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would have for granting of a license as you suggest beyond the continental limits?

Mr. MURPHY. In my prepared statement, I have a statement that says under current existing international law, the United States or any other nation has the right to mine in the deep ocean.

We have always stood by the freedom of the sea concept. In fact, the Law of the Sea Conference grew out of an agreement or a disagreement, if you will, between the United States and other foreign entities between the 3-mile limit which the United States had insisted on and, of course, a 12-mile limit and the question of navigation through waters either 3 or 200 miles from a coast. In an effort to secure navigability rights, in an effort to secure passage through straits and some other defense considerations, we also wanted to go to the question deep ocean mining and mining of its resources.

The Third World and other international elements felt they had the United States over a barrel and tried to extract not only the pound of flesh but all the substance involved as well in the question of technology product and exploitation of the deep seabed. Senator HOLLINGS. Perhaps our State Department created the barrel, but we have the right on the one hand-which I can understand, a general right as any other nation state in this international community. But are there any precedents with respect to the granting of a license?

Just what would that license say other than as a citizen of a nation state, the nation state had the right to do some deep seabed mining. I am just trying, for those who have not studied in this particular field-are there any precedents at all for licenses to be granted by a nation state and a world court to respect that license in any regard?

Mr. MURPHY. Right offhand, Senator, I don't recall any license. However, I will check with our staff and see if I can't provide that for the record.

Senator HOLLINGS. I think, as you were indicating with the differences and difficulty we have had with the Law of the Sea Conference, we don't come up just as an unknowing party without knowledge of the objections of the majority of the membership of the United Nations since we have had the Law of the Sea Conference and have supported it and since this Third World group has made what perhaps you and I would agree unfair demands upon it. It would be taken as a contradiction to procedure and policy of the U.S. Government and, therefore, you and I would both agree we would not just do it lightly. We backed into that 200-mile; we had to do it finally. We exhausted ourselves and I think you and I almost got the gout going to these Law of the Sea Conferences. But with respect to deep seabed mining, do you think it's a similar situation as the 200-mile?

Mr. MURPHY. Senator, an analysis of the United Nations, particularly those countries with an interest in the Law of the Sea Conference, I think indicates to those people who studied it over these years that that majority, so-called majority, is dominated by a minority within that majority.

Policy is being made by that minority, a policy that many of the countries, and many of the countries who will be investors in deep

seabed ocean mining at some future date. We have watched this evolve and we have watched this develop.

We have gone to the bargaining table through six sessions in good faith and the United States is the only country that put anything on the table in those bargaining sessions. We have seen nothing but a withdrawal and extraction of further demands by the other side from the United States.

We have even gotten down to disagreements within that so-called majority because of the tactics they have used and the movement of secret texts and, of course, the demands of the Third World. What I think we have to eliminate and what I think is very difficult to eliminate is to remove the deep ocean mining issue from the north-south dialog. This is the technologically able nation extracting "the ocean technology and ocean resource for its own benefit." That I feel is not the case.

I feel what we are doing is keeping out of the hands of an international cartel the common heritage of mankind.

Senator HOLLINGS. Do you have any reaction or opinion as to how the other major nation states in this particular discipline would react or how they would feel? Most specifically, how about the French? Suppose they came and started deep seabed mining for manganese nodules? From your experience in the Law of the Sea Conference and as a leader on this particular score, what would the United States do?

Mr. MURPHY. If France did what, Senator?

Senator HOLLINGS. If France started mining in the deep seabed for manganese nodules, what would we do: write letters; make statements?

Mr. MURPHY. I think American companies interested would certainly be monitoring the activities of the French entity on a basis of production and success. I think that already I have been contacted and my staff has been contacted by Japanese legislators, West Germany legislators, by companies in Belgium, England, Germany, Japan, all monitoring and keeping abreast of the activities of the U.S. Congress so that they can, on the basis of their own economic and political development, move in this area as well.

Senator HOLLINGS. We talk so often of joint ventures, has any thought been given to a French-Japanese-United States venture into the deep seabed? At least we would have some leading countries and it would not have been done arbitrarily by the United States in disregard of all the other negotiations in the course of the Law of the Sea Conference. In your conferences and discussions, has any consideration been given to that kind of approach, a joint venture among the principal nation states interested?

Mr. MURPHY. Yes; West Germany and Belgium particularly have already embarked on negotiations with American entities, the American entity being the majority flag in the venture, however. Senator HOLLINGS. Could that share the risk somewhat to the American taxpayers so the guarantees would not have to be so high?

Mr. MURPHY. The guarantee in the House bill is only to the American investment and proportion of the venture.

Senator HOLLINGS. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator METCALF. Thank you very much, Senator Hollings, for bringing out some of the salient features of this bill.

I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, too, for your testimony. I think it should be emphasized, and you ought to emphasize that under the present Law of the Sea, any nation has the right to go out there and mine these manganese nodules or any of the other material under the Law of the Sea; isn't that correct?

Mr. MURPHY. That's true.

Senator METCALF. Now when we seek to license some of these people, for the benefit of the other nations of the world and our own people, we are also trying to make an orderly process and setting up certain specific areas. Therefore, we are actually limiting their access under present international law.

Mr. MURPHY. That's true, Senator. To dispel the common misconception that the United States is going to go out and harrow the whole deep ocean bottom; that's not the case.

Senator METCALF. And we want to make sure that we have told the world that.

Mr. MURPHY. And we have told them that. We tried to get the word out that there are so many mine sites, probably 800; that the scientists have developed and put their finger on; the number and ability of the technologically developed countries to even exploit a fraction of those within the next 50 years is certainly apparent that it could not be done.

I would say that at the outset, we are dealing with four or five sites that we could not extract any production for probably 5 or 6 years from today. I would think that we should get on with the exercise of making it possible for the United States to exert its leadership in this area.

Senator METCALF. Do you think it would be necessary to have provision in the legislation that processing of these ores would have to take place in the United States?

Mr. MURPHY. The House bill requires processing in the U.S. territories or U.S. continental area.

Senator METCALF. If they get a guarantee.

Mr. MURPHY. That's right.

Senator METCALF. Wouldn't the economics of the situation almost require that processing be in the United States without this flag that we are waving to other nations and saying, well, we are going to develop these manganese nodules, nickel, and these other materials, for use in the United States.

Mr. MURPHY. The question of use in the United States brings up one of the significant reasons why we should pass this legislation. If the Third World's present attitudes were to succeed, the international entity that would control the deep seabed would control price and production; it would be a cartel. We have seen recently what an oil cartel can do.

With the United States moving unilaterally followed by other technically capable nations, we will find the cost of those minerals and metals that move into the manufacturing process much lower than they would under the entity provisions.

Therefore, the cost of the manufactured products that are necessary to develop the underdeveloped world would be lower. We see the Third World countries raising the price for every implement

and technical good that is necessary to develop their countries because of their attitudes at the present time. I think the world. would be better served by the United States and other technical countries going out and keeping a free market in these metals. Senator METCALF. Senator Weicker.

Senator WEICKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; good morning, Congressman. It's good to see you with your clothes on and not in scuba gear.

John, House bill 3350 gives jurisdiction of this deep-seabed mining activities to the Department of Commerce. Why do you consider the Department of Commerce the best place for administration of deep-seabed mining in view of the materials background and mining activity already established in the ocean-mining administration?

Let me say this so there will be no conflict in my asking this question. I believe, very frankly, it should be in Commerce, but I would like to get your point of view of why you did this in your legislation?

Mr. MURPHY. The Department of Commerce has the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration within its agency. It is the largest administration within the Department in the U.S. Government and perhaps in the world, it is perhaps the most technically capable agency with expertise in deep oceans within the atmosphere itself.

I feel that it would be the proper agency to be the regulatory agency for this area, particularly because we are going to the deep oceans and then we are going to environmental and other considerations involved in that mining. That is why in the bill passed by the Merchant Marine Committee, Commerce was the agency specified.

Senator HOLLINGS. On that score, Mr. Chairman, if you would yield? Would a more appropriate word rather than mining be in essence "fishing"? You are just gathering these up from the ocean floor; you are not digging them out; you are not going into the subsoil as I understand it.

Mr. MURPHY. It's probably more like crabbing. These nodules have been forced up and they are laying loose on the ocean floor. Present technology picks them up from the floor without intrusion on the ocean bottom to speak of.

Senator HOLLINGS. It is a collecting process, not actually a digging into the ocean floor on the Continental Shelf.

Mr. MURPHY. That is true.

Senator WEICKER. To follow up on that, I think it would give a little force to what I gather is the thrust of your statement. Certainly it is a force that I think has to be contended with, the deep concern that if the oceans be developed, they be developed in such a way as to be environmentally sound from the outset and that these are considerations that attach to a certain technical expertise which no one is in a better position to have than the Department of Commerce or more particularly NOAA within that Department. Indeed, it is going to become-the world is going to turn more and more to the oceans but I think it is my concern and Congress and I know it is yours that we can do this without raping it and just going in there and getting what we have to get and getting out

and leaving it useless for future generations. It is my feeling that there is that type of expertise within NOAA and very frankly, it is an expertise that holds a very important part of many considerations made as to who is going to go ahead and regulate it.

Mr. MURPHY. Yes, and that is one of the great assurances of this legislation, that and environmental protection that is specified in the legislation and of course, NOAA, a very militant and properly so agency, with its world reputation for protecting the environment, particularly in the American waters and atmosphere.

Senator WEICKER. I have never heard any criticism in that sense of the word which is testimony of the agency of work being done in the ocean. People have that understanding, that NOAA is interested in protecting the environment and that is enormously important when you are about to go in a massive way into the ocean to allow the American people to have that feeling rather than the opposite. Senator METCALF. I think, Senator Weicker, you underscored a most significant and important point about this legislation and that is that we embark upon this business of mining these nodules of the seabed that we should embark on it in a way that is environmentally sound and with as little interference with the oceans and oceanic atmosphere as possible.

Some of us thought that Interior had been the leader in offshore environmental activity and that is why it was in Interior. But wherever it is, we have to start out on a basis of sound environmental process and insist that all of this mining be done in a way in which we will have the least possible interference with the ocean for all the rest of the world.

Senator WEICKER. I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman, and I know your concerns. It's just having worked with NOAA over the years, it gives me respect for the particular knowledge they have.

I would not ask NOAA to regulate or oversee a mining operation in Montana. They are not the best qualified agency to do that. But in this context of the oceans, yes, I think we are the best. I am not just talking about mining; I'm talking about fishing; I'm talking about anything that goes on in those oceans. I think we are far and away the best qualified.

Senator METCALF. Senator Hatfield.

Senator HATFIELD. Mr. Chairman, I had a chance to glance over your testimony. I'm sorry I was detained in getting to the meeting this morning.

Mr. Congressman, you are suggesting here a transitional move, as I understand it, concerning certain jurisdictional rights, not merely economic. As you know, the military has also been interested in developing potential sites for military instrumentation.

What would your opinion be as to once you undertake to make this assertion, even if it be on an economic base, but primarily related to domestic policy and domestic needs? What is your assessment of the impact as to the role of the military in making further involvements or creating further involvements for military instrumentation of the same seabeds?

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. Chairman, this may be transitional legislation. It is all predicated on changing attitudes in the Third World toward cooperation on an international basis. I would think that where a national security question involves an impact of an eco

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