26 
Insofar as licensing is concerned, I think Mr. Meeker is knowledge- 
able on this point and will want to address himself to it. 
Mr. Mrerexer. Mr. Chairman and Senator Pell, there are many dif- 
ferent possibilities in the whole range of conceivable regimes for the 
ocean floor. We in the U.S. Government will want to make a very 
careful study of that broad spectrum, and no doubt other countries 
will wish to make comparable studies themselves. 
J think this is certainly one of the possibilities that we will want to 
consider very carefully. Above all, it seems to me that your principle 
of flexibility and of adopting a regime which, on a continuing basis, 
responds to realities in the world, is a very important principle that 
we will certainly want to give most careful thought to and give effect 
to in whatever regime we ultimately do adopt. 
POSSIBILITY OF AN OCEAN SPACE TREATY 
Senator Peni. Mr. Sisco, from the viewpoint of your own good 
commonsense, when do you believe, in fact, some sort of ocean space 
treaty will come into effect ? 
Mr. Stsco. I don’t have any hard and fast notion about this, Senator, 
and probably this is reflective of my own ignorance. I do, however, 
draw two analogies, the one which Senator Sparkman mentioned, 
that is, the length of time that it took us to work out an Antarctic 
Treaty. and perhaps what is in some ways the better example, the 
Outer Space Treaty. I can recall when we first established the Outer 
Space Committee back, I think, in 1958. Here we are. 9 or 10 years 
later, and we now have a treaty. I, myself, would be willing to go out 
on a limb—it is a sheer, uneducated guess, but I think we are really 
talking about at least a decade of work. 
Senator Prin. The difference, though, is that in outer space there 
are no nice manganese nodules to be plucked by the spacemen as they 
wander around. There are no immediate economic incentives to move 
in those directions. But in ocean space, you may soon have a capacity 
to drill oil wells beyond the continental shelf. 
So, it would seem to me that very soon some of our more imaginative 
and aggressive oil companies may well be digging in ocean space. 
Should we not therefore move a little faster than we did in outer 
space? 
Mr. Stsco. As you know, Senator Pell, we are in favor of moving as 
rapidly as the accumulation of knowledge will permit. The executive 
branch is now involved in a very detailed study, and we would hope 
that we can begin to move ahead with reasonable speed. 
Within the U.N. context, we hope a study committee will be estab- 
lished within the next few weeks. This committee will not only get 
into the various aspects of the problem that I mentioned earlier in mv 
statement, but the Secretary General about a year ago was also asked 
to put together a very comprehensive study. 
Our assumption is that this study pursuant to his mandate, will 
be ready next year. Therefore, my assumption is that the work on the 
national scene, as well as that on the international! scene, one energizing 
the other, and the interests of the Congress, will move this matter 
ahead as rapidly as possible. 
