for example, the number of cattle increased from six to eleven million in five years. The population explosion of domestic herbivores was made possible by the drilling of hundreds of deep wells through the Sahel, permitting the nomads to intensely utilize areas which were unavailable to them for grazing during dry periods as long as they were dependent on natural sources of water.

If the major natural check on overgrazing had not been eliminated, the initial expansion of herds could not have occured. With the advent of drought, and the disappearance of surface water, large areas of the Sahel would simply have had to have been vacated by the nomads with their flocks for the duration of the dry period, and the calamity could not have occurred.

The United Nations agencies, UNESCO and the others, by the way, who drilled the wells, were searching for a technological solution to mitigate social problems which they had previously helped create themselves by promoting commercial over subsistance agriculture. The nomads were becoming restive over the usurpation of much of their best range in the southern Sahel for peanut and cotton farming. This was undertaken in party by agribusiness interests, tenderly encouraged by the food and agricultural organization.

I guess the point I am striving here to illustrate, is that we must be chary of technological panaceas to social and economic problems. It is always comforting to swallow a technological nostrum. While various range improvement techniques are clearly valuable in mitigating the effects of overgrazing, this is not where the solution is to be found. The only long term solution of overgrazing is a limitation of livestock numbers.

There are several things about overgrazing which I think alot of people overlook. One thing is that overgrazing in our country is an overfunction of financial instability. I have noticed that the long established incumbent families who have had time to adapt to the land, who maintained stable financial operations for a long time, are not likely to overgraze. Some of the best preserved land I have seen anywhere, including parks, is on privately owned land held by the old families.

On the other hand, if the bank is breathing down a rancher's neck for its interest on his loan, while taxes and expenses are rising and livestock prices are falling, he is liable to abuse the land as an alternative to immediate financial collapse.

Now, the fact is that in the states of Wyoming and Montana particularly, the public interest lands are arranged in a checkerboard pattern with private land. It is rarely feasible to fence off such lands and manage them separately. This means that management of privately owned rangeland inevitably spills over onto public land. It also means, if the relationship which I have suggested between financial stability and grazing practices is valid, any person interested in public lands has some stake in stability of western ranching and farming operations.

I believe that the stake is far greater however, than this. The success which the conservation movement has had in the past few years in brunting the invasion of the West by multinational oil and mining corporations has been dependent on the stubborn resistance of western landowners, and on the development of a close alliance between these landowners and the national conservation movement.

If it is not possible for livestock raisers to make a living because of depressed prices, it does precious little good to protect them from condemnation at the hands of strip-miners, as was painfully accomplished in the strip mining bill.

Now this is one reason why we support your attempt to attach the grazing fees to the market conditions. I think that is a very laudable section of your bill, one that we can wholeheartedly support.

Senator HASKELL. Our next witness is Mr. Doug MacCleery of the National Forest Products Association.

If possible, if you could possibly summarize your statement in view of the fact I know we are going to have a lot of votes this afternoon and we have other witnesses, I will include your entire statement in the record.

Mr. MACCLEERY. Very well. I will do that.

STATEMENT OF DOUG MacCLEERY, FORESTER, NATIONAL FOREST PRODUCTS ASSOCIATION; ACCOMPANIED BY JOHN F. HALL, VICE PRESIDENT FOR FORESTRY AFFAIRS

I am Douglas W. MacCleery, a forester for the National Forest. Products Association, headquartered in Washington, D.C. Appearing with me today is John F. Hall, vice president for forestry affairs. We appreciate this opportunity to appear before you to give testimony on S. 507, the National Resource Lands Management Act of 1975. NFPA is a federation of 26 regional and wood products associations representing the growers, manufacturers, and wholesalers of wood products throughout the country.

Our industry is vitally concerned with timber management on all of our Nation's commercial forest lands. We are as concerned about achieving constructive public policies and programs affecting timber growth and harvest on Federal lands as we are on lands owned by the forest industry or on nonindustrial private lands. The forest products industry supports legislation which would enable productive management of federally owned commercial forest lands.

The Bureau of Land Management has long been in need of legislation clearly defining its mission. It is the only major Federal land management agency without such basic authority. We believe that S. 507, with appropriate amendment, could provide the congressional direction needed for management of lands currently administered by BLM.

However, we have several major areas of concern about the bill as presently drafted. For each of these areas of concern we have offered suggested amendments, which are included at the end of my written testimony.

Senator HASKELL. I noticed that. They will be included in the hearing record.

Mr. MACCLEERY. On the subject of reclamation, section 101(2), authorizes the Secretary to require land reclamation as a condition of use for those engaged in "extractive or other" activities likely to cause significant disturbance or alteration of land. The language is not clear that this is intended to apply to land disturbing activities, such as strip mining. Timber harvest activities are not extractive because they are followed promptly by reforestation and forest renewal. This reforestation has historically been the responsibility of the forest landowner.

It is our understanding that the intention here is primarily to exercise authority over major extractions of nonrenewable resources. That being the case, section 101 (2) should be amended so that it applies solely to extraction activities, not to timber harvest. Section 101 (3) would authorize revocation or suspension of any permit, license, lease, or other authorization for a violation of any agency regulation promulgated under the act, or of any State or Federal air or water quality standard or implementation plan. This provision would inject extreme uncertainty into the continuance of federally granted permits. The revision of air and water quality stand

ards after the permit had been granted would subject the instrument to revocation upon finding of a violation of the new standard. Section 101 (3) was written due to the legitimate concern that permits issued by the Federal Government comply with appropriate environmental standards. However, existing laws already provide penalties for noncompliance with applicable State air and water quality laws that should be adequate to insure that environmental standards are met.

Section 101 (3), as presently worded, would authorize revocation of permits and similar instruments upon the finding of even a minor violation of air and water quality standards. For instance, a power line right-of-way granted to a utility might be put in jeopardy upon finding that some of the emission control devices on motor vehicles owned by the utility were not operating properly. In addition, a violation by the permittee in another region unrelated to the permit could, under the present wording, subject the permit to possible revocation. This is clearly undesirable. We recommend major modifications to this and call your attention to suggested modifications, which are in my statement.

We have similar objections to section 103 (d). This section would subject permits, leases, and licenses to modification due to changes in land classification. Here again a permitee has a right to expect that the conditions under which his permit was granted will remain in effect until the established renewal date, or at the very least, that he should be adequately compensated for economic loss resulting from any modification of the permit arising from a unilateral revision of the existing land classification by the Secretary.

While giving cursory recognition to land exchanges in sections 207 and 213, title II does not give the attention to the land exchange program which we believe is needed. Land exchanges are treated only as a method of adding lands to the public domain, but not as an appropriate method of developing more efficient management of existing public ownership. Full authority should be explicitly provided which would allow the exchange of lands or interests free from onerous conditions such as the strict land disposal criteria established under section 202. BLM administrators should be allowed flexibility needed to exchange lands for purposes advantageous to the public, such as the consolidation of ownership and simplification of land management. Such flexibility under S. 507 is very restricted. I have attached some suggested amendments which would allow greater flexibility in this regard.

In regard to conveyance of mineral interests, section 208 (a) allows the Secretary to convey mineral interests owned by the United States where the surface is in non-Federal ownership if he finds that there are no mineral values in the land, or that the reservation of the mineral rights of the United States is interfering with the appropriate nonmineral development of the land, and that such development is more a beneficial use of the land than mineral development. A new subsection should be added to this subsection which allows the Secretary to convey mineral interests owned by the United States where the surface is in non-Federal ownership, if he

finds that the surface ownership has been conveyed through exchange and that the other party of record will reciprocate with respect to mineral rights on lands he conveyed to the Federal Gov

ernment.

Subsection 208 (c) requires that mineral interests conveyed pursuant to section 208 revert to the United States in the event that mineral activities are initiated within 20 years of the issuance of the patent. This subscription should be amended to provide exceptions for mineral interests conveyed pursuant to the exchange authority of section 213. Otherwise, the language as written would render any mineral interests acquired from the Federal Government pursuant to a land exchange virtually worthless, except to clear title. The result would be that private parties exchanging land with the Federal Government would reciprocate with respect to mineral reservations and neither party would benefit. Such an amendment is very important. Many desirable land exchanges which would be highly advantageous to the United States would be made virtually impossible unless Federal agencies are authorized to convey full fee title with no encumbrance for what may be found later by the new owner.

Section 209 requires the Secretary to attach covenants to any patent or other document of conveyance issued under the act "to insure proper land use and protection of the public interest." This could conceivably encumber the lands conveyed to the point where they are, in fact, privately owned public lands.

In effect, this section gives the Secretary the latitude of encumbering any lands or interests conveyed under the act to whatever extent he so desires, regardless of other provision of the bill. If not deleted, this language could destroy the effectiveness of any sales or exchange programs the Secretary may enter into under the bill. At one extreme, if he offers property for sale or exchange with highly restrictive environmental covenants, and land use requirements, it will be difficult to find purchasers. It will also serve to greatly reduce the value of the lands conveyed by the Government. On the other hand, if the Secretary offers land with few or no covenants, all such conveyances will be subject to endless lawsuits claiming that he has violated the direction given him by Congress.

If the lands in question are determined to be suitable for disposal under the limited criteria of section 202, the Federal Government should relinquish all of its rights, title and interest to said lands. Further, in the case of land exchanges, it should be presumed that the total national resource land base will not change significantly and, thus, there is no need to subject such transactions to the provisions of this section.

We urge that section 209 be eliminated. The objective of this section is to insure that lands conveyed by the Federal Government are subject to proper land use and that public interests are protected. Land use plans developed by the States and applicable State air and water quality and other environmental standards will normally insure that these objectives are met without necessarily encumbering lands conveyed by the Federal Government.

RIGHTS-OF-WAY

Section 401 (b) (1) on page 36 requires that a right-of-way applicant disclose any or all plans, contracts, agreements, or other information related to the use or intended use of the right-of-way, and also requires the disclosure of various information relating to all of the participants in the entity which applies to the right-of-way. This section should allow administrative flexibility regarding information required prior to granting a permit. While such requirements may be appropriate with respect to grants for major utility rights-of-way, such as pipelines and powerlines, they will be extremely cumbersome for the numerous forest roads rights-of-way the BLM deals with each year. Where there is intermingled Federal and private ownership, it would require that forest landowners disclose all timber harvest and road construction plans on their own lands. This would be extremely impractical since these plans must remain flexible to meet changing conditions, such as harvesting insect or fire-killed timber. At the very least, the disclosure provisions should not apply to rights-of-way granted over the national resource lands to allow access to adjacent non-Federal lands for the purpose of forest management.

Attached to my statement are additional specific suggested amendments to title IV concerning rights-of-way.

We strongly recommend that the subcommittee adopt language similar to that developed in 1964 in the National Forest Roads and Trails Systems Act [Public Law 88-657] which provided the basis for the existing cost-share road program between the Forest Service and non-Federal forest landowners.

The purpose of this program is to foster and encourage the planning and development of a single road system jointly owned, operated, and maintained to serve the land management objectives of both the public and private landowners involved. This way the costs of road construction and maintenance are shared, and these costs, as well as the resulting environmental impact, are much reduced over what they would have been had separate road systems been built.

Excellent cooperation has been achieved between the public and private owners. The system is now valued in excess of $100 million and is being expanded at a value of $10 million annually.

The Bureau of Land Management administers a considerable acreage of land involved in intermingled ownership patterns in several western states, principally Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, and Montana. We believe the current laws governing access rights to and across intermingled Federal and private lands should be brought up to the level of the authority exercised by the Secretary of Agriculture for the administration of the National Forest lands. A copy of that act is appended to my statement.

SUGGESTED AMENDMENT NO. 26

Proposed amendment No. 26, introduced by Senator Jackson, represents a significant expansion of the scope of S. 507. The objective of