Mr. TUPPER. And there would be an immediate need for additional manpower and additional vessels and aircraft if this bill were passed? Admiral ROLAND. I would say there would be an immediate need but I can't say the dimensions of the need.

Mr. TUPPER. Now, in respect to this bill, if the provision against fishing within the Continal Shelf were removed, would this mean an immediate increase in Coast Guard personnel and facilities?

Admiral ROLAND. We don't think so. If our plans for improvement of our plant, our vessel plant and our aviation plant, and so on, can be put into effect, I don't think that we will need, not immediately anyway, any additional facilities. I think that one of the things that is going to happen if a penalty is put on is that the deterrent is going to stop a lot of what is done now, the deterrent effect of the law.

Mr. TUPPER. That is all I have, Mr. Chairman. I just think this committee has a real responsibility not to impose any new duties without giving the Coast Guard additional facilities with which to carry

them out.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Rogers.

Mr. Rogers, before you came in, the committee discussed the advisability of limiting our bill over here to the penalties within the 3-mile limit; since this extension of the matter to the Continental Shelf and other things involves so much and we feel that there should be witnesses called back, to go ahead with the penalties as to the 3-mile limit and then have another bill to go into this Continental Shelf area, and so forth.

We might hold ourselves to that and get through with this.

Mr. ROGERS. All right, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Admiral, do you think there should be any authority given to the Government to permit licensing of foreign vessels within the 3-mile limit?

Admiral ROLAND. The Treasury Department has no specific objection to this. I think that the witnesses from the State Department and Interior were more appropriate witnesses in this respect but from our view, when we are enforcing, it would be a matter of our boarding the vessel and inspecting its papers and looking through the ship to see what is there, which we would do anyway.

We would expend some energy needlessly, you might say, because if somebody had a license we would just go back aboard our own ship and go on our way. So that, there would be some effort. It is a question of whether the effort is worth what it costs to do this.

Mr. ROGERS. I would share Congressman Tupper's feeling that you do need additional equipment as was stated, and we would like to say this, Mr. Chairman: On this inspection trip that we made of your Seventh Coast Guard District I, for one, and I am sure I was joined by my colleagues, was very much impressed with the job that Admiral Stevens and his officers and men are doing with the equipment and manpower they have to cover such a tremendous territory, but it was pointed up to us how badly needed are additional equipment and men and particularly if this is passed into law I think this would add an additional burden. We certainly must think of grounds to support the Coast Guard's requests on any additional equipment.

Admiral ROLAND. Thank you.

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Morton.

Mr. MORTON. Admiral, I think what concerns me about this bill is that what we are really doing here is we are respelling out the sovereignty of our 3-mile territorial waters and we are saying that it becomes a Federal crime if a foreign-flag commercial fishing vessel enters that water and for any reason, is this correct, not just to fish but for any reason except for peaceful passage, innocent passage? Is that not what we are saying?

Admiral ROLAND. Well, no. It is not a crime to enter our waters. It is a crime to enter and do certain things.

Mr. MORTON. Well, all right. That is the thing that I come to: that the reason that we are suddenly faced with this legislation is because of a long series of incidents or what we feel are violations of the law as it will be spelled out in this bill. Now, the point that I make is, are these violations actually violations that have come about because of commercial fishing or has commercial fishing been the front or the disguise for other activities of these foreign vessels?

Admiral ROLAND. We have not been able in the cases where we have boarded vessels that were in our territorial vessels to find good reason to suspect other activities of the kind that you have in mind. Mr. MORTON. I come to the chairman's point that we should deal with this bill, we should deal with the 3-mile limit, we should establish the penalties. The question I raise is have we really done anything here to really protect the United States? If these vessels are entering for other ulterior purposes than to commercial fish even though you will have the opportunity to board them, you will have the opportunity to arrest them and you will have the opportunity under the law to punish them, you are not going to be able to get an awful lot of them before they get in there. You are going to have to catch them in there and when they get in there, it seems to me, for 3 miles, with the modern electronic devices and communications gear that apparently some of these fishing boats have, they still can carry out their mission, which we may consider an ulterior mission, even after we pass this.

Admiral ROLAND. Even when this is passed and there are teeth in this, the things that you are talking about that you accomplish with electronic devices you can accomplish beyond 3 miles anyway pretty nearly as well as you can from inside 3 miles.

Mr. MORTON. Do you feel that the Coast Guard will be able with this law to really create a deterrent because we can then really prosecute these people and that actually the many incidents that have occurred in the last few years for any number of reasons will diminish because you will be able to actually arrest them?

Admiral ROLAND. Yes, sir.

Mr. MORTON. That is all I have.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Keith.

Thank you, sir.

Mr. KEITH. Mr. Chairman, if the executive branch has the authority to declare the existence of a 3-mile limit, has not the executive branch the authority and the responsibility to establish penalties?

Admiral ROLAND. This is a legal question that I am afraid I cannot

answer.

Mr. KEITH. I think it is one that should be clarified. Congress apparently has not in the past had much to say with reference to 3 miles, over 12 miles or 200 miles or the Continental Shelf and we are now

taking the responsibility upon ourselves because the executive has failed to recommend any changes or to, by decree, establish such limits. I wondered why, as they have in the past set 3 miles as a limit, they should not in the past by example have established what the practice should have been in the case of violation. The Russians have, by forcing a plane down which wanders across a border of East Germany or Russia, shown us by example what the penalties are without any legislative action on the part of the Soviets.

We could very easily have established by practice and precedents the penalties. We could have impounded vessels and the gear and required restitution on the part of the wrongdoing national of the government concerned.

At any rate, you do not know the answer to that?

Admiral ROLAND. I believe that the penalties can only be established by statute, although I am not sure of this, and that the executive act can define the limits within which we enforce the law and apply the penalties.

Mr. KEITH. In your statement, Admiral, you refer to the Dry Tortugas and also you mention several incidents of illegal foreign fishing in the U.S. waters of Alaska during 1963; so that, it is not an isolated case down there off Florida. On or about August 23 off Pollock Rip, which is just off the coast of Chatham, the crew of the 75-foot Ocean Wave out of Gloucester reported that a big Soviet trawler chased this boat off the fishing grounds there and the skipper said that his 80-ton whiting dragger was chased for about half an hour by a steel Russian trawler of more than 600 tons. This may or may not have been within the 3-mile limit but we do know or it has been reliably reported that another Gloucester man spotted a fleet of Red trawlers fishing illegally inside the 3-mile limit off Nauset Beach this last summer and on August 24 they said they found it next to impossible to set nets off Nauset, a very popular whiting ground, because there were so many Russian ships present. One captain said there were over 100 on his radar screen, and, according to him, they were fishing anywhere from 2 to 12 miles off the beach.

Do you happen to know whether or not these incidents were brought to the Coast Guard's attention?

None

Admiral ROLAND. They were not, to my knowledge. We know of concentration of Russian fishing vessels off the coast, of course. of the cases that you mentioned within the 3-mile limit have I heard of before.

Mr. KEITH. It appears that the Russians were employing nets with a very fine mesh and using quarter-inch mesh on the cod end of their gear. I would hope, as we get into the question of the Continental Shelf and the limitations beyond the 3-mile limit, that by the more thoughtful approach of dividing this bill into two sections we could perhaps come up with something that would enable us to enforce the conservation measures that the Russians and ourselves have agreed to when we signed the international treaties dealing with these matters. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. There have been, from time to time, statements made on the floor of the House that these Cuban vessels within the 3-mile limit off the Florida coast did carry the loran and electronic equipment into a sensitive area. You say you did not find any of this equipment aboard?

Admiral ROLAND. Well, no. I didn't intend to say we didn't find loran or some electronic gear. But what we have found has been the ordinary kind that is used for navigational purposes and would not be suitable for military purposes, for that sort of work.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Lennon.

Mr. LENNON. Admiral, if this identical bill had been enacted into law last year, signed into law, and the incidents that happened off the Florida coast, you would have proceeded under this statute rather than the laws of the State of Florida?

Admiral ROLAND. Yes, sir.

Mr. LENNON. Nearly every one of our coastal States has laws respecting fishing within the 3-mile limit, do they not?

Admiral ROLAND. Some do. I don't know how many.
Mr. LENNON. Florida did?

Admiral ROLAND. Yes, Florida did. though, sir.

Theirs is only a year old,

Mr. LENNON. Do you know how the laws in Florida and Texas differ from the other 48 States with respect to the extent of their claimed jurisdiction beyond shorelines? They claim out to the Continental Shelf, do they not, under the Tideland Oil Act of 1954, as I recall it; that is, Florida and Texas. Louisiana likewise claimed it but I believe the Supreme Court said "No" in that instance. The question I would like to ask you was asked a couple of days ago of the Department of the Interior. Would the passage of this law preempt the right of the coastal States to regulate fishing in their coastal waters within their 3-mile limits?

Admiral ROLAND. Well, this is another legal question that I don't think that I could answer.

Mr. LENNON. The gentleman from the Department of the Interior said that in his opinion it would. But the language of the bill requires the consent of the State before a license may be issued by the Treasury Department, certified by the Department of the Interior. Would you say that that would be a protection to the several States with respect to the jurisdiction of their waters for commercial fishing?

Admiral ROLAND. Well, the legal complications are a little beyond me. I don't know whether a State could license a vessel to fish where the Federal law says they couldn't, for instance. I am not sure of those legal complications.

Mr. LENNON. How could we determine whether or not there was any possibility whether the enactment of this statute into law would preempt the right of our coastal States to historically control their coastal fishing. In some States they permit only the residents of their States to fish in certain sea zones. The gear is even different. That is something we have to be very careful about, that we are not destroying a historical pattern of the States determining their own fishing rules and regulations off their coasts.

Admiral ROLAND. I should think that the reference on this question should be to the Department of Justice. This is who we would ask if we were to enforce it.

Mr. LENNON. In the instance of Florida, counsel for the defendants in that case down there raised the question that the State courts were without authority, that it had been preempted and if it had been something other than a slap on our wrist and a little fine, the chances are

they would have carried that to the Supreme Court of the United States to find out whether or not the Federal Government had preempted the right of the States to pass statutes protecting their coastal waters. Since it was a token fine, again I say a slap on the wrist, we did not have a final test of it.

The CHAIRMAN. May I ask you a question, Mr. Lennon?
Mr. LENNON. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. If we confine this to putting penalties within the 3-mile limit under the directive now existing to the Coast Guard, do you think that the question you raise with respect to the entire bill would be applicable?

Mr. LENNON. Mr. Chairman, in the light of the gentleman's statement-and I am sorry I had to leave and could not stay here and pursue it-Mr. McKernan, of the Department of the Interior, led me conclusively to believe that the enactment of the statute even in its own language would preempt the right of a State to regulate its fishing off its own waters. You gentlemen may not have had that impression. That is what he said.

Mr. MORTON. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. LENNON. I yield.

Mr. MORTON. I did not get the impression that he thought it would preempt the right of the State to regulate its fishing off its own waters with the exception of the foreign vessel. The foreign vessel is the one that comes under the jurisdiction of this law and not the State vessel or a vessel from another State.

Mr. LENNON. The gentleman was clear on that but I want to make it crystal clear that a foreign vessel cannot fish in the coastal waters of any coastal State unless that State gives its consent.

Now the question in my mind is as to whether or not, if this bill is passed, would that permit a foreign vessel to come into the waters on a license from the Department of the Interior or the Treasury Department against the will of a State? That is something we ought not to permit, in my opinion.

Mr. MORTON. If you will yield further, what you are questioning, really, then, is the right of the Secretary to license as opposed to the State to license?

Mr. LENNON. Now, if it is joint action and we can be sure of that, then I am not any further disturbed.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Lennon, this language on page 2, line 8: "Upon concurrence of any State, Commonwealth, or territory directly affected"

Mr. LENNON. That is the point, Mr. Chairman, because Mr. McKernan said the other day that, if this statute had been in existence, the State of Florida would not have had the authority to try those Cuban masters of those vessels. That is what he said.

I asked the question that is the reason why I am afraid that this statute might preempt the historical authority which was reserved to them when they came into the Union, most of them, all of them in fact, to control the waters off of their States as long as it did not interfere with the national commerce.

Mr. TOLLEFSON. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. LENNON. Yes, sir.

Mr. TOLLEFSON. I think at a later point, if my recollection is accurate, Mr. McKernan changed his position slightly. His first response,