EPCA -- Our plan of Action

A discussion on Integrating the Energy and Policy Conservation Act
Inventory Results into Land Use Planning and Energy Use Authorizations

**A Telecast Originating**

**from the**

**BLM National Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona**

**May 14, 2003**

This transcript is from the closed-captioning file produced during the
telecast.

It may contain errors and omissions in transcription.

**Announcer:** The Bureau of Land Management Satellite Network presents
live from the BLM National Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona, EPCA-Our
Plan of Action. A discussion on integrating the Energy and Policy
Conservation Act inventory results into Land Use Planning and energy use
authorizations. And now, the host of your program, Tony Garrett.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Good morning and welcome to our broadcast. In the
program this morning, we\'re going to look at BLM\'s role in National
Energy Policy and the challenge of making energy resources on the public
lands available for responsible development to meet our country\'s
energy needs. With an inventory of oil and gas resources carried out
under the amendments to the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, EPCA,
where do we go from here? How do we use this information in our on the
ground planning and management activities? To help answer those
questions, we have a very distinguished panel with us this morning,
beginning with our BLM Director Kathleen Clarke. Good morning, Kathleen.
Grand Canyon good morning, Tony.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Also with us is deputy director Fran Cherry. Fran,
thanks for joining us.\
\
**F. Cherry:** Good to be here.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Several other senior BLM managers have been leading the
plan of action; they are Linda Rundell, State Director for New Mexico.
Welcome, Linda.\
\
**L. Rundell:** Hi, Tony.\
\
**T. Garrett:** And from Colorado, State Director Ron Wenker.\
\
**R. Wenker:** Thanks, Tony, it\'s my pleasure to be here.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Joining us from Wyoming is Associate State Director Al
Kesterke. Good morning, Al.\
\
**A. Kesterke:** Good morning, Tony.\
\
**T. Garrett:** We invite our BLM staff out there in our viewing
audience also to participate in this forum today, offering comments,
questions, using that push-to-talk equipment at your downlink site. When
you do push to talk, please tell us your name and the location you\'re
calling from. To help us manage this, we\'ll let you know when it\'s ok
to push to talk by putting a green light up in the corner of your screen
like this one. If you didn\'t get the phone number and pass code for our
telephone bridge, please call this number\.... You can also use that
number later on to ask us a question or offer a comment on the air.
Another way you can participate is by sending us a fax. You can do that
at any time during the broadcast. For more information on EPCA, visit
the Department of the Interior website at www.doi.gov. Just follow the
energy links that you\'ll find there.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Now once again, our BLM Director Kathleen Clarke.\
\
**Dir. Clarke:** Welcome to all of you this morning. I\'d like to start
off by giving you a bit of a historical perspective on EPP and on the
energy situation in our nation. This year we mark the anniversaries of
two significant turning points in America\'s energy policy. Together
they explain why the issue of energy is still such an urgent priority
for our country today. 50 years ago in 1953 the U.S. for the first time
ever became a net importer of energy. 30 years ago, 1973, we were hit by
the OEPC oil embargo.

We made a national commitment at that time to deal is to reduce our
dependence on foreign oil. Yet despite the good intentions of succeeding
administrations, we are more dependent than ever on foreign sources of
energy. We need to close the gap between the amount of energy we use and
the energy we produce. In order to provide for our nation\'s vital and
growing energy needs, President Bush\'s National Energy Policy alright
laid out a comprehensive, long-term strategy for energy. That strategy
recognizes that to reduce our rising dependence on oil and gas, we must
also increase domestic energy production.

The President directed Secretary Norton in 2000 to expedite the
congressional mandate to examine land status and lease stipulation
impediments to Federal oil and gas leasing, to review and modify those
where opportunities exist consistent with the law, good environment
practice and balanced use of other resources. This direction was
incorporated into BLM\'s implementation plan for the National Energy
Policy as a task to integrate the results of EPCA inventory into the
Bureau\'s management of the public lands. The task is being tracked by
the department\'s management by objective program. We have a deadline of
May 30th for developing an implementation strategy and guidance for
integrating the EPCA inventory results. On April 18th of 2002 I
testified before Congress on the status of the EPCA inventory and on the
methodology to be used in developing the report. The departments of
interior, energy and agriculture released the EPCA inventory in January
of 2003.

With the inventory completed, we are now taking the steps necessary to
meet the President\'s energy goals. That means ensuring the report\'s
integration into Land Use Planning process and associated decisions
regarding resource uses and authorizations. In support of the
President\'s National Energy Policy, our goal at the BLM is to provide
appropriate and timely access to the resources from public lands
consistent with sound land management principles and full public
involvement. In March, BLM\'S staff met in Denver to develop a strategic
plan for integrating EPCA into the Land Use Planning and use
authorization programs. Our purpose here today is to discuss that
strategy and how it will be carried out. We need to keep in mind that
our ultimate goal is a balanced, scientifically sound and responsible
approach to our stewardship responsibilities. We want to ensure that we
do not unduly restrict access and availability of the public land for
its energy resources. And we want to manage all resources in a balanced
manner.

There are four principles I think that we need to incorporate into our
thinking and our planning to help us get there. The first is
environmental protection and energy production are both necessary and
they are compatible. Number 2, we must ensure access to the energy our
country needs without compromising other resources and values. Number
three, sound planning is key to the process and to our success. And
number four, all resource impacts need to be mitigated. The EPCA
inventory is an important step towards implementing the President\'s
National Energy Policy and improving the way BLM does business. Each of
us has an important role in ensuring that the energy resources found on
the public lands are available where appropriate to meet our energy
needs without sacrificing values. Together we\'re going to do that.
We\'re going to do it not just because the department is holding us
accountable, which they are, but because it is part of our multiple use
mission and it is vitally important to our country and to the American
people. Thank you for your dedication to this effort and for joining us
today.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you, Kathleen, for that perspective on why this is
such an important initiative and where we are go from here. Now some
thoughts on how we get there from deputy director Fran Cherry. Fran?\
\
**F. Cherry:** Thanks, Tony. Good morning to awful you out in the field.
There\'s a good reason we\'ve called this broadcast EPP, Our Plan of
Action. The EPCA inventory was a good beginning, a foundation. Now we
need to act on it. We created two teams to help with our integration
strategy. First is the Land Use Planning team, sponsored by Ron Wenker.
That team is responsible for developing an instruction memorandum to
guide us in integrating EPCA into the land use plans, especially those
time-sensitive plans. In the long term, the team will look for ways to
improve the planning process and ways to provide flexibility in making
decisions which will take into account current land conditions and
scientific knowledge.

The process developed by the team should ensure Bureau-wide consistency
in the application of stipulations. Our second team, the resource
authorization team, is sponsored by Linda Rundell. Linda\'s team is
responsible for developing instruction memorandums or a series of
instruction memorandums to accomplish these goals. First, determine how
EPCA results can improve flexibility and consistency in the use of
stipulation waivers and exception to facility oil and gas development.
Second, look at the use of EPCA results to improve communication with
operators on the timing requirements for APD submissions as related to
seasonal restrictions. Third, consider how EPCA results can be used to
facilitate our APD streamlining effort. Al Kesterke was given
responsibility as the project lead and sponsor to the field committee.
John Bebout of the national energy office was responsible for providing
oversight by the Washington Office.

Now I want to talk to you about your role in the project. The
individuals we\'ve mentioned have been responsible for developing an
implementation strategy. The responsibility for executing that strategy
belongs to every Field Manager and every employee whose work has an
impact, however direct or indirect, our energy program and the energy
resources found on the public lands. Let us also keep this in mind\...
Although today we\'re primarily talking about oil and gas in the EPCA
study basins, I would like you to apply the spirit and intent of this
effort Bureau-wide. Use the principles Kathleen put forward in your
day-to-day decision making it from all forms of energy on the lands that
you manage. As Kathleen said, the BLM can and does play an important
role in the success of the President\'s National Energy Policy. We
manage the energy resources. We have the expertise and the knowledge to
support a balanced, effective energy policy. This is a critical priority
for the country, and we all need to support it.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you, Fran. There are a few people on the Bureau
who have a better understanding of how initiatives like this get
implemented on the ground than Wyoming Associate State Director Al
Kesterke. So we want to turn to Al now for his perspective.\
\
**A. Kesterke:** Thanks, a lot, Tony. My goal initially is to give you
some background on EPCA, why we\'re here and where we want to go. Again,
EPCA is a mandate from Congress. We\'re talking about the Energy Policy
and Conservation Act. Again, we use the term EPCA over and over again,
but we need to remember what the words mean and the act itself. Again,
Congress gave us a mandate and asked us to look at restrictions. In the
past in many cases Congress had asked us to look at resources but never
really asked us to look in detail at restrictions that we\'ve had on oil
and gas activities, mineral activity, energy activity across the Bureau.
It\'s important to recognize that the act was signed into law by
President Clinton in November of 2000. Therefore, it\'s really an issue
that covers a variety of administrations. Again, it\'s an ongoing energy
independence issue for the Bureau and the nation as a whole.

On October 11, 2001, Congress gave it additional priority when it
indicated in light of recent attacks, talking 9/11, the managers believe
this project should be considered a top priority for the department.
Section 604 of FLPMA talks about an inventory to be done by the
Department of Interior, the Department of Agriculture and the Department
of Energy. It\'s important to recognize that our partners in this effort
have been the U.S. Geological Survey, the United States Forest Service,
and different agencies within the department of energy. The inventory
really includes two pieces\... The geological survey will provide
estimates of the oil and gas resources underlying public lands and the
extent and nature of restrictions and impediments to the development of
such resources. In addition, in May of 2000, President Bush\'s national
energy plan directed that the EPCA inventory be expedited. The national
energy plan also indicated that we were to look carefully at further
constraints to Federal oil and gas leasing, where they should be
modified and reassessed, again based on law and environmental practice
and the balanced use of other resources. EPP focused initially on five
study basins; again, the study was completed in January of 2003. It
included 59 million acres of Federal mineral estate. The initial
inventory was done and provided in a GIS format that\'s available to
Bureau employees and Bureau managers. It was done by developing three
primary GIS overlays. The first were land access categories, and those
ranged from no leasing, for example, where there\'s a statutory limit,
such as national parks or national monuments, to leasing with no surface
occupancy, to leasing with a variety of time limits, greater than nine
months, less than three months, for example, leases with controlled
surface use requirements and then, of course, standard lease terms.
There\'s actually a three CD set available from the fluids office in
Washington where the GIS database is available to Bureau employees and
others.

Well, what did the inventory actually find? In general, it found that
36% of the Federal lands were not available for leasing, again because
of executive orders, statute or so on. Roughly 15% had timing
stipulations with some other categories such as controlled surface use
making up about 6% and then standard lease terms for about 39%. Again,
in summary, it was indicated that about 39% of the \-- or 23 million
acres of Federal lands available for leasing were available with
standard lease terms. This was 57% of the oil and about 63% of the gas
resources identified. 25% or 15 million acres of Federal lands available
for development \-- were available for development with additional
conditions of approval. That included about 28% of the oil and 25% of
the gas identified in the inventory. And last, about 36%, or 21 million
acres, of Federal lands were not available for development. That
included about 15% of the oil and 12% of the gas. Again, as both the
director and the deputy director indicated, really where do we go from
here?

If you recall early on, we talked about EPCA requiring an inventory of
all onshore lands. Based on funding, the next areas that will be
inventoried are northern Alaska, eastern great basin, the WILLISTOP
basin, big horn basin, Wind River basin, the Wyoming thrust belt,
central and south Alaska, eastern Oregon and Washington, the Permian
basin, western gulf of Mexico, and the Appalachian basin. Again, that\'s
dependent on funding. As the director indicated earlier, we convened a
meeting of State Directors in early March of 2003 with two primary
goals, one is to establish a Bureau policy for the use and application
of the EPCA inventory results, and second, to develop an integration
plan for integrating the inventory results in the Bureau\'s planning and
use authorization process.

It\'s important to recognize that at that Denver meeting, the White
House office on energy project streamlining was in attendance as well as
the national petroleum council. As indicated earlier, there were two
teams established and you\'ll be hearing from both Ron and Linda later.
The result of the meeting was instruction memorandum 2003-137 which was
issued in early April. Again, it specifically identified the four
integration principles that the director so clearly outlined earlier,
that is, that energy production and environmental protection are
compatible, not mutually exclusive objectives, that BLM should allow
accessibility to energy resources, while protecting those special
non-energy values. Third, that resource impacts were to be mitigated.
And, four, that resource and sound planning was absolutely essential.
Again, there\'s been lot of work done by the two teams, and with that,
Tony, I\'ll turn it back to you.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you, Al, for that excellent introduction to EPCA
and some of the issues involved. As Al said, Colorado State Director Ron
Wenker led the team and was asked to look at the integration of EPCA
inventory results into Land Use Planning and Ron has a report on his
team\'s recommendations.\
\
**R. Wenker:** Thanks, Tony. I\'d like to take just the next couple
minutes and give you an overview on what the team came up with. Within
the next few weeks, you\'ll be receiving guidance for incorporating the
EPCA findings into the Bureau\'s Land Use Planning process. And, two,
assessing the effectiveness and continued need for existing resource
related constraints and closures on public lands. The guidance will
contain four main concepts that give you directions on Land Use
Planning. The first is the creation of what we\'re going to call EPCA
focus areas. These are areas that emphasize the importance of the high
potential oil and gas identified by the EPCA inventory. These areas
contain most of the onshore natural gas and a large percentage of the
oil resources in each basin.

We believe this delineation provides a powerful tool for land management
for determining the appropriate balance between environmental protection
and resource development. It also allows us to concentrate our efforts
to meet the goals of reducing or eliminating impediments on oil and gas
leasing while protecting our very important resource values. We also
believe it is necessary to do this to meet the goals of the President\'s
National Energy Plan. Successes within these focus areas can also be
shared Bureau-wide. We\'ll look at prioritizing the review of our land
use plans and the associated constraints and closures giving first
priority to those areas within these focus areas. We believe this
provides a guide for our field offices for prioritizing area reviews,
procedural changes and amendments. Because we\'re all overtaxed, we feel
THPO provides the most effective use of the Bureau\'s limited resources.

The EPCA focus area should also facilitate the identification of
management options, such as for off-site mitigation opportunities and
leading us into new adaptive management strategies. The focus areas can
serve as opportunities to test technical and social approaches to
achieving desired ecological, economic and social objectives. The focus
areas, of course, will be dynamic and change over time with new
information. As the new information becomes available and resources
become proven, the focus areas will necessarily change. Future EPCA
inventories, as well as the review of past inventories, will create new
focus areas as well. This concept allows for the adjustment based on the
most current information. The second concept you\'ll find in the
guidance is incorporating the EPCA findings into the Land Use Planning
process. The guidance will proceed a how-to for interdisciplinary teams
considering the stage of planning you\'re currently in, whether you\'re
currently planning or whether you have not yet started planning an
effort, the direction will provide a step for each phase. Current Land
Use Planning stat us is critical to the effective application of all of
the resources and the changes will be phased in and incremental. We\'re
going to stress that the emphasis will be on flexibility throughout the
planning process. The guidance will direct states and field offices to
determine and report your need to amend or revise your existing land use
plans and to use those determinations to reprioritize your 10-year
planning schedules and, of course, your associated budget requests. We
are assuming that most offices will determine that an environmental
assessment or an environmental impact statement level amendment will be
necessary.

The due dates for these reviews within the EPCA focus areas will be at
the end of this year, December 31st. For all other areas outside of the
focus areas, you can work on those concurrently, but that review is not
due until June 30th, 2004. The third concept that you\'ll note in the
guidance addresses assessing the effectiveness and continued need for
our existing stipulations. The guidance will direct states and field
offices to evaluate resource related constraints and closures for the
effectiveness and continued need. Questions such as, are the constraints
and closures based on good information? Would an effective monitoring
system permit greater access to the oil and gas resources? The guidance
will provide a set of questions and examples to lead interdisciplinary
teams through the process of evaluating their existing lease
stipulations. Are the stipulations accomplishing their goals? Can less
restrictive stipulations accomplish the same goals? Can often waived
stipulations be eliminated? Are stipulations consistent across political
boundaries? Are the stipulations consistent across Field Office
boundaries? If they\'re not, why not?

We will be looking at phasing in the use of performance-based
stipulations with the commensurate monitoring. The memos will also
direct the states and field offices to report the results of these
reviews as part of the determination to amend the land use plans. The
due dates are the same within the EPCA focus areas the review will be do
by the end of December and for all areas outside of the focus areas,
will be due by the end of June 2004. The fourth concept that you\'ll
find in the guide addresses uniform format for oil and gas lease
stipulations. The direction will direct all offices to adopt a uniform
format outlined in the guidance. We believe that this will reduce
industries as well as the public confusion when you\'re working with
multiple states or offices. And it should certainly allow for the
development of an enterprise system for maintaining lease stipulations.
Lastly, we believe it will facilitate the upcoming electronic
permitting.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you, Ron. Thanks to all the members of the staff
who were part of that planning team effort. New Mexico State Director
Linda Rundell led a team that looked into EPCA and use authorizations
and we\'re going to turn to Linda now for that report.\
\
**L. Rundell:** Thank you, Tony. Our group took the EPCA findings and
incorporated them into four main concepts, as they apply to the use
authorization process. The first is flexibility in leasing stipulations,
also flexibility in conditions of approval, also improving internal
communications and lastly, improving external communications. So the
first we want to take a look at is improving our flexible use of leasing
stipulations. Ron talked about leasing stipulations as they\'re included
in the planning process. There are also other opportunities for us to
review our leasing stipulations, and that comes at the time of pre-lease
sale and also when we\'re developing our use authorization. At that time
we also need to be asking ourselves, \"are these stipulations necessary
and effective? Are they based on sound science? Are they consistent with
Land Use Planning? And do they fit within our regulations?\" We know, of
course, that some of our plans have become dated. We know that
conditions change out in the field. And we know that technology is ever
changing and these are reasons for us to be always looking at our
leasing stipulations.

I want to show you an example taken from one of the plans in the west,
and this example was included in the EPCA study. It is a graph that
shows potential leasing stipulations that could be applied in one area.
Now, if all of these leasing stipulations were applied, an operator
would have only one month within a calendar year within which to develop
his lease. That is not a reasonable expectation for an operator to be
able to enjoy developing that lease. So we need to take a look at how
many of these are actually necessary and is there a need to look at
providing an exemption or a modification or a waiver for the
stipulation. The instruction memorandum that is forthcoming about use
authorizations is going to define waivers, exemptions and modifications,
and hopefully within your land use plans, if they do not already include
these, will include the circumstances in which Field Offices would
employ waivers, modifications and exceptions. This next slide is going
to be addressing the second. Concept we looked at, which is a flexible
use of conditions of approval. Conditions of approval are applied at the
NEPA stage when you are evaluating what you want to accomplish or what
you want to have accomplished in the field when a use authorization is
permitted. In some cases, we\'re finding that conditions of approval
have been rather poorly written and we are not accomplishing what we
want to accomplish and I thought I would illustrate this with a couple
of examples taken from the field.

The first of these, Do not feed the bears, seems somewhat facetious, but
this is actually taken from a plan in Alaska, and when Fran and I worked
together up there last year, we sat down and reviewed an existing land
use plan that had 79 stipulations on it, and one of them was \"do not
feed the wildlife.\" Now, our problem with this stipulation is that we
do not have the authority to implement it. Feeding animals or wildlife
is certainly in the jurisdiction of the state department of game & fish.
It\'s not BLM jurisdiction. What we found as we were reviewing this plan
with 79 stipulations in it is that fully half of them fit into the
category of something that we could not enforce or was not within our
jurisdiction. So as you are reviewing stipulations for leasing or
conditions of approval, we have to be asking ourselves these questions
all the time: Are they scientifically based? Is there sound science
behind it? Do we have the jurisdiction and can we enforce what we are
asking? In this next slide is another example of a rather poorly written
stipulation.

It sounds fine on the face of it, where we\'re saying that. We have to
completely compact the site, however, our employees who are out in the
field trying to enforce the stipulation probably do not have the ability
or the training or the tools to determine whether or not a site has been
compacted according to the American standards of testing materials. This
is something that a civil engineer would do. So, again, we\'ve written a
stipulation here that is well meaning but we do not have the ability to
carry it out. Lastly, and this example, of course, we want to build pits
so that they\'re not going to leak and that sounds like a great
stipulation. However, in this case, what you see is what you get, and
that could be all you get, which could limit the Field Office when
they\'re at the point where they need to do some reclamation on the
site. So a better way to have worded this particular stipulation would
have been to include some language that would help with the reclamation
and discuss how we want to backfill on the pits. Appropriate conditions
of approval are going to allow us the flexibility to get what we want.
They may be performance based. Certainly they\'re not going to tie our
hands and, again, certainly they are going to be conditions that we do
have the authority to enforce and the ability and the training to
enforce.

The third area that we looked at was improving internal communications.
Now, this would seem to be a no-brainer to most of us. We pride
ourselves on maintaining good dialogue with each other between offices
and across state lines, and unfortunately we find that often this is not
the case. An example that was given to me just yesterday when we were
discussing this amongst ourselves is a situation that used to occur and
maybe still occurs in Utah and Colorado where conditions of approval for
painting tank batteries in Colorado are to paint them green and in Utah
is to paint them Brown. So you could be standing close to the stateline
and looking across. And see green tank batteries on one side and Brown
on the other, and the joke was yesterday that at least you\'ll know when
you\'re crossing from one state to the other. However, that may not
exactly be what we wanted to see in the field. Internal communications
are important.

If we\'re not communicating and maintaining a dialogue with ourselves,
we probably aren\'t going to be doing very well externally. On the
external side, we need to be able to provide a forum the industry and
also our other publics who are interested and involved in what we are
doing. We need to be able to talk openly about issues and provide a
heads-up on policy changes that may be coming down the pike and we also
need to have the same type of dialogue with other agencies. Another one
of the discussions that we had yesterday when we were talking about
stipulations and conditions of approval that were difficult for us to
enforce was a situation where other agencies require us to include
stipulations that we know is not within our jurisdiction, and the
example that was given to me was a stipulation that set a speed limit of
35 miles per hour on the roads leading to facilities in mountain PLOVER
areas.

Now, certainly we do not expect our petroleum engineering technicians or
reclamation specialists to be out with a radar detector and monitoring
the speed of the vehicles that go by, and even if they did, we don\'t
have the jurisdiction to do anything about it. However, other agencies
have concerns and we need to be able to sit down and have a constructive
dialogue with them so that they can also understand the limitations on
what we\'re able to do. So, again, just to summarize the use
authorization group was looking at improving the flexibility, increasing
the flexibility we use in looking at leasing stipulations and
conditioned of approval as part of the use authorization process and
improving communications both internally and externally.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right, thank you, Linda, and thanks to the members
of your team. At this point we want to encourage our viewers to check in
with us, if you have a question or comment for us please give us a call
at this number. Or send us a fax at this number\.... Or you can always
use that push-to-talk system once we illuminate the green light in just
a moment, and when you do that, remember to give us your name and
location you\'re calling from. To help us answer some of the technical
issues, we\'ve assembled a panel of EPCA technical special eyes. With us
is Erick Kaarlela, chief of the national energy office. We have Kermit
Witherbee, Washington Office deputy group manager for fluids. Also with
us, Lauren Mermejo. Lauren is the Associate Field Manager for the Price,
Utah Field Office. And we have Walt George. Walt is program manager for
Land Use Planning in the BLM Wyoming State Office. Good morning, folks.

Now, you\'ll sort of be our phone a friend lifeline if we get technical
questions we need to pitch to you. So stand by for those a little bit
later in program. I think at this point we\'re ready to illuminate the
green light and invite our viewers to check in with us either by
push-to-talk or by telephone or by fax. All right. We have a phone call
from Yolanda in Albuquerque, I understand. So we\'ll take that call.
Need just a moment to bring that connection in. In the meantime, I
wanted to ask the panel here a question about the application of what we
learned from this exercise. This really is going to have implications
beyond these five EPCA study areas, isn\'t that correct?\
\
**L. Rundell**: Certainly. We have some other very, very important oil
and gas basins in New Mexico, for example we have the Permian basin, and
I\'m hoping that some of the lessons we learned in this part of the EPCA
study will be applied if the next phase of the study takes place at some
point in the future.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right. Thanks, Linda.\
**\
Dir. Clarke:** I think with a we\'re really hoping to get out of this is
a set of best practices that we can apply in the basins that we\'ve
already inventoried under EPCA, but that also starts to reflect the way
we do business across the board as it relates to oil and gas
activities.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right. Again, we\'re opening up the phone lines and
the push-to-talk system and the fax for our viewers to offer your
comments and questions. So please feel free to get in touch with us at
this time. What was the general reaction to the inventory results when
they were released in terms of the absence of any bias, the credibility
and objectivity that we had from those findings? Any thoughts on that,
Fran?\
\
**F. Cherry:** I think in general they were very well received and
somewhat surprising to the different communities that were looking at
the in every information, both from the environmental community and from
the industry as well as Congress, that some of the findings were \--
surprise there was actually more land available in a general sense than
they had thought there was in the past and most folks thought it was a
very fair and Honest study.\
\
**T. Garrett:** So we start with a good deal of credibility from the
inventory?\
\
**F. Cherry:** Yes, I believe so.\
\
**T. Garrett:** A question that was posed a little bit earlier that
we\'d like to have some comment on is explain how monitoring will be
used with performance-based stipulations and I wonder who would be the
right person to answer that question. Ron, would you like to take that
one?\
\
**R. Wenker:** Sure. Monitoring needs to be part of our component. The
performance-based stipulations, if we\'re asking a company to achieve a
certain desired result, such as protecting a certain unique habitat, we
have to have monitoring in order to assess the effectiveness of that
stipulation, and the effectiveness of their activities. I think on
performance-based stipulations, if we didn\'t have monitoring, we would
be hard-pressed to show the American public that we are taking care of
the racehorses.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right, thank you, Ron. Again, we\'re encouraging our
viewers to check in with us by telephone, by fax, or use that
push-to-talk system. It\'s very simple. There\'s a button on the base of
the microphone and if you push and that check in with us, tell us your
name and your location, then we\'ll get right to your question. Another
question that came up earlier we may want to address at this time is how
would you describe how EPCA will be integrated into the various stages
of the planning process? Now, I know we\'ve done \-- we\'ve dealt with
that some in your report, Ron. Any further thoughts on the actual
sequence of events in that process?\
\
**R. Wenker:** Well, we have Land Use Planning ongoing today. There are
certain time-sensitive plans that we have that are actually due to be
coming out shortly. So these areas will really be one of the first that
we work on and we need to look at the EPCA information in terms of
particularly the high potential that there may be for development and
look at specifically, are there opportunities for eliminating any of the
impediments to the oil and gas resources. For those plans that we have
not yet begun, I think it gives us a little more opportunity for working
in consistent approach from state to state and from area to area.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right, thank you, Ron. Fran, did you want to add
something to that?\
\
**F. Cherry:** Let me add another thought that I think we could throw
into the lessons learned based on the review of the stipulations, and
we\'ve long talked to our field offices and state offices about the need
to coordinate their work with other states, adjacent states, other
adjacent Field Office areas or district areas, and also with our Forest
Service neighbors, and this study has pointed out the absolute need to
do a better job to make sure, as using Linda\'s example, to make sure we
don\'t have green and brown tanks on opposite sides of a line or an
imaginary line, or that we don\'t have different road stipulations as
one road crosses a geographic boundary or another. I think it points out
the absolute need we communicate more and more with our neighbors.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you, Fran. The great thing about that push-to-talk
system is it works both ways. So now we\'re going to come out to the
field and check in with a couple field offices at random and see if you
have any questions or comments so far and I\'m going to start first with
Albuquerque. We know that the Albuquerque Field Office checked in with
us earlier on the push-to-talk system. Let\'s hear from you. Any
questions from Albuquerque?\
\
**Caller:** No questions from Albuquerque.\
\
**T. Garrett**: Thanks, at least for checking in with us. Someone else
checked in vernal, Utah would be a great way place to check in among the
field offices really engaged on this and would have comments on the
presentation so far.\
\
**Caller:** This is vernal, Utah. Can you hear us?\
\
**T. Garrett:** We hear you fine. Go ahead.\
\
**Caller:** This is Kate Kitchell, I am out here in vernal from the Utah
State Office, and I guess I would ask anyone\'s advice or perspective
about conditions of approval that may have been recommended to. From one
of our sister agencies and in particular here the division of wildlife
resources who in the NEPA process would have recommended or requests
that we incorporate a condition of approval to conserve a species of
concern are. What would people\'s advice be about in the spirit of the
four Cs how to address those kinds of conditions of approval, which may
be related to wildlife, which in a sense is a shared resource where
we\'re responsible for the habitat and division of wildlife resources is
responsible for the specific species.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you for the question. Kathleen?\
\
Dir. Clarke: Because I\'m very familiar with Utah and with some of the
activities of the division of wildlife resources and the BLM, there were
many debates between the BLM and the governor\'s office when I was in
the state about who sets policy for the state, and I think that if the
division of wildlife resources comments are going through the
governor\'s office and are reflected back to the BLM as official policy
of the state and an official request, then I think it behooves you to
sit down and work with the state as you would with a significant
stakeholder to try and address that. What was troublesome to the
governor\'s office was that sometimes you will have a couple of
biologists at the field level that independently are setting the
boundaries and coordinating with the BLM to kind of promote their
personal agenda about what they\'d like to see happen, and that that
wasn\'t necessarily representative of the balanced perspective that may
come out of state government when you take a look at competing resources
and interests. So my suggestion would be just to make sure that if you
are coordinating, that those comments that come in are thoroughly vetted
through the governor\'s office and they are reflective of thinking and
coordination at state gulf level. And at that point I think you need to
work with it. If it\'s individual players, I\'d ask them to go back and
run it through the mill and get some thoughts.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you, Kathleen. Linda, want to add anything?\
\
**L. Rundell:** I would just add, Kate, the dialogue is very important,
and we\'re always under pressure by lots of our partner agencies to
include areas in our stipulations that we probably don\'t have any
business putting in there because we can\'t enforce them and when we\'re
pressured into putting a stipulation in or a condition of approval that
we can\'t enforce, the downside to that can be that there is an
expectation that we\'re going to do something about it if that activity
isn\'t taking place as per the condition of approval or stipulation. So
we don\'t want to be setting unreasonable expectations with the public
or with the stakeholders when we absolutely do not have the capability
to do or to enforce what we have put down in the use authorization.\
\
**Dir. Clarke**: We also become vulnerable in the courts when we
identify things in a plan to be done and we don\'t have funding or
capacity to deliver. So I think we do need to be responsible and make
sure that what we\'re identifying as part of our plan and our program,
that we\'re committed to and that it is reflective of what our
jurisdiction and responsibilities and that authorities are. So I concur
with what Linda said. I think we need to be cautious. Again, though, I
don\'t want our commitment to energy development to become a free for
all and a blank check to go out and be abusive with the public lands. I
treasure those lands for all their resource values, as I know everyone
that works at BLM does, and it will be a great challenge to us to find
that balance point, to get creative about how we\'re going to be
protective of resource values, why we move forward \-- while we move
forward with energy production.

I also call your attention to the fact that this really isn\'t about a
partisan issue. This is about quality of life for this country, about
the needs for us all to be able to heat our homes in the winters, drive
our cars and get the business of our lives taken care of. I think we
should remind ourselves this is initiated during President Clinton\'s
time, and even though it is now coming alive and coming forward during a
Republican administration, the recognition took place during the past
administration, and I hope we don\'t make this a partisan issue. This is
a quality of life issue. I think we all need to understand how critical
the need is for us to improve production. 30% of the consumed energy
this nation comes off of the public lands and about that same amount
comes out of the Middle East which is a pretty unreliable source at this
point in time in our nation\'s history. Right now the consumption is
going up. Certainly we need to promote conservation, we are doing that,
we are promoting renewables but we have to move forward on this leg of
the action plan, which is to increase domestic production. We need to do
it wisely though, with care and caution, and full public input of what
we\'re getting into \-- and understanding of what we\'re getting into.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right. The green light is in the upper corner of
your screen, meaning that we\'re \-- we have the push-to-talk system
operating and we\'ll welcome your questions for a few more minutes, or
you can contact us by telephone at the number listed earlier, or send us
a fact and we\'ll get to those questions.\
\
**Caller:** Alan, Wyoming State Office.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Go ahead, Alan.\
\
**Caller:** More than a question, I would just like to make a comment on
the importance of monitoring that Linda Rundell touched upon. I think
the importance of monitoring should be part of our outreach effort as we
roll out implementation of our EPCA efforts, especially as we divvy up
the oil and gas budget. Let\'s recognize that we need to set aside
adequate funding for monitoring. We\'re experiencing industry clamoring
for more APD approvals, but we need to make the point that the more APDs
we approve, the more monitoring dollars will be required. I think
that\'s important for industry as well as the public to understand.\
\
**Dir. Clarke:** I would like to take a crack at that comment. Alan,
thank you for calling in. I think we are very aware of the imperative
that we get additional funding for monitoring. It is high on the screen.
We\'ve discussed it in the department. If we\'re going to get
progressive about multiple use, we don\'t want it to become multiple
abuse and monitoring is part of the solution here. We need to consider
adaptive management techniques so that we go slow and measure and
monitor and see if this is working. If we\'re having unacceptable
impacts and then readjust. So monitoring is certainly an important piece
of our ability to be successful and to make sure that we meet that
balanced objective of caring for the land and moving with development.
So thank you, and you\'re right on there, we are working towards that
end, Alan.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thanks, Alan. Does that answer your question?\
\
**Caller:** Yes, it did. Thank you.\
\
**T. Garrett:** We\'ll pause for just a moment and give others in the
field an opportunity to push that button on the push-to-talk and check
in with us.\
\
**Dir. Clarke:** I\'m going to step in here and fill this gap for a
minute. I think you may have some concerns about messages and
communication and what do you tell the public and what is this going to
look like. We will be working on some communication ideas here in
Washington to assist the Field Offices in dealing with that challenge.
As a matter of fact, the Assistant Secretary for land and minerals is
committed to pulling together a communication plan on the whole issue of
energy and our national security needs as well as our quality of life
needs and I think it\'s important that we assist you in addressing some
of the challenges and probably some of the attacks that you\'re going to
take over what some will want to frame as an overly aggressive program
that abandons all other cares. That is not the case, but \'I think we
need to have some clear messages and want to assure you that we\'ll be
working with our communications office and with the Assistant Secretary
to get some support to you in the field to handle questions so that we
have a consistent message and so that you can take some pride in moving
forward in this in a balanced fashion.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you. I want to turn to our technical panel now and
make sure they haven\'t escaped out the back door while we were carrying
out this part of the program because I want to check in with Eric and
the others on the panel to see in light of Alan\'s question from Wyoming
about monitoring funding what kind of feedback maybe the technical panel
has had from others in the field and what kind of issues may have been
raised by them. Eric, any thoughts on that?\
\
**E. Kaarlela:** I think the monitoring issue has been one that\'s been
with us for a long time, and the problem of having enough money to pay
for monitoring has also been with us during that same period of time.
Our approach with EPCA integration was to have a seamless approach
starting from the beginning of planning when we developed the
stipulations for the leases, performance-based stipulations and use them
in adaptive type management process to the place where we actually go to
leasing and finally to the place where we go for the use authorization
such as permitting a well to drill, and the reason we can do
performance-based stipulations and adaptive management is because we
envision having monitoring to allow us to be able to tell whether or not
our stipulations and the way we enforce them are achieving the goals
that we\'ve set forward and if they\'re not, then we will go ahead and
take measures that are appropriate to make sure we achieve those goals.

If we\'re going to do that, it\'s going to take extra effort, extra
resources and extra money, and so it\'s certainly a legitimate concern
about where do we get the money and the extra resources. Once again, as
has been said before, much of this depends on what we\'re appropriated
from Congress. On the one hand, having said that, I think it\'s also
important that we can move in the direction and better utilize the
resources we have where appropriate to encourage that we can carry out
this kind of seamless approach. Does anybody else have anything to say?\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you, ERICK. Any other comments from the panel? We
have a question that\'s been faxed in. I would like to throw it out to
this panel and our technical panel as appropriate. This comes in that
from Santa Fe. The question is: how will adaptive management be employed
to adjust the performance-based measures for leasing and permitting?
Will this guidance be included in an upcoming IM? Who should we pitch
that one to? Ron?\
\
**R. Wenker:** Well \--\
\
**T. Garrett:** Phone a friend?\
\
**R. Wenker:** First of all, when we go into performance-based
stipulations, we are looking at kind of an adaptive process. Since we
have been very proscriptive on our approach to this point, I think it
will take us a while to evolve to a full performance-based stipulation
or conditions of approval. So I don\'t think in the direction that
we\'ll be coming out with will give a step by step approach on how
we\'re going to evolve to this adaptive management approach, but I think
we\'re going to be looking to the field for your innovation on how we
can adapt some of these new processes and, of course, looking at sharing
those across the Bureau so other people can use what you\'ve found.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Let\'s check in with Walt George on the technical panel
for anything Walt would like to add. Walt?\
\
**W. George:** Tony, could you repeat the question again? Just want to
make sure I\'ve got it.

**T. Garrett:** How will adaptive management be employed to adjust the
performance based measures for leasing and permitting? Will this be
included in an upcoming IM?\
\
**W. George:** We usually employ \-- to make a convincing decision and
as we talked about monitoring is important to follow the outcomes of our
decision. So when we employ the monitoring information and put it to the
adaptive management decision, we can then make necessary adjustments to
any performance measures that have been outlined in stipulations or
conditions of approval that we\'ve put on APDs or rights-of-way.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you, Walt. Another question in from new: what is
the responsibility of our professional staffs for ensuring consistency
across Field Office boundaries? There\'s an example here, the VRM,
Visual Resource Management resource specialist checking their standards
with the neighboring field offices. What do you think, Fran?\
\
**F. Cherry:** I think it\'s a very important question and one that the
answer, I think, is somewhat obvious to us. We should all be taking a
great deal \-- paying a great deal of time and attention to it. Our
neighboring resource areas are \-- our folks in the Forest Service
offices that are adjacent to us are not exactly a foreign country and
they\'re doing business with us on a constant and daily basis, yet I
hear constant reports from industry coming in about different
stipulations, differing boundaries. Oil and gas doesn\'t seem to worry
about surface boundaries. It\'s where you find it. There\'s just an
absolute critical need that we be consistent between all of our offices,
and that\'s more than just for the mineral resource. Again, the view
shed doesn\'t change just because you change a boundary line and we can
only serve our public\'s better and ourselves by having that constant
and complete communication.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you, Fran. At this point I want to check in with
Lauren Mermejo on the technical panel and just ask, Lauren from your
experience and position now in the field what we should expect to be
probably the most important issues as we carry out the next \-- issues
to the people in the field as we begin to carry out this implementation
strategy. Some thoughts on that, Lauren?\
\
**L. Mermejo:** Well, I think it\'s very important to remember that all
folks that are involved in planning that are within the five basins, the
five EPCA basins, are going to have to incorporate the EPCA information
into planning and we realize that everybody\'s in different stages of
planning at this point and our intent up front is not to substantially
alter any planning schedules but to work with field offices on a
case-by-case basis, look at where we are, look at our money, our
scheduling, our budget and to consider when it is appropriate to be
incorporating EPCA into the planning process. But we will have to do it
if that it\'s not up front, it will be later.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right, thank you, Lauren, for those comments.
Finally, I want to ask Kermit to check in with us. Kermit Witherbee with
the Washington Office deputy group manager for fluids and what I would
ask you, Kermit, is what you see as the challenge now for the Washington
Office as we sort of begin this closer partnership with the field in the
implementation strategy.\
\
**K. Witherbee:** I think the challenges that we face is that EPCA
itself and also as part of \-- as a portion or part of the National
Energy Policy itself and there are many factors and pieces of that
policy that need to be put together. We recently issued a series of IMs
dealing with energy task 8 which deals with process improvement for
APDs. There will be more following in the future. But it\'s working
closely, providing clear guidance for the field, being available for the
field to answer their questions, working internally, and as well as with
our constituents in the field. It\'s a big task, it\'s going to require
a large effort from a lot of people and gaining the resources funding,
budgets, working smarter and implementing them.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you, Kermit. We\'re nearing the end of our program
now, so we want to turn to our director Kathleen Clarke for any final
comments you have for our viewers.\
\
**Dir. Clarke:** First of all, I would like to thank all of you for the
time you spent joining us today. I also want to let you know that we
recognized going into this broadcast today that perhaps we got a little
out of sequence. We planned this broadcast hoping we would have the IMs
in your hands and that you would be able to understand exactly what your
directions were and have more questions and more interaction but we
learned that that process of putting together those IMs was taking
longer than we thought and we already had this scheduled, so we moved
forward because we felt it was important for you to get a message about
how important this is, to a nation, certainly to our President, to the
Secretary every interior, me, you, but more important, this is important
to the American people, and we need you to get engaged and to understand
what your personal responsibilities are for this. You know, managing the
energy resources found on the public lands has always been part of our
multiple use mission. It is nothing new. But as we look at the
implications of our energy dependence and the state of the world today,
we know this is more important than ever before. This is a challenge for
us obviously and these issues are incredibly complex.

There are many stakeholders involved, many diverse interests and values
that must be balanced. It is also a challenge for us because public
dialogue on energy and the environment in the past has often been very
polarized. The issues have been presented as a win-lose proposition, as
if we had to choose between the energy and the environment. Today we
know that that is not true. We can develop the energy our country needs
to sustain the quality of life we enjoy without compromising our
environment. So, yes, it is a challenge for us, but it is also a
wonderful opportunity. It is an opportunity for us to demonstrate that
with good science and good planning, with an open process that invites
the participation of all of our stakeholders, with hard work and with
patience on our part, we can provide balanced stewardship of the
resources the American people have entrust to do our care. We have taken
the first steps and we are off to a great start. I really want to
commend Linda and Ron and Alan, also our technical panel for the work
that they have done in developing an integration strategy and to many of
you who I know have also been involved and I want to thank all of you
who are working with us to implement this very important piece of the
National Energy Policy. Thanks again for your time in joining us today.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you, Kathleen. That will conclude our program for
this morning. We want to thank all of our studio panelists for their
participation and, remember, for more information on the EPCA
implementation strategy, visit the department of the interior website at
www.doi.gov. Follow the energy links you will find on www.doi.gov. So we
hope today\'s program has been helpful to you. Thank you for being with
us. So long from the National Training Center in Phoenix.