will have an abundance and a surplus of them within the 15 months. You will have, then, a barge canal across Florida, and then you come to the question of the extension and deepening west of Florida. to that, during all the time that I have known this subject the intracoastal canal has not been classed by engineers or by water-transportation experts as 15 or 20 different pieces of transportation, but as one continuous project leading from Maine to the Mexican border. That was expressed by General Brown 12 or 15 years ago at a meeting of the waterways conventions here in Washington. He said that was the ambition; that was what should be done, and that was what would be done.

Let us take that up and see what it means. Sulfur has been referred to here. It is basic. It can be transported by water and relieve the railroads for other transportation. For instance, the transportation of enormous quantities of high-grade food supply, We are rationed on sugar, nor can we tell that we will not be rationed on some other food. If we take from the rails transportation that can be made by water, we enable the rails to lessen that dire prospect from which they are suffering in England to a very disheartening extent.

So, from the standpoint of sulfur and other materials there is need for that waterway, and there is a need for the waterway to relieve the rails and enable them to transport food.

Then we come to the third aspect of it. It extends to Mexico, and, as was said here this morning, we are bringing in from Mexico metals of which we have a very inadequate supply. They are brought to the border. They take their chances of transportation by rail. If we have a cheap and systematic and regular transportation by an adequate 12-foot barge canal, those metals will come in in ever-increasing supply and our business with Mexico will increase and multiply. Mexico has become our ally in this war. We want to increase our business and our friendship and our relations with her, and this will be a sure and great means of doing it.

Senator BAILEY. This point that they call the valley, at the mouth of the Rio Grande River-are there any railroad terminals there? Mr. MILLER. Yes, adequate, Senator.

Mr. DEMPSEY. Almost all of the unlimited expenditures which we are making go up like powder and smoke. They are lost: nothing is left to us but the debt and the interest upon it. But in the case of these improvements you have not a debt; you have not a liability; you have a real asset that will be of ever-increasing value to the country as time goes on, a real asset in the supply of transportation which is greatly needed at a reasonaple rate and in the quantity which is needed.

So, Mr. Chairman, I very earnestly say that it seems to me that this whole proposition, not simply the pipe line, not simply the barge canal across Florida, but as well the deepening and widening to the modern and accepted requirements for transportation by barges, is tremendously important.

Barge canals are going deeper than 12 feet. We had that up while I was still chairman of the committee on the House side, in reference to the Erie Canal in the State of New York. There the engineers advocated 14 feet with a clearance for bridges of 27 feet. That is the ordinary clearance, and that is the depth that was advocated. But 12 feet furnishes a satisfactory, profitable, and proper depth. We need

a width at the bottom of 125 feet. That will avoid the circuitous and long route around Florida. It will promote traffic between Texas and Mexico and all of the Gulf country and the country to the north of it. It is a long step and one at which all advocates of transportation by water have aimed, not simply today-and it is far more necessary because of the emergency-but for at least 15 years past.

I might say that I have represented here the Arroya, Colo., navigation district.

Senator BAILEY. Thank you, Mr. Dempsey.

STATEMENT OF E. B. GERMANY, REPRESENTING INDEPENDENT OIL MEN'S EMERGENCY TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE, DALLAS, TEX.

Mr. GERMANY. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I am E. B. Germany, from Dallas, Tex. I am an independent oilman and represent the Independent Oil Men's Emergency Transportation Committee that was formed on the 27th day of February of this year. Representing that committee, I would like to express the wish of the entire independent group of Texas for some kind of relief.

Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi producers are producing and are capable of producing from five to six times as much crude oil and oil products as we can market due to transportation difficulties.

This group of men, back in December, after Pearl Harbor, realized that we would probably be faced with the submarine menace as we were in the other war, and they started to work at that time to make a study of this situation and to make recommendations to our National Government for some kind of relief. Consequently, resolutions were passed at the February meeting, copies of which were sent to the Department of the Interior and to our Senators and Representatives, asking for help.

At that time we recommended every method of transportation of crude oil that is now being proposed. We are still in favor of every one of them. We think that a large pipe line is essential, but it cannot give immediate relief. We are for it, however, and think that it will ultimately be completed. We believe that river transportation in barges and pipe lines combined is essential and will ultimately be carried out. We believe that a pipe line, however, should have been built to the Atlantic coast, where oil is needed, rather than to another oil area in Illinois. But we are willing to abide by the decision of the Department of the Interior in that regard, but we do know that that is like taking coal to Newcastle; it is just taking oil to another oil area and not taking it to the place where it is needed, as it would have been if it had been built right across to the Atlantic seaboard, where it could have had access to the intracoastal canal and the other method of transportation. But we are for it just the same.

The main thing that I am here for today is to urge the passage of this bill, because we have waited since February and we are going broke just as fast as we can, with our wells all shut off. You folks are going broke on the Atlantic coast from the lack of crude oil products, because you have to pay an increased price due to increased costs.

We offered oil to Norfolk, Va., for 81 cents a barrel, provided they would let us build several 10-inch pipe lines across Florida. The state

ment has been made that that has already been done. The truth of the matter is that the 8-inch pipe line that has been authorized is good; we are for it, but it cannot move more than 30,000 barrels of gasoline at a time.

Having been pipe lining and producing and transporting oil for 25 years, I know what I am talking about. That 30,000 barrels of gasoline moved through that line is going to help. It will help much more than just the 30,000 barrels, because it will relieve that much space in tank cars or railroad transportation for other products.

The bill as here proposed is for $10,000,000 or $13,000,000; I have forgotten which, for a pipe line across Florida.

Senator VANDENBERG. $10,000,000.

Mr. GERMANY. With $10,000,000 we can bring three 10-inch lines across Florida, constructed out of second-hand pipe which is not now being used for any other purpose. That would give you three times 50,000 barrels, say 150,000 barrels a day, for $10,000,000, across the Florida Peninsula.

There seems to have been some confusion on that. Each one of those 10-inch lines will handle 50,000 barrels of gasoline and probably 60,000 barrels of crude oil.

Senator PEPPER. You do not mean that one pipe line would handle both the gasoline and the crude oil, but it would handle either?

Mr. GERMANY. Yes, sir. You can use one pipe line for handling all products, but it is not practicable to use a 24-inch line for batching, as you sometimes call it, because you waste so much of it in the batches. But this proposal would be for a gasoline pipe line, a distillate pipe line, and a fuel oil pipe line or Diesel engine oil pipe line for the Navy. That is the practical way to build them, because if you run a 24-inch line across Florida and put gasoline in it, and then follow that up with crude oil, you are going to mix your gasoline and crude oil to a certain extent. If you run enough gasoline you will not waste a whole lot, but you will waste some. If you have three 10-inch lines, one carrying Diesel fuel oil for the Navy, another one moving crude oil to supply part of your refinery needs over on the Atlantic coast, and the other carrying some other kind of oil, you can move them all on the same overhead, with the same pumping, and at the same time you have protected the product that you are sending through the line.

That method of handling this situation will move nearly 200,000 barrels of oil a day.

Senator BAILEY. That would deliver the oil from Texas?

Mr. GERMANY. From Port St. Joe to Jacksonville.

Senator BAILEY. On that point, if it would deliver 175,000 barrels of petroleum that would relieve the necessities of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, and that part of Florida, would it not?

Mr. GERMANY. Yes, sir.

Senator BAILEY. Then you would use the line from Baton Rouge to Greensboro, which is to be extended to Norfolk, which would relieve the territory up this way; is that right?

Mr. GERMANY. Yes, sir.

Senator BAILEY. And then you have the line to Selma, Ill., projected.

Mr. GERMANY. That line is not going to be a very material help to the Atlantic coast.

Senator BAILEY. They propose to reverse the process. Mr. GERMANY. They have already reversed it, Senator. Senator BAILEY. They transported the oil by pipe line from the East to the West. Now they propose to send it from the West to the East. Mr. GERMANY. They have already done that. That is giving some relief, and it is now giving all the relief it can give. I am in favor of bringing oil here and selling it and then taking care of the Southeast part of the United States and the Navy's needs at Norfolk.

I had a prepared statement to make, but I am trying to answer some questions that I heard this morning, and I am going to stop with that, if you will let me, and then answer a few questions.

The question was brought up about eight-hundred-and-some steel barges being available for this project. When you talk about moving oil in barges, and about capacities, and time, and so forth, all those things are relative, depending on many other things, principally on the kind of product you are moving.

In a pipe line we can move much more of one character than we can of another. That also is dependent on the quality, because the greater the pressure you put on the line the greater and more efficient it is. Some lines would not stand the pressure and some would.

In reference to barges, a large quantity of this product that we are talking about can be brought in in wooden barges. Anything that has a flash point below 150 it is not considered good practice to bring in in wooden barges unless it is protected from fire hazard.

A new way for moving oil in wooden barges is to put a steel top on the wooden barge so as to protect it from any sparks of fire, and the wooden barge is safe, even for the transportation of products with a higher flash point than 150.

The best use for this particular line is for Diesel products and products having around the gravity of Diesel oil.

The chief engineer testified before the House committee that this canal was capable of handling as much as 500,000 barrels of oil.

I am sure that all of you are worried about what is going to happen on the Atlantic coast this winter. People are going to go cold unless something is done about it. It is pretty serious, and something ought to be done quickly. So the question of time enters into it.

Somebody has said that it would take 120 days. We proposed in February that if the Petroleum Coordinator's office and the War Production Board would allot us the 10-inch pipe that was not in use, we could within 90 days be moving oil to Norfolk from points in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and would increase it as rapidly as we could build the equipment. But up to date not one thing has been done about that project. We proposed to do it at cost to the Government, or we would let the Government do it and we just furnish the engineers for $1 a year, to supervise the project. We are not interested in anything except moving oil from the place where it is to the place where it is not. That is what the people from Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas are working for right now.

I would be glad to answer any questions. I think I have covered that part of it as well as I can, under the circumstances, in the short time that I have had, unless you want to ask me some questions.

Senator BAILEY. Did you read Major Parten's testimony?
Mr. GERMANY. Yes, sir; I have read it. I do not recall all of it.

Senator BAILEY. He speaks of several pipe-line projects. He said [reading]:

The pipe-line rearrangement program-and by that I refer to the re-laying of approximately 1,400 miles of second-hand pipe in about seven projects that we have under way-will deliver as far as the Mississippi River and Illinois Basin points about 200,000 barrels a day additional of oil and products, and the pipeline program of second-hand pipe and reversals such as we are talking about will carry about 100,000 barrels of that all the way through to the east coast. The other 100,000 barrels will have to move by tank car or barge.

That would give you the impression that with seven pipe lines, reversing 1,400 miles would not be sufficient to relieve this situation.

Mr. GERMANY. It will not be sufficient. If you had all the production you needed on the Atlantic coast right now, to keep everything going, you would have to produce 1,650,000 barrels of oil. That is what you were doing before the shut-down.

Senator BAILEY. Let us cut out the pleasure riding. We cannot win this war based on people's pleasure. How much gasoline was used for pleasure?

Mr. GERMANY. I do not know.

Senator BAILEY. I think they estimate here that they can get along with 1,450,000 barrels.

Mr. GERMANY. That depends upon the 24-inch line. That includes 300,000 barrels for the 24-inch line.

Senator BAILEY. I am not sure. He speaks of seven projects. He does not definitely say whether or not the 24-inch line is included with it.

Mr. GERMANY. That has been the difficulty with information coming out of his office from the beginning, if I may be pardoned for making remarks on the question.

Senator Vandenberg's people have got enough oil to fill all the transportation needs they have from Illinois over to the Atlantic coast, and they are doing it right now.

Senator BAILEY. Would you propose to build a pipe line where they do not need any oil?

Mr. GERMANY. I do not believe the people up there think they need any oil. The oil people do not think so, anyway. There has been a lot of people wondering why the Government was going to help build a pipe line from one oil State to another oil State, when the people over on the Atlantic coast do not have any oil.

Senator BAILEY. He will be here and we will get him to explain that. I thought you could explain it.

Senator CLARK of Missouri. I tried to get him to explain it when he was before this committee before, but he did not give a very good explanation.

Senator BAILEY. What are the railroads carrying?

Mr. GERMANY. Tremendous amounts of oil, much more than anybody ever thought they could carry, around 1,750,000 barrels, average. Senator BAILEY. What are the present pipe lines carrying?

Mr. GERMANY. I do not know how much you are getting across here, but when we had a hearing before the committee they were carrying 850,000 barrels, or about 200,000 under the estimate. One pipe line covers 300,000 barrels at Selma, Ill.

Senator BAILEY. We are going to defer that until Major Parten comes here and explains the necessity for it. I suspect there will be a necessity for it.