30 



The proposition that Senator Ohurch advances is one of many 

 alternatives. I can say positively that the administration has taken 

 no position a,t all on this proposal. We are looking at many possibilities. 

 This includes trying to implement the median line concept enunciated 

 in that convention. These have to take into account such complex 

 questions as the fact that the exploitation of mineral resources by 

 U.S. industry takes place off the shores of other countries as well 

 as off our own. 



Therefore, from the point of view of the problems of domestic 

 economic development in which our industrial interests are also con- 

 cerned, it is not as simple a question as simply saying which seabed 

 belongs to which country. It is looking at the picture in a somewhat 

 broader context. 



This subject needs careful examination. It is going to need debate. 

 It is going to need the concern and the attention of all of the interested 

 parties. I know that, Mr. Eogers, you have had an interest in this 

 personally and other members who are on this committee have this 

 interest. I believe that we now have to look at these issues rationally. 



Mr. Hanna. I thank the gentleman for his remarks. I am prepared 

 to insert in the record a collection of what I think are some of the 

 most pertinent remarks up to the present time, and I would also like 

 to extend for the committee what I am sure is their feeling, which 

 is congratulations to the American Bar Association on the recent 

 meeting that they held on the law of the sea. 



I think all of this is going to be very productive. 



Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



(Information follows:) 



[From the Congressional Record, August 24, 1967] 



The Law and the Land Under the Sea 



Extension of Remarks of Hon. Richard T. Hanna, of California, in the House of 



Representatives 



Mr. Hanna. Mr. Speaker, the enthusiastic romance with the promise and 

 potentials of the "wet frontier" of the world's oceans has continued through the 

 last few years, unabated. On a more practical plane, Government agencies have 

 cautiously extended their activities, sensing a possible explosion of funding for 

 mission-oriented projects. Most impressively, private industry has committed 

 substantial resources toward engineering and scientific projects for meaningful 

 intrusions into the underseas environments. All this has appropriately engendered 

 rising concern over the status of the law of the sea and how, given the under- 

 developed condition of this facet of jurisprudence, orderly and effective develop- 

 ment and exploitation of the envisioned potentials can be realized. 



Viewpoints of concern include our own early observations before the Oceanog- 

 raphy Subcommittee over a year ago, when we likened the prevailing lawless 

 conditions in the "wet frontier" to the situation in the early "west frontier." 

 The rule of the six-gun prevailed. The violence of possession gained, being nine 

 points of the law, we were provided with a bloody chapter in our development. 

 To reconstruct that history in the sea in an international scramble for possession 

 and protection would not be appealing. However, to see in this dilemma the ne- 

 cessity for cooperation and mutual assent to some developing rules does not 

 in our judgment dictate an immediate turning to the United Nations, as some 

 have suggested, as the sole forum for an answer. Our attention, as has that of 

 other thoughtful and concerned persons has been drawn to the proposal, most 

 recently expounded by the able Senator from Idaho, Senator Church. We choose 

 to look upon the Senator's suggestion as an invitation for a broad dialog on the 

 problem. 



In the hopes of encouraging a continuance of investigation and suggestion, 

 we have set down some thoughts which, in our judgment, question the wisdom of 

 a hasty turn to the United Nations at this juncture in the emerging situation 



