445 



permitting process through the consistency provisions of the 

 Coastal Zone Management Act. A modif iciation to the Advisory 

 Committees Act which would permit full state participation on the 

 Task Force would be in keeping with the history of the Task Force 

 and the spirit in which it was established. 



In sum, Mr. Chairman, I believe the Biological Task Force 

 has admirably achieved its objectives, and with some minor 

 modifications of the kind I have just suggested is well suited to 

 address the challenging issues that still confront it. 



I mentioned at the outset that the Task Force was 

 established in part to quiet the controversy surrounding Lease 

 Sale 42. I doubt if any group could quiet that controversy, and 

 so I cannot fault the Task Force for failure in that mission. 

 But the Task Force has been, and should continue to be able to, 

 help make the search for, and perhaps the production of, oil and 

 gas resources in the North Atlantic a responsible endeavor. 



Thank You. 



Mr. D' Amours. We will now hear from Doug Foy, very much in- 

 volved with the current status of sale 52. 



STATEMENT OF DOUGLAS FOY 



Mr. Foy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to be here. 



Let me first correct one typographical error in my written testi- 

 mony. It appears on page 4. It should read, on the fourth line from 

 the bottom, the first word is "converged," and it should read "con- 

 veyed." 



I would like to focus my brief summary comments this morning 

 on three major issues: Inventory leasing by the Department of Inte- 

 rior, which has been the subject of some discussion already this 

 morning; the authority of the biological task force, and the synthe- 

 sis of the scientific research that is being undertaken on Georges 

 Bank. 



Finally, look a little bit at the problem that no matter how good 

 the science is, it is not a panacea, and will not resolve some of the 

 risk issues that have been raised this morning by the chairman. 



Let me first return to inventory leasing. 



I think there is an interesting process for transition going on, 

 transformation of the Department of Interior's view of its leasing 

 strategy, and Georges Bank is a good example of that. 



As the chairman has noted this morning, at one point we were 

 told there was a relatively substantial amount of oil on Georges 

 Bank, and that justified proceeding with leasing, and that occurred 

 back in lease sale 42. Since that time the estimates have been re- 

 duced dramatically, cut to 3 percent of the origimal estimates for 

 oil on Georges Bank. And yet it appears to have had no effect 

 whatsoever on the leasing activity of the Department of Interior. 



What we are now told about the reliability of the resource esti- 

 mates, oil estimates, are that they are hypothetical, unreliable, can 

 only be substantiated by extensive leasing and exploration activity 

 on Georges Bank. That differs substantially from what the Depart- 

 ment tells us in other areas of the country where the estimates 



