone because we have reached our quota. We had a big reduction last year and we were short 1,600 in order to reduce it down to a carrying basis. The State of Montana and the State of Wyoming cooperated very well with us and trapped elk for transplanting and the State of Montana opened the hunting season again north of the park and the elk-this is a second season, they opened and then they closed and then opened up again later when the elk were out of the park.

I am pleased to report we are through reducing the elk herd there and from now on it will be just the annual increment that will be necessary to watch. We think with cooperation and transplanting from now on and opening of the season to meet the migration from the north of the park, and I am sure Montana will help on this in the future like it did this year, I think we will be in good shape. It is a question of balancing our carrying without violating our basic principle of park management. We have ceased because the hunters have taken in the post season-trapped for transplanting, 350 went to Wyoming, 300 to Montana, direct reduction-there were 400-and-some killed by hunters outside of the park in the hunting season, and after hunting season 510. Most of them came before the hunting season was closed and the new opening.

There is certain cooperation going on with the University of Montana in their biological collection and we will continue to take one or two for their analysis from now on until, most likely, May, I think. They have to take them in various months. So there will be another 50 taken that way.

Mr. ASPINALL. How many elk were harvested in the park during the last year?

Mr. WIRTH. This record here shows there were actually about 1,640. We were shooting for 1,600.

Mr. ASPINALL. Let me ask you this. Why could not this procedure have been followed during the last 5 years so that we would not have had the turmoil we had this last year concerning the harvesting of elk, and the way they were harvested within the park area?

Mr. WIRTH. Mr. Chairman, we have been waiting and hoping that we could get a winter which would drive them out and the hunting season would tie in with the cold weather. I will be perfectly frank; we waited too long in hopes it could be done that way rather than the way it finally had to be done. Last year, we had to take a big take inside the park and we did not have a meeting of the winter with hunting. The elk went out last winter, but the hunting season was closed and they came back in again as they started migrating. So this year, with the cooperation of the State of Montana, they cut down the regular and season and stopped it. When the snow came and drove them on out into the lower feeding grounds, they opened up their hunting season again and they did not have to keep it open as long as they anticipated. We hope this will go on for now on and we will not have that trouble.

Mr. ASPINALL. In other words, if you had known the hunting season was going to be as satisfactory this last fall, you perhaps would not have had to reduce the elk herd as you did in the park during the rest of the year; is that correct?

Mr. WIRTH. That is correct.

Mr. ASPINALL. As far as I am concerned, Mr. Director, I am on your side in this. I think you folks did a very effective piece of work in taking care of the matter as you did, and I am not critical, but I do hope we do not have to go through the same turmoil.

Mr. WIRTH. I certainly hope so, too. I do say all the meat we did take in there, as you well know, went to the Indians and that there is nothing that the ranger despises or hates to do more than have to handle a reduction program. We would much rather have it done the other way if we have to have it done.

Mr. ASPINALL. Mr. Chairman, as I use up a few more minutes, if any member wishes to have me yield to them, I will be glad to do so. Mr. MORRIS. Will the gentleman yield to me?

Mr. ASPINALL. I am glad to.

Mr. MORRIS. Had you officially contacted the Department of Game and Fish of Wyoming and Montana requesting their cooperation in this matter before last year?

Mr. WIRTH. Yes, sir, we have had a series of meetings with them in the park and there have been various circumstances that prevented certain conditions and certain things. I think there was a division between administrative and technical opinion. But we have been working. We had a series of meetings with the superintendent out there in the summertime. For instance, last year we had a meeting in July which was a very successful meeting, but we have been meeting with them and with the universities, and we have had scientists on it. We have been working with them. We finally, I think, got a formula we can all agree to and will come out with something. We are hoping that this will continue. The Forest Service has been in on it, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the game and fish commissions of the two States, and we think we are now on the right track.

Mr. MORRIS. Is it not a rather simple matter, to ask the game and fish commission, to advise them and request, and inform them the elk are going to be out of the park when the snow comes, and would they cooperate in having an open season on elk so you would not have to do what you did last year?

Mr. WIRTH. Mr. Chairman, you are right, it is a very simple thing to ask them.

Mr. MORRIS. And you did ask them?

Mr. WIRTH. Oh, yes.

Mr. MORRIS. They could not get together on their technical and administrative details.

Mr. WIRTH. That is right. We have got to look at it this way: They have their problems, too.

Mr. MORRIS. I do not question that. Everybody has their problems. I realize we all have problems, and so does everybody else.

Mr. WIRTH. I am sure you do.

Mr. RIVERS. Would the gentleman yield to me?

Mr. MORRIS. The gentleman from Alaska.

Mr. RIVERS. I went with Congressmen Olsen of Montana and presided at the taking of testimony on the hearings a month ago and we took several reams of testimony, and it did certainly get to be a difficult problem, how to cope with the deerherd within the park.

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Sometimes if the State opened the hunting season, the hunters would form a sort of firing line outside the boundaries and after a few of them are down, then the bunch of elk change their mind and turn around and go back again.

This is not easy, Mr. Chairman. I want to say that many people who testified spoke in favor of your making these animals available to be transplanted to other parts of Montana and nearby States where they are short of elk while here there is a surplus.

Is your Department going to do something in trying to work with the State authorities in carrying out a transplanting program?

Mr. WIRTH. We do do that and it is a question of trapping. The State of Montana contributed a helicopter along with one that we rented to drive them into traps and we have had fairly good success in driving them into traps. Montana will not accept them unless they had all been dipped, so we went and worked with them to build a dipping trough, and it is a little problem to get an elk to go through a dipping trough. It is not as easy as with cattle. Of course, you have to saw off all their horns because they get all tied up there and kill themselves and kill others. It is a difficult job. But we did trap and deliver as many as they would take this year and they are having a problem of disposing of them outside the park because some ranchers would prefer not to have a herd of elk on their grassland.

Mr. RIVERS. Thank you.

Mr. ASPINALL. Mr. Chairman, before we adjourn, I have a very distinguished constituent in the room, the gentleman who has been pitted with me in some of our national contests. He was my opponent a few years ago, a very close personal friend. He is a county commissioner of longtime standing, recognized nationally, and I would like for the Honorable Hugh Caldwell to stand up.

Mr. CHENOWETH. Mr. Chairman, I would like to join in welcoming our good friend, Hugh Caldwell, and it is a pleasure to have him in Washington.

Mr. MORRIS. We are very happy to have our bipartisan guest here. I thank you, Mr. Wirth, and Mr. Crafts. We extend the appreciation of the committee for your explanations and your statements. Those of us on the committee will make every effort to cooperate and bring forth legislation which we hope will be of benefit to everyone in this matter.

Mr. WIRTH. We thank you.

Mr. MORRIS. The subcommittee stands adjourned.

(Whereupon, at 11:45 o'clock a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned, subject to the call of the Chair.)

BRIEFING ON BUREAU OF MINES, OFFICE OF COAL RESEARCH, OFFICE OF MINERALS EXPLORATION, AND U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1963

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON MINES AND MINING,
COMMITTEE ON INTERIOR AND INSULAR AFFAIRS,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10 o'clock a.m., in room 1324, House Office Building, Hon. Ed Edmondson, chairman of the subcommittee presiding.

Mr. EDMONDSON. The Subcommittee on Mines and Mining will come to order. I would like to express my appreciation to the specialists of the Department of the Interior who are here this morning to be available and back up our witnesses who are scheduled here this morning. I understand from staff members that Mr. O'Leary and Mr. McCaskill are prepared to make a presentation at this time and other members of the Department are available for questioning.

Will you come forward, Mr. O'Leary and Mr. McCaskill.

STATEMENT OF JOHN J. O'LEARY, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR FOR MINERAL RESOURCES, AND JOSEPH C. MCCASKILL, STAFF ASSISTANT, OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR MINERAL RESOURCES

Mr. O'LEARY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure for us to be here and have a chance to meet with you, meet your new members, and to tell you something about the minerals industries in the past year and something about the activities of the Department of the Interior in the mineral resources area.

I would like to amend what you said. I would like first of all to talk a little bit about the performance of the mineral industry in the year just passed and then I think each of the responsible officers would like to cover his own area.

Mr. EDMONDSON. Very well.

Mr. O'LEARY. The tempo of activity in the minerals industry as an industry generally increased throughout 1962. The value of total mineral production reached a record of $18.7 billion, up more than $500 million from the previous high established in 1961. Most minerals gained both in value and in volume of production during the year, the greatest increase being in fuels. All mineral fuels except anthracite showed increases, and among the nonmetallic minerals other