1 MS. HUGHES: I'll respond first, the debate over separating 



2 exploration activities from development and production occurred before 



3 the Lands Act amendments in 1978. There are a lot of reasons, given our 



4 economic and political system that we don't separate exploration from 



5 development and production. 



6 While there may be lots of people who wish that we could do it 



7 that way, I think it's very unlikely, number one. I think second you're 



8 right, the Secretary does have the authority to say to a company, "You 



9 cannot go ahead in development and produce this find that you've 



10 delineated for environmental reasons." 



11 It clearly states that in the act, and yes, they have to go 



12 through an EIS and through all the development and production 



13 permitting, et cetera. 



14 I think you're right, Don, in saying that--I mean I think it's 



15 very unlikely for any administration to say that to a company. 



16 "We've gone ahead, we've encouraged you to invest millions of 



17 dollars, we've placed all sorts of restrictions on what you could do in 



18 the exploratory phase. You've now found a large field that's 



19 commercial, well, we're awfully sorry but you can't do anything with it 



20 now." 



21 I think that's very unlikely, no matter who it is that's making 



22 the decision. I think there are ways, and I'm not an expert at this, 



23 but I think there are ways to do something more like what John Teal was 



24 describing, which is to provide the opportunity for there to be some 



25 delineation of a hydrocarbon resource without automatically there being 



26 development and production. 



27 This is not the forum to explore those, although you can't 



28 separate them. Part of the overall problem with a discussion like this, 



29 Dick Cooper said, "What, 10 years from now, will happen when OPEC has 



30 got the price of oil way high?" 



31 We're not going to solve the energy crisis by drilling in the 



32 submarine canyons, by drilling in the North Atlantic, by drilling in the 



33 straits of Florida. We solve it by the development of a sensible and 



152 



