Now I revert to the first question. Will the West get what it wants" 

 From an historical point of view, it is well to recognize that in many ways 

 the West has filled the classic role of a colony. It produced raw material 

 for->^he rest of the country and bought the manufactured goods that the 

 rest of the country produced. The wealth flowed out lo the rest of the 

 country. And most importantly, it was dependent on controls and 

 decisions made for it and imposed upon it by other parts of the country . 

 It fought back through populous movements but it was not until after 

 World War II that it began to break its dependency, and exert control over 

 its own affairs. Now we see what could become a serious reversion to 

 colonial status, brought about this time by the energy crisis. Not only is 

 the west to become industrialized by filling the role of energy supplier to 

 the nation, but the meaningful decisions in that process, could well be 

 made with little imput by the people who will be most affected. Certainly 

 those decisions will stem in large measure from the federal government. 

 But also from board rooms of multi-national corporations, not only in the 

 United States but overseas, and by many people who have never set foot 

 in the West. 



I am really wrong in using the future tense. The decision making by 

 the public and private sectors outside of the West on energy development 

 in the West, has been going on for almost a decade and is growing in 

 intensity every month. For a long time, environmentalists were not a very 

 welcome breed in large parts of the West. To an extent that is still true. 

 But today in Montana and elsewhere environmentalists and landowners have 

 found a commonality of interest and have worked together to secure an 

 imput for westerners in the decision making processes dealing with energy 

 developments. Their fight of course, joins together, as i believe it 

 should, the interests of the ranching-farming economy and everything that 

 that economy sustains, ranging from pure air and clean water to the 

 integrity of the forest watersheds, the fishing streams and wildlife habitat 

 and the various zones of outdoor life, from the national parks and forests 

 to the wilderness areas, wild rivers and preserves. But in the face of the 

 deepening energy crisis, it seems evident the future may not be on their 

 side and that decisions will be made by the federal government through 

 such mechanisms as the Energy Mobilization Act and by corporation direc- 

 tors and managers in such places as New York, Stanford, Connecticut, 

 Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Houston, Paris, Frankfurt, Johannesburg and 

 wherever. 



In your discussions you' will be getting into specifics and will be 

 dwelling on short-range and long-range changes and threats facing this 

 part of America. I don't mean to invade areas that will be taken by 

 people here who have far more knowledge, background and expertise than 

 I do, but I would like to touch lightly on a few of the forces in 

 developments, whose thrust and substance are no longer iffy, but are 

 already being felt. 



The first is to me the most basic. The future of farming and 

 ranching in the West and all I can do is pose questions that are becoming 

 more pressing every day. Are livestock raisers losing range, and if so 

 how serious is it? Is urban sprawl in the West becoming serious for 

 farmers and ranchers? What threats do they face from the industrial 



