STATEMENT OF DR. SPENCER M. SMITH, JR., SECRETARY, CITIZENS COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES

Dr. SMITH. I want to indicate to the chairman that there are many conservation organizations which have supported this bill from its inception and supported the ORRRC report. Many of these representatives are out of the city, and I suspect they will be drifting back from Seattle, and I hope a number of them will make their appearance here tomorrow. I would not want the Chair to think that the witnesses are now disinterested.

I would like simply to file the brief statement I have and make three or four brief comments.

Mr. RUTHERFORD. We shall insert your statement, without objection. (The statement referred to follows:)

STATEMENT OF DR. SPENCER M. SMITH, JR., SECRETARY, CITIZENS COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES

Mr. Chairman, I am Dr. Spencer M. Smith, Jr., secretary of the Citizens Committee on Natural Resources, a national conservation organization with offices in Washington, D.C. Our membership includes some of the outstanding people in the field of conservation. Almost without exception, our board of directors have had a longtime interest in the area of outdoor recreation, so we feel especially honored, Mr. Chairman, to be able to express our views before this committee in behalf of a measure to which many of us have aspired for a very long time.

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We need not explain to the committee the lengthy, arduous, and careful study that has gone into the consideration of our outdoor recreation resources. committee knows better than we, the number of leaders both in and out of Congress who have labored so diligently over a long period of time to bring to fruition a means of implementing the long-range objectives of outdoor recreation for the benefit of the American people.

A new Bureau has been created in the Department of the Interior, which is an important and significant step in the direction of effecting a program for outdoor recreation for the entire country, participated in by all branches of the Government. The recognition by the President and the Secretary of the Interior of this new Bureau is indicated in the appointment of its new Chief. This is about the only appointment during the decade that I have been in Washington, wherein only enthusiastic support has been given to the selection of Dr. Edward Crafts. The Chief of the Bureau is a carefully and professionally trained conservationist, with almost 30 years of dedicated public service carried on with an ability and purpose that is rare in any area of human activity.

In introducing H.R. 11165 and related measures, the House equally represents their strong intent and purpose to carry forth the aims and objectives of this newly created Bureau, to effect the best possible program for outdoor recreation. We hasten to add that while no bill before the Congress will be agreed to in every specific or detail, we feel that any exceptions which we might take are so small in relation to the total substance, that we would happily endorse H.R. 11165 as introduced by the able chairman of the full committee, and the related bills by his distinguished colleagues.

It has been the concern of many that the excellent report by the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission might go the way of so many other reports, worthy as they have been. Time has dulled the significance of many excellent natural resources reports of the past, and eventually renders many of them obsolete. One of the significant contributions of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission report has been not only the factual assimilation that has so long been necessary, but the classification of resource needs and suggested criteria for policy.

Title 1 of H.R. 11165 basically insures that the effort and study that is representated by this report will be kept alive and improved. This is one of the difficult problems in many areas dealing with our natural resources, that is,

having a body of information that keeps a current inventory of resources available and a continued appraisal of the needs and uses of resources by which these needs may be met. The breadth of title 1 is also significant in that every effort is made to cooperate and coordinate various other Federal agencies, as well as local and State government groups in undertaking this necessary research and planning.

The further evidence to involve State and local government in effective planning for areas which they best understand and appreciate is contained in title 2, which authorizes $50 million to be granted to the States for assistance in preparing the necessary outdoor recreation plans. In short, the needed organization to carry forth the broad responsibilities of all concerned, is made possible.

We hope that it will be the desire of this committee to favorably report H.R. 11165 in order that the basic organization can be started to promulgate an effective outdoor recreation program for all the people.

Dr. SMITH. Our organization supports the bill before the committee. We support H.R. 11165, and we do so for three very basic reasons.

First and foremost, this makes outdoor recreation a national policy. I would not want to leave any implication at all because I think that is one of the most significant steps taken in outdoor recreation for a long time. It is not only the establishment of a Bureau of Outdoor Recreation which will be given statutory significance, but it will be enabled to implement policies of the Outdoor Recreation Review Commission which I believe everyone agrees are outstanding.

Secondly, all the files, the efforts, and the inventories of the Outdoor Recreation Review Commission will be lodged in the new Bureau of Outdoor Recreation.

I know the chairman and other members of the committee from time to time are aware of the outstanding reports which have been produced on materials on natural resources, and so on-the Hoover Commission, and many other commissions. In a short period of time these reports are excellent. However, before long they are out of date, and as a result their efforts are perishable.

Then when the issue comes up much of the information we want is outdated.

I think if this act does nothing else, it will keep current the basis for making legitimate policies. This will have gone a long way to prove it is worthwhile.

Thirdly, I was pleased to hear the Chair build the real legislative history on the legislation of outdoor recreation. It is many times presumed we are saving an area-"First we will save it from development for the particular bureau, and then after that we will save it from the bureau." I hope the attitude of the Chair will be reflected, as I am sure it will be, that this does not mean Disneyland, it does not mean pouring asphalt, and it does not mean that kind of development. The whole purpose of this act is just the opposite. It is not in the direction of development for commercial entertainment for other purposes. Lastly, after hearing prospects for this passage are not very good, it would be our hope that the section 2 or 3 embodying the $400,000, might very well become part of H.R. 11165.

Mr. RUTHERFORD. To clear the record, the $400,000 is in section 2 and section 4 of S. 543. Section 3 is the $25 million for the cooperative land acquisition in the shoreline bill.

Dr. SMITH. That is right.

Mr. RUTHERFORD. You refer to the Chair's position of taking section 3 out of S. 543 and putting it here.

Dr. SMITH. That is right.

The last item I would like to mention is the $50 million for research and planning.

For 20 years I have worked off and on for universities, the Government, and nonprofit organizations, in one capacity of research and planning or another.

Just once I would like to have had the money to do the job which was supposed to be done. I don't know whether this will ever come about, or will ever catch on.

I hear great comments about the way bureaucrats waste money. I was a bureaucrat at one time. There was always a problem of getting enough money to do the job at hand.

Before we seriously attack the $50 million figure, a person should sit down and read quite carefully the provisions of H.R. 11165. I was impressed by the interrogation of counsel of the previous witness.

When you start thinking of the breadth of this program and the importance of it, I would say $50 million is a highly conservative figure.

Another thing which is important so far as planning is concerned. Much of this planning will be breaking new ground. It will be for different purposes. There is not a backlog of evidence as there might be in river basin planning. There is not a series of other surveys which can be drawn upon in many States.

Whenever you undertake an effort of this type you will make a lot of mistakes.

One of the things that disturbs me from time to time is that we cannot make mistakes. They can miss one in Cape Canaveral, at a tune of several million dollars, and it is accepted.

If we make a mistake this is a ghastly omission, someone is to blame, and there is usually a reason for it and great discussion.

I think $50 million is a very limited amount and I do not see how you will get effective planning for this kind of a program for less than that amount when you consider 50 States are involved.

I should point out that 5 years ago there was a great discussion in the State of New York, and one of the reasons they claimed they were not moving ahead fast enough in this field of planning was the fact they did not have enough planning funds.

Several years ago this same matter was discussed in the State of Iowa. I went out to talk to Governor Loveless, of the State of Iowa, at that time. He said one of the most difficult things for the State was to obtain planning money so that they would know exactly where they were going. Otherwise the difficulty of trying to dovetail recreation in with many other uses, and to have it effective, requires a much more embracing and more exhaustive type of planning than normally is contemplated.

I think the record is pretty replete with problems of many States which cannot get off the ground, and one of the reasons is for lack of planning money.

I would also like to comment on two other things which have been used whenever Federal grants-in-aid come before this body, and that is whether the States would hold back.

In other words, a State is going forward pretty well. They see that other States are getting a certain amount of matching funds. Would they hold back?

I am doubtful they would because most of the States which have made progress up to date have done so because of a need and a push from various constituents.

The other argument that perhaps the States could not match the money, I am doubtful that they cannot do so. This would enable them to undertake significant plans.

I think one of the real dangers of this entire program is to gather a bunch of land together and then find out it does not fit the purposes and uses, and then we have the whole problem of turning back this land and buying other land.

In the antipollution legislation, as the Chair will remember, the criticism of this legislation was that the States would hold back or they could not match funds. Of course, the contention was that the Federal Government made these funds available and the program would go forward. I think we have demonstrated the tremendous impact that Federal grants have made in that program.

I am convinced that under the terms of this bill $50 million is a minimum figure. I cannot emphasize that too much. I want to make our point of view crystal clear.

That completes my comments.

Mr. RUTHERFORD. You think if a person cannot make a down payment on a car he would not be too good a risk?

Dr. SMITH. I wouldn't recommend him.

Mr. RUTHERFORD. I think you have covered this subject very well. We appreciate your comments and also your interest in this type of legislation. If we can accomplish this it would be a giant step forward. Otherwise our feet will be clodded with cement and we will not be able to make a move.

Dr. SMITH. I concur completely, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. RUTHERFORD. Does counsel have questions?

Mr. WITMER. No, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. RUTHERFORD. We appreciate your coming before us.

The next witness, Miss Margaret Dankworth, is not present.

Mr. Michael Nadel, assistant executive secretary, the Wilderness Society.

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL NADEL, ASSISTANT EXECUTIVE

SECRETARY, THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY

Mr. NADEL. My statement is brief. It is a two-page statement. I am Michael Nadel, assistant executive secretary of the Wilderness Society, Washington, D.C. The Wilderness Society is an incorporated nonprofit citizens philanthropic conservation organization, founded in 1935, with more than 20,000 members in all our States and in other countries.

We are pleased to be here in cooperation with our conservation colleagues in support of the principles reflected by H.R. 11165, which would provide for the coordination and development of effective Federal and State programs relating to outdoor recreation, and to provide financial assistance to the States for outdoor recreation planning.

Our little life, the great poet said, is rounded with sleep-certainly one of the great euphemisms for the eternity of eternal rest. Between the awakening that is birth and that sleep which is so final, our

conscious life is one of toil, tension, and turbulence, mixed in with momentary diversions that are our islands of equanimity.

Simplicity is gone from our lives. The machinery of life grows more involved. Our transactions are noisome. More elbows rub each other every day, until the rubbing reaches into our souls, which demand periodic surcease from the trapments of our time. Man wants, occasionally, to prevail over his handiwork by getting away from it.

Indeed outdoor recreation-the opportunity to be liberated and to build up-is a necessity, like food, shelter, and work, and it can be a creative contribution to our culture.

President Kennedy, in his message to the Congress on conservation, said that the need for an aggressive program of recreational development is both real and immediate.

We in the Wilderness Society have as our most particular concern the concept of the perpetuation of wilderness areas as nature's ultimate opportunity for the liberation of mind and body, and this embraces recreative aspects which include scientific and educational values as well. Indeed there is a national concern, expressed by the public and by political and social leaders, for the perpetuation of these roadless, unspoiled areas.

We appreciate wilderness as one of a diversity of outdoor recreative resources, which yield physical, spiritual, cultural, recreational, and scientific benefits. Our need is for outdoor recreation resources in all sectors of the community-urban, rural, and the wild—and all degrees in between.

Our need is for parks, primitive areas, nature reserves, for historic and cultural sites, for high-density recreation areas, and for general outdoor recreation areas. Our outdoor recreation reserve should include prairie, marsh, mountain, meadow, and seashore. It should include lakes and, very importantly, clear fresh streams and riverways. Outdoor recreation may come in the guise of strenuous activity or a gentle mobility; it may be a springboard for reflection, a baseboard for education, or a borderline experience that embraces history, science, art.

Our problem is one of containing and adding to our outdoor recreational resources against the irresistible advance of population and undirected development which can destroy these resources. Coordination and planning on an imaginative scale is essential.

For this reason, the Wilderness Society appreciatively supports H.R. 11165. We believe that the Federal policy should be broad enough to embrace the qualitative as well as quantitative values, with underlying emphasis on financial and advisory assistance to the States, and with encouragement of the cooperative participation of private enterprise.

I am privileged to say that Mr. Charles Callison, assistant to the president of the National Audubon Society, wishes to associate the National Audubon Society with this statement.

Mr. RUTHERFORD. Thank you, sir.

Are there any questions?

Mr. WITMER. No, sir.

Mr. RUTHERFORD. Thank you for your contribution.

Mr. NADEL. Thank you, sir.

Mr. RUTHERFORD. Is there anyone else desiring recognition on the proposed legislation who has not already been recognized?