Ir. BIBLE, from the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, submitted the following REPORT [To accompany H.R. 698] The Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, to which was eferred the bill (H.R. 698) to provide for the establishment of the Guadalupe Mountains National Park in the State of Texas, and for ther purposes, having considered the same, reports favorably thereon ith amendments and recommends that the bill as amended do pass. The amended text of the bill is as follows: hat, in order to preserve in public ownership an area in the State of Texas essing outstanding geological values together with scenic and other natural ales of great significance, the Secretary of the Interior shall establish the uadalupe Mountains National Park, consisting of the land and interests in land in the area shown on the drawing entitled "Proposed Guadalupe Mountains ational Park, Texas", numbered SA-GM-7100C and dated February 1965, hh is on file and available for public inspection in the offices of the National ark Service, Department of the Interior. Notwithstanding the foregoing, however, the Secretary shall omit from the park tions 7 and 17, P.S.L. Block 121, in Hudspeth County, and revise the bountries of the park accordingly if the owner of said sections agrees, on behalf of self, his heirs and assigns that there will not be erected thereon any structure mich, in the judgment of the Secretary, adversely affects the public use and Ljoyment of the park. SEC. 2. (a) Within the boundaries of the Guadalupe Mountains National ark, the Secretary of the Interior may acquire land or interests therein by donaon, purchase with donated or appropriated funds, exchange, or in such other anner as he deems to be in the public interest. Any property, or interest herein, owned by the State of Texas, or any political subdivision thereof, may be quired only with the concurrence of such owner. by In order to facilitate the acquisition of privately owned lands in the park y exchange and avoid the payment of severance costs, the Secretary of the terior may acquire approximately 4,667 acres of land or interests in land which e adjacent to or in the vicinity of the park. Land so acquired outside the park ndary may be exchanged by the Secretary on an equal-value basis, subject uch terms, conditions, and reservations as he may deem necessary, for privately ned land located within the park. The Secretary may accept cash from or pay cash to the grantor in such exchange in order to equalize the values of the properties exchanged. SEC. 3. (a) When title to all privately owned land within the boundary of the park, subject to such outstanding interests, rights, and easements as the Secretary determines are not objectionable, with the exception of approximately 4,574 acres which are planned to be acquired by exchange, is vested in the United Stateand after the State of Texas has donated or agreed to donate to the United States whatever rights and interests in minerals underlying the lands within the boundaries of the park it may have and other owners of such rights and interests have donated or agreed to donate the same to the United States, notice thereof and notice of the establishment of the Guadalupe Mountains National Park shall be published in the Federal Register. Thereafter, the Secretary may continue to acquire the remaining land and interests in land within the boundaries of the park. The Secretary is authorized, pending establishment of the park, to negotiate and acquire options for the purchase of lands and interests in land within the boundaries of the park. He is further authorized to execute contracts for the purchase of such lands and interests, but the liability of the United States under any such contract shall be contingent on the availability of appropriated or donated funds to fulfill the same. (b) In the event said lands or any part thereof cease to be used for national park purposes, the persons (including the State of Texas) who donated to the United States rights and interests in minerals in the lands within the park shall be given notice, in accordance with regulations to be prescribed by the Secretary, of their preferential right to a reconveyance, without consideration, of the respective rights and interests in minerals which they donated to the United States. Such notice shall be in a form reasonably calculated to give actual notice to those entitled to such preferential right, and shall provide for a period of not less than one hundred and eighty days within which to exercise such preferential right. The preferential right to such reconveyance shall inure to the benefit of the successors, heirs, devisees, or assigns of such persons having such preferential right to a reconveyance, and such successors, heirs, devisees, or assigns shall be given the notice providea for in this subsection. (c) Such rights and interests in minerals, including all minerals of whatever nature, in and underlying the lands within the boundaries of the park and which are acquired by the United States under the provisions of this Act are hereby withdrawn from leasing and are hereby excluded from the application of the present or future provisions of the Mineral Leasing Act for Acquired Lands (August 7, 1947, c. 513, 61 Stat. 913) or other Act in lieu thereof having the same purpose, and the same are hereby also excluded from the provisions of all present and future laws affecting the sale of surplus property or of said mineral interests acquired pursuant to this Act by the United States or any department or agency thereof, except that, if such person having such preferential right to a reconveyance fails or refuses to exercise such preferential right to a reconveyance as provided in subparagraph (b) next above, then this subsection (c) shall not be applicable to the rights and interests in such minerals in the identical lands of such person so failing or refusing to exercise such preferential right to a reconveyance from and after the one hundred and eighty-day period referred to in subparagraph (b) next above. (d) If at any time in the future an Act of Congress provides that the national welfare or an emergency requires the development and production of the minerals underlying the lands within the boundaries of the national park, or any portion thereof, and such Act of Congress, notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (c) of this section or any other Act, authorizes the Secretary to lease said land for the purpose of drilling, mining, developing, and producing said minerals, the Secretary shall give the persons (including the State of Texas) who donated such minerals to the United States notice of their preferential right to lease, without consideration, all or any part of the respective rights and interests in minerals which they donated to the United States, subject to such terms and conditions as the Secretary may prescribe. Such preferential right shall inure to the beneû: of the successors or assigns, and of the heirs or devisees of such persons having such preferential right in the premises. The persons entitled to a preferential right under this subsection shall be given the same notice thereof as persons entitled to preferential rights under subsection (b) of this section. If such person having such preferential right fails or refuses to excuse such right within the time specified in the above notice, the Secretary may thereafter lease the minerals involved to any other person under such terms and conditions as he may prescribe. (e) If at any time oil, gas, or other minerals should be discovered and produced in commercial quantities from lands outside of the boundaries of the park, thereby causing drainage of oil, gas, or other minerals from lands within the boundaries of the park, and if the Secretary participates in a communitization agreement or takes other action to protect the rights of the United States, the proceeds, if any, derived from such agreement or action shall inure to the benefit of the donors of the oil, gas, or other minerals, or their successors, heirs, devisees, or assigns. SEC. 4. The Guadalupe Mountains National Park shall be administered by the Secretary of the Interior in accordance with the provisions of the Act of August 25, 1916 (39 Stat. 535; 16 U.S.C. 1–4), as amended and supplemented. SEC. 5. Any funds available for the purpose of administering the five thousand six hundred and thirty-two acres of lands previously donated to the United States in Culberson County, Texas, shall upon establishment of the Guadalupe Mountains National Park pursuant to this Act be available to the Secretary for purposes of such park. SEC. 6. There are hereby authorized to be appropriated such sums, but not more than $1,800,000 in all, as may be necessary for the acquisition of lands and interest in lands, and not more than $10,362,000, as may be necessary for the development of the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. PURPOSE The purpose of H.R. 698, and a companion measure, S. 295, introduced by Senator Yarborough, is to authorize the creation of a new unit of the national park system to be known as the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Hearings were held on these bills on July 21, 1965, and August 9, 1966. An inspection of the area was made by members of the Subcommittee on National Parks and Recreation on April 13, 1966. SIZE AND LOCATION The proposed Guadalupe Mountains National Park will embrace 77.582 acres. Of these 60,574 are in Culbertson County and 16,944 in Hudspeth County, Tex. The park's greatest dimensions are approximately 13 miles from north to south and 12 miles from east to west. The northern boundary of the park is the Texas-New Mexico border. From the park to Carlsbad, N. Mex., is 55 miles and to El Paso, 110 miles. The park is accessible from both these places via U.S. Highway 62-180. Abutting the park on the north is Lincoln National Forest and adjacent to the latter-that is, 28 miles from the Guadalupe National Park-is the Carlsbad Caverns National Park which attracts about 600,000 visitors each year. NATURAL FEATURES For scientist and layman alike, the area proposed to be included in the new national park has great interest. Its chief attraction to the former will be the fact that here, at elevations ranging between 3,650 and 8,750 feet above sea level, are exposed the results of processes of nature that took place below the surface of a 10,000-square-mile inland ocean some 200 million years ago, processes similar to those that are taking place beneath the surface of oceans in other parts of the world today. "The Guadalupe Mountains in their entirety," Mr. Wallace A. Pratt, a noted geologist and former vice president of the Humble Oil Co., testified before the committee, "are no more than a profoundly uplifted segment of Capitan barrier reef-a wall or ridge of rock built by lowly marine organisms in warm, shallow, clear waters on the floor |