To my own knowledge, the Forest Service field people have been quite active about telling the summer-home permittees about this, trying to get them to understand what the conditions of the permit are. I cannot make the statement about this prior to 1940. My own personal experience does not go to that period of time. I think there was a great deal of variation in those years of individual Forest Service people in the field.

Mr. HANSEN. Will you yield?

Mrs. MAY. Yes.

Mr. HANSEN. I was going to suggest at this point that you people have been very active in Forest Service, in the Department, and should be very much aware of the problem that we are concerned with. I think that you are probably right.

Mrs. MAY. I went back over the testimony of those field hearings and noticed that there was quite a pattern of the greater objection coming from those people who had been in summer homes back before 1945. I think that your comment is probably true, that most of the feeling of inequity comes from those who dealt with earlier representatives of the Forest Service.

Mr. GREELY. I think that must be true. A great many of those who were the earlier ones prior to the 1940's are also the same ones who, by the sweat of their own brow-and I think this is correct-put in these improvements. There is some line of demarcation somewhere in there. It is in the forties.

Mrs. MAY. In connection with this, I know of some cases that have come before the subcommittee of a number of retired people who, obviously, without understanding the terms of their purchases-and we ran into this in several instances have put practically all of their capital savings into summer home purchases in certain areas in anticipation that they could live out their lives there, and they would not have made that investment had they not so felt. I do not know what percentage that constitutes. Probably not too large, but this is a problem that we will get into with these people.

Mr. GREELEY. I do not have any idea as to their number, either. Mrs. MAY. I do not either. We have all had letters from them. We heard from several of them in the field hearings.

Anyhow, Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask some questions on the bills as they stand before us now.

I should like to ask how it might be administered. But for now I will relinquish my time.

Mr. MCMILLAN. I would like for the record to show that I concur in Mrs. May's background statement. The reason for the introduction of these two bills is the fact that Mrs. May and I thought that we should get some type of legislation that can be agreed upon by the U.S. Forest Service. We thought that these bills were rather mild and would not be opposed by anyone.

I am glad to have the Department's opinion on these proposed bills before we go into executive session.

Mr. O'NEAL. Mr. Chairman, may I ask some questions?

Mr. MCMILLAN. Yes.

Mr. O'NEAL. Mr. Greeley, I certainly agree that Mrs. May is correct about the wealth of testimony that we had out in the West continually stating that these people had orally had communication

with some members of the Forest Service which encouraged them to put heavy investments into their property, with the idea that any revocation of their permits was so remote as to be of no consequence. Now, I do not know whether this question has already been answered by you in this discussion with Mrs. May this morning or not, but I just want to see what you will say about the extent of these representations that have been made orally by various members. Did you say that this had not occurred since the forties?

Mr. GREELEY. I tried to delve into this, Mr. O'Neal.

Mr. O'NEAL. I thought that was the exact question, but I was

not sure.

Mr. GREELEY. And I agree that it was an attitude of the Forest Service field people in the early days of this whole activity to encourage people, first of all, to take out summer home permits and to contemplate putting in quite a good deal of specific arrangements to get groups of people to go to one area which would be opened up at about the same time, so that there would be water and road developments. Mr. O'NEAL. Are you through?

Mr. GREELEY. I just want to make one more point. I have no sure way of saying, Mr. O'Neal, at what point this kind of thing turned. but I have thought that there were probably two ways. One was this figure of what percentage of the present permits are still held by the original permit holders, because I think probably that most of those people, especially if they have permits that are 30 years old or longer, are people who did get permits at a time when they were being encouraged. I do not personally know, but I can say from personal knowledge that it was sometime subsequent to 1945 or 1946 or 1947. about along in there, that Forest people began to realize that there were changing situations and that we needed to have the summer home permit holders aware of the fact that it looked like there was going to be more need for using the land for public purposes than before. Within my own thinking, I would put it in the mid-forties somewhere as being the time when we began that.

Mr. O'NEAL. Has there been a point in history where the Forest Service adopted a policy of communicating with its own people, its own employees, cautioning them against any oral representations that might tend to confuse the people, and reminding them that the terms of the written contracts could not be varied? Have you cautioned your people in the field at anytime that they should never say any thing that would represent a policy?

Mr. GREELEY. I cannot recall any instruction in those specific terms, Mr. O'Neal. I do remember about this same time that I talked about here, about 1946 or 1947, that we did issue an internal instruction to encourage summer home permittees to know that there were both term permits and terminable permits, and we encountered, to our surprise, a good many people who preferred to have a terminable. permit, rather than a term permit, because they thought that if they accepted the term permit that they would agree that we could take up their permit at the end of the term; whereas, they felt that as long as it was a terminable permit, that this was left as an open question. Mr. O'NEAL. As I understand what you are saying, it was prior to some 20 years ago that you conceived the idea that there might have been considerable misunderstanding, because the Forest Service

employees did encourage people, but in the last 20 years you think this has been practically nonexistent or at a minimum?

Mr. GREELEY. Yes. I think that basically is correct, that that summarizes it.

Mr. O'NEAL. Thank you.

Mr. MCMILLAN. Mr. Teague?

Mr. TEAGUE of California. I realize now that H.R. 4884 has been superseded by H.R. 11370 and H.R. 11360 and is quite different in its concept, but nevertheless H.R. 4884 still is on our hearing agenda. It is not likely that we will take any favorable action, but if we did, would you have any objection to an amendment making it clear that a bill of that sort would not apply to public utilities?

Mr. GREELEY. May I consult on this?

Mr. MCMILLAN. Yes.

Mr. GREELEY. I think, Mr. Teague, we would have no objection. Mr. TEAGUE of California. Thank you.

Mr. MCMILLAN. Mr. O'Neal?

Mr. O'Neal. I have one thing more on my mind which is not exactly related to the things that we were just exploring.

This goes to the survey that you recently made when it was determined that about 24 percent of these permits were held by the original permitholders.

Now, as I understand it, many of these permits were made so many years ago that the original permittee undoubtedly is dead. Did you consider that this 24 percent included those where the permit remained in the same immediate family?

Mr. GREELEY. I think, Mr. O'Neal, that if a permit turned over because of inheritance, a bequest, this is probably in the new permits. Mr. O'NEAL. What?

Mr. GREELEY. This is counted as a newly issued permit.

Mr. O'NEAL. In the 76 percent?

Mr. GREELEY. Yes.

Mr. O'NEAL. Rather than in the 24 percent?

Mr. GREELEY. That is right.

Mr. O'NEAL. So that an inheritance is not really a sale. This figure should be higher than the 24 percent; should it not?

As I understand you now, the 24 percent is the actual permittee himself rather than some member of his own immediate family? Mr. GREELEY. I think that is correct, yes, sir.

Mr. O'NEAL. So that more than 24 percent would still be in the same family?

Mr. GREELEY. Yes, to the extent that there has been a transfer through bequest rather than some other way; yes, you are right, the figure would be somewhat higher.

Mr. O'NEAL. That is all.

Mr. MCMILLAN. Unless there is some objection on the part of the members of the subcommittee this part of the meeting will be considered as an open hearing.

Mr. Hansen?

Mr. HANSEN. I have no questions.

Mr. MCMILLAN. Mrs. May?

Mrs. MAY. May I pose a series of questions now concerning the bill, itself, that is before us?

Mr. MCMILLAN. Yes.

Mrs. MAY. I wonder if we could have informal agreement on a series of questions that I want to put to these gentlemen from the Forest Service? I want to get the proper facts before the subcommittee as it considers the bill. So if the Forest Service would like more time to answer any of them, can they put the answers in the record later, permitting them time to get the information to supply the answer? Thank you.

On page 2, line 5 of H.R. 11370, a provision on the determination of reasonable costs, under this bill requires the Secretary of Agriculture to compensate the permittee for the reasonable cost of moving their summer home when their permit is not renewed. Should this regulation become a law, how would the Forest Service determine the reasonable cost? What guidelines would you expect in making this determination?

Mr. GREELEY. Mrs. May, you can see obviously that we cannot answer that now.

Mrs. MAY. Perhaps, you would rather, answer it later.

Mr. GREELEY. I, perhaps, ought to respond to that more specifically in writing. I would hesitate to say that it would be the actual cost, but I would think, by and large, it would tend to work out that

way.

Mrs. MAY. In other words, if the actual value of the cabin was, say, $5,000, and the cost of moving to an alternate site was $4,995, would the Forest Service consider that a reasonable cost to move the cabin?

Mr. GREELEY. We do have a good number that involve estimates of work to be done.

Mrs. MAY. Do you use competitive bidding?

Mr. GREELEY. I think a way to get at this might be to invite estimates from several reputable moving firms and to base an allowance on such an estimate.

Mrs. MAY. I certainly feel that might be well.

Mr. GREELEY. I think we would have to do something like that, rather than just accepting somebody's bill and say that this is what it cost them to move their cabin. May we respond to that in writing? Mrs. MAY. I would like for you to do so.

Now, on the subject of alternate sites, the bill says that a summer home may be moved to such other site that may be available. Would the Forest Service interpret this to mean an alternative national forest site or a privately owned site obtained by the permittee, or both? I am posing this question, because it was sent to me by one of my own constituents after reading the bill.

Mr. GREELEY. I think, Mrs. May, that we would want to consider it this way: If we found an alternate site and the person involved found another site on private land that they would prefer to go to, then we would consider that our obligation had been met. I think we would consider that we had an obligation to try to find a site. And if the person involved found some other site that they would prefer, we would feel that we had met our obligation and they would be able to go to the other site.

Mrs. MAY. In other words, you would look around, for other public land?

Mr. GREELEY. Yes.

Mrs. MAY. And if that was unavailable, and the permittee came to you and said “I have found a suitable site," you do not feel that you would have any obligation to move them to that site?

Mr. GREELEY. Well, no; as you say, our obligation to find a site for them is one thing.

Mrs. MAY. What if a permittee

Mr. GREELEY. I do not say that we would avoid an obligation to pay them for the moving cost if they went to their own site. Mrs. MAY. You are saying

Mr. GREELEY. In either case.

Mrs. MAY. In my hypothetical case where you have actually made a search and you do not find available public land sites to which to move them, but the permittee, through his own efforts, does find a private site that he would like for himself, then you would feel that under the wording of this bill you could pay some of the moving cost? Mr. GREELEY. We would pay whatever is equitable.

He might come up with a site 2 miles away, or he might come up with one that is much farther away.

Mrs. MAY. There should be some flexibility. You could not move into another county or into some distant place, I realize.

Mr. O'NEAL. Would you yield?

Mrs. MAY. Yes.

Mr. O'NEAL. Would you not run into frequent problems about whether the site selected, even in the same forest, was suitable to the permittee?

Mr. GREELEY. I think we would probably have that in practically every instance, Mr. O'Neal. I think that would be, probably, with everybody involved.

Mr. O'NEAL. And they would be dissatisfied with it.

Mr. GREELEY. First of all, they want to stay where they are, and, secondly, they would want the site to be as favorably located as the site that we obtained from them for future development for public use. We would run into that problem. I think this would be a bone of contention, probably, in every case.

Mrs. MAY. What you are saying is that really the net result of this might probably be that if there were alternate sites in public lands that in most instances it would end up with some sort of an agreement if he decided to move that you would pay the moving cost?

Mr. GREELEY. This would be our thinking, as to the result, in

Mr. O'NEAL. Digressing just briefly, just a little bit. Are you running out of available sites? You have worlds of land. You have millions and millions of acres.

Mr. GREELEY. It is a matter of relative desirability of the sites, Mr. O'Neal.

Mr. O'NEAL. You are using land for public use that you have to take from a permittee. If you have your eyes on a site that has a cabin on it, it would seem that you are really running out of land for public use if you do this.

Mr. GREELEY. This varies a great deal around the country. Take some of your part of the country, Mr. Teague. I can see real difficulty