Mr. SANTINI. And manganese.

MS. DAVENPORT. In manganese it is presently we are importing 100 percent. Back in 1955, which is the year I have other information available to me, it appears we were producing about 25 to 27 percent and the rest was imported.

Mr. SANTINI. Does that lead to the conclusion of population increase of 25 percent in the last 20 years?

Ms. DAVENPORT. Yes.

Mr. SANTINI. With regard to page 5, the first paragraph last sentence, you have concluded, Secretary Davenport, that "Minerals available from the deep seabed are not now imported from an unstable source."

Ms. DAVENPORT. Yes, sir.

Mr. SANTINI. I would ask initially your definition of "unstable." MS. DAVENPORT. This definition of "unstable" is related to a source which is still providing us with imports. This, of course, considers "stability" as a very relative term, especially when we are dealing with not only Third World nations, but some of the Western nations as well.

I fully realize that some of our sources are becoming daily less stable and I think this perhaps is a red flag that was unintended.

Mr. SANTINI. How would you modify "unstable" in view of the unintended red flag?

Ms. DAVENPORT. Well, I think that some of our sources of minerals, and that includes South Africa-it includes some other African countries have to be considered as being evolving. They may become very unstable, but that is a matter of definition."

Mr. SANTINI. And your definition is?

Ms. DAVENPORT. My definition for this purpose is basically if we are still securing the imported supplies that we need from them, that they are stable in the sense that they are currently this month stable.

Mr. SANTINI. So if we are getting it this month, but it could be cut off next month, they are still stable under your usage of the word in that last sentence?

Ms. DAVENPORT. Yes; and I may say that perhaps the next time we write some testimony, I will use my Webster's dictionary a little

more.

Mr. SANTINI. Thank you. Secretary Davenport-and unless my only ally that is left would care to ask any question-do you have any questions?

Mr. DALE NICHOLLS. No, Mr. Santini, I do not.

Mr. SANTINI. Dr. Morgan, again thank you for joining us and contributing your expertise.

Mr. KAZEN. Our next witness is Howard W. Pollock, U.S. Department of Commerce, a witness who has something more than a passing familiarity with this.

STATEMENT OF HOWARD W. POLLOCK, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION

Mr. POLLOCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It is a pleasure to appear before the subcommittee and before members of my old committee this morning to discuss the administration's views on deep seabed legislation.

Mr. SANTINI. At this point I would direct that the entire text of your testimony, contained in the statement that you have presented to the committee, be entered into the record.

If you are inclined, I would appreciate a synopsis of the conclusions contained in that testimony, unless pride of authority compels you to complete the whole thing, too.

Mr. POLLOCK. No, sir, I am very pleased to submit it for the record. [Prepared statement of Howard W. Pollock, with attachments, may be found in the appendix.]

Mr. POLLOCK. I would like to make several remarks regarding page 3. I think the first full paragraph is an important one.

Our feeling in the Department of Commerce is that a thriving deep seabed mining industry could, by the end of the 1980's, significantly increase our supplies of copper, cobalt, and manganese. We believe, among other things, that this might have a stabilizing effect upon prices which are likely to increase for marginal land-based mineral sources. We think, in addition, that there are other benefits to the Nation, and one of them is, as has been adequately demonstrated, I think, by the previous witnesses, a more favorable balance of payments which would ensue if we can bring a number of these minerals in from the oceans. It certainly would tend to enhance and advance the technology of the United States in ocean areas.

And while it hasn't been mentioned and it may not be enormous, we think there is a significant additional benefit in creating employment. As I recall, and I don't have the figures before me, for each of the units there would perhaps be 2,000 people employed; and depending on the number of units over the next 15 or 20 or 30 years, this could have some impact.

On page 4, the first full paragraph is worth calling to your attention. The Law of the Sea Treaty would provide for some form of revenue sharing that has been mentioned this morning by previous witnesses. Revenue sharing with the international community and, I guess, the point that I really wanted to make is that unless we have a commercially successful seabed mining industry, there are not going to be revenues to share.

Therefore, as we see it, it is in the interest of the United States and the entire world that the industry proceed with commerical recovery as soon as it is technically, environmentally, and economically feasible. There are, as you know, four American-led deep seabed mining consortia which have now essentially completed their research and development phases, and which are now moving into the so-called exploration phase which is the prototype phase. We anticipate that commercial-scale recovery will commence about 1980.

Another point I think worth mentioning is the third paragraph on page 5 of my testimony. I call it to your attention to emphasize that I think both Government and industry agree that a broadly acceptable, sound multilateral Law of the Sea Treaty, which provides assured nondiscriminatory access to deep seabed resources, coupled with security of tenure, would provide the best climate for attaining the stability that we hope to achieve.

Now obviously if this is not possible through a treaty, then the legislative route would be the alternative course. Mr. Santini, you have asked the question several times about our recommending or not recommending legislation at this time and I think the point for the

administration can best be stated by saying that we don't believe. that we can in good conscience recommend immediate passage of legislation at the precise time that we send our negotiating team to the conference table at the Law of the Sea Conference.

The next session, the sixth session, convenes on the 23d of May and we expect to go until the 8th or the 15th of July, meaning we will have 7 or 8 weeks of negotiation.

Mr. SANTINI. May I stop you at that point

Mr. POLLOCK. Yes.

Mr. SANTINI. Because I think you make a valid point on that. I am sure it is shared by the other witnesses who have testified. My thought is from a strategic sense in terms of enhancing our bargaining posture. We have tried the other route now for 7 years of do nothing, do nothing, do nothing and have come to nothing in terms of any substantive advancements.

Do you believe there is any validity to my surmise that if we took an affirmative legislative posture now, it might prove an enhancing or persuasive influence in terms of arriving at some even preliminary conclusions at the spring conference?

Mr. POLLOCK. Mr. Santini, I would like to address that. I think there are several comments to be made. One is that I don't think anyone who has been in the negotiating arena in the Law of the Sea Conference these past 6 or 7 years, as I have, can say with any certainty that it would enhance or detract from the negotiating process.

I will say this: I can distinguish in my own mind very clearly Congress passing the Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976, on the one hand, and now contemplating the passage of mining legislation on the other. In the international arena most of the countries, as Ambassador Richardson pointed out, coastal nations that is, wanted very much to achieve a 200-mile economic zone primarily for fishing. So that when Congress passed that act and, incidentally, the administration recommended against passage of that legislation, most of the countries agreed with the United States except for the U.S.S.R., Japan, the United Kingdom, West Germany, and a few other countries that were fishing off of our shores.

We have a different situation now. Both the developing and developed countries really oppose the United States now moving expeditiously into the oceans to mine, because those countries can't compete with us today.

Now, aside from the land-based producing countries, I would think that the other countries want us to get out into the oceans under a treaty which requires revenue sharing, because if we do get manganese nodules, reduce them, and sell the reduction products at a profit, all the nations of the world, particularly the developing nations, would benefit. However, to date the handful of land-based producers have succeeded in convincing the developing countries that they should put the reins on the United States and try to hold back.

So having said that, I am sure your thoughts are: "Well, then, if we pass legislation, this is going to change that attitude a little bit," the developing countries are going to say: "We had better get on with the job, get the treaty over and get on about our business," and I think that is true. But on the other side of the coin are the developed countries who today, although some are in consortia with American

firms, are really not prepared to go forward on their own. They do not have the requisite technology, to completely go out and mine.

Many of the countries in my view have come to the United States and formed consortia in order to try to get the benefit of our technology and other resources. I think it is a very complicated kind of a question. The point I wanted to make about timing, I think, is very important. Over the period of the last 6 or 7 years it seems that almost always we come before the congressional committees immediately before we go to the Conference.

We have no control over whether committees call witnesses in the administration, but it seems to me that it would never be appropriate for an administration witness to come forward and say: "We recommend immediate passage, but we are going to go sit down and try to negotiate a treaty on the same subject."

I guess what I am saying is that timing makes a great deal of difference. If we have an unsuccessful session this spring and summer, as we did last year, and immediately following that session the several congressional committees were to call members of the administration and say: "Now what are you going to do?" I think we would have to face up to the issue and rot continue to say, "We are just about to sit down and negotiate what we hope will be a successful session of the Law of the Sea Conference."

Yesterday, Juanita Kreps, Secretary of Commerce, in her testimony before the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, made a clear and unequivocal statement that if substantial progress is not made. toward resolution of the seabed issues this summer in a manner which protects U.S. oceans and mineral interests, then she intends to recommend to the President that the administration support sea bed mining legislation.

Mr. SANTINI. I gather on page 8 you don't like either b'll much. Mr. POLLOCK. Before we get to that, I wanted to talk about the bottom of page 7 a little bit, because I think that talking about the substance of the legislation is important. We think that as a minimum there should be certain characteristics in any legislation regardless of who the author is or where the jurisdiction will eventually lie for a lead agency.

One is that we believe it should be interim in nature and that it should be modified by any international treaty to which we become signatories if it is ratified by the Senate. So we think that we should clearly indicate that it is our intent that any legislation which is passed now would be superseded by the Law of the Sea Treaty.

Second, we think that we should reaffirm the legal premise which the United States has long endorsed, which is that seabed mining is one of the traditional freedoms of the seas which is well understood in the world, even though there have been a number of U.N. resollutions to the contrary asking for a moratorium on seabed mining. The third thing is that we think there should be in the bill provision for sound environmental assessment and management.

Fourth, we think that there should be a provision for duty free entry of seabed minerals that are mined under permits granted by the United States; and, fifth, we think that there should be some harmonization between this legislation and legislation of other countries that might do the same thing as an interim mesure.

It is not that we dislike either one of these bills at all, Mr. Chairman. I guess we are simply saying that we shouldn't get too specific in the

legislation regarding the regulatory framework. I am not saying that we should not have specific regulations covering the points. Rather we feel that legislation is not the proper place to put details regarding regulations. However, in some respects H.R. 3652 is not detailed enough.

We believe that we don't have the necessary data today to establish sound regulations for environmental and resource management, because we are in a pioneering stage in ocean mining. We think it would be unfortunate if excessive detail regarding diligence requirements or relinquishment provisions for the duration of activities under a license, were established by the legislation.

What we believe needs to be done is that we need to establish in the legislation the kind of criteria which would make the industry, if I can use the term, a little more sanguine so that they can predict exactly what will happen.

Mr. SANTINI. You used the appropriate expression here so they would know the rules of the game. I think that is a fair synopsis just to know what the rules of the game are going to be.

Mr. POLLOCK. Yes; and I think they have to know that well in advance.

We are saying at the same time, as you will note on page 8 toward the bottom, that the criteria should be enunciated so that whatever department or agency is going to run this can establish detailed rules. and regulations under which the industry would survive and hopefully do well.

We don't think that we have an adequate data base at this time for the final regulations for the commercial end of it, so we do want to defer at this time. However, I wanted to emphasize that we have to have the regulations well in advance of the time the industry will go into production, which we predict will probably be in 1983.

Now, on page 9 there is another point that I think is awfully important. It has been alluded to earlier today, but we recommend that the legislation not provide-again we are talking about the legislation, not the regulations-for specific blocs. We believe that it should be left to the resource manager to insure that the miners don't interfere with each other and we would envision that this would be accomplished by a mechanism such as follows: That a company would apply for a license to mine and in this process of applying they would submit a plan of work. This plan of work would be reviewed by the resource manager in light of the criteria which would be established by the legislation and the regulations, and if approved, then the miner would be restricted to activities which are delineated in his work plan.

Mr. Chairman, this would include-and I think this is a very important point-being restricted to activities within the geographic coordinates which are stipulated in his plan of work. The environmental and resource management functions would be carried out in relation to the plan. And the problem we would avoid, I think internationally, is that we would not be giving the miner or the U.S. Government or the public or the international arena any concept that we thought we were conveying some indicia of ownership or a property right in an area that belongs to the international community.

So I think the net effect is really the same. We are saying that any miner would submit a plan of work, would establish his geographic coordinates and would be restricted to mining within those coordinates. This would provide the miner with security and would provide security