**BLM Budget**

A Telecast Originating from the BLM National Training Center

April 24, 2001

This transcript is from the closed-captioning file produced during the
telecast. It may contain errors and omissions in transcription.

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Announcer: the Bureau of Land Management Satellite Network Presents Live
from the BLM National Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona, the BLM
Budget, Opportunities and Priorities in Public Land Management. An
Interactive Forum for All Employees on the Bureau\'s Budget And
Priorities for the Coming Year. And Now, the Host of Your Program, Tony
Garrett.

Garrett: Good Morning and Welcome to Our Program. The BLM Budget Is Not
Just a Book of Tables and Columns and Numbers and Dollar Signs. It Is
Also a Road Map in a Sense, a Document That Tells Us Where Our
Stakeholders, the Administration and Congress Representing The General
Public, Where They Believe We Should Be Going in the Year Ahead. So,
We\'ll Be Discussing the Budget in That Context this Morning, Looking at
What it Will Mean for Our Priorities and the Way We Carry out Our Work
and Most Importantly, What it May Mean to You. With Us to Lead That
Discussion Is BLM Acting Director, Nina Rose Hatfield. Good Morning.

Hatfield: Good Morning, Tony. Great to Be Here.

Garrett: Welcome Back to Phoenix. Also with Us Is the Assist Ant
Director for Business and Fiscal Resources, Bob Doyle. Welcome.

Doyle: Good Morning, Tony. Good to Be Here.

Garrett: and from Boise, Idaho, and the National Interagency Fire
Center, Nifc Director, Larry Hamilton.

Hamilton: Always a Pleasure to Spend Time with You.

Garrett: We Always Want You to Be a Part of this Discussion As We Look
at Where We\'re Going So, If You Have a Question or a Comment for Us,
Please Give Us a Call at Any Time During the Program or Send Us a Fax
and We\'ll Get to as Many of Your Questions as We Can in the Time
Available. Now, Let\'s Take a Look at What\'s in Store for BLM and the
Budget That\'s Been Proposed by the Administration. Nina?

Hatfield: Certainly, Tony, We BLMers Are in the midst of Transitioning
to the Bush Administration and it Is Very Helpful To Us That Secretary
Norton Is Familiar with Interior and She\'s Familiar with BLM Issues.
Since the Secretary Has Been Confirmed, She\'s Shown a Real Interest in
BLM. And to this Point, We Have Briefed Her on Key Issues, the Executive
Leadership Team Met with Her in March and She\'s Recently Visited Nifc.
The Secretary Has Also Take an Very Personal Interest in the 2002
Budget. The BLM Proposed Budget Reflects Several Areas of Emphasis That
The Secretary Has Identified in the Interior Budget. First, the Budget
Seeks a Balance to Meet Our Energy Needs and To Provide Public Access to
Our Natural Heritage. Now, this Balance of Use and Conservation Should
Have a Very Familiar Ring to Those of Us in BLM. It Is at the Heart of
What We Do Every Day in BLM, Assuring Multiple Use of the Public Lands,
While Balancing the Needs of Our Many Users. Second, the Budget Strives
to Build Conservation Partnerships With a Wide Variety of Stakeholders.
And in BLM, We Pride Ourselves on Leveraging Our Resources with Our
Partners. In Fact, in a Recent Press Conference, the Secretary Used Some
BLM Examples of Our Partnering with States and Local Groups to Protect
Areas on the Public Land Through Conservation Easements As the Kind of
Thing That She Would like to See Throughout Interior. Now, Third, the
Administration Continues to Support Funding for Fire Which Larry Will
Touch on Later. And in Addition to These Priorities, Is the Interior
Budget Includes Support for Providing Quality Educational Opportunities
For Indian Children and for Preserving the National Parks. Now, We in
BLM Benefit by this Desire to Meet Our Infrastructure Needs by the
Continuation of Our Deferred Maintenance Appropriation in the New
Budget. So, Overall, the Doi Appropriation Represents about a 3%
Reduction but It\'s Not Across the Board. And it Represents a 16%
Increase over the 2000 Budget Level. So, Where Does That Leave Us in
BLM? With Well, in this Fiscal Year, Fiscal Year 2001, We Had Some
Significant Increases for Land Use Planning, to Establish a National
Landscape Conservation System, to Initiate Our Wild Horse and Burro
Strategy, to Deal with Fire and to Make Progress In Deferred
Maintenance. Now, Secretary Norton Has Personally Supported the
Inclusion in Our 2002 Base Budget, These Key Funding Increases That We
Received in Fiscal Year 2001. And in Addition to Maintaining These Base
Budget Items, the Proposed Budget Has Additional Items for Land Planning
and Energy and Mineral Production. So, These Are Sort of the Highlights,
Tony.

Garrett: That\'s for That Overview, Nina. Bob, Let\'s Look at the
Specific Budget Numbers and See How We Fair on This.

Doyle: Overall, the Budget of \$1.77 Billion Is \$374 Million Less than
Fiscal Year 2001 Budget. Primarily Due to the Elimination of One‑time
Funding and the Fire Program. However, Accounts Are up over
Approximately \$9 Million over Fiscal Year 2001. The Outlook for the Blm
Is Good Because Our Fiscal Year 2000 Budget Includes in the Base,
Significant Funding Increases That We\'ve Received in 2001. In a Number
of Key Areas. Specifically, They Include \$19 Million in Land Use
Planning, \$25 Million to Address the Agency\'s Maintenance Backlog,
Another \$9 Million to Manage Wild Horses and Burros and \$2 Million to
Address Threatened and Endangered Species. However, Overall, Fiscal 2002
Budget Provides an Opportunity to Continue Important Work from 2001
While Providing Additional Resources to Meet Priority Needs in Two
Important Areas. \$15 Million for Energy and Minerals Program and \$7
Million to Continue Updating Blm\'s Land Use Planning Base. Let Me Talk
a Minute about the Energy and Minerals Program. One of the
Administration\'s Priorities Is to Reduce Dependence On Foreign Energy
Imports. Blm Lands Contains Mineral Resources Vital to the National
Interest. Protection from Onshore Federal Lands Account for 5% of
National Oil Production, 11% of Total Gas Production, and about 3% of
Total Coal Production. It Includes a \$15 Million Increase for Expansion
of Energy as Follows. In Alaska, \$5 Million to Do Preparatory Work for
Leasing by 2004 Should Leasing Be Authorized by Congress. We Also Have
Increased Funding in the National Petroleum Reserve. For Energy Policy
and Conservation Act, We Have an Additional \$3 Million. Inventory Oil
and Gas Reserves and to Identify Barriers and Impediments to
Development. We Also Have Oil and Gas Leasing. \$2 Million for the
Process and to Address the Backlogs and the Anticipated New Work. And
We\'re Also Going to Try to Strengthen Our ‑‑ Especially Our Enforcement
Program by Allocating an Additional \$1.5 Million for Oil, Gas and
Inspection and Enforcement. We Also Have \$1..5 Million to Address
Additional Work. There Are Also Other Energy and Minerals Work Related
to the Indian Trusts and Geo Thermal Energy That Amount to Approximately
\$2 Million. This Enables Us to Expand Our Efforts in a Number of Energy
Areas and to Do So in an Environmentally‑responsible Way. Let Me Spend a
Minute to Talk about Planning. The Growth‑related Pressures in the West
Coupled with the Need To Provide Additional Energy, Supplies ‑‑
Reinforces the Need For Blm to Update its Land Use Plans. The about
Fiscal 2002 Budget Proposes an Increase of \$7 Million. Good Land Use
Planning Is the Backbone of Land Management. Many of the Agencies Land
Use Plans Are over 20 Years Old. These Plans Often Fail to Anticipate
Common Demands on the Public Lands Including the Steady Growth and
Outdoor Recreational Activities and the Increased Demand for Oil and
Natural Gas. We Have Also Had Other Planning Challenges Between 1 the 81
and 1989, the Blm\'s Planning Staff Was Reduced by 50% N 1995, the Blm
Experienced an Additional 30% Reduction for Planning, Leading to Further
Declines in its Key Planning and Resource Staff Positions. \$19 Million
Increase for Land Use Planing That the Blm Received In 2001 Helped the
Agency Begin to Address the Critical Resource Management Need. It Laid
the Groundwork for Multi‑year Updates on Our Management Plans but Much
More Remains to Be Done. But Currently, We\'re Unable to Meet Emergency
Customer Demands And to Properly Address Resource Use Which Increasingly
Exposes The BLM to Litigation and Further Hampers Us by Diverting Staff
And Resources from Other Important Work. The Additional \$7 Million
Proposed in the 2002 Budge the along With the Fiscal Year 2001 Base
Increase Enables Us to Take a Major Step Forward in Revising Updates and
Initiating New Plans That Are Critical to Sustaining Our Resource
Management Decisions.

Garrett: All Right, Thank You, Bob. Always a Top Priority for Us in BLM
Is the Fire Program. Larry, Secretary Norton Visited Nifc to Demonstrate
Her Interest In Your Program. Tell Us about That Visit.

Hamilton: We Were Concerned We May Not Get the Same Attention Because
Secretary Babbitt Took a Special Interest in the Fire Program. I Learned
That Norton and I Both Graduated from the University Of Denver So I
Thought Maybe I Would Have a Connection There. Until I Saw the Year She
Graduated and the Year I Graduated. I Graduated a Few Years Before She
Did. Could Have Been Two Different Universities by That Point. But She
Decided That Her First Field Visit to Come to Nifc. She Spent a Half a
Day There. We Were Delighted. She Brought the Governor of Idaho,
Governor Kempthorne and a Senator from Idaho and She Had the Opportunity
There to Meet With All the Employees and She Also Set and Met with the
Fire Directors and Conducted a Press Conference There at the National
Interagency Fire Center and Fold Us That She Had Three Top Priorities
That She Was Going to Be Working on and One of Those Was Going to Be
Fire. So, We Were Absolutely Delighted. We\'ve Got this Kind of Interest
at the Highest Level in this Administration.

Garrett: All Right. Now, the Fire Program Had a Significant Increase in
the Present Fiscal Year\'s Funding. How Did That Increase Come About?

Hamilton: Well, Last Year, We Had the Most Active Fire Season In 50
Years with about 7.4 Million Acres Burning. And I Think Everybody Will
Recall the President Decided to Come Out and See for Himself, Firsthand,
How We Were Dealing with This. And He Actually Went to the Junction Fire
There in Idaho in August and He Was Accompanied by the Secretary of
Agriculture And Interior and While He Was There, They Got an Assignment
to Issue a Report on What We Needed to Do to Deal with These Kinds Of
Catastrophic Fires in the Future. As a Result of That Report, Congress
Got Involved and Gave Us an Increase of \$1.8 Billion for the Wildland
Fire Agencies and for BLM, That Share Amounted to Around \$450 Million
Which Is an Increase of about 263%. This Eventually Evolved into the
National Fire Plan. And in the National Fire Plan, We Have Several Areas
That Are Being Emphasized. One of Course, Is Fire Fighting, Second Is
the Rehabilitation And Restoration Work That Needs to Be Done. Hazardous
Fuels Reduction. And Community Assistance in the Wildland Urban
Interface. Last Is Accountability and We\'ve Already Had a Couple of Gao
Reviews Already to See How We\'re Spending the Money.

Garrett: What Has Been the Impact of That Increase on Your Operations?
What Kind of Differences Are We Seeing Now?

Hamilton: Well, We\'ve Been Able to Do Several Things That We Didn\'t
Have the Capability of Doing in the Past. One Is We\'ve Been Able to
Hire More Firefighters. So, We\'ve He Had a Significant Hiring Effort
and We\'re in the Process of Trying to Hire 1700 More Firefighters So,
That\'s Been A Significant Workload to Try to Get the Work Force in
Place for This Year. We\'ve Also Contracted for More Aircraft. We\'ll
Have Four New Helicopters this Year. We\'ll Also Have Seven New Single
Air Tankers. We\'ll Also Contract for Another Large Transport So We Can
Move Crews Around the Country a Lot More Effectively and Efficiently. We
Have Hired 20 New Smoke Jumpers and We Will Be Contracting For a New
Jump Ship for That Capability. A Completely New Area for Us Is We\'re
Being Able to Hire 20 New Fire Weather Meteorologists That Will Be
Assigned Throughout the Country to Help Us Do Fire Weather Forecasting.
We\'ll Also Be Adding Eight New Hotshot Crews, 40 New Engines, Seven
Water Tenders, Three Dozers and 18 Crew Carriers. And Part of this Is
Actually about Being Able to Convert Many Temporary Positions to Permit
Status So We Can Maintain a Full‑time Work Force Which Will Help Us in
the Future in Being Able to Mog Fire on a Long‑term Basis and as an
Integral Part of Our Overall Resource Management Effort. We\'ll Continue
Our Restoration and Rehabilitation Efforts. We\'ll Have a Goal this Year
of Trying to Reduce Hazardous Fuels, Governmentwide, by 3.2 Million
Acres. We Have a New Program Where We\'ll Be Able to Provide Assistance
To Rural Fire Departments and Through the Firewise Program, We\'ll Be
Working with Local Communities in Reducing the Rusks They Face from
Wildland Fire. So, We\'ve Got a Lot of Work to Do. We\'re Well on Our
Way to Start on Our Latest Challenge.

Garrett: Thank You, Larry. I Want to Remind Our Viewers That We Have Our
Telephone Lines Open. Please Get in Touch with Us by Telephone or by
Fax. I\'m Sure the People in BLM Are Wondering What We Can Expect from
The Secretary in Terms of Her Active Interest and Involvement in BLM\'s
Work.

Hatfield: Tony, I Think There Are Several Areas That We Can Expect That
the Secretary Is Going to Continue to Want Us to Do A Really Good Job
In. One of Those Is the Fact That the Administration Clearly Has an
Emphasis on Energy Development and this Is an Area Within BLM That We
Knew We Had a Relatively Flat Budget over the Last Eight Or Ten Years,
We Had Lost Expertise in Inspection Enforcement And That We Were Already
Thinking about the Fact That We Needed To Do Some Things in this Budget
and So Our Needs, I Think Here, Coincide Quite Well with the
Administrative Priorities in Terms Of Trying to Cope with What We\'ve
Been Doing in Terms of Coal Bed Methane Increase. This Budget Will Help
Us Do That. I Think We\'ll Continue to Be Working with the Secretary as
She Works with the Vice President in Terms of Formulating What Our
National Energy Policy Will Be. That\'s Going Continue to Be an Emphasis
for Us. You Know, I Think That the Secretary Recognizes That BLM\'s a
Key Player in Terms of Delivering on the President\'s Energy Strategy.
So, That\'s Clearly an Emphasis. Another Area That Whenever You Talk to
the Secretary in Any Kind Of Setting That She Continues to Emphasize Is
That of Collaboration. And for Us in BLM, I Think One of the First
Things That Has Happened Has Been That the Secretary Is Continuing to
Want Us to Go Through an Amalgamation Process. Secretary Is Going to
Make Sure That We Keep a Divergence of Views on Our Racks. That\'s
Positive Because They Have Been a Positive Influence for BLM. One of the
Other Things She\'s Done Is Send Letters Asking for Input from Local
Officials, Governors, Elected Officials, about The National Landscape
Conservation Units, the Monuments in Particular. And That\'s a Part of I
Think, What She Sees as Trying to Get a Larger View of the Things That
Are Going on in BLM Land. And You Know, That\'s Something We in BLM Take
Great Pride In, in Terms of Collaboration. We Know it Takes More Time.
That it Is Sometimes a Little More Tedious but the End Result, We\'ve
Found, to Be Very Positive. So, Again, I Think That What We Do in BLM
Fits in Very Well There with the Secretary\'s Priorities. And I Think
That We\'ve Seen That She Certainly Shares the Concerns That We Have
about the Land Use Plans, the Kinds of Things That Bob Talked about a
Few Minutes Ago in Terms of Vulnerability to Litigation. As a Matter of
Fact, the Leadership Academy Was in Washington Several Weeks Ago and
Secretary Norton Came down and Addressed Them and That\'s One of the
Things She Mentioned to Them. So, the Concern about Updating Our Land
Use Plans Certainly Foremost on the Secretary a Mind. The Last Thing Is
Fire. As Larry Mentioned, it Was Her First Field Trip, at the Same Time,
You Know, I Am Meeting and Larry Is Meeting Weekly, If Not More Often
than That with the Secretary of Her Chief of Staff Because They\'re Very
Intimately Following How Well We\'re Doing In Terms of Hiring the People
We\'ve Committed to Hire. How Well We\'re Making Progress in Terms of
the Hazardous Fuel Reduction. We Talk about Those. As a Matter of Fact,
Last Week I Had Three Different Meetings With the Secretary and Her
Chief of Staff about Fire. So, All of Those Are Things That I Think Will
Continue to Be at The Foremost in Terms of BLM Participation.

Garrett: Would You Expect Her to Make a Concerted Effort to Get out of
Washington, Get out in the Field and See How the Different Agencies,
Particularly BLM, How Our Work Looks upon The Ground?

Hatfield: I Think That\'s Very True but We at BLM Have to Realize That
Right Now, the Confirmation Process Is Very Slow in Washington and So We
Have a Confirmed Secretary and She Has Basically Three Permanent Members
of Her Staff. And We\'ve Now ‑‑ I Think She\'s Probably Named Six or
Seven Other People Who Are in the Mill Now to Move into Permanent
Positions Like the Deputy Secretary, Assistant Secretary and So That
Process Is Going Slowly and So She\'s Very Much in a Learning Process.
Very Much in Terms of Trying to Cope with All of the Barrage of Issues
from All the Agencies That Are Facing Them. And You Know, Really Trying
to Get into It. So, I Would Expect That as Time Goes On, She\'s Going to
Be Traveling a Lot More.

Garrett: Any Speculation on When We Might Have a Nominee for A Director?

Hatfield: Well, No. And the Reason Is as She Has Told Us, She Doesn\'t
Expect That Really to Be until Certainly the Summer. First of All, the
Nominee Is Has Not Been Named. Once the Nominee ‑‑ Once the
Administration Decides upon the Nominee, the Nominee Will Have to
Undergo a Number of Checks and The Name Will Be Sent to the Senate. We
Have to Recognize That with Our Director, There Are Hundreds Of Other
Political Appointees Who Are Going Through the Same Process. And So That
Logjam, I Think, Will Mean That It\'s Going to Be Probably in the Summer
Before We Really Know.

Garrett: All Right. Larry, the Fire Program Is Another Area Where We
Have Specific Direction to Work Closely with Local Interests and Local
Communities. Talk about That a Little Bit.

Hamilton: Well, One of the First Things We Tried to Do Was Publish Some
Criteria in the Federal Register So We Could Identify Communities at
Risk in the Wildland Urban Interface. Of Course, Last Summer, We Had a
Lot of Problems Fighting Fire In the Wildland Urban Interface. The First
Round of this ‑‑ this Was Done Nationwide, Identified 4,000 Communities
Who Are Working with the Western Governor\'s Association and with Naco
and with the Tribes and All of Our Federal Partners as Well as State
Foresters. And Now We\'re up to over 22,000 Communities That Have Been
Identified and So What We\'re in the Throws of Doing at this Point Is
Trying to Come up with a Process So We Can Prioritize These Communities
and Try to Work in the Critical Areas First. So, That\'s a Work in
Progress and We\'re Hoping to Have, for this Year, the First Communities
Identified Across the Country by June 1st That We\'ll Start Working on
this Summer and Throughout The Rest of the Year.

Hatfield: I Might Mention That We\'re Very Concerned about Getting to
That Point. That Was One of the Meetings Larry and I Had Last Week
Because We Recognized That the Field Needs to Know Where Those
Communities of Emphasis Are Going to Be for the next Budget Year So That
We Can Do the Naco and Cultural Clearance and Other Work Trying to Be
Ready for 2002 ‑‑ I Have to Think about It.

Garrett: I Would like to Ask Each of You from Your Own Perspective, What
Parts of this Budget Have the Most Impact on The Folks Who Are Doing the
Program this Morning and the Way They Carry out Their Work on the
Ground? Nina, You Want to Tackle That One?

Hatfield: Well, I Think That Probably the Way That We\'re Carrying
Forward the Base Increases That Came Through Our 2001 Budget in Terms of
Planning, the Wild Horse and Burro Strategy, Deferred Maintenance, All
of Those Are Things That Will Continue To Be Important. We\'re
Continuing to Gear up for the Fire this Year and Those Are Going to Be
Carried Forward. I Think Clearly, as We Said, We Knew That We Needed to
Have Some More Resources and Energy and Minerals and I Think That Will
Help Us Build There.

Doyle: I Would Say in Addition to the Impact of the Workload, Also, the
Way We Do Business Is Going to Be Altered Somewhat. We\'ve Talked a Lot
about the Fire Program That Larry Mentioned And Hiring Folks but Also
Doing a Tremendous Amount of Contracting Work. That Was Implicit in the
Fire Plan That We Submitted to the Congress and Congress Is Tracking
That on a Regular Basis. Also, the Work That We\'re Doing in Deferred
Maintenance. We Get Continuation of the Title Eight Money and the
Conservation Fund to Address the Infrastructure Needs. Both the Fire
Program and the Deferred Maintenance Will Rely a Great Deal on
Contracting. That Means We\'re Going to Have to Shift Our Focus from
Doing the Work to Managing the Work. And So That Means We\'re Going to
Need Some Additional Skills and Capabilities for Contract Management.
We\'ve Already Initiated a Number of Courses Here at the Training Center
to Do Contract Monitoring. Contract Management and Contract
Specifications. To Help Our People So They Can Get the Most out of the
Contracts That They\'re Seeing. I Think in Addition ‑‑ it Is a Lot of
Work Itself, We Also Need To Look at How We\'re Doing Business. I Think
We\'ll Begin to See Some Changes in How We Approach the Work.

Garrett: Larry?

Hamilton: I Think Specifically in the Fire Management Program, as a
Result of the Secretary and Governor Kempthorne Spending Time Together
at Nifc, it Was Decided to Use Idaho as An Opportunity to See What We
Could Do at the Local Level and of Course, Contracting Has Been a Big
Part of this So What We\'re Trying to Do There with the State, the
Department of Labor, the State Department of Labor There and the State
Department of Commerce Is Look at Ways That We Can Train People in These
Local Communities to Compete for These Mechanical Treatment Contracts,
For Example. And Start Getting People Trained up to Do Crew Work. Not
Necessarily Suppressing Fire but Doing the Treatment Work That Can Be
Done on the Front End of the Fire Season and Then of Course, the
Rehabilitation Restoration Work That Can Be Done After a Fire Season.
So, We\'re Making a Real Concerted Effort and as Bob Mentioned, We\'re
Actually Getting Some Contracts Put in Place That, at the Local Level,
We Can Write Task Orders Against and Try to Make it As Easy for Field
Folks to Get this Work Done as We Possibly Can.

Hatfield: I Think We\'re in a Chicken and Egg Phase, If You Will, in
Terms of the Increases. I Guess I\'ve Heard from Several Sources That
There\'s Been Reluctance to Get on with Fire Hiring Because People Were
Concerned That the Money Might Not Be Coming Forward for Us in Out Years
and Clearly, as We\'ve Looked at the Wild Horse and Burro Strategy, as
We Look at the Planning Needs and Fires, All Of Those Are Things That We
See as Energy and Minerals, All of Those Are Things That We Can See as
this Being the First Year of What We See as a Multi‑year Need. We in BLM
Have to Get the People in Place to Do the Work. Where If We\'re Not
Successful in Doing the Work, That\'s When We Would Threaten Our
Funding. We Have to Be Successful in Doing the Work and We Have to Do
the Work this Year.

Garrett: Let\'s Go to a Question from the Washington, D.c. Office. Crime
Is up Significantly on Our Lands. What Are We Doing to Better Protect
Our Public Land Visitors Employees, Resources with the Conservation
Areas and Monuments. Won\'t We Need More Law Enforcement?

Hatfield: Absolutely. I Think We Are. This Is an Area in Which the
Department Is Concerned, as a Matter of Fact, You Know, Have Had Several
Meetings about That. Because You Know, the Public Lands Are in Some Very
Vulnerable Areas and it Certainly Is True That the Recognition of
Special Units That We Have in the National Conservation Land System Do
Draw Visitors and We Need to Be Prepared to Protect That. That\'s a
Reason Why ‑‑ One of the First Two Priorities for Each Of These National
Landscape Units Is to Take Care of Visitor Protection and That Will Mean
Additional Law Enforcement and Also to Get on with the Planning. Part of
the Money That Is Coming this Year and it Will Be in the Budget for next
Year, Will Be Devoted to Some Additional Law Enforcement Capability.

Garrett: Larry, We Really Haven\'t Talked about the Outlook For the Fire
Program in this Budget That Begins in Fiscal Year 2002, Beginning in
October. How Does the Fire Program Fair in this Budget?

Hamilton: the Fire Budget for 2002 Won\'t Be the Same as Last Year.
There Are Some Differences but There Are Good Reasons for the
Differences. When You Look at What We\'ve Got in 2001 Versus 2002, a Lot
of That Appropriation, for Example, Was for Equipment That I Mentioned
Before and for Contracting, for Aircraft and So We Don\'t Need to Repeat
That Again. Also, There\'s Been Funding Reduced in Burned Area
Rehabilitation And the Reason for That Is the President Set up this
National Emergency Reserve, I Think it Is over \$5 Billion,
Governmentwide, and We Took \$200 Million Reduction in Our Emergency
Funds as Well as the Rehabilitation but Yet We\'ll Be Able to Access
this National Reserve to Get That Kind of Work Done. So, It\'s Not That
We\'ve Lost the Capability, it Is in a Different Pot, So to Speak.

Garrett: Bob, What about the National Landscape Conservation System,
Something Else That There\'s Been a Lot of Interest In. How Does That
Look for the Coming Year?

Doyle: We Had Money ‑‑ We Had Apart from the \$12 Million Allocated to
the Landscape Office, Including about \$3.5 Million From the Additional
Planning Money That We Got this Year. For 2002, the Budget Proposes an
Allocation of Approximately \$37 Million. Funding Is for Work, for the
Protection of Visitors as Well as Our Employees and Also for Protection
of the Resources That We Value in Those Areas. So, Within the Proposal,
the Present Proposal, There Is a Continuation in Support for the Special
Conservation Units Within the Landscape System.

Garrett: Nina, We Talked about the Emphasis on the Energy Development as
Part of the National Energy. Being Formulated by the Administration. We
See Additional Emphasis on Fire and Other Things. Do He We Have the
Personnel We Need to Do What We Need to Do to Promote Energy Production,
for Example, in an Environmentally Sound Way?

Hatfield: I\'m Glad You Add Environmentally Sound. That\'s One of the
Things We Always Have to Keep in Mind That We\'re Trying to Reach a
Balance Here, Doing the Production but Always Doing it in an
Environmentally Sound Manner. I Think the Short Answer, Tony, Is That
We\'re Concerned about The Fact, Throughout the Bureau, in Virtually
Every Program That We\'ve Lost a Lot of the Skill Capability and We Also
See That Over the next Five Years, We Have the Potential to Lose a Lot
More as We Have BLMers Who Reach Retirement Age. As a Matter of Fact, I
Think about 50% of BLMers Will Reach That Retirement Age over the next
Five Years. And So We\'re Trying to Identify Now the Skills Where We Are
Going to Need to Bring New People into the Bureau to Do Work. I Think
That the Fire Money and the Energy Money, the New Money Allows Us to Do
Some of That Beginning this Year and Hopefully Going into out Years but
I Also Think It\'s Important That We Keep in Mind, as Bob Talked about
Earlier, That the Way We\'re Doing Our Job Is Changing. That While
We\'re Getting Additional Money, We\'re Not Getting a Lot More Permanent
Fte. And So We, Each of Us, I Think, in BLM, Has to Look at the Jobs
We\'re Doing and Think of Ourselves as Being Managing of the Work, Maybe
We\'re Not Necessarily Going to Go out and Take the Water Samples. We
May Not Necessarily Go out and Do the Surveys of Threatening An
Endangered Species. We May Contract for People to Do That but it Gives
Us an Opportunity to Do That but it Gives Us an Opportunity to Leverage
the Skills We Have. Some Areas, We\'ll Have to Rebuild. Planning, I
Think We\'ll Have to Rebuild Some. Energy and Minerals, We\'ll Have to
‑‑ Some of the Money in the Budget Goes to Additional Inspectors. So,
Clearly, There Are Areas in Which We\'ll Have to Bring in New Skills.
But I Think We Have to Be Creative about How We Meet the Skill Mix.

Garrett: Larry, You\'ve Had a Major Hiring Effort under Way. What Kind
of Success Are You Having?

Hamilton: this Has Been a Challenging Effort, Tony, Because
Governmentwide, We\'ve Been Looking at Hiring over 5,000 New Firefighter
Positions. The Critical Part Here Is this Just Isn\'t Hiring Beginning
Firefighters. This Requires All Kinds of Different Specialized Skills
and Some Of These Are Scarce Skills. And Sometimes Some of the Locations
That We Have Aren\'t View the As Garden Spots So You Have to Go the
Extra Mile to Get Folks Interested in Some of the Different Areas Where
We Have Offices And Needs. But We\'ve Had Some Success Without Reach on
That ‑‑ with Outreach on That and Have Hired a National Recruiter to
Help Us With That. For All the Doi Bureaus. They\'ve Had a Lot of
Success in Getting Us More Applicants than Typically We Get in the Past.
The Other Thing Is That the Department Was Able to Get the Authority for
Retention and Recruiting Bonuses and So We\'ll Have That in Place. So,
We\'ll Be Able to Use That in Areas Where We\'re Having Difficulty
Hiring Folks. You Know, Our Big Problem Last Year Was with Supervisory
Personnel like with Engine Foremen. We Ended up Bringing in about 80
Folks That Were Tried and True Supervisors from Australia, New Zealand.
As a Matter of Fact, We Had a Group That Was over in Australia This Last
Weekend Put the Agreement in Place and the Reason for That Is It\'s
Going to Take Us Several Years Before We Get the Level of Capability
That We Need to Have. You Don\'t Create a Supervisor or Manager
Overnight. For Example, the Command Team Type One, That Can Take You 15
to 20 Years in Fire Fighting Business to Get There. So, it Is Going to
Take a While Before We Have Those Kind of Qualified Folks in Our System.

Garrett: Ok. Let\'s Go to Another Question from Our Viewing Audience.
This Comes in from Cheyenne. We\'re Seeing Significant Increases ‑‑ and
Significant Interest In Wyoming and Increasing Energy Output. It\'s
Something with You Talked about Nina. Energy Output Discussions Revolve
Around These Three Issues, Coal and Gas Extraction, Production from
Fossil Fuels and Wind Energy and the Transmission of the Power to the
Marketplace. Meeting a Commitment of this Magnitude Requires a Long‑term
Outlook to Assure That Proper Analysis and Monitoring Occur. And the
Question Is Do You See Any Indication of a Long‑term Commitment of
Funding to Process the Necessary Use Authorizations and Monitor the
Activities Associated with These Actions? Bob, Would You like to Address
That?

Doyle: That\'s the Kind of Discussion We Have in Terms of Our Programs
and Activities, Not Just the Short Term but the Downstream Costs and
Responsibilities That We Have. And We\'ve Been Trying to Take this
Approach in a Number of Areas. We Did it with the Wild Horse and Burro
Program in Terms of the Need to Look at the Five‑year Strategy. The
Requirement for Us to Have That Commitment So That We Can Carry Forward
with That Strategy and Bring it to a Conclusion to Achieve the Strategic
Objective That We Have. It Is the Same Thing We\'re Talking about in the
Fire Program and We\'re Working with the Western Governor\'s Association
on a 10‑year Plan. Clearly for the Folks Involved in the Fire Program.
They\'re Concerned about the Long‑term Funding Commitment That They\'ll
Have in Order to Dot Things They Need to Do Which Require Multiple Years
to Be Effective. And the Same Thing in this Energy Area, We Know That on
the Leasing and the Drilling, Also Requires Monitoring and Inspection
and Enforcement That We Talked about Earlier. We\'re Asking for
Additional Funds to Strengthen the Inspection And Enforcement Activities
Related to That Because That\'s a Downstream Cost. We Also Know That We
Have Some Costs at the Other End in Terms Of Wells and Abandon Wells.
Those Are the Kind of Things We\'re Trying to ‑‑ There Is an
Understanding and Appreciation of That. I Believe We\'re Making Headway.
They Understand That it Just Doesn\'t Start with the Application And the
Permit.

Hatfield: One of the Things We\'re Building into Our Estimates Of What
Our Needs Are, We\'re Not Just Estimating the Kinds of Needs We Need to
Do, for Example, Leasing or Apds, We\'re Also Including the Downstream
Costs Bob Is Talking About, Inspection And Enforcement to Come after
That.

Garrett: We\'re Looking at Fire, in the Context of Overall Integrated
Resource Management. What Kind of Challenge Does That Present for Your
Operations?

Hamilton: Well, it Is a Direct Challenge That We\'ve Been Given by
Congress. As a Matter of Fact, in the Budget, in the Appropriation
Language, They Actually Identify Nine Principles That Are Fundamental to
the Success of Wildlands Fire Management. And of Course, I Think
Everyone Is Aware That Wildland Fire Has Been Used to Protect and
Maintain and Enhance Resources as Much As We Possibly Can. And That
Needs to Be Allowed to Function in its Natural Ecological Role but I
Just Wanted to Quickly Go over These Nine Principles Because I Was
Absolutely Delighted That These Get Identified and We Get this Kind of
Attention and of Course, Our Number One Priority Is Always and Will
Continue to Be Fire Fighter and Public Safety. We Will Never Lose Sight
of That No Matter What We Do. The Role of Wildland Fire Is Essential as
an Ecological Process And We Need to Incorporate That into Our Planning
Process. The One Thing We\'re Going to Be Doing Very Religiously Is
Reviewing Resource Management Plans and Making Sure That They\'re Up to
Date and That Every One of Them Has a Fire Management Plan That
Complements it and its Objectives. Third Is Fire Management Programs
Plans and Activities. They\'re Going to Have to Be Implemented and I Was
Glad to See We\'ve Gotten Additional Funding for Our Planning Program.
That\'s One Thing That\'s Been Tough for Us. We Haven\'t Had the Dollars
to Get this Done. Another Thing We Need to Do, We\'re Doing Sound Risk
Management And Any Activity That We Undertake, I Don\'t Think Any of Us
Would Want to See Another Sierra Grande like We Had Last Year. Fire
Management Programs Need to Be Technically Sound and Based Upon Values
to Protect Property and People. Fire Management Plans and Activities
Have to Be Based on the Best Science That\'s Available to Us. We Got
Additional Funding to Do More Research in Fire and That\'s Going to Go
to Planning Activities as Well. And They Need to Incorporate Public
Health and Environmental Quality. The Smoke Management Is a Big Issue
and If We\'re Going to Prescribe Fire, We\'ll Have to Make Sure We\'re
Not Polluting the Environment, Polluting the Air. That\'s Going to Be a
Big Challenge for Us. Federal, State and Tribal and Local Agencies ‑‑
Cooperation Is Essential. The Folks at the Field Are the Ones That Make
this Happen, Develop the Relationships. That\'s Where That Kind of Work
Will Get Done. Ongoing Objective That We Have Is Trying to Standardize
Our Policies and Procedures among Federal Agencies. We Have a Fire
Policy That Was Established after Storm King Mountain. That Was Reviewed
this Year and Updated and That\'s a Policy That Applies to All of the
Wildland Fire Agencies. And this Administration Has Embraced That as
Well.

Garrett: Let\'s Go to the Phones Now under Take a Call from Terry in
Bishop, California. Good Morning, Terry.

Caller: Good Morning.

Garrett: What Is Your Question for the Panel?

Caller: the Question We Had Was We Were Curious about the Relationship
of the \$5 Million That Would Be Invested in ‑‑ for Studies and How That
Relates to Congressional Approval.

Garrett: Ok. Bob, Would You like to Field That Question?

Doyle: Sure. The Question Has to Do with the \$5 Million That Is Being
Proposed for the North Slope Which Includes \$2 Million of the \$5
Million Is for Anwar and the Studies for Preparation of the Leasing That
Might Occur There. So, Clearly, There\'s Recognition That Congress Has
to Authorize Any Leasing That Occurs There and That\'s Contingent upon
That Authorization but the Rest of the \$5 Million, the \$3 Million Is
For Activities, for the National Petroleum Reserve, Alaska, Npra And for
Additional Operating Expenses and Potentially for Additional Leasing in
That Area this Year. Excuse Me, for 2002. So, but Even If Things Don\'t
Go Forward in Easing Activity Related to Anwar, There Are a Number of
Activities, Energy Related Activities That That Money Would Be Applied
To.

Garrett: Do You Have Anything to Add to That, Nina?

Hatfield: No. I Think Bob Is Absolutely Right. We Recognized We Need to
Plan for Anwar. We Certainly Have Identified I Think in the Budget and
Can Identify for Congress How We Would Continue to Use That Money For
the North Slope Energy Initiative. I Think Our Justification Is in Good
Shape There.

Doyle: I Believe the Potential for Authorization Caps and the Gas
Pipeline from That Area. There Are a Number of Things That Are Going on
That the Money Would Be Applied To.

Garrett: Ok. Terry, Does That Answer Your Question?

Caller: it Did. Thank You Very Much.

Garrett: Thanks for Calling. The Budget We\'re Discussing of Course Is
What Has Been Proposed By the Administration as Sort of the First Step
in the Budget Cycle. Now, Congress Will Work on it and Hopefully Pass an
Appropriations Bill Sometime in the Fall. I Know it Is Difficult to Make
Predictions but If You Had to Make a Prediction, Do You Think the Final
Budget Will Look Pretty Much like the Budget That\'s Been Proposed by
the Administration? Has There Been Any Discussion? Heard Any Discussion
in Congress about Major Variance from What The Administration Has
Outlined in this Budget?

Hamilton: I\'m Looking over to Nina.

Hatfield: the Seat Just Got Very Hot Now. It Is in the Budget Process.
Our Budget Is Literally Being Printed. The Hill Will Be Getting this
Very Soon. I Think That What We Will See Here Is That with the President
And the Congress Being in the Same Party, That They Will Work on Trying
to Get to a Budget That They\'re Both Going to Be Very Comfortable With.
At the Same Time, it Invariably Happens in the Long Appropriation
Process That as Individual Representatives and Senators Begin to Look at
the Budget, They May Want Some Adjustments in Those Specific Suggestions
That the President Has Made. So, I Think it Will Be a Time in Which the
President and the Congress Will Have to Work Through That Process. I
Think the Basic Outlines of the Budget Are Going to Be the Same. I Think
the Emphasis That We Have in Our Budget in Terms of Carrying Forward the
Things That We Have Identified Already Today Will Be the Same. I Think
That to the Extent There\'s Any Differences, it May Be in Terms of the
Dollar Amounts and You Know, We Could Expect That Individual Congressman
May Want to Identify Special Projects in Their Districts and That\'s
Something That Goes on All the Time But I Think the Overall Framework Is
a Good One, a Workable One And One That I Would See Coming out at the
End of the Process.

Garrett: Bob, from Your Perspective?

Doyle: I Don\'t Think I\'ve Seen a Budget Submitted by a President That
Hasn\'t Changed. Certainly the Directors on the Hill That Thoughts about
How Much Money Ought to Be Spent and Where it Ought to Be Spent. I
Suspect it Will Change. I Would Agree with Nina That the Basic Outline
and Thrust of What\'s Being Proposed Here Will Likely Continue and the
Negotiations and Discussions Will Go along in Terms of the Extent of
Funding.

Hamilton: I\'ve Got a Perspective, Too. It Is Something We Have to Be
Sensitive To. It\'s like at Nifc, for Example, We\'ve Gotten a Lot of
Calls from Different Media Folks Trying to Find out If They\'re Going to
Be Changes and What the Impact of the Changes Will Be and That\'s One
Thing That it Is the President\'s Budget. We Support That Budget. And
this ‑‑ We\'re Delighted That We\'re Giving What\'s Been Identified and
it Will Work for Us and it Will Take Us Where We Need to Go. So, We Need
to Be Supportive of the Direction We\'re Headed Here. It Is Very
Positive.

Hatfield: I Think That\'s a Good Point There. It Is the President\'s
Budget and it Is One That We Will Support. Moreover, I Think That We in
BLM Need to Feel Good about the Fact That the Secretary and the
President See the Priorities as They Are, as Being Ones That Are Really
Important to Our Core Mission and to Delivering the Programs That We See
as Necessary. And I Gree with You We\'ll Get to Where We Want to Go with
this Budget.

Garrett: One Thing That Hasn\'t Changed in this Budget Is the Emphasis
on Fiscal Responsibility, Accountability, Performance. What Can We
Expect in Those Areas?

Hatfield: I Think Those Areas Will Be Even More Important With this
Administration and with the Emphasis That Congress Is Beginning to Put
on the Accountability Issues. And You Know, in Terms of Accountability,
One of the Things Congress Is Looking for Is to Make Sure We\'re
Spending the Money On the Things That We\'ve They\'ve Appropriated the
Money For. And as an Example, this Last Year, We Were Audited in Terms
of How We Were Spending Mining Logged a Police Station Funds and We
Found in Some Areas, Folks Have Been Using That Money for Things That it
Hadn\'t Been Appropriated For. So, We\'re Going to Continue to Be under
the Gun in Terms of Showing That We\'re Spending the Money for the Right
Things. I Think One of the Things We\'ll Continue to Look at Internally
And Externally Is That What We\'re Doing with the Money Is Consistent
with the Policy Direction We\'ve Laid Out. And You Know, I Think That\'s
Very Important as We Look at Something like Planning Where We\'ve Had a
Large Increase Here. Their Expectations at the End of Doing the Plan
That the Plan Is Going to Be Consistent with the National Policy. That
it Is Going to Wrestle with the Tough Issues like the Air Quality Issues
Related to Fire, All of Those Things We\'ll Take Into Account as We Do
the Planning. So, That\'s Part of It. And Very Importantly, Is Just
about Being Able to Identify Where We Spent it and We\'re Very Fortunate
in BLM That We Have an Infrastructure in Place to Do the Cost
Accounting. So That We Can Tell Where We\'re Spending the Money. That We
Have Reporting Mechanisms That We Can Show How We\'re Performing. I
Don\'t Know If You\'ve Had a Chance to Look Recently but Again, This
Year, If You Go into the Intranet and Look on the Director\'s Page, You
Can Access the Director\'s Tracking System There. And on That Tracking
System, You Can Tell How Many People That Larry Has Been Able to Hire in
the Fire Funding and How We\'re Doing in Terms of Doing Our Work in
Deferred Maintenance. You Can See How We\'re Doing and That\'s One of
the Things That Accountability Is All About. And It\'s So Important to
Us Because If We\'re Going to Make an Argument That We Have a Need for
Resources We First Have to Make The Argument That We\'re Spending Them
Wisely. And That\'s the Reason That We Have Been Working So Hard at
That. And Then I Think the Other Area Is Just the Fact That We Have to
Continue to Look at Management Reforms That Are Going to Make Us More
Efficient. To Me, That\'s Very Important Because for Every Dollar We Can
Save, Because as Bob Has Identified, Some Things He\'s Doing in Terms of
Contract, We Can Do a Better Job and a less Expensive Job in Delivering
on Our Information Systems or Delivering in Terms of How We Do
Contracting. Those Are Dollars That Can Go into More Riparian Area
Fixes, Better Habitat for Species, for Work, All the Kinds of Things
We\'re Trying to Achieve. These Reforms Are Really Important. I Look at
Billings and Collection System to Allow Us to Do Things a Lot More
Efficiently. More Work to Be Done. But We\'re Doing a Better Job There.
Glo, Good Example of Where We Have Systems in Place That Are Allowing Us
Customers to Do the Work for Us, If You Will. That Helps Us to Be Able
to Spend the Money on Things That We Need to Spend the Money For. So, I
Know That this Administration Is Very Interested in That. Everything
That We Read, the Seminars That Bob and I Have Been To Recently, All
Have the Increased Emphasis on Accountability. And I Think That\'s Going
to Be a Bedrock for this Administration.

Garrett: Anything to Add on That?

Hamilton: I Would Add in Addition to this Whole Notion of Performance
and Accountability, the Congress and Administration Are Challenging Us
to Manage by Performance. They\'re Actually Asking Us to Report to Them
Much like What We Had in the Fire Plan, I Think That\'s a Good
Illustration. Last Year, They Wrote That into the Appropriations about
Bill And Mandated That We Come up with Some Measures. So, They Can Track
Our Performance. And Measure Our Progress. And That We\'re to Report to
Them on a Periodic Basis. And I Know Larry and His Staff Who Have Been
up on the Hill Talking to the Committee Staff, Explaining What We\'re
Doing in The Contract Area, How Much Money Has Been Contracted Out.
Whether We\'re Helping a Local Community as Was Intended by the
Legislation. So, Clearly, I Think We\'ll Move to the next Step from When
Government Performance Was Passed Back in 1995 until Now Where We\'re
Taking Theory and Putting it into Practice. The Expectation Is Agencies
Will Now Begin to Manage by Performance. They\'ll Begin to Make Some of
Their Budget Decisions, Some of Air Allocation Decisions. Based on
Performance. Based on Who Is Producing and Who Is Delivering. Where We
Can Get the Biggest Bang for the Buck. I Think We\'ll See More and More
of That Already. We\'re in Discussion with Them Right Now. They Want to
Take a Look at What We\'re Doing in BLM in Terms of Performance
Management. They\'re Intrigued by Some of the Things They\'ve Heard and
Seen And So They Want to Look at Us as a Possible Model That They Can
Then Take and Expand Governmentwide.

Hatfield: the Omb Director Has Made it Clear That He\'s Expecting to
Look at Performance next Year in Terms of the Allocation Process for How
the Different Departments and Agencies Within Departments Will Be
Funded. So, it Is Here and It\'s Going to Be Here to Stay.

Garrett: Ok. We\'re Nearing the End of Our Program So I Want to Ask Our
Panel For Any Final Thoughts and Comments for Our Viewers. Larry?

Hamilton: Thanks, Tony. I Think the Last Discussion Was an Excellent
Discussion Because One of the Things We\'ll Have to Do Here Is Produce
Results and Congress Is Tracking this Very Diligently and Very
Specifically. And We Will Continue to Be Reviewed and Held Accountable
and That\'s One of the Keys for Us Because If We\'re Going to Get
Funding in the Future, We\'ve Gotta Be Able to Demonstrate That We Can
Get the Job Done That\'s Been Outlined for Us. I Guess the Third Thing
That I Think Is Really Critical Is Working Closely with Our Partners and
We Just Have Some Great Examples Throughout this Organization Where
We\'ve Developed Partnerships and They\'re Models That We Can Point to
Which Kind Of Interesting Last Week, We Had a Congressional Tour There
at Nifc, over 30 Congressional Staffers in and That Was One Thing They
Were Really Interested in Were the Partnerships That We Had Established
and How We Went about Doing That. So, That\'s on Everybody\'s Radar
Screen. And I Guess the Last Thing I Would Say Is That When it Comes to
The Prescribed Fire, There\'s a Mantra We Need to Abide by Religiously
and That Is If it Ain\'t Right, Don\'t Ignite.

Hatfield: Amen!

Garrett: All Right. Bob, Final Thoughts?

Doyle: Sure. We Got in the 2002 Budget, We\'re in the Middle Inning of
an Unending Ball Game. It Is Important We Allow the Process to Unfold
and to Continue Our Outreach Efforts Consistent with the President\'s
Budget. It Is Also Important That We Stay Focused and Meet the
Commitments in Fiscal Year 2001 to Further Demonstrate Our Capabilities
to Meet the Public\'s Expectations. Our Board of Directors, the
Congress, Is Looking for Tangible Outcomes to Demonstrate to the
American Taxpayers That Their Hard‑earned Dollars Are Producing
Meaningful Results. The Department\'s Budget Highlights for 2002
Featured BLM Initiatives, Demonstrating the Critical Role We Play in
Helping Interior Achieve its Important Objectives. Progress Toward
Achieving the Secretary\'s Goal of a Balanced Stewardship of Conservancy
and Research Development Will Be Significant Influence by What We Do
Here in BLM. The President\'s Desire for a Citizens Centered Government
Is Ideally Suited for BLM\'s Collaborative Business Style and Reaffirms
Our Efforts to Manage by Performance. We Need to Continue to Do What We
Do Best. Work in Partnership with Local Communities in Carrying out Our
Service Management Responsibilities. Finally, I Would Be Remiss If I
Didn\'t Mention the Collective Success We All Share. As We Move Through
Fiscal Year 2001 and into next Fiscal Year, It Is Important We Continue
Strengthening Our Financial and Business Practices So We Can Demonstrate
That Additional Funds Invested in BLM Will Be Effectively Managed and
Return Dividends To the American Taxpayers in Terms of the Products and
Services They Value.

Hatfield: the Baseball Analogy Has to Come from a Boston Red Sox Fan. \[
Laughter \]

Garrett: Nina, Final Comments on What Lies Ahead for BLM in This Budget
for the Coming Year?

Hatfield: Tony, I Think What Lies Ahead for Us Is a Really Renewed
Emphasis on the Importance of Our National Program. We\'ve Always
Emphasized the Importance of Making Really Good on The Ground Decisions
Based on Local Needs We Can Certainly Never Lose Sight of That Because
BLMers Know How to Do it and We Do it Very Well. But We Have to Keep in
Mind and Keep in Sight That as You Do Your Work, You\'re Also Part of a
Larger Picture. It Is Just Not the Wild Horse and Burro Strategy for
Nevada or Wyoming. It Is a National Strategy That We Commit to Across
the Country. And Likewise, Our Land Use Plans must Be Consistent with
National Policy. Although Their Impact Will Prime

Ly Be Local. So, No Matter What Program You Work In, You\'re a Part of
the Whole BLM Picture. And I Work on the Ground, Support That National
Vision and Keeps Our ‑‑ Helps Our Programs Get the Support That They
Deserve. And When We Consider What These Changes That Do Lie Ahead for
BLM, it Is Important That We Remember That We Can Shape Those Changes.
By Being Creative, by Thinking of New and Better Ways to Do the Work.
And by Doing Some Things You Haven\'t Had the Resources to Do Before
with the New Funding That We\'ve Gotten in 2001 and Entering 2002. The
New Administration Will Help Us by Establishing Direction And Setting
Priorities and Providing Focus for Our Program. And Our Challenge Is to
Continue to Work Together with Them, With Our Constituencies and with
Local Communities in an Even Greater Spirit of Collaboration. So, Let\'s
Not Forget That We must Be Accountable to Congress, to Our Customers and
to Local Communities and Most Importantly, to The Wealth of Resources
under Our Care. So, from My Perspective, this Is a Very Exciting Time in
BLM and It Is Lucky and It\'s Good to Be a Part of It.

Garrett: Thank You, Nina for Those Thoughts and for Being With Us.
Thanks Also to Bob Doyle and Larry Hamilton. You\'ll Find More
Information on the Matters We\'ve Discussed at BLM\'s Internal Web Site.
That\'s www.ntc.blm.gov. We Would like to Remind All of Our BLM
Satellite Downlink Coordinators to Send Us Why Are Report on Today\'s
Broadcast. Please Do That for Us. Your Evaluations Give Us Valuable
Feedback That Helps Us Improve Our Programming. You Can Use NTC\'s
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the Roster and Fax it To NTC Immediately Following Our Program. Any
Individual Viewer Wishing to Comment Can Also Do So Through The Sat Net
Evaluation Form We Mentioned. Thank You for Joining Us Today. So Long
from the National Training Center in Phoenix.

Announcer: to Help Your Office Participate in Future Telecasts, See the
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