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MEMORANDUM OF THE CHAIRMAN 
To Members of the Senate Interior and Insular Affairs Committee: 
The question of who owns, or is responsible for, two-thirds of earth, 
has concerned me since 1969 when I appointed Senator Lee Metcalf 
to head a Special Subcommittee on the Outer Continental Shelf. 
Since then, the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs has held 
hearings on the general subject and on specific legislation. We also 
have monitored the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of 
the Sea and its preparatory meetings. As Chairman of the Subcom- 
mittee on Minerals, Materials and Fuels, Senator Metcalf has con- 
tinued to provide constructive leadership. 
We share a sense of urgency about a source of minerals from the 
oceans—minerals basic to our economy—minerals which now come 
almost exclusively from foreign sources—-minerals which we can dis- 
cover and have a right to develop under existing international law and 
with due regard to the other uses of the oceans. 
There is increasing pressure by many nations for stringent limita- 
tions on access to raw materials lying within their borders and in- 
creased prices for those raw materials which are made available to 
industrial nations. These nations call these policies steps to a “new 
economic order.” We call them cartels. 
Some of these minerals are contained in the manganese nodules 
which literally pave the ocean floor in many parts of the world. With 
increased public awareness of the importance of the nodules as our 
mineral supply came also a need for what I would call a primer. I 
asked the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress 
for such a document. 
That excellent report follows. I commend it to the attention of those 
sincerely interested in this vital and complex subject. 
Henry M. Jackson, Chairman. 
(IIT) 
