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Press Conference of Rogers C.B. Morton, Edwin W. Edwards, Brendan Byrne, and Hugh Carey
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Press Conference of Rogers C.B. Morton, Edwin W. Edwards, Brendan Byrne, and Hugh Carey
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Digitized from Box 4 of the White House Press Releases at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NOVEMBER 13, 1974
OFFICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY
THE WHITE HOUSE
PRESS CONFERENCE
OF
ROGERS C. B. MORTON
SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR
EDWIN W. EDWARDS
GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF LOUISIANA
BRENDAN BYRNE
GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
AND
HUGH CAREY
GOVERNOR-ELECT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK
THE BRIEFING ROOM
7:06 P.M. EST
MR. HUSHEN: President Ford and Secretary
Morton have just concluded a meeting with the New
England, East Coast, and Gulf Governors, to discuss the
importance of the outer continental shelf development
in solving the Nation's energy problems.
The President attended for approximately 90
minutes. The meeting lasted over two hours -- it just
broke up.
Secretary Morton is here to give you a report
on the meeting and then we will have Governors Edwin
Edwards of Louisiana, Meldrim Thomson of New Hampshire,
and Brendan Byrne of New Jersey to answer your questions.
MORE
(OVER)
- 2 -
SECRETARY MORTON: Thank you very much. I
see we also have Lieutenant Governor Blair Lee of
Maryland here. I don't want to overlook him, and
Governor-elect Hugh Carey of New York.
I just want to simply say that this meeting
was an exchange of ideas, that we have presented
our proposals for the development of the outer
continental shelf. These proposals, of course, are
draft proposals. They are subject to all of the
environmental considerations that will have to be made
before decisions are made, and they are subject to
revision based on very close examination of all the data
that has to be developed.
But we are very hopeful that we can develop a
cooperative procedure with State governments so that the
Governors themselves, their constituents, fully under-
stand the national significance of this resource and
can help in every way possible for an orderly,
environmentally safe development of the resource.
We have had some very good input from all around
the table, and up and down the coast. Governor Byrne and
Governor Edwards have had a little experience before the
media on this issue. I have asked them to join me here and
join in answering your questions.
Q
Mr. Secretary, there were only East Coast
Governors at this meeting. Do you have another meeting --
SECRETARY MORTON: East and Gulf Coast.
Q
East and Gulf Coast. Will you have
another one for the West Coast?
SECRETARY MORTON: We will probably have to go
out there and meet with them individually.
Yes, we certainly don't want to exclude
anybody.
It was just a matter of logistics, and we will
meet with California, Pacific Northwest and Alaskan
Governors as soon as we can. We had the Lieutenant
Governor-elect here from Alaska, Lowell Thomas, Jr.,
representing Alaska, and we also had Mrs. Harris here from
California, representing the California Coastal Commission.
MORE
- 3 -
As we have met and gone around the
capitals, we have had a team doing that, and we will
continue to do that, and we will certainly pick up any of
those actual Governors themselves that we were unable
to meet with today.
Q
Are you still going to try and lease
10 million acres? I see the President says he is not wedded
to it, but are you going to try for it?
SECRETARY MORTON: As I explained to you this
morning, George, we are going to try to lease this land
based on really our best geological and environmental
considerations, and not be too concerned as to the exact
number of acres.
Our desire is to find out where the oil is, where
the oil is not, and move on from there. But we are
institutionalized to lease considerably more land that
we have historically leased prior to 1974, and it
probably will fall somewhere near the 10-million acre
mark, but this is not a major concern that we reach
10 million acres as a specific amount.
We have the facilities and the geological survey
and the Bureau of Land Management to assemble the data,
to develop and review the environmental impact statements,
and to also make the decisions based on technological and
environmental criteria.
Q
I would like to know if President Ford
converted Governor Byrne? (Laughter)
SECRETARY MORTON: Here is Governor Byrne.
MR. BRYNE: First of all, I don't think this was
in the form of a debate. I think it was in the form of
an effort to exchange information and to inform. I am
disturbed from the standpoint of representing the State
of New Jersey with what the impact will be on my State or
any other State similarly situated.
We have on the 18th of October, from the
Secretary, received a preliminary environmental impact
statement. I think that preliminary environmental impact
statement glosses over too much what the impact might
be, I am sure. It, for instance, acknowledges the fact that
oil spills or activity on off-shore drilling on the OCS
might impact beaches on shore and that that impact might
last weeks or months or years.
MORE
- 4 -
I have in my discussion with Secretary Morton
gotten some assurance that that preliminary statement --
environmental impact statement-- and the hearings that are
to follow, will be seriously considered.
I would much prefer -- and we did discuss this
during the meeting I would much prefer what I would
consider a greater Governmental control over how the OCS
is developed and to what extent it is developed, and
whether it is developed in the best interests of all of
the people of the country, rather than in regard to the
expeditious leasing and development.
I raised that question, and the President
said that we do not have the money to take that approach.
I think the Governor-elect of Maine supported the idea
and drew an analogy with the space program and the
Government involvement in the space program.
I also raised the question, I think, at the
meeting with respect to the overall urgency, and I asked
the Administration if it had read and evaluated the Ford
Foundation report. Again, I think that it may be in the course
of hearings on the environmentalimpact study, and further
evaluation of the Ford Foundation report, we can get an
orderly development of the OCS.
We are interested, from the State of New Jersey, in
an approach which first of all evaluates what the risks
are in the development of the OCS, and second of all, makes
every effort to minimize those risks, and third of all,
maximizes the compensation for those risks.
By compensation, I don't mean money-wise, necessarily,
but I mean compensation by way of obviating in any way
possible. I would hope that further hearings on the
environmental impact study, a broadening of that study,
which I think is necessary, especially to evaluate the on-shore
impact of OCS, will be more enlightening.
I appreciate the President's call to us today
and the frank discussion that we had with him.
SECRETARY MORTON: Thank you, Governor.
MORE
- 5 -
Q Governor Byrne, do you think the tentative
schedule released today is a practical plan?
MR. BYRNE: I questioned the tentative schedule
and was assured by the Secretary that that is a tentative
schedule. I said to him that I did not want to mislead
the people by taking an environmental impact draft
which had been presented to me on the 18th of October
and a schedule which indicates that leasing of the Baltimore
Canyon was going forth on a schedule which was presented
to us and which would indicate the leases of the Baltimore
Canyon by the end of 1975, that if the Administration was
already committed to that schedule that I think in
frankness the Secretary should tell us that so that we
do not go around spinning our wheels on that issue.
The Secretary assured me on that score that
that schedule did not represent a firm commitment and
that he would receive our comments on the environmental
impact draft without any fixed commitment to that
schedule, at least that is the way I interpreted his
answer.
Q May I ask both Governors, once its leased --
they say they still want to lease ten million acres --
once an oil company gets a tract leased, what control
would you two as Governors have over what happens out
there? It is leased to them, they own it for a given
amount of time. How are you going to control it?
MR. EDWARDS: The national Government is less
loyal in retaining controls. They can put into the
proposed lease whatever stipulations it wishes on
inspection, on safety requirements, and in the manner in
which the oil and gas will be brought onshore. They
will also have a significant portion of the produced
oil and gas in the form of royalty, which they will have
absolute control over because they can take it in kind
or sell it to the producing company in return for cash.
The coastal States also will continue to monitor
and have some control over the owner. Once you get
within the three-mile limitation, then the States have
jurisdiction insofar as their own needs and concerns are
evidenced.
As I tried to explain to these Governors, I
recognized that the concern over their shorelines and
the environment, but it is no longer a question of
whether this is good or desirable, it is absolutely
essential that we cannot continue pouring $23 billion a
year into Arab countries and importing six and a half
billion barrels of oil even if we are sure that we could
continue to get it on a continuous basis, and there is no
assurance of that.
MORE
- 6 -
By 1985 we will be pouring $35 to $40 billion
in imported oil if we do not do something about the
situation. The construction of the Alaskan pipeline,
and the full development of these five areas comprising
ten million acres by the best reasonable estimates would
generate about six million barrels of oil a day. That
would make us all more self-sufficient if we then went
to more conservation and develop more use for coal and
explored the possibility of shale oil in the four
Western States where it exists, but I think the economy
of the country and the security of our country are
too much in the balance for us to continue to sit
on a ready solution to this agonozing problem, which
has probably contributed to one half of the unemployment
in the country today and about 40 to:50 percent of the
wholesale rate increase in the past two years.
MR. BYRNE: May I comment on that question
because I raised it with the Secretary and I raised it
in the context of my concern with whether the
Government ought not to continue to have a greater
control on how all of this is developed.
I asked this question. I said, suppose that
you lease off State A and you lease off State B and
you find in the course of things that maybe the environ-
mental impact on State A is a lot worse than it would
be on State B.
Shouldn't the Government be in a position where
it could continue to control that policy question? The
Secretary answered the question. I am not sure that he
gave me all of the confidence that I would have wanted,
but he indicated in his answer that maybe there is some
control over the relative developments in those areas
but it is still of some concern to me and it still would
indicate my preference for greater Government involvement
in the whole environmental impact from start to finish.
Q
Governor, would you say there is a con-
sensus among the Governors that development of the
continental shelf is essential -- the Governors who were
here today?
MR. EDWARDS: Absolutely.
Q
Governor Byrne?
MR. BYRNE: I don't know. I don't think that
we ever went around the table and got a consensus.
Governor-elect Carey is here. I don't remember his
expressing any opinion.
MORE
- 7 -
Again, I think that the amount of oil that
can come from the OCS in the Atlantic area has got to
be weighed, and I think all of us have an obligation
to weigh that against what the environmental impacts
will be.
Speaking for New Jersey, if the environmental
impact of X barrels of oil coming out of the OCS would
mean that we destroy a $2 billion tourism industry in
our State, I don't think it makes sense.
SECRETARY MORTON: Let me address myself to
this question of the Federal control over the leasing
policy. I want to make sure that we get this straight
in your minds.
The leasing is done on the nomination process
on a two-tier process, and then on a highly selective
system so that you are not just wholesaling vast areas
without particularly evaluating the environmental risks
and what the geological potentials are.
We have been 20 years leasing in the Gulf,
and these have been selective sales based on what
previous discoveries said. Early leases in the
frontier area will be leases that are designed to find out
where oil is and where it isn't. I can assure the
Governor of New Jersey if there is no oil in Baltimore
Canyon, he is not going to have an adverse environmental
impact, and if he has good land-use planning and if he
has good zoning and planning and good legislation on the
shore, if there is oil there, he can bring it ashore
without ruining or hurting his beaches.
Actually, the pollution from oil drilling and
oil exploration and oil development is far less than the
pollution that would be developed under present technology
by shipping the same amount of oil into the parts of the
United States.
Q
Mr. Secretary, may I ask a question.
Governor Edwards raised the matter of national security.
Would you please comment on why this oil development off
the continental shelf is so important to national security?
SECRETARY MORTON: I think you can summarize
it quickly. There are two things about the so-called
energy crisis or oil situation. One is the price, and
we are all familiar with that. As Governor Edwards has
said, and has been reiterated many times, this had
approximately a 40 percent influence on our inflation,
which is now the number one enemy, and we are trying to
lick it.
MORE
- 8 -
The other thing, of course, is the risk. The
risk is that we can get shut off because the oil is
so highly concentrated with about 70 percent of the
world's reserves in the Middle East, that we face
the unknown, having been embargoed once, the prospect
that that could happen again. So, we are dealing with
the risk for a large piece of the action as far as energy
is concerned, and we are dealing with a price situation.
Now, through good conservation and through
an orderly development of our own resources, we can
back off foreign oil. That should have a very
good impact on the price. It should have a very good
impact for other nations, too, on assuring them of
supplies and those are nations that don't have vast
reserves as we do.
MORE
- 9 -
Q
Secretary Morton, where will we get the pipe
and steel and equipment for this kind of trebling of the
lease?
SECRETARY MORTON: The studies that have been
conducted and are summarized in the blueprints show that
there are only really two areas that we would have a real
problem in, and those are areas I think that we can
certainly solve the problems, and they are in the areas
of both the movable rigs for exploration and drilling
as well as the stationary platforms.
It is pretty well felt that we will be over the
hump as far as tubular goods.
Remember that when we are talking about a sale
in 1975, the best you could hope for as far as production
and bringing oil ashore would be somewhere between
five and eight years.
Q
Mr. Secretary, on a related subject, you said
this morning that an increase in the gasoline tax was an
option that you were having to consider. Press Secretary
Ronald Nessen said that the President has not changed his
view that there will be no gasoline tax as long as he is
in the White House.
Is the tax increase still an option that can
be considered?
SECRETARY MORTON: I think that I have to
consider every option. In terms of both voluntary and
mandatory and incentive systems that can be applied in
the society and in the economy to insure the conservation
of energy, I think that I am honor bound to explore
every option and to have those options analyzed as far
as their economic input is concerned.
I think the political decisions after that should
be made by the President, but I think he is
entitled to an updating of the economic analysis of every
option. So if he wants to change his mind he can
do so, knowing what the analysis is.
I am not in any way recommending the tax, but
I want to make sure that all of the information is available
when any decision is made as to how we go.
Q
Mr. Secretary, Governor Edwards has
described the tremendous balance of payments deficit that is
coming as a result of the oil being imported from the
Middle East. Do you foresee any mandatory limits
on such imports?
MORE
- 10 -
For instance, the New York Times printed a
story the other day that oil companies are starting to
promote their products and are giving away premiums with
their products because there is so much gasoline.
Do you foresee any mandatory limits on such
importation?
SECRETARY MORTON: This is an option, and this is
the option that the French have accepted. To say that we
are going to limit imports, this would be a self-imposed
embargo of a sort.
I think again you have to study what effect
this will have. So by the time the President goes before
the Congress in the State of the Union Message or the
subsequent energy message that may follow shortly
thereafter, I think we ought to have for him enough
information on each one of these considerations so
that he and the Congress together can make the political
decisions or the programmatic decisions that will be
required.
Certainly we should look at that and study it
and follow it all the way through and see what effect that
it will have on the society and the economy.
Q
Governor Edwards, what would be the impact
of 3 million acres of drilling on the Gulf of Mexico?
MR. EDWARDS: My best comparison, I think,
is that since 1954 when the Federal Government first got
into offshore development, 10 million acres have been
leased. About 11,000 oil and gas wells have been drilled
in the coastal areas of the Gulf of Mexico and Southern
California and these five areas, except for Southern
California, all envision the development of 60 to 80 miles
offshore.
The wells would not even be visible from the
shore.
Can I have a two-minute soapbox speech? Somebody
made the question about the security of the country. The
whole world is in the grip now of five or six Arab nations.
Italy is almost bankrupt, the economy of Japan is almost
gone, England, of course, may save itself with what
Americans are doing in the Irish North Sea for them, Germany
is having its problems.
MORE
- 11 -
This country is having its problems because
of the Arab attitude and world prices on oil.
Ten million people in the world die of
starvation every year. 460 million people have dietary
problems, and under the Malthusian theory, it is estimated
that next year there will be 12 million people that will
die unless we do something about food.
Oil is very important in the production of
food. It is essential in the production of fertilizer.
A ton of fertilizer will produce 10 tons of food, but it
has become so scarce and so high priced that the develop-
ing nations, instead of using the money for the purchase
of agricultural products or fertilizer, have to use it
for other, more essential purposes.
Now we have got to get this country self-
sufficient in fuel so that the Arabs will lose their
strangle hold on the world in this area. If we don't,
they are going to continue escalating the prices and cutting
down on production and creating the starvation and famine
problems that the world has experienced in the past two years
and they will continue to experience.
Now we can do something about it in this country
because we have the oil and gas reserves if we just go out
and get it. We can also, I think, bring a greater
stabilization of the price of oil once we become self-
sufficient as a dominant industrial nation, because then we
will not be dependent upon the Arabs for the production of
oil.
MORE
- 12 -
The point that I want to make is simply
that we have allowed ourselves to be in a posture where
we should not be from a standpoint of security. With
all these people dying of starvation and all these
economies of these countries going down, there is a
great political unrest and economic unrest in the world.
Countries have gone to war over who had the
right to graze billy goats on mountainsides, and this
is not going to continue in the same vein that it has
been going for the past two years without some serious
international repercussions, and this country needs
to get on the stick as soon as possible to try to save
that from happening.
SECRETARY MORTON: Thank you very much.
Q
Secretary Morton, may I ask one last
question?
SECRETARY MORTON: We have a dinner at 7:30,
and I have to meet the Governors over there, but let
me call on our old friend, a Member of Congress, Governor-
elect Hugh Carey.
MR. CAREY: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Governor Byrne and Governor Edwards, I just
wanted to indicate that since there was no consensus
called for, and I do not speak for the State of New
York as yet, that I am in the same position though as
Governor Byrne of having the tentative environmental
impact study that has great impact on the State of
New York.
My trouble frankly at this moment is that the
target of leasing the Baltimore Canyon and the bank
area off Maine and New Hampshire is in the nature of
three million acres that might produce some less
dependency but it would by no means resolve our problem
of being 85 percent dependent on imported oil.
So, we don't go in the direction of self-
sufficiency even if you go into the Baltimore Canyon
and fully develop it, and that is why I think we have
to weigh the economic impact of what we now have and
the environmental impact of losing the resource that
we have in terms of tourism, of the greatest environment
in the world, if you will, versus not solving the problem
of dependency.
That is why, in a sense, I am studyingthe
problem and hope to join in the coastal zone management
application of funds program together with New Jersey
to see if we can come back with constructive answers to
what is more of a problem than simply the development of the
Baltimore Canyon. That will not solve our problem by
itself.
MORE
- 13 -
MR. EDWARDS: I simply want to say if the Arabs
impose another embargo, you are not going to have any
trouble in reaching the conclusion that we ought to be
drilling out there.
SECRETARY MORTON: Thank you very much.
THE PRESS: Thank you, gentlemen.
END
(AT 7:35 P.M. EST)