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1 management, and the public in general. Upon request of 2 the Chairman, the Advisory Council shall review all or 3 any part of the program carried out pursuant to this Act, 4 and shall from time to time make recommendations to the 5 Chairman relative to the execution of his responsibilities 6 under this Act. The Advisory Council shall meet at least 7 twice each year and at such other times as the Chairman 8 may request.

9

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(b) Appointed members of the Advisory Council, while 10 attending meetings of the Advisory Council or otherwise 11 serving at the request of the Chairman, shall be entitled to 12 receive compensation at a rate to be fixed by the Chairman, 13 but not exceeding $75 per diem, including travel time, and while away from their homes or regular places of business 15 they may be allowed travel expenses, including per diem in 16. lieu of subsistence, as authorized by law (5 U.S.C. 73b-2) 17 for persons in the Government service employed inter18 mittently. Notwithstanding the foregoing or any other provision of law, the Chairman may accept the services of ap20 pointed members under this section without the payment of 21 compensation therefor (and with or without payment of 22 travel expenses or per diem in lieu of subsistence).

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23

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APPROPRIATIONS AUTHORIZED

SEC. 9. There is authorized to be appropriated for the

25 fiscal year beginning July 1, 1964, and for each fiscal year

11

1 thereafter, not in excess of $1,000,000,000 to carry out the

2 provisions of this Act.

3

4

DEFINITION

SEC. 10. For the purposes of this Act the term "State"

means a State, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth

6 of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, or the Virgin

7 Islands.

Senator CLARK. I see that Senator Nelson has joined us. Therefore, Mayor, I will ask you, if you don't mind, to allow Senator Nelson, sponsor of this bill, to lead off.

I will ask you, Senator Nelson, if you will proceed in your own way. We have already put in the record S. 2958, your bill. We are very happy to welcome you here in support of it.

STATEMENT OF HON. GAYLORD NELSON, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WISCONSIN

Senator NELSON. Mr. Chairman, I have with me Mr. Schumacher who is a member of the conservation commission of the State of Wisconsin.

Senator CLARK. I will be very happy to have him join you at the witness table.

Senator NELSON. At the appropriate time, Mr. Schumacher would like to present a statement in behalf of the Wisconsin Conservation Department concerning the proposal in this bill.

I have a statement here, Mr. Chairman, only part of which I will read. I ask your permission to introduce the entire statement into the record at the appropriate time.

Senator CLARK. The entire statement will be printed in the record at this point. Then, Senator, if you will just emphasize such points as you would like to refer to orally.

(The prepared statement of Senator Nelson follows:)

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR GAYLORD NELSON

Today America faces twin crises: through sheer failure to act we are wasting irreplaceable natural resources at an ever-increasing rate; at the same time there are millions of men who want to work but who cannot find jobs who are wasting their lives in poverty.

I propose we face both crises boldly and that we begin a substantial program to put men to work to conserve our natural resources. Such a program will, at the same time, conserve the human resources of the Nation.

American must begin at once to make a massive investment at the local, State, and National level to save our natural resources from destruction. If we fail to act in the few years we have left, we could destroy not only the resources which provide much of the beauty and recreation in our life but our most important, lifegiving resources as well-the water we drink and the air we breathe.

Much of our priceless heritage is already lost. The 200 billion board feet of pine in northern Wisconsin, which could have made this area rich forever, is gone, and heartbreak and financial problems have lingered ever since. A substantial percentage of the rivers of the East are also hopelessly polluted, and the dull gray tide of pollution is slowly spreading over the surface waters of America.

The coastlines of America, the greatest recreational and scenic resource that America has, have been largely ruined by the most vulgar types of commercial exploitation or walled off on private ownership that allows public access to only 2 percent of the coastlines. Much of the true wilderness-our last real link with the world which God created-has been destroyed.

Many of our most beautiful highways have become ugly slums of garish signs and shoddy development.

These resources-gone and never to be replaced-were lost because our optimistic young country believed in what Secretary of the Interior Udall has called "the myth of superabundance." It shocked America to learn that it could run out of timber and land and minerals and scenic vistas and a lot of other things.

Today we fact a genuine crisis. To retreat any further threatens America with the kind of resource destruction which turned a green forest into the Sahara Desert, and which made it virtually impossible for China and India to sustain the lives of all their citizens.

Look at some of the chilling facts:

First. Our population is expected to double by the year 2000-which is only 36 years away.

Second. We are presently using water at the rate of 355 billion gallons a day, and encountering serious water shortages in many parts of the Nation. By 1980, experts tell us we will need 600 billion gallons a day-almost twice our present water supply in a scant 17 years. And by the year 2000 we will need almost 900 billion gallons. Meanwhile, the relentless spread of pollution makes more and more water unsuitable for use each day.

Third. Automobiles are creating a nationwide traffic jam which is blighting the landscape of America and chewing up much of the valuable land—land which can never again be used for farms or forests or parks or homesites. The American Automobile Association estimates that our present 68 million passenger cars will increase to 95 million by 1976.

Fourth. The increase in population, in the number of cars, and in leisure time is causing a geometric increase in demand on all parks and recreational space. Yet we are making no comparable increase in the amount of space available. Fifth. Resources for the Future, an outstanding research organization, estimates that there will be 10 times the demand for outdoor recreation in the year 2000 that there was in 1950. The bipartisan report of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission estimates that, at the very least, the overall demand for outdoor recreation will treble.

Sixth. Marion Clawson, the expert who made the study for Resources for the Future, estimates that the present 750,000 acres of city and county parks should be doubled right now, just to meet present demand. By the year 2000, we will need 5 million acres, Clawson estimates. The greatest demand of all-for a major increase in national parklands-simply cannot be met because there is no longer that much additional outstanding land available. The result will simply be more overcrowding-and the more unique, the more desirable an area it is, the more it will be crowded and overused.

The conservation crisis can be briefly summarized: our natural heritage of water, timber, and outdoor recreation space is disappearing. It is disappearing at the Federal, State, municipal, county, and private level.

Even as we begin to realize the dimensions of this crisis at all levels of endeavor, we are becoming more and more aware of the crisis of poverty in America. The President has shown that at least a fifth of our Nation lives in unacceptable conditions:

First. During 1962 there were 9.3 million families-or 35 million individualswith family incomes of less than $3,000.

Second. Three million six hundred thousand of these families were headed by individuals who did not work at any time during the year.

Third. Of the remaining 5.7 million families, the heads of 1.5 million worked at part-time jobs only and 1.8 million worked at full-time jobs for less than 50 weeks.

Fourth. Only 2.4 million of the family heads of these families worked full time. There were 6 million people in families with income below $3,000 who were dependent on family heads unemployed for 5 weeks or more.

These are some dimensions of the poverty crisis. Many members of these families are either too ill or too old to work. But many are not; unemployment or underemployment is a most unnecessary and unacceptable facet of American poverty. There is work to do in this country. Nevertheless, we find men without jobs throughout the Nation.

Unemployment is particularly severe in some regions of the country. In Appalachia, for example, there were 380,000 unemployed workers in 1960-7.1 percent of the total work force. What is worse, there are apparently a number of men who simply have withdrawn from the work force out of despair at ever finding a job-for the number of Appalachians either employed or seeking work is 700,000 less than we would expect if Appalachia followed the normal jobseeking patterns of the Nation.

Unemployment is particularly severe among certain groups; the average migrant farmworkers, for example, worked at farm labor for only 161 days in 1962. His average earning from farmwork was $874; his average earning for all work was $1,123 per year.

The House Education and Labor Committee estimates that unemployment or underemployment is the major cause of poverty in about half of the 35 million families with incomes of less than $3,000.

The crisis of conservation and the crisis of poverty are completely complementary to save our natural resources, much work must be done; to save the impoverished of the Nation, jobs are needed. It seems to me we must put men to work to conserve our natural and human resources.

The obvious and simple logic of such a program is recognized in certain parts of the President's antipoverty legislation. The Equal Opportunity Act of 1964 would use a number of youths and unemployed fathers in experimental programs involving conservation work. But this is only a start. I believe that we should embark upon a massive program which would put large numbers of unemployed men to work on the vast backlog of constructive conservation projects.

Today, I am introducing a bill to establish a National Conservation Council with broad authority to utilize unemployed men on much-needed conservation projects. In its first year, the Council would have authority to spend approximately $1 billion to employ men throughout the Nation. I estimate that between 100,000 and 125,000 men could be put to work with this amount of money.

This legislation would direct the Chairman of the National Conservation Council to work through existing Federal, State, municipal, and county agencies. It would not involve a new administrative structure. Rather the Council would only supervise a program to be run on the spot by existing agencies at the national and local level.

The most important features of this program are: It can put unemployed, unskilled men to work without further training; it can put the men to work immediately without new administrative structure or new planning; and it will help stem the wasting tide of resource destruction.

What kind of work could be done by unskilled labor?

We could reforest 28 million acres of timberland; embark upon timber stand improvement of another 140 million acres; expand fire protection in another 200 million acres.

We could establish soil and watershed conservation programs on 300 million acres of farmland; embark upon revegetation of the strip mine areas of the Nation.

On western rangelands we could clear brush, spread water and vegetation over 200 million acres of Federal grazing districts and Forest Service lands.

We could establish and refurbish recreational acres on National and State parks, national forests, and other public lands.

We could establish wildlife habitat and structural improvements on wildlife refuges and expand wildlife cover development on private lands.

The work can be done at all levels of Government activity. The Forest Service, in the Department of Agriculture, estimates that currently there are 70 million acres of unproductive land in need of reforestation by planting and seeding. Another Federal agency, the Department of the Interior, estimates that there are more than 57,000 annual man-years of labor needed in its programs through the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Reclamation, and Bureau of Sport Fisheries, and Wildlife.

Another Federal agency, the Army Engineers, tells me that a subsantial number of workers could be utilized in its programs on public lands. The kinds of work which could be done include: construction of recreational facilities, such as boat launching ramps and docks, buildings, structures, water supply and sanitary sysems, safety devices, signs, markers, and so forth; beach improvements, safety devices; landscaping and public use site improvement; roads and parking areas; walks, trails, footbridges, overlooks, and so forth; shoreline maintenance and improvement.

Fencing recreation areas for exclusion of livestock, construction of cattle guards, and cutting and treating of posts; inspection of fencing; establishing and developing natural areas; timber stand improvement, weeding, thinning, release; roadside cleanup and demonstration areas; establishing fire lanes and protection measures; weed control, cutting and spraying; disease, rodent, and pest control, removal, spraying, trapping, cleanup, burning, and so forth; fish and wildlife conservation improvements, small subimpoundments, habitat improvements, food and cover plantings; soil erosion control, drainage improvement, ditching, diking, seeding, sodding, fertilizing, cover planting; establishing nursery stock for landscape plantings; navigation markers and channel improvement for recreational boating; general construction; boundary surveying, monumentation, marking, posting, clearing, maintenance, and collection of basic data on resources and public use.

The kinds of work outlined here for Federal lands can be done on State and local and private lands as well. Indeed, a number of existing Federal programs authorize the use of Federal funds on private lands when there is a substantial public interest. The most obvious example, of course, is the development of watersheds. This necessarily involves the interrelation of both private and public lands. However, much more can be done. The Department of Agriculture informs me that there is a great quantity of work which could be done immediately by unskilled workers in soil and water conservation measures.

I have written to more than 2,000 State, county, and city officials asking them what kinds of projects are urgently needed. The response has been tremendous. To date we have received approximately 500 replies. I ask unanimous consent that a table summarizing these replies be inserted in the record of the hearing at this point.

Note that out of the 50 States, conservation and recreation leaders were almost unanimously in support of this program. Forty-nine out of the fifty States responded favorably. The only qualified response from a State official came from Ralph D. Ford, Mississippi State Park Director. But even Mr. Ford wrote: "There's a definite need for this type of legislation if the proper controls are applied to its operation."

From the replies we have received to date I estimate that we could begin constructive conservation work on projects involving approximately 425,000 man-years of labor almost immediately. This is work that can be done both in the cities and the country. Most important it is work that for the most part will be administered locally.

In some areas it can be of extreme importance in offsetting racial tension. For instance, Mayor Wagner of New York tells me that he has more than 10,000 years of man-work which could be started almost immediately. I'm sure that a program putting 10,000 unemployed, unskilled men to work, could do much to help us make progress in solving the economic and social problems which underlie tense conflicts such as the one in Harlem.

From all over the Nation I have received other letters such as this one from Mr. Horace Caldwell, director of State parks in Georgia :

"The legislation which you are drafting to provide funds to Federal, State, county, and municipal agencies to utilize unemployed workers on conservation projects such as park development, etc., would be of considerable help in improving and expanding the facilities of the Georgia State parks.

"The program that you are suggesting seems to be the type of program that State parks departments might certainly use to good advantage in the elimination of unemployment in so many of our distressed areas. The work that we could give these people is of a nature that could be performed without any additional training on their part.

"We think that by expanding the facilities of our State parks, tourism can be increased considerably in those areas and many new jobs can be created: jobs in building campsites, picnic areas, parking lots, trails, fishing lakes, and restrooms. Construction alone in these areas could provide many years' work for many of the skilled, semiskilled, and even unskilled workmen.