advantage from the supervisor's standpoint in being able to-in having a specific guideline and being able to follow it. It is not a question of wanting flexibility for flexibility's sake. It is just a question of having flexibility where there seems to be no reasonable alternative.

Senator METCALF. My only point was that it would seem to me that it is the responsibility of the agencies involved that have the knowledge and have the scientific background and experience to make these specific guidelines under general delegation of authority from the Congress. Sometimes when we get complaints-OSHA, for instance, is an example the guidelines are too strict according to some of the complaints that come in. Sometimes the complaints are that, well, we don't know what we are doing, we can't comply.

One reason for these oversight hearings is to have a dialog back and forth as to how we can best do our job with our responsibility on the public lands and how we can help you in doing yours in administering those lands. That is why I have asked you if we can't get, under general delegation of power and authority, more specific guidelines than you have brought out so far in the regulation of strip mining. That would apply to many other areas of activity, too.

I don't expect you to agree with me more than 50 percent of the time maybe, but at least we should talk about these matters.

Dr. MCKELVEY. You mentioned that this is a problem that needs to be addressed not only with respect to strip mining but other regulatory activities also. I am fully aware of that and certainly agree. We have gone through this same sort of thing with respect to regulations and orders governing offshore operations. I think a great amount of progress has been made in the development of specificity in that general area in recent years.

Not so long ago, many of the regulations with respect to offshore operations read somewhat like the Ten Commandments. A great amount of specificity has been added beyond that and certainly is desirable. It is a question of how to achieve it with respect to specific problems.

I might say that I have been speaking as if the Geological Survey was the author of the draft coal regulations. Actually, that is not the case. We participated as members of a departmental task force that included representatives of the Bureau of Mines, the Solicitor's Office, and others concerned. It is a complex problem involving expertise in a number of other areas.

But I think we are very close-that we are working toward the same objective of devising regulations that are going to do the job and that will do it in ways that are clear to all concerned, clear to the supervisor, clear to the operator, so he knows in advance what is going to be expected of him and so on.

I think section 211.40 is a rather comprehensive history of performance standards specifying the end results that must be achieved and, perhaps, leaves some judgement on the part of the supervisor as to just how that will be achieved. But the intent, I think, is pretty clear.

Senator METCALF. I would like to ask you a couple of more questions. I know you have quite a bit of your staff up here and I have taken a lot of your time. However, in the organization that you have shown in your graph, you have four divisions geologic division, water resources division, topographic division, and the conservation division. Many of the people who have criticized the activites of the conserva

tion division have suggested that your field regulatory personnel, such as mining supervisors, are industry oriented. Ther activity and concern is almost solely for mineral development. These are mining engineers and mining personnel.

Given that background and that point of view, it would seem that this charge probably has some foundation. What is your reaction to that?

Dr. MCKELVEY. Mr. Chairman, I think I would have to agree that there has at times been some industry or development orientation on the part of some of our people. I expect that is expectable in an operation in which they as well as the operator come to be concerned with development of a prospect, a mine or an oil field, as the case might be. But I don't think that that orientation has been substantial or substantial enough to really influence their operations and influence their decisions.

Certainly, it is contrary to the policies of the Geological Survey. I feel that on the whole our people have acted in most appropriate balance in their judgment between the requirements of the operator and his performance, and other considerations that have to be taken into account also, such as preservation of environmental quality and

so on.

I have heard the statement made as a general observation, as an evaluation of our people in this area, that they are tough but fair. I think that is probably a pretty good overall characterization of the people in this general activity. I think from the standpoint of the operations themselves, that the performance is an indication of that overall balance in their treatment of the problems that they are concerned with.

I think it is fair to observe, Mr. Chairman, that the character of our activities has changed over time in response to the development of new problems and in response to the development of public concerns. I don't think it is off the mark to say that 30 years ago, possibly even 15, nobody really cared a great deal about how operations of this kind were conducted from an environmental standpoint. Interest was on the efficiency of the operation and so on.

I think that our supervisors possibly paid far greater attention to objectives such as conservation, prevention of waste, good operating practice, good housekeeping operations and so on, just as the general public itself did, than to all of the measures and so on that might be required to achieve full environmental protection. But I think they have responded, just as the regulations and laws and orders and so on in this general field have responded, to the recognition of the importance of the preservation of environmental quality.

I was pleased to hear a report just 2 or 3 days ago, from our Assistant Director for Energy and Minerals, M. R. Klepper, not present today he is substituting for me in Louisville, Ky. On a visit to Montana and Wyoming and some of the active leases there under our supervision, he gave a really glowing account of the results being achieved in reclamation and revegetation and all of the other aspects that have been of concern in surface mining. That represents an achievement, I think, that has to be shared, of course, with the companies themselves as well as our own efforts in attempting to see that these operations are conducted in a fully satisfactory manner.

Senator METCALF. If you will pardon a personal reference, I am not a Johnny-come-lately in this field. I was a member of the Montana Legislature in 1937. We introduced a bill to require reclamation and restoration of lands dredged by gold. We were not doing much surface mining for coal in those days and I will agree that I did not get much support from industry or anybody else but at lease everytime I drive down into the Ruby or up in that road from Helena to Butte and see the depredation that the gold dredges did back in those days, it has never been restored and I am still convinced that we should have some control.

I think you made a strong argument and a strong plea for scientific and objective for a U.S. Geological Survey and for a professional and scientific program of men who are competent in their various disciplines. In the conservation division, value judgments have to be made rather than the kind of judgments you make in the scientific sort of disciplines.

I am wondering if, perhaps, the conservation division is not misplaced as one of the divisions of the USGS.

Dr. MCKELVEY. Mr. Chairman, that question has been discussed from time to time and I would say that it is not by any means a dead question in the minds of many people, including my own.

Senator METCALF. There is a question in the minds of many people. I am just asking you that question as a very respected expert. I want your frank opinion as to whether or not we should put in this professional scientific group that you have put together a section that makes policy and value judgments?

Dr. MCKELVEY. The conservation division doesn't make policy. They need to make judgments, of course, in the exercise of their responsibility in lease management, I suspect also in the evaluation side. I think I could discuss some of the pros and cons of it.

First of all, with respect to the pros of why do we have this activity in the first place? It came to the Geological Survey almost overnight following the Teapot Dome scandal. The thought was to place this very sensitive activity in a scientific organization in which it would be free from some of the presures that perhaps would be more frequent and prevalent if it were by itself or in an organization of another character.

I suspect that that is possibly, if not at the head of the list, high on the list of the reasons why this activity has remained in the Geological Survey over the years. The Survey's general reputation for objectivity and integrity has been high over the years and I think that many people feel better that this activity is housed in such an organization.

I am pleased to say, Mr. Chairman, that that objectivity and integrity, I believe generally pervades the conservation division, just as it does the rest of the Geological Survey. To my knowledge, and I am quoting words that I first heard from a previous director, Dr. Thomas B. Nolan, that never in the history of this operation with all of the hundreds of millions of dollars that it has collected and the decisions that have been made that have certainly been worth an equal if not greater amount, that there has never been an instance of malfeasance on the part of any of the people involved in those operations.

So there is, I think, a very proud record in the conduct of the operation. Also, the nature of the problems that conservation deals with basically geologic or geologic in many components-represents the scientific expertise of the Survey in lots of ways.

I indicated in my testimony that there is, indeed, a close linkage in many of our operations in which the expertise of the rest of the organization is drawn on and the solution of problems that may face the Conservation Division, either in the general area of classification and evaluation, or lease management.

I think those are the principal reasons advanced as to why the Conservation Division has been and should be in the Geological Survey. On the other hand, as you indicated and I indicated in my testimony, the regulatory function is certainly of a very different character than the activity that constitutes and has traditionally constituted the bulk of our activity in research and factfinding.

Those two things in some ways are perhaps immiscible. Another concern from the very practical standpoint is that when these two things are side by side and there is a question of which activity needs to take priority when there is a shortage of funds or manpower, of course it has to be the regulatory activity. Those are responsibilities right on the line. They have to be met and met adequately.

So a con to the question is the degree to which these two very different kinds of activity should have to compete with one another as they very necessarily do in the same organization.

In some ways, we call this a regulatory activity and that is certainly true. But a big part of the operation and a part of the operation that not only the Conservation Division but other divisions of the Survey are involved in also comes under the heading of you might say, management service to other organizations-the Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service, and so on, for which we supply considerable expertise and information and assistance in the conduct of their work. So it is not entirely regulatory in and of itself.

Senator METCALF. To what extent does your Conservation Division consult, not only with other disciplines in your own Department, the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service and so forth, but in other agencies? You mentioned the Forest Service. What is the consultation before you come to a decision as to what the conservation values are as against the mineral development or the geological problems and mining development concerned.

Dr. MCKELVEY. We consult with them to a considerable and to an increasing degree, Mr. Chairman. With respect to the Bureau of Land Management, and I think this applies to the Forest Service also, their concurrence is required under the proposed regulations and in actual practice. In the decisions to be reached with respect to mine development they must be consulted and if there is disagreement, there must be discussion about it.

Senator METCALF. Who makes the decision when there is a conflict between recommendations, let us say, of Fish and Wildlife Service as to development of an area and recommendations of your Conservation Division, and perhaps desires on the part of BLM to get some revenue in? Does that have to go clear to the Secretary or Assistant Secretary?

Dr. MCKELVEY. Under secretarial order 2974, if there is such an irresolvable conflict, it would go to the Secretary, yes, sir.

Senator METCALF. As I say, we have some more questions and they are going to be propounded. I know you will give them the same forthright and frank responses that you have given me this morning.

I think that the use of this hearing is going to be in being able to publish the discussion and dialog we have had here today and the dialog that has been developed as a result of our interchange of tions for the guidance of other Members of Congress in the various bills before us.

ques

I am going to ask that if you possibly can get them in within 2 weeks and the record will be kept open for that purpose.

Dr. MCKELVEY. We will be happy to do so, Mr. Chairman, and I certainly thank you again for having these hearings. I fully agree that it is an opportunity for both of us to air some of these problems and to achieve an understanding, not only between us but an understanding to benefit the public as well on some of these difficult problems.

Senator METCALF. Thank you very much. I want to say that I concur with the quotation that you recited in praise of your Department and your activities that you recited in your prepared testimony. I am personally pleased and delighted that you brought your staff here to participate in these discussions. Thank you very much.

Dr. MCKELVEY. Thank you very much, sir.

Senator METCALF. The committee is adjourned subject to the call of the Chair.

[Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., the hearing was adjourned, subject to the call of the Chair.]