I have discussed the situation with the Secretary several times and I would like to state that I support most provisions of the conservation fund bill.

I applaud your go-ahead policy in park development but I am much concerned about the entrance fee provisions.

How would we police and enforce entrance fees on our Forest Service roads and parkways where there is no control to the access?

Secretary UDALL. Our feeling has been that in areas where there is not a reasonable control that can be exercised, we ought not be setting ourselves up to exercise one. This is a general principle that is embodied in my statement. Where we cannot control access, it would be very bad policy to be trying to enforce anything.

Mr. TAYLOR. Then, realizing that a man going into the parkways and parks with his family and children, you see danger in stopping cars and issuing stickers and giving tickets and embarrassing people in the presence of their families?

Secretary UDALL. We think that this program can be administered in such a way, and we intend to take the soft approach on it, that it can be sold as something that is good for the country and that we will not have to use heavyhanded methods in enforcement. This is going to be our whole approach to it.

We are going to spend a great deal of time educating ourselves on how to do it.

Mr. TAYLOR. Of course, if it is limited to areas where you control access, then it can be policed at the entrance?

Secretary UDALL. This is relatively simple. This is the essence of it. If we get beyond our proper sphere, of course, we are going to have difficulties with people that are not interested in outdoor recreation.

Mr. TAYLOR. I was thinking of a parkway like the Blue Ridge Parkway, crossing 25 State roads, and U.S. highways with hundreds of entrances and exists, where access just cannot be controlled. Have you developed a conclusion in your mind as to how this might apply to the Blue Ridge Parkway?

Secretary UDALL. I do not know, Congressman, that I would want to make any flat conclusive statement on it.

It is going to be a matter of deciding whether we can control access sufficiently in these areas, so that it is reasonable to charge. The Blue Ridge Parkway is more than a parkway. It is a series of parks. There are a lot of these park areas in the parkway that are developed. There are camping facilities and so on.

We are very clear these are areas where we have control and charge. Control is the key test, it seems to us, with regard to administration. Mr. TAYLOR. Since North Carolina has already been brought into this discussion by two of my colleagues, let me state that no State in the Union is more proud of its national parks and parkways. You have visited our different parks and have shown a real interest in them and for that we are very grateful. I know you are familiar with the fact that most all of our parks and parkways come about as a result of the partnership program between the State and the Federal Government. That is, the State has contributed to a portion of the cost of all of our parks and I believe you would agree this creates certain equities and in some cases certain legal obligations and unusual situations caused by this historical background which should be taken into consideration.

Secretary UDALL. We certainly intend to honor any agreements that were entered into.

I want to indicate by that that we are going to do the very best job that we can of trying to determine what the equities in this are. The Great Smoky Mountain National Park is one of the most visited parks. There are some of these high mountain skyline scenic roads. back in the park, developed areas, and we are going to make charges in these areas. I think the Congress anticipates that there will be areas where this will be done; but at the same time, we are going to attempt to find out and to honor whatever agreements have been made. Mr. TAYLOR. I notice one of the purposes of this act is to encourage the States to do more. The purpose is to create a partnership between the Federal Government and the States.

While we are planning that partnership, I know you would want to be careful that it did not do inequity to a State which, by its own motion and request, entered into such a partnership arrangement. Secretary UDALL. We want to honor our agreements. I just want to say that.

Mr. TAYLOR. Going a step further, if the chairman will permit, applying this principle to certain specific areas, first let us take the Hatteras Seashore Area, that is an area which was purchased by the State of North Carolina entirely. It was donated a few years ago to the Federal Government without any charge whatsoever.

It contains one, and only one, highway going through it which is owned by the State, maintained by the State even though we did authorize a year ago a Federal contribution to assist and restore a bridge that washed away.

In that situation it would be hard to justify charging any kind of entrance fee, I think?

Secretary UDALL. We do not have entrance fees as such down there at the present time. For example, the people who simply go up and down these highways, this is not the type of situation that probably would envision a user fee.

The people who use the park areas, these are the people, the ones, who are there to use the outdoor recreation facilities offered by the park; we are trying to separate outdoor recreation users and the person who is simply passing up and down a regular highway.

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Secretary, I would state I agree with you on the charge for the use of camping areas and things of that type. I think they are very logical and very appropriate.

Moving now to the Smoky Mountain National Park, you are familiar with the fact that it was acquired by the States of North Carolina and Tennessee, aided by the Rockefeller Foundation and aided by more than $1 million raised by individual subscriptions and donations by the people of North Carolina? It was given free of charge at the time to the Federal Government?

Secretary UDALL. Yes, I am aware of that.

Mr. TAYLOR. The roads, including the main entrance roads, from Cherokee and Gatlinburg were in existence at the time even though they had been improved by the Federal Government, and those roads have been deeded by the States to the Federal Government.

The deed from the State of Tennessee, including this road and some other roads, specifies that a fee shall never be charged on that road.

Secretary UDALL. Those roads in particular present a special problem.

Mr. TAYLOR. While North Carolina did not specify that no fees could be charged on the roads which it deeded to the National Park Service, the North Carolina Highway Commission in the resolution authorizing its deed on September 1, 1938, found as a fact that it had been assured by the National Park Service that no fees would be imposed for use of the roads concerned and the road concerned is the main entrance into the Smoky Mountains National Park on the North Carolina side running from Cherokee to Newfound Gap. Secretary UDALL. Of course, that adds to that special problem, and one reason the situation is acute down there is that they have no fees on any roads and have not had for 30 years.

Mr. TAYLOR. Now, efforts have been made by the Interior Department on two occasions in recent years to place fees on the Blue Ridge Parkway and on each occasion after hearings were conducted and inspections made, it was determined that fees would be inequitable and impracticable and the Department decided that no charge should be made.

I have here more than 30 editorials almost bitter from papers all over the State in opposition to fees on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

In regard to this parkway you are familiar with the fact that the rights-of-way were acquired more than 50 percent by donations from the owners after newspaper editorials assured them this would be a free access road. The balance of the right-of-way was acquired by the States of North Carolina and Virginia and deeded to the Federal Government.

All of these facts should be taken into consideration when you decide whether or not to impose fees on this Federal area.

Secretary UDALL. Yes.

Mr. TAYLOR. I thank the Secretary. I just wanted to bring out this historical background.

Mr. KYL. With the gentleman yield?

Mr. TAYLOR. Yes.

Mr. KYL. The gentleman introduced some legislation in the last session to have the Federal Government participate in building a bridge. Is that bridge now a toll bridge?

Mr. TAYLOR. It is not a toll bridge. There is no toll bridge or toll road anywhere in our State.

Mr. KYL. Did the State of North Carolina-and I am fully aware of the great contribution they made-but did the State of North Carolina ask the Federal Government to come in and make a Federal area of these various parks or did the Federal Government ask the State to make this contribution?

Mr. TAYLOR. It came as a result of negotiation between the two.

I think, in the main, our State has taken the lead in requesting the Federal Government to join hands with us in developing our areas and parks.

Mr. KYL. For what purpose? What was the benefit to the State that was derived from this partnership?

Mr. TAYLOR. Of course, the gentleman knows the answer to that question.

It is of great benefit to every section of our country. We have a great tourist business down there and we are very proud of it and we think the park is a service to people from all over the Nation.

Secretary UDALL. May I make one comment in which I think both of you gentlemen would be interested?

Because of my own feeling, and I have been down there, the way people in North Carolina prize their out of doors, and because of what North Carolina itself will get back for its own State program, I fully anticipate whatever type of user-fee program we come up with, a lot of the great majority of the North Carolina people will buy a car sticker anyway.

Mr. ASPINALL. If my colleague would yield, this happens to be a more or less universal problem. It is true that we folks in the public lands States do not have title to our lands and that is also true of many of the policies set in the land laws and the Taylor Grazing Act and subsequent acts.

We are considered as permittees in most of our lands.

The question of the use of these areas is just the same when you have the title to the land, simple fee title or a lease.

When the Federal Government steps in for the national good-I am not opposing my friend's idea on these particular facilities he is talking about-but when the Federal Government proposed to come in and take over certain areas and disregard the present users who live in the areas, the long-time users of those areas-I am not a neophyte when it comes to my residence in one of the Western States we have the feeling that we have contributed to the national welfare. This is so whether it is in Dinosaur National Park where the users have used that historically since white men first went there with their grazing herds, or whether it happens to be in Rocky Mountain National Park where you dispossess some people who have a legitimate use.

All of us are contributors to a certain extent to these problems that arise when we set aside certain areas for the use of the public. I look at this not so much because of the historical contribution of the people in North Carolina-and I think that is good, just like the historical contribution of the people of the public land States where you have minerals, lumber, grazing, and water resources which have been taken over by the Federal Government-but as a question of whether or not it is practical to operate. I do not think it is practical to have a fee operation on Trail Ridge Road. I expect that I am one of the few Members of Congress who has driven that road from the southernmost boundary clear to the northernmost terminal, which is not a part of the Trail Ridge Road but a beautiful part of the whole facility, Skyline Drive.

When we present our positions most of us will have to give a little bit in order to get a universal operation or we will not get anything. Thank you very much.

Mr. MORRIS. Further questions?

Mr. SKUBITZ. I have no questions.

Mr. MORRIS. Mr. Udall?

Mr. UDALL. I have one inquiry which perhaps should be directed to my friend from North Carolina rather than this witness, whom I think I have seen previously.

Secretary UDALL. Obviously in complete accord with me.

Mr. ASPINALL. We do not find you were the cosponsor of one of these particular bills. Is there any family reason you have kept out of this predicament?

Secretary UDALL. I promised the voters of Arizona I would not be dominated by this particular witness. While I am in complete accord with this legislation and have not introduced a bill for this purpose, I will this afternoon, if it will make my friend from Colorado feel better.

I have been in North Carolina, seen the Blue Ridge Parkway, and so on, and I have been impressed with what the people of North Carolina have done. I think if I were in my colleague's place I perhaps would be taking the position he has taken, with perhaps as much vigor.

I am wondering if this is the possible solution. I know the local people have to cross the Blue Ridge Parkway to get from farm to market and have to cross it for ordinary things connected with their daily lives. In situations of this kind you might work out a policy so the fellow from Arizona who shows up at the gate has to get a sticker, but anyone from North Carolina is exempted from this because of the many other reasons he might have to use the road and the historic part played in decisions applying to this land.

Has this come up?

Mr. TAYLOR. Your suggestion was in line with one the Secretary just made, that free use of the North Carolina section of the Blue Ridge Parkway and the section of the Smoky Mountains Park located in North Carolina might be available to North Carolinians without charge.

That would be one thing to take into consideration. It would be helpful. I don't think that is the entire solution, however.

Mr. UDALL. That is all I have, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. MORRIS. The gentleman from Virginia?

Mr. MARSH. On page 13 I notice it states the arrangement is 75 percent in reference to the fund and on page 6 it states 60 percent. Are you referring there to the same fund for allocation? The 60 percent is simply a recommended starting point?

Secretary UDALL. This is the flexibility we are talking about. The recommendation we have in the bill would say 60 percent to the States, 40 percent for Federal uses, with 15-percent flexibility up or down, in which the President would make an initial decision and the Congress would have the final say on that. It could go up.

In other words, the qualifying phrase here, "could range from 75 percent"

Mr. MARSH. Sixty percent is the starting point.

Secretary UDALL. That is right, with 15-percent flexibility up and down.

Mr. MARSH. On page 12 where you refer to the allocation of the fund and certain proportions on the basis of one-fifth or multiples thereof, is that one-fifth of the 60-percent allocation of the base? Secretary UDALL. That is right.

Mr. MARSH. I see.

Secretary UDALL. That is the way we would allocate the States' part of the allocation.

Mr. MARSH. Apparently you take the position that in those State parks, developed pursuant to this program, the State will charge their own particular fees or other user fees?

Secretary UDALL. It is up to them; that is right.