CONSTRUCTION Our request of $2,619,000 in the field of construction is related to our requests in other program areas. Requested funds are for building water pollution abatement facilities at six hatcheries and 14 refuges; building new facilities at two fish hatcheries; and to repair, fire, flood, and storm damages occurring at 13 wildlife refuges. Additional resources are necessary to improve public use facilities at three very important refuges--the Kenai Moose Range in Alaska, the Great Swamp refuge in New Jersey, and the Chincoteague refuge in Virginia. These last two refuges, as you know, are located in very close proximity to highly concentrated urban areas. The interpretive facilities provided by these funds will enable us to substantially improve the program for the refuge visitor. The attached Chart I graphically presents Bureau total funding from 1960 through 1971 from all sources, showing a steady yearly climb. One striking factor is that while our dollar program is just short of tripling, our permanent complement is only half again as much. In Chart II, more detailed information is depicted as to what transpired within Congressional appropriated funds for fiscal years 1966 through 1971. While there has been in increase in total funding, the effective funding for fiscal year 1966 base programs has shrunk over $5 million. At the same time, personal services and benefits has increased from 44 to 64 percent of total program. With the increase in personal service costs and inflation taking it off the top, the Bureau has had to defer maintenance, postpone improvements, control travel, etc. This has hampered the Bureau's program effectiveness. I have merely inserted these charts so you may study them at your leisure. CONCLUSION Environmental quality ranks high in the issues on today's scene. Its priority may be as high as world peace or law and order. Environmental improvement is one of the few areas selected by the President to which more money would be devoted. Federal goals have been set. Our programs mesh with these goals. In closing, I should like to note that fish and wildlife are an effective litmus to judge the state of our environment. Some wild species have left the earth never to return. Part of this disappearance was evolutionary, much of it was man-made. Man himself has been a proven predator. Man's body can withstand more pollution, more radiation, more pesticide residue than any wildlife form. The message is not that man is so far superior to other animals that he need not care about them, but rather he should devote himself to the improvement of the environment to such an extent that all species can share in the future. PREPARED STATEMENT OF MR. MEACHAM Senator BIBLE. Mr. Meacham is here. You are the head man, aren't you? I had better recognize the head man first. Mr. Meacham is the Commissioner of the Fish and Wildlife Service. He was with us yesterday also when we heard the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. His statement will be incorporated in full in the record. Mr. Commissioner, you can first introduce those with you at the witness table and then proceed in your own manner to highlight the statement. It is a short statement, maybe it is better read. Proceed your own way. Mr. MEACHAM. Thank you. We have Director Gottschalk on my immediate right'; Mr. Tunison, the Deputy Director of the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife; and on his right, Mr. Benjamin, the Assistant Director for Administration and Engineering. Senator BIBLE. Very well. Your statement is incorporated in the record. (The statement follows:) As Commissioner of the Fish and Wildlife Service, I am responsible for the policies and programs of both the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife and the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. I will speak briefly about the mutual problems of both Bureaus. First, however, I would like to make some general observations about our perspective of the fish and wildlife resources we help to manage and sustain. Fish and wildlife are both a part of and dependent upon the natural I find it extremely stimulating to serve a President who shares this concern, and who is willing to make it his own. In his State of the Union Message, he said: "The great question of the seventies is shall we surrender We still think of air as free. But clean air is not, neither The Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife has a positive role in the President's thrust in improving our environment. In the sixties, our population reached a new high--resource consumption followed the population curve; we reached the moon, as highest priorities were placed on programs other than protecting and managing the nation's natural resources. Now we are turning our attention to problems closer at hand. The youth of today have taken a good look at what we have done to our natural resources; they do not accept it as it is. Neither do those of us of an older generation. We want to protect the protectable and renew the renewable in the environment, which is just another way of saying, as this Committee and its Chairman have said frequently in recent years, that America can ill afford to neglect those resources that are the very foundation of a healthful and prosperous America. TASK FORCES In assuming my responsibilities as Commissioner, I determined the need for the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife to take a good look at itself and its programs. I instructed the Director to take this "good look"--not with outside consultants, but with the Bureau's professional personnel who deal with administrative and program matters on a daily basis. Accordingly, four task forces have been organized to review Bureau affairs and give us recommendations on the improvement of policies, procedures, and overall administration. The Task Force on Overlapping Jurisdiction between Bureaus will examine research, extension services, management, and other fish and |