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Show LAST LEGISLATIVE FIGHT 239 a handful of land speculators in Arizona, then the matter is very much our concern." The Freeman quoted Bernard DeVoto as saying that the project represented "a state of mind . . . that could produce a national disaster." The dangerous situation in Korea prompted Engle to tell Congress that the project would consume enormous amounts of critical war materials,340 among them "500,000 tons of structural steel, enough for ninety t-2 tankers, or seventy-one ove class aircraft carriers, or fifty larger aircraft carriers." Poulson pursued the same line by pointing out that the project would require "more than five hundred million board feet of lumber, and prevent the building of more than 100,000 homes." 341 Murdock could not hope to match the speed of the Senate Interior Committee, but he spared no effort to move as fast as possible. Tapping his gavel to open the meeting on February 27, he reminded the committee that hearings on the same bill had been held in the previous Congress, that they had been printed and were available to everyone.342 "I do not know that we need to have very extensive hearings," he said. "I think the hearings now might be confined to a summary of the hearings that the former committee has heard." That proposal was not at all satisfactory to Rep. Samuel Yorty, a newly elected committee member from California, who requested more time to prepare. Mur- dock replied testily that he did not want the hearings drawn out in the nature of a filibuster.343 |