Conversation 121-003

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Thank you.

yeah yeah yeah

Thank you.

yeah yeah

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

We have two items today.

But I wanted to say that before we go into the new item, a very good suggestion is made by some of our leaders, which will be recorded out of the next meeting.

We will not have one next week.

The next meeting is on the next item.

But that may be a bipartisan meeting.

The next meeting we have of the Republican leaders, the suggestions we've made, that the, that several of the members of the leadership are going to do.

to submit items to the union themselves, rather than to have the items submitted online.

As you can see, we've got a chapter today that we want to discuss with you.

We have to call it a day.

We want to discuss what you need.

And that's the pipeline.

This is another version of the case.

We're here.

We're here for a couple of minutes.

We're going to have to do this.

Have you thought about

You might have matters you'd want to bring up.

Now, the question is, how do we handle that?

I kept it around the last night.

You're very pleasant.

The problem we have with that is the number of items.

In other words, if you had 25 items, it would have been a very, very long meeting.

So you are going to have to work out in your own stops, you know, to say, look, here's about what I have, and that's the things that we ought to take up so that we can get through to the general public.

Would you like to speak to this one in a minute, or could you discuss this with your board?

Mr. President, we had worked on prospecting a plan

Although it started out as a list of about 20, when we really refined it, it was down, narrowed down to about six or eight, as I recall.

Eight, about two of which probably went along the car.

Good.

Well, we can revive the main thing and try that as a procedure.

Yeah, it works.

And I'll give you a chance to bring up various ideas.

Well, then perhaps even the leaders.

And the responsibility of the leadership.

Anybody else have any ideas about this format?

I think it's a good one.

If we can, we'll experiment with it and see if it works out.

a large big general with one or two specifics, because I remember that agenda.

Dave Martin had the only specific one, so it was the first time six generals came.

This happened in our saloon, the ejection of 11 in Houston.

You did?

I'd be surprised.

I thought of a new fit.

They had eight men in the school who had now already come off the leave, and I suppose that we once had a governor who had chairs of five,

Say, I find that his secretary never went to the State of Iowa State of California for once in two weeks, never answered a letter, and his theory was that every letter answers itself in two weeks.

You hear me?

I didn't mean to.

I was waiting a little longer.

Well, we'll go ahead and this morning we'll do the agriculture subject first.

We've got all the experts here.

Where's the button?

Here it is.

This morning here, you could have had 10 eggs, but now you're supposed to be here.

Okay, well, here we go.

This is a U.S. farm right up, for goodness sakes, mostly.

Colorado, did you understand?

Yeah.

Well, I'm going to tell you, Dennis, that your farm is doing well.

Yeah, it is.

The president yesterday said now they come home with second can like so.

The soybean farmers are doing all right.

The other day, the soybean farmer felt something.

And he bought a dragon on the local bar.

He put two soybeans.

He got back six cents a day.

No more than a year ago.

At that time, we were in trouble with agriculture economically and politically.

We made a very concerted attack on the political front last year.

I think the President from time to time when he takes off on the farmers get another Cadillac here.

I like your line all of you that we delivered, the farmers delivered 70% of their vote last year for the administration.

The only group that exceeded that was registered Republicans.

That didn't exceed very far.

And I had to try to deliver about the same thing today.

Economically, we're in farm leadership.

We set out to improve farm income.

We had an agricultural act in 1970 in which we were operating here.

It was a good piece of farm legislation.

It was controversial.

It broke the new ground.

It let farmers have some freedom in the way they planned their increases.

It cut them loose from the rigid quotas and the locks under which they labored and been constrained for a number of years.

It was in the right direction.

It permitted us to move into the export market.

And so the farm exports in the current year, ending June 30th this year, will be more than double what they were in the year before this administration came into power.

And they're going to push hard against less than $28 billion by June 30th this year.

And that is...

possibly in part at least, because of the pricing provisions of this Agricultural Act of 1970.

But that act expires now, with the crop year 1973, or the process of getting new basic farm legislation.

It's not going to be easy.

This farm legislation has been costly.

It's been costly.

The Farm Act of 1970 was costly.

In calendar year 1971, we paid out approximately $4 billion in payments to farmers.

I understand you're apologizing for that because they're not the only ones that got federal subsidy.

But we did pay out $4 billion in payments to farmers directly.

That doesn't include such indirect and hidden things as my pet peeve, the peanut program that costs $100 million a year, and some things like that.

They're hidden in CCC costs.

Don't identify as a particular cost to that program, you see.

But you ought to go to the stop.

I mean, if you haven't heard of it, crow it in.

I make the same speech as Bill Campbell right in Georgia.

But nonetheless,

I'll touch on that.

This is a part of our permanent legislation.

It doesn't expire this year.

As you fellas know, it's harder to get legislation off the books than we get at all.

But there it is.

This year, we're going to drop $100 million in the peanut program.

This year, we're going to buy half the peanuts we produce in America.

This year, by the time we sell that half, we're going to have a 50% loss in it.

We have no choice for that.

There is a minimum acreage legislation below which we can't reduce.

There is a minimum price below which we can't reduce.

The insulator in that price, we're locked in to the point where the right to grow an acre of peanuts in Georgia today will rest for $150 cash just for the right to grow an acre of peanuts.

And if you sell the ownership of that right to grow an acre of peanuts, it's kind of hard to identify what it's worth because it's written into the value of the farm.

The right to grow an acre of peanuts, the ownership of the sale as part of the farm today in West Carolina or Oklahoma or Texas will sell for somewhere between $1,200 and $2,000.

And that's not to capitalize the cash, there's a little uncertainty in there, they don't capitalize it fully, you see.

This is the kind of situation we're in, but that's not what I'm here primarily to talk about.

Income-wise, last year we moved our farmers up to an all-life net farm income of about $19.2 million in 1972.

And the cases are, in 73, it may get $21 billion.

We may have overdone that.

We've got a lot of slack about food prices.

And as you know, I catch it in this room.

I catch it across the head of the council.

And sometimes I need a part of it myself.

We may have been too successful.

So I take the Senate conference group yesterday up here.

We may be like a little like the Catholic girl, but at the Protestant point, she didn't convert to Catholicism.

She explained to Mother, and Mother said, Mother, just be patient.

You keep explaining the advantages of Catholicism to him.

He'll see the light one of these days.

Six weeks later, Mother came in the room and taught her this sobbing, violent thing.

Mother said, what's the matter?

Won't Johnny convert?

She said, Mother, I'll go to the facility.

He's going to increase it.

We're going to have pretty good production in 73.

If we get a record and beer on it, it sounds like it.

I've done a quick flip here, after all this flip.

The card is about 75% planted as nearly as we can tell, compared to 90% this time last year.

The rest will go in quickly.

And we've seen the news media and the budget and this has said it makes it spectacular still to see the funded areas.

We may lose a million to a million and a half acres this year that won't be planted because it's too late and the water's receded.

But a million to a million and a half acres against a total base of 400 is menace to you unless you happen to be one of the 1,000,000,000 out here.

As a percentage of the total, it's not important.

Therefore, at this juncture, the report was approximately 400 million.

So as of this juncture, I think we don't have to allay fears about not having food in 1973.

The reason is that the real danger of not having production is not in the planting season, it's if you get an extended drying period

Alright, now we've got to have a little farmland.

I say we must have a new format.

If we don't get one, we reverse to the so-called government legislation.

In fact, it wouldn't be so bad except for now.

This is implemented by a legislative alternative.

If we can't get one, it's satisfactory.

I would prefer not to revert.

But in the current situation, for wheat and feed grains, and the situations I see, as far as I can see, two or three years anyway, which is probably as long as, nearly as long as any farm act would run anyway, we could live with existing legislation after this, after 70 expires, for feed grains and for wheat.

For cotton, it would have, it would mandate too high a price for cotton and put us into a two-price situation again, where we would accumulate a lot of cotton in hands, where we'd have to subsidize cotton to export, and we'd just have our textiles falling back into this country.

that we centralized cheap cotton to export, and we get in the same situation, I fear, that we were in a few years ago with cotton, which is not good, and I suspect if we got into that situation, that we'd very quickly get some legislation.

I suspect sponsored by Ernie Talmadge himself, from Georgia, because he's very close to the milling, the milling industry, and another industry that's very seriously opposed to it.

Well, that's one alternative.

I hope we don't have to come to that.

The Senate committee,

with good leadership from Carl here, and Henry, and some of the rest of them that were up there, has passed out a bill.

It hasn't been approved, it's about $400 when it comes up.

This bill has some good features in it.

It's a hard force to live with.

One of the good features is it gets us away from mandatory income supplement payments.

Under present legislation, this year, we are required to pay 15 cents a pound on all cotton produced on the base acreage, which is 10 million acres.

We determined we cut it back to a million and a half from last year.

We're paying out some 800 million dollars to our cotton farmers this year for not doing things.

There's no set-aside requirement.

And this is just a straight income supplement payment.

The price of cotton being pretty satisfactory.

As a matter of fact, some two-thirds of our cotton crop, 19th century cotton, is forward sold right now on sold at pretty good prices.

In the case of wheat, we are required to pay off 15.

We're required to pay off, it'll be about $900 million this year for the certificate payment.

And this is financed at least in half by the so-called bread tax.

It's only five cents a bushel that the millers have to pay and they process the bread domestically.

And this brings the pricing to the average of the first five months of the marketing year.

And parity, which is the ridiculous figure, $3.15 a portion of them, based on the time when you cut the horses, the chocolate by hand, and that kind of stuff.

And we make that payment.

Again, we do not have no set aside.

We're not doing anything to get this.

In case the car is going to pay a little less than $1 billion this year,

I'm one of the fields, and I think most people about this field, move toward getting this income in the marketplace and move away from dependence on government.

If ever there was a time we could do that, this time is now, with the income up, and the transition, and the hinge point in agricultural history here, at a time when export markets are good and almost insatiable, and they're going to be that way next year, as near as we can tell, too.

At a time when we can pull our agricultural resources back into full production again, which is good for agriculture and good for the country.

Some people are saying, why don't you shut off agricultural exports and lower food prices domestically?

This argument is completely serious.

Because take a farmer up in Farmville whose head he's in the farm by 80%.

If he can bring that additional 20% in, as he did in 1973,

He farms it at very low unit partial costs, because in the main he has to equip support, and then he has to leave support.

He farms it at low unit partial costs, which lowers his average costs across the board, so he can increase his income at the same time.

We are getting more recently in high school for our people, if we can utilize this growing export market.

All right, now I'm going to come to the Senate bill.

The Senate bill got away from mandatory games that I just described here.

On the other hand, it has extended alternative prices.

Now, I think there's ample justification, and I support the idea of putting some kind of insurance under our farmers in case the export market gets full, in case they get another good green revolution in the far east over there.

or in case something should happen to the domestic market.

I think we need to do that, just as we have minimum wages and everything else in the country.

The place that's going to be hard to live with is the target prices are too high.

There's always a target price of $1.53 for corn.

which means that the average price of target farmers the first five months of marketing year is below $1.53.

We make up the difference in target payments based on this case here.

The target price would be $2.28 and the top $0.43.

economically they're too high.

Those become incentive prices to produce for the government is really what they do.

I think we have to get away from that.

These can be adjusted down.

I think we all know that this bill is going to be written in conference.

And I need some advice here from you on part of the street here.

On top of that, the Senate bill has an escalator feature based on

prices taken by farmers, so that these prices rise too as the period goes along.

On top of that, the Senate bill has this dairy feature in it, which raises the mandatory price score on dairy in the current 75% of parity, 80% of parity.

The embassy sees the benefit of butter and cheese and dry skin business to get on with the field.

It has a feature in what's known as imports of agricultural products in this country,

of our consumption, which runs counter, Mr. President, to the philosophy of your trade bill, and which I feel would very severely restrict our capacity for negotiation and forthcoming trade negotiations, if that should be a part of the current bill here, and that's strictly countered.

But now then, there are two or three approaches here I'd like to toss out, and Mr. President, I can give you an answer this week, if I could understand where to proceed here.

we can attempt to have the mammoths on the standing floor to lower these target presses, or to remove the escalator clocks, or to remove that restriction on parking points, or if we feel that there's no chance that the mammoths like that passing the floor press, we better pass them.

or it may be worse, to make an attempt to get those things rectified and failed, and be on record.

That could win the conference without a record vote.

Ms. Leibniz, I appeal to this.

Secondly, the House made yesterday, Gordon,

the House Committee on Agriculture, that it would take the Senate bill as its basis to take off from the work bill.

I hope you knew it would take the Agricultural Act of 1970 with a simple extension, which would give us a wide corridor for negotiation and a conference.

My fear is that if they take the Senate bill, we'll have a much narrower record of negotiation in the Congress.

I think we're gonna be able to get a bill that will cost less on the House floor than on the Senate floor.

Chairman Polk and the House Committee, and the leaders in there, and I assume you're the Republicans here too, feels that

The Senate House is such that you can't make the same expensive bill for the House you can for the Senate.

But so many members of the House have not had any finance under their constituency.

So,

We can let the House Committee, and we have some members of the House Committee here, report what they will, which would be a fairly narrow part of the negotiation.

We can attempt to get amendments made on the floor of the House Committee, or we can introduce an administration bill on the floor.

We have discussed the strategy of the administration bill in some way.

and decided among ourselves we'd go the best not to do that.

I've said at the start that I didn't want a bus bill up there because I, he said, it'd become a target and it'd blow out.

I think of the Brown bill, I think of the Spencer bill, I think of the Freeman bill, none of them flew.

And I'm sure a bus bill would fly here.

So at least right or wrong, that's the decision we've made so far.

It may well be at some point in the near future we should introduce an administration bill.

We have one prepared that would incorporate the language of what we want.

I think it would be a basis for negotiation.

Mr. President, just one more thing.

Our people have estimated that the Senate bill, if it goes into operation,

Assuming that farm prices would have ran at the April 1973 level, which is not a bad level, that this bill would have cost us like over $1 billion in 1974, up to $4 billion in 1978 because of the escalation features.

So it's not a cheap bill, you see.

Again, cheap because of what we consider to be the high target prices they've set.

I have a lot of people here, they make a little compilation here of what we've paid out in farm program costs since we started this business back in 1933.

Now I know that's a 40 year period here.

But the Quality Credit Corporation, this is FDCCC, costs us all of this.

It doesn't include these other things I mentioned right there.

Eighty-four billion dollars, which is a bad chunk of money, I guess.

And many of those dollars were three-plus dollars.

I personally feel we are at a historical turning point in agriculture.

For 40 years, we ruled ourselves in the philosophy of cutback and curtailment, of keeping this growing void under dirt rather than buying a pair of pants.

And I think right now we're in a growing market at the moment of rather than buying a pair of pants and letting the void grow.

And that's really what I want to hear.

Uh, with this, with this domestic demand, this neuroscience is going to evolve.

With this foreign climate, I think it's going to be here.

Uh, the other day somebody gave me a statistic that I couldn't hardly believe.

They said if the Chinese people would increase their production, one pound per person per year, it would take one million tons of feedlings to accomplish it.

I couldn't believe it.

I figured back, and it's had a peak conversion ratio of 2.5 pounds a week, if I'm not right.

If every Chinese would have one simple cup of tea, it would take 800,000 bales of coffee to accomplish it.

This is a tremendous potential market.

The Russian market, well, the wheat market may vary some.

Therefore, I'm convinced to increase the animal protein component of their diet, and that means American feed grains and soybeans.

Right down the road, they're committed to a question of self-torture, as I was crossed a couple of years ago.

And all I can say is that this is a hit fight in the history of American agriculture.

And for 40 years, we've had this philosophy of curtailment.

Now, like Moses had the children of Israel in the wilderness for 40 years, he never got to the Promised Land, but the Lord let him see it.

Do you remember that over here?

I think we can see the Promised Land down here.

And I'd like to turn this thing around, if we can, to Margaret of Spain, because when I come to the market, unless we get the government, it'll be good for agriculture, it'll be good for government, it'll be good for America.

Thank you very much, Mr. President.

Carl, would you like to take on any advice?

Well, thank you, Mr. President.

I'll be very brief.

I concur that we must have legislation.

Now, the format, the plan of this new bill, I think it's the best I could possibly feel like seeing.

And here are some of the advantages.

If we maintain high prices, they'll give you no direct subs.

There will not be a moon level that will cause a pileup of government stocks.

It does have to target prices.

And the secretary is the wise man.

The park vectors can fix the total acreage at the right point.

Maybe they are exports.

I think the escalator cost could go out without a political cost.

I do want to say it's increased, not upon escalator just to increase the target price, but it's increased as far as the cost goes.

Now, on the level of the target prices, I think every member of the , felt that this was a bargain, that it would have to be reduced in various ways along the line.

When you consider the economic programs across the government and the trends in production,

I agree, both levels should be looked at.

We are facing the problems in the committee.

I do not know how successful, I don't think we'll be successful at all in implementing the committee, lowering the target price on time.

Other problems involved, I think the important

is to keep the option free.

So we can't.

Now, it's true, as the secretary pointed out, the House Committee would be brought out of a very, very small field, and the tariff has to be quite close to the earth, and the country will be locked in.

So, what are we doing?

I have a doubt about the success of any amendment on the Senate bill.

Here's a parliamentary question that should be pursued, that if the house does come up with very close figures on the target, that price is assumed.

If there's a formula to write in that, that's the distance, still the location of the house.

At this point, we've got a farmer head.

I just love farmers.

He is one.

And we're going.

That's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Let me say a couple things about farmers by their second Cadillac voice.

Because I hope you recognize that farmers sold their products a long time ago.

And farmers aren't getting these high soybean prices.

I bet no one less sold his, but most farmers are.

We make our products, we harvest them, we go pay the banker and the people and fertilize the people.

So don't think that because soybeans are 10 bucks a bushel.

The farmers are getting $10.

They sold them for probably $3 or $4 last fall.

Same thing with wheat.

I sold my wheat for $1.37 on the basis of the statutory budget statement that we're going to have a long crop and a short demand.

So...

Now, I'm going to be a little facetious.

The secretary talked about giving this to the boys in the pants.

Now, it wasn't the farm builder.

He does something probably great.

I mean, we put the pants on the secretary of agriculture.

He comes around telling us to grow and produce and produce because we're going to have this insatiable demand.

We've had this happen before.

Freeman did it to us.

And we turned everything loose.

We grew a lot of stuff.

And it wound up breaking the market down to the longest finger of the agriculture system.

It happened after the corn blight in 1970.

We got all busy to grow a lot of corn, so in 1971 the price of corn was down to 70 or 80 cents a bushel.

So what we're saying to Farm Bill is it's okay, Department of Agriculture, if you're convinced that we need these products, you go ahead and just set aside to produce the number of bushels or bales that we need.

And we'll encourage the farmers to go out and do this.

But if you have overestimated the demand, and if you bring about overproduction, we're not going to have the farmers suffer the loss to the point that they will bankrupt and the nation will beat itself.

These target prices, so-called, are very close to the cost of production.

We have to admit, we set them a little high so that the house would live on for some, and we anticipate this.

And I think that's the only real difference that we have with the Secretary.

But these prices and the escalator that's in them are intended to return to agriculture at a high level.

The level that's more or less adequate to give them back their cost of production.

And I think they can't do it.

It will serve as an incentive to get farmers to go ahead and grow the products that the country needs to export and to help balance our poor exchange.

So, in my opinion, this is a very good bill that shouldn't cost the Treasury one thing in time.

It should not increase the cost of food to consumers, but rather help stabilize them and help them longer hold them down.

And I would encourage the members of the House to look at the bill carefully because in a Senate committee, which includes such philosophical variations as Bob Doble and George McGovern,

The bill was unanimously approved.

There wasn't a single imposing vote, and I think it was a very healthy sign.

Now, all of us, of course, do have a foreign constituency, but the bill, I think, is very much on the board with the Republican philosophy, and it's one that I believe our administration will like a great deal, and certainly she helps politically.

Well, charges in that, what was York County?

I mean, York, or Adams County, what are they?

Well, I think we in the House have got to face this fact.

For all of us here, we've got to face this fact.

There's only one Bob Polk.

Bob Polk is going to get out of the committee pretty much what he wants, and I believe Charlie will agree with that.

Charlie and I will probably stand pretty much alone in the entire committee.

Anything that we oppose, that the administration opposes, we're going to be voted down.

Bob's gonna get what he wants.

I've made up my mind to that as well.

And the boys will go on with it.

Our own people.

Our own people will go on with Bob's committee.

Yes, Mr. President.

Well, I'm somewhat of a maverick, uh, like George.

And I probably will introduce the bill to a volley, uh,

I don't believe in 2% money for co-ops.

It worked out fairly recently.

Now, I know this bill isn't gonna get anywhere, but I wanted a committee, but I think it has enough impact, it'll scare the, Mr. Polk and his colleagues a little bit, and there'll be more research, because it could have a chance on the floor.

A real chance, and they may not offer it on the floor.

Dependent upon what kind of a deal we can get out of Bob Phillips, and I think I have Secretary Butts' approval not to support my bill, but as a tactical, natural cause to go and come to a more reasonable and sort of a compromise that we might be able to reach.

At what stage are you, Charlie, in the House Committee?

We have a committee, which is George's Golden Line, decided to adopt the Senate bill as the vehicle on which they will work.

And I took the liberty of, not committee, but to ask the Secretary to submit to the subcommittees, which will be considering the various...

aspects of the bill, cotton, wheat, between, and so forth, what the administration's wishes are in respect to each of those commodities.

Because that's something we always hear from Mr. Polk.

But what's the administration want?

The Congress has to apply the New York administration's bill.

Now, I think the Secretary is quite right at this stage anyway in not submitting an administration bill, because getting it as an entirety would get nowhere.

But I do think we ought to have some input into the subcommittees, which will be considering the commodity aspects of the board.

Mr. President, I ask the borrower of the early limitations of payments to your bill.

There are none.

I really don't see how limitations could be put in effect in this bill.

The bill gives the Secretary the right to set the amount set aside, but the limitations really, I don't see how it could work.

I don't see other people in effect either, but I assure you that on the floor of the house, there will be amendments offered to do this, and it will be very hard to concede.

I'm not sure, as a technical matter, if the President is in favor of that.

I think we were silent.

I believe, but you see, hopefully there won't be any payments of any kind.

All we're trying to do is just production.

But the point is, Senator, if there are limitations, then they...

The hope for effect of the increase in production won't happen because the big producer won't increase.

Because you'll be, you'll stay outside, you want your wires around it.

You'll stay outside the program.

The limitation in the last year has had virtually zero impact on production.

But you're... May I ask one question?

Sure.

I've been thinking to this group.

I'm a member of our subcommittee.

We have a lot of bills.

for a forestry incentive to approach this problem.

And there's a direct amount of pressure from that, but some of our people want to incorporate this in a general form.

What's the thinking of this group on that?

May I, Mr. President, may I just say something?

I think it has been determined that this group can have much effect on the Georgians.

I think Bob Post,

determined to put every possible sweetener in the bill, including PL-480 and food stamps, in one big package, in a poison peanut bill, as I call it, where we're buying cancer-causing, cancer-causing peanuts.

It'll all be in that, it'll all be in that big package.

Mr. President, Charlie, are you saying then that the forestry incentive bill would be a part of this?

Yes.

You don't try.

With regard to this matter, let me let us leave it this way.

This is always the case in agriculture.

We never have agreements.

Because of the pencil, Jerry, you've got the wheat fellows and the carne people and you've got the citrus people and you've got the...

There are no peanut people here today, apparently.

That's right.

Oh, yeah.

Well, I'll tell you, you should hear those peanut people going.

I think this is the greatest program in the world.

Right.

Year four.

Well...

I'm kind of like Charlie over there, I'm a maverick.

Mr. President, an interesting thing about peanuts, and back into history a little bit, one fellow came to Congress in Georgia by the name of Steve Pace, and Steve Pace alone, Steve Pace alone, that would be life, nothing but peanuts, got that peanut written for him.

I had it written in as a basic commodity, and sold it in the Senate, and stuck it there, only by his one hand.

Mr. President, you're talking about peanuts.

Yeah.

It's not a green peanut.

First, I think in terms of strategy here, I have a very serious doubt about the administration sending down a bill, the so-called Bucks bill.

From a political standpoint, you couldn't be more right.

First of all, you won't have united support, or even have united support among your own party.

Second thing is, all you do is to give the opposition a chance to have a symbol to be against.

uh they always that's basically ran against kareem and uh also against brandon before that and they ran against mints and uh now the situation basically is going to be hard and it's very skillful on this and this is a smart thing to do but it'd be a something that comes from the committee of course bo is going to go on and other systems the administration on the spot on this team we would agree it seems to me that the best thing to do

for Earl to continue to work with the membership of the committees and shall we say,

Get the least bad bill you can.

Of course, Henry said it's a very good bill.

He didn't want any at all.

Some place between those two must be something that we can work out the idea of you walking in there in the light of all this variety of views.

The administration bill, I think, would be very, very foolish.

But Mr. President, I clearly agree, but I do think that we've got to be in the position of getting some committees some idea of what that is.

I think that on various parts, on various provisions, Charlie, the administration has got to take a decision, maybe on a four-year decision on this, maybe on that.

And you've got a guy, but when I say, I'm going to just come in and say, here's the administration bill that just knocked your brains off.

And you're not going to get it.

You're just going to give that an issue.

And the thing to do is to remember that agriculture bills inevitably are written by the agricultural government.

and the committees of the House and the Senate, Democrat and Republican, across the bipartisan, they're going to do it.

You can guide them, you can help them, but they're going to do it.

And under those circumstances, the thing to do is to work with them and get the very best thing out of them if you can.

It isn't that we're being unspeakable.

The point is that there's no way, no way you can hold.

No way.

They stand up there and say,

Mr. President, this is the closest bill I have ever seen to a Republican lawsuit.

You mean the Senate bill?

Yes, sir.

It comes closer to what we really believe.

Well, I don't.

As I say, let me say over the present time, the philosophy and the rest, I'll certainly defer to Henry and to Carl and to you in another time.

The point that I make is that you see the authority of Frankenstein problem here.

And let's face that.

And the secretary is a great man, a great man at all, fortunately.

He's not an entrepreneur.

I think we've got to play a little breakmanship here, however.

And that's one of the key things, could very well be the

attitude of the speaker.

He's got a stake in agricultural legislation.

And if we can get Carl to be realistic, I think that's a key.

And he has to have a bill, but he can't go too far because he won't get a bill.

If we can get Carl, the speaker, into a position where he'll be moderate and reasonable, I think it would be very, very important.

I'll try, but I'll need some of you experts in the field of agriculture, which I am.

You can just scare Carl a little, Henry.

Some of us will try to do the same.

I think we can maybe achieve what we have to have.

Our big problem is no bill.

Mr. President, on the point of no bill, despite Mr. Polk's iron control over the committee, I seem to recall that in the balloting on Democratic Committee Chairman, there were more votes for the minister against Polk than any other committee.

He's not all that popular among Democrats in the House.

And a few fires could be very easily killed.

It's among the DSG and some of those people to warn him that he's too unreasonable.

I'm working on that, John.

I don't know anything about what you're doing, sir.

Is there any chance of getting a food stamp for strikers out of this legislation?

Well, I'm going to try and certainly end the committee.

If it doesn't succeed there, I'll try it on the floor.

But I'm afraid a deal has been made in order to get city votes.

A lot of people who normally would be against food stamps for strikers are closing their eyes in order to get a farm bill passed.

We may have trouble getting to the boat seat.

They're either in the committee or on the floor.

They're serving on the truck.

I'll offer it to the lady.

If it doesn't carry there, I'll offer it on the floor.

We want it on the floor.

Well, I think you better get on to the other subject as much as you can.

Because I know we are suffering so much.

Brock, we've taken a lot of your time.

We've got to be able to read that.

Thank you very much.

Get down and have breakfast with us.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Go down and have a peanut butter sandwich.

An apatotoxin.

Chuck made a comment about going to poison penises.

He left around here.

Penises are studied to cause disease we call anaphylaxis.

We better buy that at full price.

And this year, we announced we're gonna have a $50 a ton discount against the purchase price of $300 a ton on Patrick Thompson.

And I would have dropped $25 a ton to buy these kids.

It's a no-sell, we tell you, except if you can't even use them.

And they got a bill in the House that reverses on that.

That's what you're talking about.

Yeah, we've got out of committee, but so far we haven't brought it up.

I'm sure you've made it to a lot of these places.

Yeah.

That's brilliant.

I went to a press conference once on a Tuesday afternoon in Phoenix, Arizona.

Earl received me there.

He said, on Monday after the press conference, I asked him about it.

He said, it's still going on.

We want to talk for just a few minutes about the classical pipeline.

as far as we know.

It's all tied up with our total supply picture, and in about these portions, the elastin pipeline and the marine lake can, after it's operated for at least one year, count for about two million barrels a day, or at least a million and a half barrels a day in domestic markets of the lower 48 states.

This compares to the total demand of about today, of about something in the neighborhood of 17 to 18 million barrels a day.

So it's a significant piece of the action, practically as much as 12%.

We're in a situation today which is sound a lot more critical than it is.

It's much more difficult to understand than I think is being understood.

The facts are very sharp.

A very few number of barrels of crude oil make the difference between the so-called energy supply situation and the demand situation that is culminated in what's known as the energy crisis.

So we don't have to move much of it around.

For example, if you've been concerned about agriculture, well, agriculture only accounts for about 4.8% of the total energy requirements in the nation.

So you don't really have to move an awful lot from one place to another to satisfy agriculture.

And this is one of the things, of course, we do in the sense of that.

75% of the gasoline that's used in the United States is used by just the passenger, the car, the individual car owner and car.

So there's slight shifts in supplies from one source to another and one area to another make up the difference.

What's going on in the marketplace, of course, is a lot of bargaining because it's starting to be independent.

filling station operators have operated on surplus gasoline, and there is no surplus gasoline anymore, so that they're going to have to buy and market like anybody else, and obviously the oil companies are trying to cover their own flag filling stations.

So you've got this movement in the distribution pattern, and a lot of members of Congress are sounding off about it.

I don't blame them, but when you look at the facts, there are 200,000 filling stations, and only about 1,000 have actually been affected.

have closed or are operating on a restricted basis.

There are two bills, one in the Senate, which has now been reported out of the Senate Interior Committee, dealing with the technical problem that we have to solve in order to give you a permit for the Alaska team.

That bill is a broader bill than the one in the House.

It deals with some antitrust matters.

It deals with the question of making all these pipelines and power lines and things of that sort common carriers.

It is a more complicated bill.

It also has the Jackson Amendment in it, which was a

followed an instruction to the executive to begin to negotiate with Canada on a second pipeline route.

This was put into over Trump's Monday alignment, which would have actually required us to move to Canada and to begin discussions with them on the matter of building a pipeline through Canada now.

And I know there are people here that are interested in the Canadian roots because they feel that this oil ought to funnel out in the Midwest.

Now, let me just say this, and I'm sure that I'm not stepping on anybody's toes in this issue.

We have really studied this as a matter of whether this line should go through Canada.

In the first place, we've got no applicants.

It's a good thing to cancel it.

In the second place, the Canadians are not lulled to dig up their own environment and stretch a 1,100-pound pipeline across their country just to serve American markets with American oil.

They're going to want a piece of the action.

And there's enough oil in the Arctic for two pipelines.

And if we can go ahead and develop the elastin fields through the elastin pipeline distribution system, there will be opportunity then for both gas and oil systems that can go through Canada and can give Canada a piece of the action.

The bill in the House is a much more restrictive bill than the one in the Senate.

It provides simply technical amendments to the 1920 Leasing Act that gives us authority to put our structure down only right of the way, where necessary.

It's wider than 25 feet each side of the structure, which is absolutely necessary in the Arctic environment.

There are places where the gravel burns, for example, in either a Canadian route or the U.S. route, will have to be as wide as 560 feet.

We've gotten around that in the past by the use of special land use permits, but now the District Court of Appeals has ruled on this technicality.

And that's where the House bill simply addresses itself to that.

Therefore, we may have some problem in reconciling these two positions in conference.

Now, there is a feeling in the House that many members have expressed themselves rather strongly, and there's probably many of the 10 to 15 members of the Interior Committee in the House who would vote to override NEEL as a means of getting this pipeline permit issued.

The Senate, I'm sure, particularly because Senator Jackson, chairman of the committee, is one of the authors of NEPA, I feel very strongly about it.

I think the Senate would react very positively and would not go along in such proposals as that.

The administration feels at least we can be sure that this also would be a mistake.

Mr. Dorff?

It would leave too many other things wide open, and we wouldn't get a good environmental decision.

But I think that this pipeline can't be so well set.

Hopefully the Senate bill will pass.

I don't think it's going to be anything overwhelming, but we think we have the votes.

There are several members here in the Security Committee of the Senate, a couple former members.

I think it's going to be kind of dragged out in order to wait and see what the Senate does.

I conclude by saying that there are many, many reasons to get on with this job now.

We have gone ahead with the design criteria, the Aliaska group,

have kept their design task force together at great expense, and the engineering work is going on.

Although the reviews are informal, we are not able to pass on the design criteria because we are in this limbo situation, but the work is going on.

The coordinated work on the government side between the Coast Guard, the Corps, and the Interior Department through a task force approach is also going on.

If this whole thing gets put in mothballs, all of this activity will also get put in mothballs, and the lead time and startup time to get it going again will be tremendous.

And I think the situation that we're in worldwide and the situation that we're in vis-a-vis the big reserves that the Navy has

in Alaska in that war dictate that we, in the national interest, move ahead.

That we have solved the earthquake problem.

We have solved the balance.

problem to the extent that we can without invading the walls of the high seas.

But we have put strong stipulations across the board that this will be just as clean an operation as any operation through any other route.

And we are not in a situation where anything can come out

of discussions with Canada at this time because of their own problems.

And let me reiterate one or two of those.

They haven't solved their Navy plane problem and it took us a billion dollars and three years to do it.

And the Congress, they haven't even begun to figure out how they can put a road up in Mackenzie Valley yet because of the hydraulic problems, the river problems, the water problems.

They haven't begun to figure out how they can finance these.

The oil companies have

they've sat down individually and collectively with the Canadian government.

And at this point in time, there just isn't a client which can

put together any kind of consortium or coalition that can build this pipeline for a period less than 10 years.

Now, if we can build this pipeline starting in the fall of 1973 or the spring of 1974, we'll be through with it and delivering on in 1977 or 1978.

And we will begin to develop enough knowledge about the Arctic in terms not only of the area hot side of that war, but the business side of that war, so that we'll know what kind of delivery systems we're going to need from about 1982 to the end of the century.

And this is where we are.

The world is looking at us.

The OPEC countries are looking at us, and we're in a strictly must-sellers market as far as international law is concerned.

And we're going to be in much worse shape in our training position if we don't develop this delivery system to use our own domestic base.

And let me say this.

The answer is not easy when you ask...

us to go forward into the continental shelf and open the continental shelf up.

We've been working 20 years in the Gulf of Mexico and the total amount of oil, the maximum amount of oil ever delivered out of the Gulf of Mexico in one day was about a million and a half pounds.

So we've got a long way to go to turn this into a production area that will significantly meet our domestic demand.

Whereas here, we're going to put, as a start, 600,000 to 700,000 barrels of oil a day into the lower 48, which today would completely overcome our regional fuel .

I'll be glad to try and answer any questions, Mr. President, on this and .

Mr. President, Raj, even those

who might be sympathetic, particularly from the Middle West, have to get better arguments than have been produced thus far to convince a significant number of Middle Westerners to help.

And the problems in this regard are being complicated by some of the, I think, idiotic actions of your major oil companies in the way, on a day-to-day basis, right now, they're cutting off these small, independent distributors.

I get literally more mail today on a guy that has two trucks, who delivers to farmers, who delivers to a small number of

businesses who deliver to independent gas stations.

I can't understand how the major oil companies can be so stupid in what they're doing right now.

Well, they're hurting their cause and they're hurting your cause in the middle west.

I don't know what they're doing elsewhere.

And the only way to answer that, of course, is to move from a voluntary allocation system to a mandatory allocation system.

We may be at the threshold of doing that.

The monetary system has only been in a matter of three weeks now until tomorrow.

I think we have, I've met with most of the majors and we have, our people have met with all of them and we have impressed this very point upon them.

Now the facts are that a good many of these independents were buying oil because of our products, petroleum products off the surplus side of the spectrum.

And at a considerably reduced price.

There is no surplus side of the spectrum now, so it's going to be a matter of how we work out the self-interest of the oil companies in protecting their flag distributors, that is their branded distributors and ones that they either own or control and sell the product under their brand.

or, and at the same time, prevent this very difficult political situation from developing.

We haven't got the answer to it yet, but let me make one more point, in my relatively small district,

I must have 10 small independent distributors who have been told they won't get a gallon of gas or any fuel oil after either May 31st or June 30th, period.

Now, if you don't get in there and tell them damn,

They have to help these guys.

By the time they get around to mandatory controls, these fellows will be dead.

There's no question about that.

Some of them are going to be dead anyway because they can't live on the same price structure economically that the bigger distributors who have had to pay

a real ongoing market price.

But nevertheless, you're right.

But let me say this quickly.

To make that conclusive as far as going through Canada is concerned, if we wait, the count is going to get bigger before you can get a...

Maybe they aren't related, and I agree that your project is much more important, but we have to deal with the realities.

You've done a bunch of med-med with Midwestern Congressmen, I know that.

Jerry, what can you do about it?

Well, Raj, will you listen for just a minute?

Yeah.

We don't want to put this thing in mock balls.

Two-thirds of that 18 million barrel a day demand that you're talking about is generated in the east and in the middle west with the 80 districts, one and two.

All we're suggesting is that between now and the first of January, you aren't going to build that pipeline in that period anyway, that you get busy and let the GAO make the kind of comprehensive economic national security

study that would convince these Midwestern congressmen that Jerry is talking about.

Then we would provide for an up or down vote by a privilege resolution that would have to be voted on in ten days after the expiration of that six month period.

And we're even willing to waive the NIPA requirement.

We put that in the last resolution.

So you can't accuse us of trying to put this thing in wrong cause.

All we want to do is

produce the kind of convincing case that we don't think has been made on the record why we should lay that oil down in California and have them floating 200,000 barrels a day more than they can consume when we're defending in the Middle West in 1980 on 51% of our oil coming from the Middle East where they're burning American oil refineries right now.

The facts are, John, that the California market or the West Coast demand, by the time the pipeline is finished, will more than absorb the addition that will be received or delivered from the Alaskan pipeline.

Give us a surplus of oil and we'll manage that.

We can move oil around in this country

We're negotiating, excuse me, Senator, just a second.

We're negotiating, of course, with Canada to increase our imports from Canada.

today and all of that delivery can be made through that pipe?

You can't, you can't, that's up to, the throughput on that line is almost up to capacity now.

It can be looped.

380,000 barrels a day.

You can't pump any more oil than that.

We can loop that line.

That line can be looped.

There's no environmental problem.

Exactly.

That's the point that we make in connection with the Canadian rules, that you can loop it at one-third of the cost of the million-two that you say will cost to build the pipeline through Alaska.

You could loop the last 1,100 miles of a line to the existing interprovincial line, cut down the cost that you said once was 6 billion, later you said it was 10 billion, you can cut it down to about 3.5 billion, which is roughly the total population.

I don't think our people don't agree with that, that nobody has ever been able to cost down the line from Prudhoe Bay to Edmond.

Well, there's a consortium that spent seven and a half million dollars, as you know, including city service and Sun Oil and some of the biggest oil companies in the world spent seven and a half million dollars looking at that whole thing.

I've got to report it's that thick.

They've been looking at that.

I don't want to get in an argument on that, but I want to hear what Senator Curtis has got to say, but we haven't.

been able to put one thing together with the Canadians.

I met with McDonald's, I met with Corinthians, and all of the people up there, and they're just, at this point in time, because of the whole export problem that Canada is facing with its own resources, that's going to come along, and I think the Jackson Amendment is getting warranted.

Let's get this one going, and then there's enough oil up there to build two pipelines.

and then work out a deal with Canada so that we can do it over the time frame that's needed.

I think the President can address himself to the whole political, international political situation on this that I think is very much involved with Carmel and then Jim Stevens and I'll say a word about that.

I'd like to speak to the media problem, following what Jerry said.

Is it just the automobile or the oil companies and dealers?

I've been working on this for three, four weeks.

I've got telegrams from farmers.

They've got push-hours supply tractors.

I have had dealers cut off.

They have sent me a list of their addresses, and they've written up 1,000,000, 140.

They can't give them a thing.

Some of these dealers have dealt with the same concern for over 25 years.

Now, a week ago, I sent a telegram to the 15 major oil companies that served in France.

Half of them want mandatory control.

They want it.

They cannot voluntarily say to this customer here, I'm not going to sell you or sell somebody else.

They want the protectionist.

Every company says, we must do that.

And you cannot overemphasize the need for tractor fuels and pump irrigation fuel in the farm section.

It's real right now.

The black market has already moved in.

They're paying 10 cents above the market price.

There's also, I heard last night,

People coming down from Canada proposing to supply by truck, and it's not going to be 10 cents, black market margin.

It's going to have to be 30 or 40 cents.

And I think that right now we've got to have mandatory controls or it's going to greatly hamper the agricultural production and it's going to break a lot of markets.

One of the things, Senator Bennett, that of course

Nuclear control is going to work unless you get the cooperation of the makers.

If you don't have cooperation, there's no way you can enforce this because of the number of people that are in it at the end point of all the distribution systems.

I feel that we are going to have to go in that direction, and we've been talking with Mr. Simon and myself and members of the Law Policy Committee, and all it is to try and work out what will be the way to go when we go a mandatory allocation system.

The facts are, we've had one or two cases.

I had a case in South Dakota.

I had a case in Idaho recently where a farmer was short, but

Gettin' on the phone, in our oil and gas office, we have actually gotten fuel to these farmers.

Now, Earl, I think, in addressing stuff that's so far, I don't think the tractor has sat idle.

Because it's been out of gas, it's got a sequence of a certain amount.

Well, Mr. President, if you don't mind, I'd like to go back a little bit, just a couple minutes.

I remember being in this room when we discussed the oil import program in 1958.

The stimulus of domestic exploration in the oil industry did go to Alaska.

It was excessive.

We now have the estimates, well, first, that crude oil lays 25% of the known reserve of the United States.

We now have estimates that at least 40% of the future production of oil and gas will come to Alaska, and at least 60% of the oil and 60% of the gas.

I think people forget the continuum here, and I'd like to remind you of it because you're my good friend from Illinois.

The oil discovery in the Pluto Bay was made in 1968.

The pipe was delivered in 1969.

There's over $400 million dollars expended on that pipeline already, including rights of way, preparation,

including drilling core holes, the hole filling up of the dock complex at Valdez.

That would all be lost in the Canadian line right now.

NEVAC was not enacted until January 1970.

We thought we'd started this pipeline, and the course stopped.

We've been waiting to get it started.

Interestingly enough, there was a discovery in Canada.

There was a discovery in 1917.

The oil is being delivered this year to the Lakehead pipeline that goes to federal reservations, has the same rights-of-way problem that the Alaska right-of-way had.

No one attacked it.

No one stopped it.

It has over 100 foot right-of-way in several sections to Minnesota and Wisconsin.

And we sit here with the oil.

You talk about your problems concerning the farmers.

Let me tell you, those three mine sweepers won't be refueled in Juneau this year because we can't get oil to Juneau for them.

We've got the fishing fleet standing by in southeastern Alaska with all that oil up there, and they are now put on notice that they're going to be rationing fuel this year.

And I think that we've got to get the same perspective.

We have at least four major areas that could be explored this year if the oil industry would get going.

The Chukchi Sea, the Bristol Bay, the Lower Coquina, and the Gulf of Alaska.

Those are very prime areas.

prospects for good potential Pluto bays.

And if you've all had that AEC briefing, the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy briefing, you know that we postulate at least two pipelines for oil from Canada.

Now, by the time you can get the Canadian oil pipeline right away approved, we can find another crude oil bay at least.

And even if we didn't, we've got the Naval Patrol Reserve No.

4 that we can send oil from Naval Patrol Reserve No.

4 into the Midwestern part of the United States.

But the industry is not going to continue exploring my state.

or oil unless we can show them that they've got a transportation system available and they can get a transportation system approved by the federal government within a reasonable period of time.

If this supply plant had been in any other state of the union, it would be built by now.

It's only the federal permit, the right-of-way permit, that's holding this up.

And it's not an environmental question.

I think the NEPA Act, if it's suspended at all, I have discussed this with some people,

All we need to do is suspend it in terms of the alternative route concept.

There are no environmental questions left on this pipeline.

But if you look at what we're trying to do, we're trying to make available a vast supply of oil and gas.

If we, I firmly believe, if we don't get started this year,

The oil industry is going to start making deals in the Middle East that will make us all just make the hair on our heads stand up.

And we have the capability of delivering this oil.

I don't know any way that we can try to solve the problems related to the refinery construction in this country.

And that's really what we're dealing with.

We're not dealing with an oil shortage yet.

We're dealing with a shortage of refinery capability.

Those refineries were not built as they were scheduled to be built because the oil from Alaska was delayed.

If the oil from Alaska had not been delayed, the refineries would have been built on the West Coast.

Those refineries would have made up the difference right now.

We wouldn't have a crisis in gasoline and fuel right now if the pipeline had not been delayed.

And you delay it another year, and that's what your amendment would do, that Wendell's Amendment says.

Well, it'll be at least a year before January 1st.

This month's grant got buried just logistically

After they get to go ahead, it'll take six months.

to logistically start this.

If we got the approval in May, it would be October 30th or the 1st of November before they could start moving in the North Slope for this construction.

So it's gonna be at least a year's delay for what you're doing, because we could start right now.

But the major thing is, there's plenty of oil for more than one pipeline.

We don't oppose the Canadian pipeline route.

We oppose what you're trying to do to delay the Alaska pipeline route now, which is viable, could be constructed,

And if you construct the Canadian route right now, you're gonna throw $400 million down the drain.

I just don't understand that.

I don't understand the reason for this.

It appears to me now, Mr. President, that all along we've been talking about economics, not environment.

You know, for two years we listened to environmental arguments, and the last year we've been listening to economic arguments.

Now, if it's really economic arguments, we can solve your oil and gas problem.

for at least the balance of this century with Alaskan oil and gas alone.

And I'll be glad to show you the statistics coming out of this department, USGS, and the Bureau of Mines.

They took a joint from the Atomic Energy figures.

But they're not going to be solved if we can't get going on the first transportation system.

And I ask you, in Henry's country, if you drill a wildcat well, you're talking about $100,000.

In my country, if you drill a wildcat well, you're talking about $1.5 million to $2 million.

Now, that's what this country is.

It's wildcat country.

The truck chief's team has presence worse than the North Sea.

The Gulf will ask that we don't even have the wave statistics yet.

We're going to have to build a few platforms out there and get some.

The lower Cook Inlet is in a legal fight.

We should solve that one fairly quickly.

No one is going to drill up there, though, under these conditions that they do not know that they can transport the oil once they get it in.

And remember, they put up over a billion and a half dollars for that.

I don't think a lot of people even realize it.

There's only 450,000 acres of the North Slope Lease.

The crude oil bank discovery is on 450,000 acres.

There's over 20 million acres outside of the Naval Patrol and Reserve No.

4 that is classified as potentially valuable oil and gas.

Now, no one's drilling that.

There was a day when we had 17 drill rigs up there.

There's two left and only one working.

Now, if you want to discover that oil, you want to get it down here, you're going to help us move on the Alaska pipeline, and we'll help you build an Asian pipeline without any question.

As a matter of fact, we'll build you one not only to Canada, into the Midwest, we'll build you one down to Canada, into the Puget Sound area, so the tankers won't have to go in there eventually.

But if you can't see the vital necessity of movement now in order to give us that industry to get back in there and start this exploration and the drilling and proving up these areas, then I don't think you see the real problem.

And again, I say to you respectfully, we would not have this problem today if that pipeline had not been delayed.

And if you're going to have those refineries built in this country, and that's the problem, they're up in Newfoundland, they're going down offshore, they're over in the Middle East.

The reason we don't have this gas today is because we don't have refineries, and they're not going to build refineries in this country unless they're certain that they're going to have domestic oil to deliver those refineries.

That's the key, John, it really is.

And it's the key to your part of the country as well as the West Coast.

And believe me, I'm getting, so I'm telling my people, my Alaskans,

It's our oil.

It's going to be sold somewhere.

We're not going to lose.

If they completed that pipeline last year, the contracts would have been sold for about $2 a barrel.

The price has gone up in a year to where you're not going to sign contracts for the last oil at less than $3.50 a barrel.

But that's what one year's delay has been.

You deliver it.

You delay it until after 1975 when OPEC raises the price to $5.

We'll get at least $4.50 a barrel for that oil.

And it's Alaskan oil.

We get one-eighth of it.

It goes right into the state treasury.

The delay is not hurting Alaska.

I'm getting tired of people saying that it's an Alaska problem.

It's a national problem.

That's a national resource.

Forty percent of the oil and sixty-four percent of the gas.

And we're all sitting around here twiddling our thumbs because we can't figure out which route to use to break the first portion of the dam.

And it gets to be sort of ludicrous.

We figure that out.

Senator, I have to pound on our doors.

100% right.

75% of the exploratory drilling done in this country is done by independents.

They rely for about 80 to 90%

of their funding on the plans of investors.

The recent credit recommendation to remove the hanging decision from the tax preventive laws and set a retroactive date for April 30th has effectively stopped Exploratory 35 by independents.

I think this is a problem that has to be dealt with, too, Mr. President.

We've run out of time.

I think you've kept up with the two members.

I'm not going to say a word.

I assume you're endorsing Steven Spielberg.

Uh, I can only restate what he said.

I've already had to see why you have to do it.

I would like to ask for a little, like, a woman's room in the house.

It's been mentioned by the Secretary here, the bill that he's mentioning, the broader bill, the common carrier bill.

We have not discussed that bill in the committee that's been held here before.

We have discussed actually only two bills.

That's the media bill and my bill.

And those are the two bills that they'll work with in March.

Now, as far as we are not attempting to override the NEFA Act, we're just asking that Congress act on this case.

I'm not sure how far we'll go.

We do have the votes in the committee today.

I think possibly, if there is an energy crisis that we have to care about, that it would not hurt the House to act on that.

Relatively, I think it's wise, and this is my own opinion, I think the public is ready for it.

They need energy.

And Alaska, as Senator Sheehan has said before, has the ability to solve our energy crisis.

It isn't an Alaskan problem.

It's your problem.

The days go by.

My good friend John, I believe, the second day I was here, he and I had a discussion upon this.

It's been very, very interesting.

But I believe Senator Stevens stated it very well.

It's a nation's problem.

And I cannot see us legislating for a foreign nation.

And Canada is a foreign nation.

For security's sake, we must have that all go through Alaska.

And that's our line.

I'd like to see what you're... Let me just...

that has to take us from a farm until a farm is in the administration does have a position.

We haven't expressed it, as you know, John, and we respect the right of others to disagree with it.

I want to tell you among the reasons that we have moved in this direction.

First is the fact that there is the urgency of time.

We have done it a year ago.

The Alaska pipeline can be built.

And we've got to do it now.

Anything that delays it, four months, five months, six months, a year, could see shortages all over this country.

That's point one.

The second point is that as far as

The general energy problem is concerned.

The full development of the Alaskan fields is indispensable.

Indispensable because we don't have it here in this country.

You're not going to get it in the Gulf.

You're not going to get it off of Santa Barbara.

And it can't depend on the meetings.

We're going to have a hell of a time in the meetings as it is.

You mentioned the fact, one of you, I think you did, John McBurnard, out there.

Sure.

With the Libyans and the crazy Syrians and the...

I mean, the Iraqi and the rest of Iran now is causing a little trouble because all states are giving us a little difficulty.

At the bottom of it, let's face it, is the Israeli problem.

Here we are with the issue of our climate, and that means that every Arab state in the Southeast, for example, great friends of ours raise that at every time, and yet if you take a voter in the House and the Senate, you don't know what would happen on that issue.

They say, how will the oil vote for Israel?

Now, my point is, I'm not arguing that.

What I'm simply saying is that from a foreign policy standpoint, we have a very difficult situation in the Middle East.

We're working on it constantly.

We're working really hard to help people to keep that up.

But even if we get the money, even if we continue to get it, of course, that doesn't come mainly to us.

As you know, that takes care of Japan.

It takes 90% of their supply from there.

And Europe and the United States and there.

North Korea is going to have that stuff for another five years when I talk to him.

And now we come back to the United States.

At the present time, the United States, at this moment, faces a crisis that has to do with time.

And it also, in the long term, faces a crisis that has to do with amount.

We have to move.

Over a long term time, we've got to build, we've got to develop the Alaskan Railway.

Over the short term, we've got to get it here now.

Now that brings me to the argument about the Midwest, and the Far West, and anything I blindly realize.

Let me say, if we were present at the beginning,

And if we had a different government in Canada, maybe it would be different.

But I, I may not know much about the oil situation, but I do know the oil situation.

There isn't a chance of our making a deal with Canada at this time.

None.

The Canadians, they talk about it, they laugh about it and so forth, but if you've been following, you know,

the papers and so forth.

In the present time, you have a wave of militias involved in Canada.

You've got a government that can hardly cover because of the fact that it's so close, you know, to those that are very ready to take a situation.

You talk about the committees holding us up.

Let me show you the problem of our good friends in Canada holding us up is also involved.

Now, let me say, however, and this is the key point,

Doing the Alaska pipeline now does not mean that we will not continue to negotiate the idea of looping the Canadian line and doing this later when we can do it.

My point is that right now, in terms of time, anybody that says, anybody that tells the people in the Midwest or the people of the Far West, the people of this country, oh look, we have a choice between Canada and Alaska.

There is no choice because

Canadians, we cannot get a deal made, we cannot get it done.

They're environmentalists, too.

And they have other problems, which are political, as I say.

So I would say that in terms of trying to negotiate with Canada now, it cannot be done.

In terms of a longer term, yes, we'll work on it.

We talk to the Canadians very often.

I don't want to give any impression that we're like this or that.

We're not.

But we're highly competitive.

It's popular in Canada.

It is in most parts of the world.

They kick the United States around, and they're doing it.

And to hold us up, and they're doing it.

And they're doing all this.

So what I'm saying is we need to go out.

We use it like yesterday, but the point is we've got the Alaskan thing.

It does not imply a good vision, and I'm no expert on the environment and so forth.

Nevertheless, I tell you what I say that on the environment, I'm satisfied with myself that it would be everything.

Here is a place where the energy needs must come ahead of legitimate environmental concerns.

Whether they're whatever they are, some of you say they aren't legitimate, but let's zoom them out.

And there's always, there's a fight between what are you gonna put first, energy or the environment?

Well, you can have the most beautiful environment in the world.

It doesn't help much.

You can't ride around with joy and turn the lights on.

So what I'm trying to say, I could conclude with this.

We need the oil.

We need it now.

The only place to get it now is by building the Canadian line.

And, John, the other point that I think, though, that I want to make to you and your friend, I'm basically Midwestern-oriented.

I know exactly what you're saying.

I know the fact.

I'm not suggesting we want to do this because California ought to have it.

Sure, they've got more cars in California than they have people now, but that's no credit to me.

But my point is...

Let us work on the Canadian side.

We will.

But we cannot do it now.

There is no way it can be done now.

I would be misleading the members of this Congress and you would be misleading your constituents if you say there is a choice between going to Canada or Alaska.

There is no choice if you want it now.

That's the way it is.

That's from a board policy standpoint.

I think, well, I think you've stated it very, very well.

This, of course, is a truism, and this is a fact.

Let me address myself to Senator Tower's remarks.

Let me say this, if you've got, because of the energy message, because of the boldness that the president took in, and

changing the whole import program.

We have got more commitments to additional refinery capacity, both in terms of new refineries and building new president's capacity than we've ever had.

This is the first new one that had been built in about 10 years.

This is correct.

And we need the crude base to supply those refineries.

They're going to be on the line.

within two or three years.

It takes about that length of time from the time they're on the line.

Now, if we don't have the crude and a good crude base, we're going to get held up in this foreign market for oil.

And the other big problem that hasn't been discussed is the impact that we have on the world situation when we move in as big buyers.

We're buying six million barrels of oil a day offshore from other countries.

Only about 50% of that, or a little less than 50% of that, is Western Hemisphere sources.

So we're moving in as buyers and have created a seller's market.

So we've got all the things that the president brought out that are involved in that.

And I think to delay this thing and try to go another route at this time or to delay it,

in terms of, well, it's not either or, it's both.

We're gonna get everything we can out of Canada and through Canada too, and there's enough in Alaska to build two pipelines.

And there's enough that they make is that right now, you got the Alaskan thing.

You got $400 million in it.

It can be built, it should be built, and we've got to get it done now.

That's all I'm saying.

And the other thing is, I will work on anything, but there is a very significant and difficult foreign policy problem there that I cannot assure you on.

See, I have to give you my best judgment on that point.

Go ahead.

I want to also point out that the other big fuel that we haven't talked about is gas.

And we've taken some bold action.

As you know, we're going to go to the Congress and work out, hopefully, a whole new authority for pricing of gas that will get the investment built up and get more gas in the marketplace.

But the big opportunity is to build a coal gas plant line, which is environmentally very easy to build because of the temperature.

It can be put underground in thermal frost.

It can be run under the river to a low-difficulty area, to a riverbed in the river.

And that can be built and that can be capitalized within the current formula that is required by the Canadian government of 51% ownership and that sort of thing.

So what the President says is that, you're right, we need this one now, but that shouldn't be thought of as a scheme.

Go ahead.

I just wanted to ask one question since the Secretary of Agriculture and Interior was here.

I learned yesterday of a development that has been made to

produce gas for heating and so on, for corn stalks and corn.

And I was told that if this does happen, some real potential would require a great deal of the nation's average of corn to be grown.

And it's clean from the very same point.

It's just clean.

Yes.

Are either one of you gentlemen, because Secretary's here.

Well, let me say this.

I can answer this.

We, in our energy message, we have a program in terms of research that goes all out.

That's one of the things they're getting explored.

I would not, however, I would not move on yet.

Let's see what they find out that this is a, that's a, that's an idea, the concept is still new.

We can't say anything about this one.

Right, right.

That's right.

And we are, as you know, there's a video research going on today in terms of fuel on air filter products for a long time.

They're made out of oil.

We will have to learn his medias.

For those of you who have not had an opportunity to meet him, he was going to be here before you proceeded.

They're not just visits to the leader and come down all the way.

I want you to work on it.

It's not either or, it's both.

the question is time now and then working on the other one so forth there aren't all these points because i think that is something that i don't think it should be put on either or basis at all with the canadian thing i know we've got we can't do it now the other thing i'd like to say briefly on a personal note that has to do with this big tent out here we're having the pows and their wives and their mothers

Due to the fact that there were no, except for those in sickbay, there were no regrets, we are loaded with people.

It is probably the biggest dinner ever held, the St. John's Dinner on the White House, and the question, of course, I know that many of the members and leaders would ask is, why can't we be invited?

Well, let me say that I'm limiting the cabinets of only the Secretary of Defense.

No other cabinet members are being invited because we simply haven't got the room.

And we're limiting the leaders to the top five.

I think that plus the defense, the Russian member of the defense of the military.

Not because we don't want to have you, but because, frankly, we wouldn't have room for you.

And we wouldn't want to have you sit at the second table, or any of them sit at the second table.

But it will be quite an event.

I understand you're going to be carried live on ABC.

I'm going to breathe them all at 2.30 on the fourth call.

See, that was one of the main reasons.

They said, you know, a lot of them came in the last six or ten years.

And we'd like to know what's really happened in the world.

And so I've got to give a foreign policy briefing before the State Department at 2.30 this afternoon.

I've got two hours of briefing, which I don't think we're doing.

Let me just say a word on the foreign policy front and close.

As you know, as your history is now in Paris,

I cannot indicate anything with regard to its acceptance.

What we're trying to do is to get adherence to the agreement.

Now, some progress that we hope will be made.

I cannot indicate that any has been or will be.

I mean, you hear the stories on the thing.

All that I can say is that, insofar as that is concerned, that when you have an agreement and it is violated,

It is, of course, extremely difficult to convince the volunteers that you won't do anything when something is out of hand.

That's why the Cambodian men and those with the goals was quite a setback in the House.

I'm not too critical of those who did the other way on his end, and many did, perhaps, to the Canadians and the rest of them.

But I'm certainly saying that at this particular time, the United States

And this administration has gotten America out of a war in Southeast Asia.

Our total policy, our policy in Cambodia, our policy in Vietnam, is not designed to stay out and not to have it suck up again.

And that's why we ask your support, and we would appreciate your support whenever you can in good conscience give it in the future, to see to it that we do not speak with an empty voice.

We have no desire to get involved again.

There will be no involvement again in terms of our ground forces.

But at the present time, just take such a thing as the accounting for the missing in action.

They haven't done it yet.

And we are trying to get that, get the agreement carried out in that respect.

We're trying to get ceasefires in South Vietnam more effectively than it has.

We're trying also to get to withdrawal and block withdrawal and handling.

All of these are being negotiated and I'm working on problem six.

I've been this way.

Second point.

Later, about a month from now, we will have the Soviet summit.

And it allows, I think, us all in retrospect to see

how far we've come, even in the last year, not to mention the last four years in terms of our foreign policy.

Sometimes we tend to become so obsessed with our domestic problems, which are significant, whether they be on a political ground or economic from the rest, that we, and I'm speaking now as Republicans,

do not speak as perhaps strongly as we should with regard to our accomplishments in the war on peace.

When I was sat in this chair, 300 Americans a week were dying in Vietnam, killed in action.

We had no relations whatever with the leaders of one portion of all the people in the world.

And the Soviet Union and the United States were so far apart, there was no hope at all, let alone trade, exchange, and all those things, but of arms control.

At the present time, we have established a relationship with the PRC, which is essential in terms of building peace in the Pacific.

At the present time, we are at the second time

is going to be even more important than the first one, because it will deal with a number of important subjects, including the second phase of arms control.

And believe me, that's far apart.

And until we get that kind of bargaining guns, believe me, don't cut off our legs by cutting our defenses unilaterally.

Until we get the bargaining done, we're going to be this slow with regard to the immunity reduction of forces in Europe.

Don't cut off our legs by saying we're going to get out regardless of what the other side does.

Let me just remind you that the way the United States got to the position we do today, where we ended a war that other administrations began and continue, where we established a new relation with the PRC, where we are establishing

negotiation with the Soviet Union, where the chances for some kind of peace, and it will always be on 18 and 15, because we're going to hate each other and fight each other as long as man is man.

But with all of this, we couldn't have gotten here without being strong and without being believed and without being respected.

And at this critical time, it is very important that we maintain our strength.

A strong America, I repeat over and over again, is not a threat to anybody's peace.

A weak America, with another nation stronger than America, would be a very great threat to the peace of the world.

And that is what we have confronted today.

And so as you examine our defense requests, as you examine the votes of troops we work, as you examine what we're doing in this instance, just let me say, we have had enormous

foreign policy success.

Be proud of it.

Speak up for it.

And when the game plan is working, don't change it.

Don't, because of, or rather, to me, unbelievable argument, to say, well, now that we've ended the war in Vietnam, and now that we've negotiated with the Soviet Union, now the United States can turn away from world leadership and turn to its problems at home.

The day the United States ceases to be a forced

of peace in the world, and by being a force, that means a strong nation playing a role in the world, then all of the Congress for peace we have had will be destroyed.

I just suppose to put another point.

The negotiations that I just referred to were highly sacred with the PRC, and they were highly sacred with the Soviet Union.

They were highly sacred even with the North Vietnamese.

They had to.

One of the reasons that you will read my statement of justice today, that it is so important, was and is now, to maintain security in this country, is that when you are dealing with anything, but particularly with a communist nation, it truly, absolutely truly negotiates you to have your position leaked out to the press, and for them to get it before you are able to negotiate it.

And that is why you have to take the strongest measures to see that the bureaucracy doesn't leak, and that the Congress doesn't leak, and so on.

That is why we have taken such major steps.

And it is one that you need to be not a bit defensive about, because let me say this again, without the secret negotiations that we had, there would not have been China.

there wouldn't have been a Soviet initiative, and there would not be a peace in Vietnam.

And frankly, these thoughts, instead of being the best dinner that you can get in the world tomorrow at the White House, would be in that state pen and all that.

And so I say, let's keep the same game in mind.

Oh, yeah.

Here we go.

Thank you, Bill.

I appreciate it.

You bet I do, but I think that's the end of your day.

I'm just going to look at you, and then you can't tell where you're going.