THE FEDERAL-STATE-LOCAL PARTNERSHIP 51 



it is clear that government is the instrument and technique of secur- 

 ing natural beauty. And this brings us to the first need, in my judg- 

 ment, which is coordination and cooperation within and among 

 governments in their planning, programing, and execution to secure 

 natural beauty. 



Coordination within governments, such as the Federal Government 

 itself, is indeed a very difficult problem. I think it is helpful to think 

 of Federal land ownership briefly. The United States owns a third 

 of all the lands in the 50 States 768 million acres and owns 22 

 percent of all the lands in the 48 contiguous States. This is an im- 

 mense heritage. It is a heritage that at its height, at the time of the 

 purchase of Alaska in 1867, consisted of 80 percent of the land. 



The values of these lands and their related resources are immense. 

 The book value of the Federally owned lands and related natural 

 resources exceeds the national debt. And in my judgment the fair 

 market value of these resources would exceed the national debt by a 

 great deal. To illustrate this, the White House, just within a mile of 

 here, is carried on the books at $1,000. That's what we paid to ac- 

 quire it. If we look into it, it is worth a little bit more than that. 

 We are still carrying some millions of acres of Louisiana Purchase at 

 3 cents an acre, but fortunately none of us can buy the land from 

 the Federal Government at that price. 



I would like to think that this country will devote this remaining 

 heritage in the form of a trust for the environmental health and 

 beauty of the future. We are talking about 1 2 percent of the oil and 

 gas production of the United States on Federal lands. We are talking 

 about 25 percent of the timber production, and these are not de- 

 veloped to the extent that other resources in the country are. If we 

 devoted these resources to the needs of future generations of America 

 in terms of environmental health and natural beauty, it would be 

 the highest and best use to which these assets can be put. 



In looking at them, though, we have to look at history. We have 

 7,000 statutes relating to the use, the regulation, the disposition and 

 the acquisition of Federal lands and they go back over a period of 

 120 years. Many of them have no relationship to modern needs. 

 Fortunately we have just created a Federal Public Land Law Re- 

 view Commission. This Commission will engage in a study of all 

 the Federal land laws and needs, and natural beauty should be 

 among its foremost considerations. 



We need to think in terms of redistribution of Federal landowner- 



