4 COMMITTEE ON INT ERIOR AND INSULAR AFF AIRS HENRY M. JACKSON, Washington, Chairman CL IN TO N P. AN DE RSON , New Mexico GOR DON AL LO TT , Co lorado ALA N BIB LE, Ne vada LE N B. JO RD AN , Id ah o FR AN K CH UR CH , Id ah o PA UL J. F AN NI N, Arizo na FR ANK E. MOSS, Utah CL IF FO RD I’. IIA NS EN , Wyomi ng QUEN TI N N. BU RD ICK, N ort h D ak ot a MA RK O. H ATFIE LD, Orego n GE OR GE McGO VERN , So ut h D ak ot a TE D ST EV EN S, Alaska GAYLORD NELSON, Wisconsin HE NR Y BE LL MO N, Oklah om a LEE METCALF, Montana M IK E GR AV EL , Alaska J erry T. Verkler, Staff Director Stewart F rench, Chief Counsel William J. Van N ess, Special Counsel Charles C ook, Minority Counsel The fo llo wing proceeding s wer e co nd uc te d in ex ec utive session on Jan u ary 18 an d 20, 1969, and re leas ed fo r pu bl ic at io n on Jan u ary 22, 1969. (ID w « NOMINATION OF GOV. WALTER J. HICKEL, OF ALASKA, TO BE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR SA TU RD A Y , JA N U A R Y 18 , 19 69 U.S. Senate, Committee on I nterior and I nsular Affairs, Washin gto n, D.G. The com mittee met, in executive session, at 10 :12 a.m., in room 3112, New Senate Office Bu ild ing, Se na tor Hen ry M. Jackson (cha irm an ) presidin g. Pr esen t: Se na tors Jackson, An derso n, Bib le, Church, Moss, B ur­ dick , McG overn, Nelson, Me tcalf, Gravel, Allo tt, Jo rd an , Fan ni n, Hanse n, Ha tfield , Stevens, and Bellmon. Also p re se nt: Je rr y T . V erk ler, sta ff d ire ctor ; Stew art F rench, ch ief counsel; Bill Van Ness, Jr. , special cou nsel; Ch arl es Cook, minor ity counsel; Dan Dreyfus , Ji m Gam ble, Denny Miller, Por te r W ard, a nd Roy W hitacre, pro fes sio nal staff members. The Chairm an. Th e co mmittee will come to order. Th is meeting is called pu rsua nt to the ann ouncement by the Cha ir yesterday afternoo n, th at we wou ld meet at 10 o'clock in executive session, to go over th e fina ncia l sta tem ent of Governo r Hickel. A fter the me eting yesterda y, it came to my attenti on th at Go v­ ern or Hickel ha d filed for an oil lease in 1953, inv olv ing 2,560 acres, and th at this lease ha d expir ed—upon fu rt her checkin g, which 1 will come to in a m oment—in 1963, by opera tio n of law. Th is is to say, the lease expir ed m 10 years. App aren tly because he did not p ay the a nn ua l fees. I do not hav e all of the de tails. I will ask Mr. Van Ness to comm ent on this in a mom ent. Then, we were also advised th at Mr. an d Mrs. Hic kel and one of his business en tities, un de r the nam e of “H ick el Ent erpr ises ” ha d filed a n um ber of lease applications a gg rega tin g in acre age som ewh ere between 90 and 100 thousan d acres, I believe. Th is rep res ented some 40 to 50 separa te filings. Wh en th is inform ation came to ou r attention— I fou nd ou t about it person ally about 7 o’clock las t ni gh t—M r. Van Ness had alread y sta rte d che cking on it to find o ut th e sta tus . To sum it a ll up, in c heck­ ing with the BL M office in An chorage an d in Fa irb an ks —we tele­ phoned the An ch orag e office—we were adv ised, Mr. Van Ness was advised, th at the a pp lic ati on s inv olv ing th e t op filing s h ad all expired by opera tion of law , one way or anoth er. Th is is to say, the Bu reau had granted lease s in some instances—I cannot say in every ins tan ce— to a p rio r filer. The inform ation th at we had as of la te last nigh t was t ha t th e 2,560- acre lease, which h ad been actua lly issued and was in existence fo r 10 (35 7) 358 years, to Mr. Hickel or to one of his wholly owned business subsidi­ aries, had expired by operation of law, and that all of the top filings had expired. I asked the staff to check and see if he had filed on any State lands, and if he held any State leases. We have been advised that tha t in­ formation would not be available or we could not check on it at this time. Mr. Van Ness, you take over at this point. I am ju st trying to give * to the committee the summary of facts as they came to me. Why don’t you add to or revise on the matters I have disclosed to the committee ? Bring it up to date. Mr. Van Ness. Yes, sir. There were two telephone conversations be- • tween myself and the Anchorage BLM office concerning this matter. I posed a number of questions and asked them to check the questions out and to reply by telegram in the form of a report on the matters tha t I had raised. We have not yet received t hat telegram, so the remaining conver­ sations were telephone conversations. There were two of them. The information which Senator Jackson relayed to you is very fragmen­ tary and the facts are not totally laid out on it. 1 have also requested that BLM follow the telegram reports with a detailed report by airmail-special delivery letter on this matter. The question as to whether there were any present or existing leases or applications to lease State lands has been raised, but we have not, as yet, asked the State for th at information. The committee had asked yesterday by telephone and telegram to Mr. Thomas E. Kelly a clarification of the relationship between B rit­ ish Petroleum and the State of Alaska in terms of how many leases are held, when they were entered into, their locations, and other rele­ vant information. This morning we received, r ight before we came over, a telegram from Mr. Kelly, indicating th at----- The Chairman. Read the wire. Mr. Van N ess. “Information requested by Mr. Van Ness received. Data in division of lands unavailable until Monday a.m. Will be happy to provide complete facts then to expeditiously obtain info. Suggest you contact B.P. USA LD 620 5th Ave New York NY Attn Mr. C. P. B. Hardcastle President.” Signed “Thomas E. Kelly.” The C hairman. N ow, the point is th at a lease was issued involving * 2,560 acres, but this lease has expired by operation of law. This is the only known oil lease tha t we have any information on th at was in the name of the Hickels. The rest involved top filings, filing on existing applications that had been filed previously. We have been advisedT by telephone tha t no active applications were pending or leases issued, as I understand it, in the name of Mr. Hickel. The C hairman. Senator Stevens. Senator Stevens . There were a series of leases actually issued in this area of the Kenai Peninsula. Those leases were challenged by a lawsuit filed by Mr. Tallman. The chairman will remember that Ta ll­ man challenged all of the leases on the basis tha t they had not been properly issued. So, there was a rush to file and practically all of the businessmen in the Anchorage area, in particular, top filed that area. The reason was that if Tallman had won his lawsuit, those leases 359 alr eady issued wou ld have been decla red inv alid and th e top tili ng would h ave had the first prio rity to he issued. Ta llm an lost his case—it went to the Supre me Cou rt—a nd when he lost th e case, the leases th at were issued were decla red valid and the top filing app lications were all rejecte d. The se ap plicati on s were all filed before Mr. Hickel even go t in­ volved in elective office. To my knowledge, he has no t been in the oil business. I have filed an oil and g as lease offer, inc ide nta lly. I h ave n ever g ot­ ten a lease. W e do this in Alaska in o rder to protec t ourselves or to get the op po rtun ity fo r ou r first pr io rity in an are a th at looks lik e it has some promis e. Th e C ha irm an .