you, I believe, have shown, Mr. Chairman and the members of the 

 Subcommittee, an appreciation of the values that I am here to dis- 

 cuss today that makes any comments by me really quite unneces- 

 sary. 



I want to tell you how delighted I am to be back in this room. 

 You will remember, you and I and some of the other members here 

 served in this room in the old days before the rules of the House 

 removed me from the Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife Con- 

 servation and from the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fish- 

 eries, which is a great committee, for which I have a very special 

 feeling and reverence because of the outstanding work that has 

 been done in this committee room by this Subcommittee, over the 

 years. 



And I have a particular feeling of happiness in returning here to 

 be with you, Mr. Chairman. And I would observe that being an old 

 bull simply means you are willing to work around this place and 

 does not necessarily mean you are old or that you have a particular 

 ox-like characteristic. 



At this point, I would like to say a particular word of apprecia- 

 tion to Mr. Weldon. He has replaced our good friend, Mr. Conte, 

 as a member of the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission and 

 he has served there with distinction. 



It is a little agency. We do not do much except to approve the 

 projects and the spending of money for migratory bird conservation 

 and migratory bird habitats, but we regard it as being an ex- 

 tremely important piece of work. And as Mr. Gilchrest said, there 

 is a certain piece of poetry and reverence in seeing waterfowl and 

 appreciating the beauties and the wonderful characteristics of 

 these birds and the places that they use. So I want to tell you how 

 important the work that you do here is and how grateful I am to 

 be here with you. 



Mr. Conte was a great advocate and friend of this, and over the 

 years, working together, he and I had the opportunity to observe 

 what can be accomplished with just a little bit of money. You know, 

 one of the great agencies of government is the Fish and Wildlife 

 Service. For the amount of money they get, they do incredible 

 amounts of good, both with regard to endangered species, with re- 

 gard to comments on fish and wildlife values, with regard to ad- 

 ministering lands as well, with very, very little. 



They are efficient in acquiring lands, and they do it with a great 

 deal of care and a great deal of patience. And you will hear very, 

 very little complaint about the way they acquire land, as my friend, 

 Mr. Weldon, will tell you, because we do it with a full sensitivity 

 toward public interest and the attitudes of the landowners. 



I have a full statement, Mr. Chairman, which I will ask unani- 

 mous consent to be inserted in the record, and I will just make a 

 few summary comments. 



In this room, Mr. Chairman, as you will remember, we wrote the 

 Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the 

 National Wildlife Refuge Administration Act, the ocean dumping 

 legislation, and a lot of other pieces of legislation that are really 

 the cornerstone and the milestone for the protection of fish and 

 wildlife habitat and the great and wonderful outdoor natural his- 

 tory and natural resources of this country. They have been the 



