Senator HOLLAND. In closing this, Mr. Chairman, let me say that I think the witness was completely within his rights. I think that Senator O'Mahoney was completely within his rights. I have stated already in the hearing before the Judiciary Committee that I think that Mr. Oscar Chapman, who testified there that he had conferred with these attorneys, was completely within his rights. But I did want to clear up, first, last and forever, the statement that has been made repeatedly and as late as yesterday that the oil companies were backing those of us who had introduced and sponsored and fought for the so-called Holland bill, when I knew perfectly well that they had not. I have never seen this gentleman before, much less had a conference with him. The same would go for the various other attorneys for the oil companies. Senator ANDERSON. I think I should be allowed to say something here. The CHAIRMAN. Just one moment, please. I might tell the committee and those others interested that it is expected that Mr. Perlman will be a witness here tomorrow. Senator ANDERSON. Whether Mr. Perlman is a witness here tomorrow or not has nothing to do with the authorship of Senate Joint Resolution 20. The question was asked you repeatedly by the Senator from Florida whether you had participated in the drafting of Senate Joint Resolution 20. I cannot understand such a question as that. I am utterly amazed at the Senator from Florida; it is not in keeping with his character at all. I do not understand it the slightest bit. If you want to produce the fact, this was written in a room over on the other side of the Capitol by the Senator from Wyoming and myself with Stewart French present. If you want to put Mr. French on the witness stand and put him under oath, I will be happy to do it. You produce witnesses who say that these people participated in the drafting of this thing. This is a horrible thing of smearing people by indirection. I think it is disgraceful. Senator HOLLAND. The Senator is getting excited about a matter which need cause no excitement. The Senator from Florida has been charged on the floor, in the press, in this hearing, and everywhere else, with being backed by the oil companies; and the Senator from Florida has simply brought out by this questioning that the very oil companies that are involved in this issue have supported the very two resolutions which the Senator from Florida has fought hardest against. It is for that purpose that the Senator from Florida has introduced the testimony which is now in the record. Senator ANDERSON. I do not think, in order to prove that the Senator was not doing this or that, that he has to bring in some other Member of the United States Senate, particularly one who is not here to defend himself. Senator HOLLAND. The Senator from Florida was very careful to say that he felt that all concerned were entirely within their rights in this matter, and the Senator from Florida has not mentioned in any way the name of the Senator from New Mexico and does not expect to do so; but the Senator from Florida does not expect to stand idly by and be accused of being backed by oil people in the support of a measure which has very little oil under it and which has been continuously misrepresented upon the floor of the Senate and elsewhere. The Senator from Florida wanted once and for all to place in the record the showing which is now there that these very oil companies which are involved have supported Senate Joint Resolution 195 and Senate Joint Resolution 20 and not the Holland bill which was adopted last year. Senator ANDERSON. I do not object in the slightest to the Senator from Florida taking off from him any inferences that have been cast against him as to improper conduct in connection with this. Senator HOLLAND. I thank you. Senator ANDERSON. His conduct all the way through in my opinion has been exemplary. It has been of the highest character. I think the effort he is now making is quite evidently prompted only by the highest motives. But by the same token I know the motives that activated me in connection with Senate Joint Resolution 20, and I deeply resent the things that are in this record, the cross-examination of a witness to try to find out whether he participated in the drafting of this, asking him again and again if he did not sit down with Mr. Perlman and draft this. There is no possibility. I ask the witness this: Have I ever talked to you about these resolutions? Mr. ORN. Not at all, Senator. Senator ANDERSON. I do not know that I have ever met you. Have I? Mr. ORN. I do not think so. The only time we ever discussed it is when I testified before and you asked me some questions. Senator HOLLAND. Let me say, in the first place, I do not think it is necessary for the Senator from New Mexico to defend himself because I do not think he needs any defense. In the next place, I think his motives have been of the highest and I am sure of the purest, and the same comment goes with reference to Senator O'Mahoney. But the record now shows the very oil companies whose money is invested in these offshore leases have not supported the Senator from Florida's bill but instead have supported the other two so-called interim measures. That is what the Senator from Florida wanted to place in the record. Mr. ORN. Mr. Chairman, in regard to that, I would like to say on behalf of the Gulf coast operators that nothing should be construed from what we have said that we have opposed the Senator from Florida. We have just thought that the matter of restoration and disposition of the area within the boundaries was a matter that the oil industry itself should not participate in. Our interest solely has been to resume operations, and we have urged that every time we have appeared. I do not believe we ever have either supported or opposed the quitclaim legislation. We think that is a matter for the State officials to handle, and I have tried in this paper to avoid entering into that controversy. Senator ANDERSON. I do want to say to the witness that I have written letters to people in Texas who have, should I say, criticized meit is a little stronger than that-for my attitude on this legislation, and I have said to them with, I hope, complete frankness, that in discussion of the provisions that went into Senate Joint Resolution 20 I took it upon myself to talk to operators as well as the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior. When you are trying to draft legislation that can be harmoniously agreed upon by everyone, you have to know how it affects the various people and what it does to their relationships and whether they would participate or would not participate. My interest was in trying to get the development of these areas. My interest was in trying to see that oil rigs which were standing idle on the coast of Louisiana, and some on the coast of Texas, should start to drill. At the time that I became particularly interested in this we were not gaining as rapidly as I thought we should in oil reserves, and rightly or wrongly, I felt that if the operators who had already spent their good money in this area had some ideas about whether they would be willing to proceed even though title was not completely established, it would be worthwhile for this country. I still think that was correct way to approach it. I still believe that we ought to try to find out what the Department of Justice would recommend, because it was of no use whatever to pass a bill and then have the Department of Justice recommend that that bill be vetoed. I thought it was important to find out what the Department of the Interior would do because, again I say, there would be no use to have the Congress pass a bill and then have that bill vetoed. We were trying always to make sure that the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior would recommend to the President that the bill be signed if it passed. We tried to find out whether the operators, once the bill was passed, would be able to do the important thing, to my mind; namely, start their drilling rigs going again. It did not succeed. There was opposition to it. Part of it came from Senator Daniel. I never questioned that opposition, because he was fighting from daylight to dark to protect what he thought to be the rights of his State, and his sincerity was such that we could not question it. But there were officials of the State of Texas who thought it was not too bad a proposal. I am quite sure that when the final draft of the bill came, the drafting was done by only three people, by the Senator from Wyoming, Mr. French, who is here today, and the junior Senator from New Mexico. Unless there were invisible people in the room, there was not a representative of an oil company there, and there was not a representative of any other industry there. Senator BARRETT. I think the position of everybody has been made abundantly clear. Have you concluded your statement now, Mr. Orn? Mr. ORN. Yes, thank you. Senator BARRETT. We thank you very much. The next witness will be Major Cosgrove. Major, we are delighted to have you here. STATEMENT OF JAMES J. COSGROVE, CHAIRMAN, BOARD OF DIRECTORS, CONTINENTAL OIL CO. Mr. COSGROVE. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. My name is James J. Cosgrove. I am chairman of the board of Continental Oil Co., an integrated oil company. It has interests either in its own name or jointly with others in more than 250,000 acres in the submerged lands in the Gulf of Mexico covered by oil and gas leases acquired through competitive bidding from the States of Louisiana and Texas in 1948 and prior years. Today I am pinch hitting, so to speak, for Walter Hallanan who has appeared before several committees of Congress dealing with the exploration and development of the oil and gas reserves in the submerged lands. Unfortunately, Mr. Hallanan is not able to appear because of injuries recently received when his airplane hit an air pocket. The statement which I am presenting here was to have been submitted by him. It has been supplemented to some extent by my own observations, so today this is a joint submission by him and by me as representatives of offshore lessees of submerged lands in the Gulf of Mexico under leases issued by Texas and Louisiana. We will try to follow the injunction of the chairman not to repeat testimony which has been given at previous hearings. It is not my purpose to deal in technicalities of either a practical or legal nature. My statements will be limited almost entirely to bringing up to date the data in respect to offshore operations in the Gulf of Mexico which have been previously submitted to this and other committees of Congress dealing with the subject matter of today's hearings. Throughout my statement I will be using the terms "traditional boundaries of the State of Louisiana" and "traditional boundaries of the State of Texas." For the purpose of the testimony, in the one case I will mean 3 nautical miles or about 311⁄2 statute miles from the shore of Louisiana into the gulf. In the case of the State of Texas I will refer to the traditional boundaries as a line 9 nautical miles or about 1011⁄2 statute miles from the shore of the State. I would now like to present as exhibit No. 1 a map showing the Gulf of Mexico adjacent to the State of Louisiana and the portion of that State bordering on the gulf. Your attention is called to the red line on this map. This is the line claimed by the United States as the landward boundary of the offshore sea covered by the decision and decree of the Supreme Court in U. S. v. Louisiana. I do not presume to pass upon the accuracy of the line. It may or may not be satisfactory to Louisiana and those claiming under it. It is used here solely because I find it necessary to use some starting point in order to draw an approximate dividing line between submerged lands within the original State boundaries and those lands lying outside. I noticed this afternoon there was factual testimony given by representatives of the Department of the Interior. I have not had an opportunity to check these data against the data contained in my statement, but the very hurried examination which I did make indicates that the discrepancies are not large and do not affect the principles which I am trying to enunciate. Louisiana, over the years, has leased for oil and gas on a competitive bidding basis about 2,600,000 acres in the gulf lying seaward of the red line 668,741 acres or approximately 26 percent of this total are within the traditional seaward boundaries of the State, 1,910,000 acres or approximately 75 percent of the total are beyond the traditional seaward boundaries of Louisiana. A large amount of the acreage both within and without the traditional State boundaries has been dropped by the lessees for various reasons-dry holes, carrying charges, and uncertainty and delays in getting legal clearance for further explorations and development The oil and gas leases issued by the State upon which rents, royalties, and other charges have been currently paid, are shown on the map and cover 1,183,997 acres in the Gulf of Mexico. Of this acreage 198,867 acres are between the red line and the traditional State boundaries; 985,130 acres lie seaward of the traditional State boundaries, or about 5 times as much acreage is outside of as is within the said boundaries. There have been 195 wells drilled off the coast of Louisiana, 83 of which were within the traditional boundaries of the State, 57 of the latter wells were completed as oil wells, 2 as gas condensate wells, 1 as a gas well, and 23 were dry holes. As a result of the drilling of these 83 wells, 5 oil fields were discovered. Of 195 wells drilled, 112 were seaward of the traditional boundary lines of the State. The drilling of these 112 wells resulted in 25 oil wells, 20 gas condensate wells, 3 gas wells, and 54 dry holes. It is important to note that 20 fields were discovered as a result of this drilling-10 oil fields, 9 gas condensate fields, and 1 gas field. Today there are 91 wells producing off the Louisiana coast. These wells have a daily average production of approximately 17,200 barrels and have produced a total of approximately 21,011,000 barrels of oil. Of these producing wells, 55 are located within the traditional boundaries of the State and are producing approximately 12,175 barrels of oil daily and have produced a total of approximately 16,906,000 barrels: 36 of the producing wells outside of the traditional State boundaries are producing at a daily average rate of approximately 5,030 barrels and have produced a total of approximately 4,135,000 barrels. The total revenues received from the leases up to date amount to about $59,000,000 from both the Louisiana and Texas operations. I would like again to say at this point that I do not presume to pass upon the accuracy of the red line on the Louisiana map. Now I would like to introduce exhibit No. 2 which is a map showing the Gulf of Mexico adjacent to the State of Texas, and that portion of that State bordering on the gulf. The red line on this map denotes the shoreline of Texas. There is a first dotted line which has no relevance to this discussion. The second dotted line denotes 9 nautical miles or about 10% statute miles from the shoreline and represents the traditional boundary of that State. The third dotted line denotes a distance of 27 nautical miles or about 31.4 statute miles from the shoreline and is the line to which the State of Texas in 1941 by statute extended its boundary in the gulf. Colored in red are those areas in the gulf covered by oil and gas leases issued by the State on a competitive-bidding basis and on which current rents, royalties, and other charges have been paid to date. The area covered by these leases totals 297,850 acres in the submerged area in the gulf seaward of its shore line as shown on exhibit 2. As in the case of Louisiana, much acreage covered by leases has been released for various reasons, including dry holes, rentals, carrying charges, and uncertainty and delays in obtaining clearance for further exploration and development. Of the 207,605 acres or approximately 55 percent of the submerged land in the gulf that have been leased for oil and gas by the State of Texas are within the traditional seward boundaries of the State; that is, within 1011⁄2 miles of the shoreline. Approximately 170,000 acres or 45 percent of the acreage in the gulf that have been leased for oil and gas by Texas lie beyond the traditional seaward boundary of the State. Of the 297,850 acres in the Gulf of Mexico now under lease for oil and gas by Texas above refered to, which acreage is colored in red on |