Mr. DE LUGO. Well, thank you very much, Ms. Hurwich, for your presentation. The Chair has a few questions for both you and Bruce Manheim.

First, let me ask attorney Manheim, various congressional committees currently are taking action on a number of bills on Antarctica designed to influence the United States position at the November meeting in Chile of the Antarctic Treaty consultative parties. From your vantage point, are the signs encouraging that the executive branch will need to reexamine its position regarding the minerals treaty and take a strong stand favoring preservation and protection of Antarctica?

Mr. MANHEIM. Mr. Chairman, I wish they were more encouraging. I think what we've perceived is entrenchment into a very proCRAMRA position.

To be sure, there have been political changes within the State Department that offer some hope for a more flexible approach for protection of Antarctica. But at this point, the working papers emerging from the Antarctic policy working group, those that are-I have not seen but that are reportedly being circulated by the U.S. Government to other nations, essentially maintain the historical position of the United States in support of the minerals agreement, even though Australia and France and recently New Zealand have abandoned that agreement.

So I think that continued consideration and, hopefully, enactment by Congress of different pieces of legislation will turn the administration around. I think that there have been some subtle changes in existing U.S. policy. I think ultimately the only way to really get that change is to create U.S. law.

Mr. DE LUGO. Let me ask Ms. Hurwich, are there any signs that the U.S. executive branch is recognizing that public opinion is way ahead of it as far as protecting Antarctica goes?

Ms. HURWICH. I think there are, yes. That's one of the reasons the State Department recently has indicated more of a willingness to consider a long-term moratorium on minerals activities in the Antarctic. They, I think, recognize that CRAMRA is not moving forward. They haven't submitted it to the Senate for that reason, I believe.

I think that they recognize that world opinion is really in favor of protecting the Antarctic and they are trying to find a compromise that they can live with.

What we want to see is a reevaluation of U.S. minerals policy so that this pillar of policy maintaining the minerals option that Bruce referred to can be removed so the State Department will be free to go ahead and ban all minerals activities in the Antarctic. Mr. DE LUGO. Well, talking about minerals, let me throw this out for either one of you or any of you, whoever feels that they should handle it.

What is the lineup internationally as far as the minerals convention goes? How many nations have signed it? How many have announced that they will not ratify it? And how many are moving away from support of such a treaty and towards preserving and protecting the continent?

Ms. HURWICH. I'll take a try at it. I don't know the exact numbers here, how many have signed or not. No country as yet has

ratified the convention. Several countries have said they will not ratify, most notably Australia, New Zealand and France, any one of whom could stop the treaty in its tracks by not ratifying. Really you only need one as far as numbers are concerned and we now have three territorial claimants who are essential to ratification that will not go forward.

There's also a significant body of opinion within the treaty system that is moving away from CRAMRA, that recognizes now that it politically is dead. In fact, we've heard recently that even Argentina is recognizing that CRAMRA is a dead instrument.

So I think there is hope in that regard but we really need United States leadership to sway the nations who are waiting for us to step forward such as the U.S.S.R. and Japan.

Mr. DE LUGO. Thank you, Evelyn.

Bruce, do you have any comment on that?

Mr. MANHEIM. I would only just want to emphasize a latter point that Evelyn made, that being that there are several countries that have publicly taken what we believe to be the right position on this issue and they are on one side of the fence. There are other countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, that are essentially on the other side. Then there is a whole group of countries in the middle waiting to see what the United States will do.

We feel that if the United States does, in fact, take this leadership position that we'll be followed by this collective set of countries that are still largely undecided on the issue.

Mr. DE LUGO. I saw Jim Barnes adjusting his microphone. I have a feeling that he wants to make a comment.

Mr. BARNES. I just wanted to add a couple of things just to follow this up. Thank you.

We know, for example, at the recent economic summit in Houston that the Prime Minister of Italy, which is a strong supporter of the world park regime for Antarctica, brought this up before the G-7 and it didn't go anywhere for obvious reasons. But at least it was raised at that level.

There have been a number of interesting signals from the Soviet Union over the last 9 months, including some statements from the Foreign Minister, Mr. Shevardnadze, in various contexts to various people and in some public speeches which are taken as signals that they would like to move.

But my understanding is that they would like to do this in tandem with the United States for a lot of reasons. They are open completely to the idea of putting CRAMRA aside and moving towards a ban or a long, long-term moratorium. But they're not going to do it by themselves.

So, here again, we have a real opening if the United States could give up that pillar, as Evelyn referred to it, and moved ahead towards a different future.

Mr. DE LUGO. Thank you, Mr. Barnes.

Let me recognize the gentleman from Minnesota, the sponsor of this legislation.

Mr. VENTO. Well, let me just say, Mr. Chairman, I think you've put together really a good panel of witnesses and you've had great participation from members here today which I think is rewarding

to you for an issue that you've given some commitment to. I'm pleased with that. From your questions it's clear to me that you're well-prepared to deal with this topic.

We have to be, because we do have other measures that have all been introduced and there hasn't been, I guess, the coordination among them.

One of them is the measure that deals with just barring the mining. There's a number of measures and that is going to be sequentially referred here and I hope, at that time, maybe we'll get the-you know, I think the CRAMRA Treaty is a dead letter but apparently it's still administration policy. So we're still moving ahead with it. So we heard the three departments here following the administration policy but it sounds as if France and Australia and New Zealand and Belgium and other countries have already indicated their reservations; nobody has ratified it. It may be dead but it's still U.S. policy.

So I don't know where that leaves us. It seems to me it only serves as sort of a transparent excuse not to do anything. I mean that's what it's serving as. I think that that is the worst of all possible worlds. Because we know that policy isn't going to work yet we're not formulating anything meanwhile.

I guess this is where I think where our bill comes in, Mr. Chairman, if I may say so, and the other initiatives by other Members of Congress-I mean maybe we just need to absolutely put CRAMRA in front of the firing squad with a rifle shot and put it out of its misery, I guess. Since it's not going anywhere, it's sort of a bill without a mission or a measure without a mission.

That's what the other resolution do. I mean they don't really do anything. They don't say specifically-as specifically as we do here where we ought to go. That's my view of those. I mean there's nothing wrong with them. I think they end the CRAMRA problem and they give you some more general issues. But I think the real issue isn't CRAMRA anymore, even though the administration is still defending it. I mean it shouldn't be part of the debate unless something is going to happen in these other countries. I think they've been debating this for years.

You know, Mr. Chairman, you asked about opinion and I have to go to Ms. Hurwich's statements. She points out that they've had votes in the nonaligned countries here. The movement had votes on this particular issue. The Antarctic Treaty participants have chosen not to participate in those votes. They had a vote that calls really for the preservation of this for all mankind, and some general terms; I won't read it here. But I think it's in the spirit of what we're proposing.

Eighty-five countries voted "yes". No countries voted "no"none. There are a lot of abstentions and there are 42 countries that didn't participate in the vote. In other words, they're not willing to give up-I guess that says they're not willing to give the United Nations the deference. This is their little issue and they can do what they damn please, I guess, is what that says, you know, with regard to the United Nations. If we don't agree with what the outcome is going to be, then they don't want to participate in it.

But I don't think we have that type of selective policymaking that should go on.

One of the questions I had-and I want to pay credit to both these organizations, Mr. Barnes and Ms. Hurwich and Mr. Manheim, for their help in terms of putting together these ideas that we had. I greatly appreciate their help.

I just wanted to know-I mean there was some discussion here about-I raised the question, Mr. Manheim, about the laws being more stringent. I thought you might want to comment on that. It seemed to me the NSF was trying to have it both ways.

It said, if these laws apply, it's a disaster; if they do apply, they're not stringent enough. I'm a little bit confused about that. But they testified that extending NEPA, for example, to Antarctica would interfere with the President's foreign affairs authority.

Now what do you think of these various arguments? Are you as confused as I'm confused?

Mr. MANHEIM. I think the remarks that you're getting from the Government are confusing because they themselves don't have a clear understanding of which laws apply and which don't. I might emphasize that the NSF legal opinion is not something that is necessarily subscribed to by the other agencies of the Government, including the Council on Environmental Quality, which for at least a decade has argued that the National Environmental Policy Act does apply to U.S. activities outside the United States, including Antarctica.

In terms of applying these statutes to U.S. activities in Antarctica, I do think it important that, as this bill is marked up, that it's clear that the most stringent standards of those laws apply. That we eliminate loopholes carved out for application of those laws in the United States are clearly not going to offer protection to Antarctica.

I say that, even knowing that NSF has argued that their own regulations implementing the Antarctic Conservation Act will contain the most stringent environmental laws that are established in the United States. Quite frankly, Mr. Chairman, I very seriously doubt that.

Even if their regulations were to incorporate those standards, I think there's tremendous uncertainty about whether they would in fact be enforced. For the National Science Foundation is the chief polluter in Antarctica and they have the regulations that they would enforce against themselves under existing U.S. law.

It's an absolutely terrible situation and inviting further environmental degradation at U.S. research bases. And we see that. What we've seen so far is that NSF doesn't comply with existing international agreements, by its own admission, by violating a ban since 1975 on open pit burning of combustible wastes in Antarctica, violating a ban on operation of landfills at postal stations in Antarctica since 1980.

Even if these laws were to contain stringent environmental standards, I seriously doubt compliance by the National Science Foundation with them.

Mr. VENTO. Well, I'm certain that there are special problems that exist with regard to that. But I'm well aware a few years ago we wrote a letter and CRS put together a meeting, a symposium, on problems with Antarctica. And reading that-I couldn't attend that day because of my schedule but after studying the report that

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they prepared on that, it's pretty clear that there's a pretty lively debate about waste resources and the impact of even science.

They have good intentions but obviously in doing your science you may interfere with somebody's else's doing their science. And so it is a very special area, as Dr. Wilkniss testified to. There needs to be special management techniques and better understanding of what the impact is, for instance. But nobody is-who is dealing with tourism in the National Government today or in the international community? Do we have any restraints on that?

Can you speak to that? Maybe we ought to let Ms. Hurwich take a crack at that one and, Bruce, if you want to, you could comment too.

MS. HURWICH. Well, I think I'll leave this to Bruce. Tourism has been a specialty of his.

Mr. MANHEIM. In January of this year, the Environmental Defense Fund released a report, a copy of which I'd be happy to submit for the record, that called upon the National Science Foundation to issue regulations governing U.S. tourist activities in Antarctica. Subsequently, 5 months later in May, we filed a petition with the National Science Foundation requesting NSF to issue regulations under the Antarctic Conservation Act to deal with increasing U.S. tourist activities in Antarctica. This year will witness the largest number of U.S. tourist visits to Antarctica. Next year we anticipate an even larger number to follow.

In response to both our reports, recommendations, and the petition, we've received one letter from the National Science Foundation indicating that it believes it had existing statutory authority to deal with these problems, that its existing regulations were satisfactory, that it would study our petition, our report, and that it would get back to us.

Well, we haven't heard from them 3 or 4 months later. The regulations, in our view-and I'd happy to provide a more detailed explanation of this-do not satisfactorily deal with tourists.

Mr. VENTO. Well, I think that would be desirable, Mr. Chairman if the record will be open for some time and we could accept the report on that.

I think it also points out that certain lack of oversight. Of course it's pretty hard to maintain oversight when they don't have open meetings.

I looked at the legislation I had written and it said there would be open meetings and public participation, which is sort of routine. But, Ms. Hurwich, that hasn't been the common practice here or it is absolutely not occurred? Can you comment further on that?

I think this is very important because how can the various groups that might have an interest participate if there is no means to do so. I mean you write letters, you don't get-they're not responsive, I guess?

Ms. Hurwich.

MS. HURWICH. As far as the treaty system is concerned, which is what I was referring to as without public participation, nongovernmental organizations have been essentially lobbying the treaty party at the meetings for over a decade. Each time applying for observer status to come into the meetings. And we have not yet