to making this into a project that will be economically feasible so the people on it can make a living on it?

Mr. DOMINY. May I go off the record?

Mr. ROGERS. Off the record.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. ROGERS. Without objection, let the record show we do want one of these reports for the subcommittee as quickly as possible, and for the full committee.

One other question. I believe you estimated there has been about $500 per acre invested in this up to the present time. What I am interested in at this time, if you have that, give up an approximation, in your own mind, as to the amount of additional investment that would be required for drainage purposes in order to make this land usable.

Mr. DOMINY. I would rather wait to give you that until we have analyzed this report. My judgment on it would be, if you considered 10,000 acres, that perhaps an average of about $100 an acre. But this is merely a judgment figure, and I would rather wait.

Mr. ROGERS. În making your review and your recommendations, would you keep that in mind, because it is something I am interested in. Mr. DOMINY. Yes, sir.

Mr. ROGERS. Are there any further questions?

Mr. SAYLOR. Mr. Chairman?

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Saylor.

Mr. SAYLOR. I notice that Mr. Dominy looks with favor upon my bill in which I have recommended that the Bureau of Reclamation's jurisdiction be extended to the 50 States. When I ask for a report, I certainly hope that the people down there will urge that this action be taken.

Mr. ROGERS. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SAYLOR. Yes.

Mr. ROGERS. I may be wrong about this, but it has also been my feeling that the Bureau of Reclamation States were at a distinct disadvantage because we have to pay back all the money we get, and I thought Pennsylvania and the other States were getting these projects through the Corps of Engineers without having to pay for them. I may be wrong about that.

Mr. SAYLOR. I tell you we are so anxious to just be put under the same handicap that you and the 17 Western States have been under all of these years.

Mr. ROGERS. If the gentleman will yield further, we were thinking about joining you.

Mr. SAYLOR. If you do, and if we get rid of the Bureau of Reclamation, I am willing to go along. I will take that step, too.

Mr. ROGERS. Are there further questions? If not, the committee stands adjourned, subject to the call of the Chair.

(Whereupon, at 12:02 p.m., the committee adjourned, subject to the call of the Chair.)

BRIEFING ON PUBLIC LAND MATTERS

FEBRUARY 5, 1963

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON PUBLIC LANDS OF THE
COMMITTEE ON INTERIOR AND INSULAR AFFAIRS,

Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in the committee room, 1324 Longworth Building, Hon. Walter S. Baring, chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.

Mr. ASPINALL. The Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs will now be in session for the business that is regularly scheduled to come before it.

Inasmuch as the jurisdiction of those matters to be considered this morning comes under the operations of the Subcommittee on Public Lands, I shall now turn the gavel over to the new chairman of the Subcommittee on Public Lands, Walter Baring, Congressman from Nevada.

Mr. BARING (now presiding). We have before the committee this morning John A. Carver, Jr., who is Assistant Secretary of the Department of the Interior for Public Land Management.

Mr. Carver, we want to welcome you and Mr. Landstrom to the committee. We have several new members on the committee this morning. We want them to get acquainted with you people from the Department as well and possibly open this up to questioning after you get through with your statements.

Mr. Secretary, will you proceed?

STATEMENTS OF JOHN A. CARVER, JR., ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC LAND MANAGEMENT, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, AND KARL S. LANDSTROM, DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT; ACCOMPANIED BY HAROLD R. HOCHMUTH, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT; EUGENE V. ZUMWALT, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, RANGE AND FORESTRY, BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT; JERRY A. O'CALLAGHAN, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, PLANS AND LEGISLATION, BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT; JAMES F. DOYLE, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, LANDS AND MINERALS, BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT; LEON R. NADEAU, CHIEF, DIVISION OF RANGE MANAGEMENT, BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT; EDWIN ZAIDLICZ, CHIEF, DIVISION OF

FOREST MANAGEMENT, BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT; MAX CAPLAN, CHIEF, DIVISION OF MINERALS, BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT; IRVING SENZEL, CHIEF, DIVISION OF LANDS AND RECREATION, BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT; ROBERT McCARTHY, CHIEF, BRANCH OF OPERATIONS AND PROCEDURES, BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT; WILLIAM WOLPH, LEGAL ASSISTANT, BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT; JOSEPH H. TUDOR, ASSISTANT SOLICITOR, BRANCH OF LANDS, OFFICE OF THE SOLICITOR; AND FREDERICK FISHMAN, LEGISLATIVE ATTORNEY, OFFICE OF THE SOLICITOR

Mr. CARVER. Thank you very much.

I have before the committee a written statement which departs, I think, a little from the ordinary procedure in that I have at this first session involving one of the Bureaus for which I have responsibility attempted to make a general presentation of the overall responsibilities of the Assistant Secretary for Public Land Management.

Thereafter, I have a statement on each of the Bureaus from my point of view, each of the Bureaus which I supervise. So this morning, at least, the statements which I have will in effect be a general statement covering all of the Bureau as the initial presentation.

Mr. Chairman, the Department of the Interior issues an annual report. This report is arranged in the usual organizational pattern, and my first experience with it was when my staff laid before me a draft of material to fill the two pages allotted to show the activities of the Assistant Secretary, Public Land Management. Viewed in its most charitable light, it simply claimed credit for the same accomplishments listed in the Bureau sections of the report and these largely were based on activities completed or in progress before my appointment. I said I conceived my responsibilities as being somewhat different, and that if I could not claim accomplishments apart from Bureau accomplishments I would rather say nothing.

If you look in the 1961 report, page 275, you will see that of the two pages allotted to me, one is but half full, and the other embarrassingly blank.

In preparing for this hearing, I reread the proceedings of this committee at a similar hearing 2 years ago. The committee at the opening of the 87th Congress was only slightly changed from its makeup in the 86th; one notable change was that the gentleman from Arizona had moved to this side of the table. The Secretarial officers, excepting the veteran Otis Beasley, were all new.

I wish that I could be as bright now as I was 2 years ago. Two years of experience is the wrong number-too long to permit excuses, and too short to furnish solutions.

I hope to begin this year's briefings by telling a little of how I conceive my responsibilities above and beyond signing the mail, and claiming credit for Bureau accomplishments. After that, with the help of the Bureau chiefs, we can get into the programs themselves.

The Interior Department, like the Interior Committee, is a vastly exciting place to work. In the bobtailed annual report section of 1961, I referred to the

extreme range of diversity of mission, from the broadest spectrum of government itself in the trust territory * to the essentially proprietary nature of operating a mainline railroad

*

I came to the Department already aware of article IV, section 3, clause 2 of the Constitution. The significance for the part of Interior which includes the territories, the public lands including parks, and lands of the United States held in trust for Indians of a clause which specifies that the

Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States, was and is obvious to me.

Much of the time I capture for thinking is devoted not so much to legislative activities, from the point of view of the Departmentreports and testimony on bills and on the executive communications we have sent up-as to the rulemaking and adjudicative functions which fill out the legislative skeleton. Here is where, it seems to me, leadership can rise above a mere recital of program.

After 2 years we all have a record. I think my record in this area would be considered good if the measure were what I have said within and without the Department. I have said that we are going to administer, not make law; that if we have standards which govern the exercise of discretion granted by Congress, we ought to make them known to the public affected by them; that identification of areas needing legislative patching is a responsibility of supervision as well as of adjudication; that the manipulation of pressure groups is an unworthy way to resolve conflicts; and that the surest way to sacrifice a program is to be "cute" with Congress, its committees, or its Members. Measured by the more practical test of what has been done under such principles, my record is probably less good. I think I can report progress in that now a few more people within the Department are willing to concede that a statute might take precedence over an inconsistent regulation or manual entry. I think we are about to make a major breakthrough in simplifying and hastening final departmental decisions, so that an aggrieved citizen can have his day in a civil court while the controversy still has meaning, at the same time stiffening the review process designed to see that injustices are not done in the administrative process. But the progress has been painful, and much yet needs doing.

In addition to introspection on how laws are executed in a free government, I have thought about the general responsibilities of stewardship. A Congress which has committed the details of management of the public's resources to an executive department does not always specify that the duty of the manager is to prevent waste or dissipation of the asset; the duty is there nonetheless.

I doubt that it is a new statement, and perhaps it is neither good law nor good policy, but I think that the Interior Department's duty along this line transcends identifying deficiencies, calculating their dollar equivalent, and sending the bill to Congress.