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Show Mic-dlc East conflict when our domestic oil industry was barely a bio to meet our requirements re-quirements for the short duration dura-tion of the crisis. We saw then how dangerously dependent we were on other sources for materials ma-terials vital to our country's existence and security, but, un-fortunateley, un-fortunateley, we did not learn a lesson from this deprivation; as a matter of fact, we have allowed our country to become even more dependent on other countries for vital materials since then. Obviously, this dependency should not be allowed to continue, con-tinue, and it is time for our country to develop its own resources. re-sources. What we need to cij to overcome the mineral resource re-source problams facing our nation, na-tion, and to take advantage oi the opportunities that the f-.ui f-.ui e holds, is first and foremost to develop a National Minerals Policy What such a policy can do for our country, with Utah taking one of the prime responsibilities, I will discuss in my next Report. REPORT FROM WASHINGTON . . . BURTON CALLS FOR ADEQUATE U. S. POLICY ON SAVING MINES By REP. LAURENCE J. EURTON Ranking Republican Member, House Mines and Mining Subcommittee One of America's more pressing problems today is that of mineral development. Luckily, though, unlike many of our present grave problems, this one appears to be soluble. Because our country's mineral development is so important and the immediacy of that development so essential, I have decided to devote this Report and the n.xt one as well to a discussion of United States mineral min-eral policy. Utah, incidentally, is one of the nation's richest areas in mineral resources. ciety, and we want to believe it; but is it really true? Our ability to handle some of our greatest present threats war, poverty, crime, urban crowding and ugliness, growing damage to our environment, is seldom thought cf as resource-limited. Whatever material reseources we need to solve these problems, prob-lems, almost everyone apparently appar-ently assumes are already here at hand or if not, don't wor-ly; wor-ly; the economics of the market mar-ket place will soon provide them! for our needs far into the future, fu-ture, but at this time, we lack the know-how to go and find them and the exploration incentives in-centives to locate them and develop a way to get them out. Unfortunately, mineral production pro-duction cannot be turned on like a faucet. Substantial capital cap-ital (hundreds of million of dollars per venture) and substantial sub-stantial time (often five to ten years) are required to complete a new mineral-producing facility. facil-ity. Because of these facts, we cannot sit back and reasonably expect our economy to stimulate stimu-late thee rquired invesetment, when it should be made NOW! As tilings stand, most U. S. companies find it more profit-abl3 profit-abl3 to invesc-t capital overseas over-seas and to import minerals and or finished orou'-ts than to develop our internal mineral resources. 'lhe peril cf this course was all too vividly demonstrated dem-onstrated in 1967 during the Most of us, I think, are quite unaware of how vital minerals are to our lives. Everyone can easily appreciate the importance import-ance of food, of water, and of clean air, but the warning of a Stanford prefoessor of Mineral Min-eral Engineering, Charles F. Park Jr., probably came as a surprise to many. He says that mineral shortages may eventually even-tually prove to be a bigger bottleneck to universal prosperity pros-perity than the need for food. How can such a warning be pronounced, and how can such a prediction be kept from coming com-ing to pass? These two questions ques-tions I shall try to deal with. We in the United States enjoy en-joy the highest standard of living liv-ing in the world a standard featuring the consumption of an extraordinary volume of minerals and their products. The average American, having witnessed such marvels as the flight of Apollo 12 on television, televi-sion, believes that technology can do anything. He does not realize that what he sees on that electronic screen represents repre-sents a technology that consumes con-sumes raw materials, or that the technology that produces them is far from being up to the conflicting demands being man upon it. We are called an affluent so- But, a requisite for affluence, now or in the future, is an adequate ade-quate supply of minerals fuels I to energize our power and transportation; nonmetals, such as sulfur and phosphates to fertilize fer-tilize farms; and metals, steel, copper, lead, aluminum, and so forth, to build our machinery cars, buldings, and bridges These are materials basic to our eceonomy, the multipliers in our gross national product. But the needed materials which can be recovered toy known methods at reasonable cost from the earth's crust are limited, whereas their rate of exploitation exploita-tion and use obviously are not. Our mineral requirements in the United States have bsen growing ten times faster than our population, but our mineral development, instead of progressing, pro-gressing, has actually declined in the past decade. We have allowed mines to fall into disuse; dis-use; we have been vary casual in our encouragement of mineral min-eral exploration, mineral technological tech-nological research, and mining education; and while doing this, we have allowed the United States to become dangerously dependent on foreign mineral supplies. Some changes must be made immediately before we irreversibly lose the ability to meet our country's needs. The Assistant Secretary of Interior for Mineral Resources, Hollis M. Dole, has indicated recently that we are not running run-ning out of minerals in this country, but we are running out of mineral technology. There are enough undiscovered minerals in America to provide |