**Public Lands - Public Trust**

**Checks and Balances**

**A BLM National Training Center Telecast**

**May 29, 1998**

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

It may contain errors and omissions in transcription.

Shea: Good Morning and Welcome to the Second Natural Resource Forum
Broadcast. Today, It\'s Our Honor to Have Senator Dale Bumpers from
Arkansas As Our Guest. Welcome.

Bumpers: Thank You, Pat.

Shea: Joining Us Live from Salt Lake City Is Senator Bennett.

Bennett: Thank You. Delighted to Be with You.

Shea: Our Third Guest Is John Leshy, the Solicitor for the Department of
the Interior.

Leshy: Glad to Be Here.

Shea: Our Final Guest Is Cynthia Quarterman, Director of MMS. Welcome,
Cynthia.

Quarterman: Hi, Pat. Thanks for Having Me.

Shea: We Recently Got the News this Morning That Senator Goldwater Had
Passed Away. I Thought it Might Be Appropriate at the Beginning of the
Broadcast, Senator Bumpers and Senator Bennett, If You Might Share
Recollections of Senator Goldwater.

Bumpers: I Served with Barry for 12 Years ‑‑ I Believe 14 Years Before
He Left the Senate. Have an Excellent Relationship with Him. He and I
Had Political Differences and Social Differences about Social Issues and
So on but We Were Good Friends. I Considered Him to Be a Real Icon in
this Country Because He Said What He Thought and He Stood up for What He
Believed. The Truth of the Matter Is It\'s Sort of like the Old Coke
Commercial, People Are Looking for the Real Thing. In Barry Goldwater,
They Found It. I Was So Sad to See He Had Passed Away.

Shea: Senator Bennett?

Bennett: I Remember When I First Met Barry Goldwater as a Young Man in
1962. I Was Working on My Father\'s Campaign and Went down to Arizona To
Get a Little Help. And the Thing That Impressed Me about Him Instantly
Was His Energy. He Seemed to Radiate Vitality. He Was Always Active,
Doing Things. And I Followed His Career, He and My Father Were Good
Friends. I Think We Can Credit Barry Goldwater in Many Ways with Sowing
The Seeds of What Came to Be Known as the Reagan Revolution. It Wasn\'t
Just the Conservative Ideas Because They Had Been Around for a Long Time
but the Thing That Barry Goldwater Brought to the Whole Equation Was His
Basic Optimism, His Conviction That We Could Prevail. He Said That in
Republican Conventions When Everybody Was Sure The Republican Party Was
Headed for a Long, Long Period of Time In the Wilderness. And Barry
Goldwater Never Gave Up. Never Stopped Believing. And I Think That
Optimism Passed on to the Reagan Revolution Is A Large Part of the
Legacy He\'s Left. He\'s Been a Great American Icon as Dale Has Said and
We\'re Going To Miss Him.

Shea: Thanks, Senator Bennett. Our First Natural Resource Forum Focused
on the History and Tradition of the Bureau of Land Management. Through
the Eyes of Elaine Zielinski and Ed Hastey, Marilyn Johnson and Governor
Andrus, We Examined the Different Turning Points in the Evolution of the
Bureau\'s Natural Resource Management Responsibilities. Today\'s Program
Will Focus on the Interaction Between Congress And the Bureau and the
Department as Part of the Executive Branch. The United States
Constitution in Article I Specifies the Broadest Powers to Legislate in
the Constitution to the Congress\... The House of Representatives and
the United States Senate. Senator Bumpers Has Served 28 Years in the
United States Senate And Presently Serves on the Energy and Natural
Resource Committee Which Has Legislative Oversight Responsibilities and
Authorization Responsibilities for the Department of Interior And BLM.
Senator Bennett Serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee Which
Provides the Critical Appropriations That We Expend Each Year. In
Detailing this Program, it Is My Hope That the Many Pressure Points in
the Legislative Process Experienced by Senator Bennett And Senator
Bumpers Can Be Articulated While at the Same Time The Enormous
Administrative Responsibilities Functioning in the Executive Branch
under Article Ii of the Constitution Can Be Articulated. To Begin With,
Senator Bumpers, after 28 Years, How Would You Describe the Relationship
of Congress to Natural Resource Management Agency like the BLM?

Bumpers: You Gave Me Four Years Too Many. I May Have Said 28, but It\'s
More like 24. I Was Governor Four Years Before I Came to the Senate. It
Is Difficult to Answer a Question ‑‑ That\'s a Broad Question. Difficult
to Answer That. But What I Would Say in Prefacing My Remarks on That Is
to Say That Number One, it Was Only in 1972 That the National
Environment Policy Act Was Passed. And the Environmental Movement Was
Nothing at That Time. And It\'s Grown by Leaps and Bounds Ever since.
And Really, Bob Bennett, Whom I Consider One of My Dearest Friends ‑‑
Bob Bennett Came to See Me When I Was in the Hospital And Spent Time
with Me. You Don\'t Ever Forget Things like That. He\'s a Dear Friend
but We Have Serious Differences over the Use Of Western Lands. He Comes
from a State That\'s Loaded with BLM Lands, for Example. I Come from a
State That Has Quite a Bit of Forest Lands. But When it Comes to How
We\'re Going to Manage Those Lands, What The Legislative Role in That
Is, I Feel That the Legislative Role Ought to Be a Fairly Dramatic One.
I Don\'t Know of Any Other Way to Handle That Except to Say That When We
Pass the So‑called Flpma and Everybody Watching this Show this Morning
Is Going to Know What Flpma Is So I\'m Not Going to Go Through All of
That but When We Passed That Bill in 1976, I Had Been in the Senate a
Year and a Half and Quite Frankly I Was a Real ‑‑ I Hardly Knew What BLM
Was. I Can Tell You That Was a Dramatic Bill Designed to Govern the Use
of BLM Lands in this Country. And it Was Calculated to Do Two Things.
Number One to Give the Public Some Input. I Mean, after All, I Know this
Doesn\'t Go down Well with the Westerners but Actually the Land Belongs
to All the People of The United States. And Flpma Was Calculated to Say
We\'re Going to Use These Lands In Accordance with What We\'re Setting
out Here and Most of That Was Environmental. And it Has Been the Rules
and Regulations That Have Been Passed By the Executive Branch since Then
as I Say Again, with the Environment Uppermost in Everybody\'s Mind That
Has Generated the Most Heat and Controversy over the Legislative Role.
As I Say, Everybody in the Legislative Body ‑‑ Bob Will Tell You He\'s
Concerned about the Future Use of Those Lands. He\'s Concerned about the
Environment and the Preservation of Those Lands. We Probably Have
Differences about How Far You Should Go in Doing That. But as I Say, I
Think the Legislature Has a Broad Role in it but Then We Sort of Defer
to the Executive Branch When You Start Implementing the ‑‑ They Draft
the Rules and Regulations.

Shea: I\'m Going to Go to Senator Bennett. I Want to ‑‑ One Quick
Question to You Senator Bumpers. What Is Your Most Fond Memory of Those
24 Years That You\'ve Served in the Senate?

Bumpers: I Hate to Say this on a BLM Show but Saving the Manassis
Battlefield Because It\'s the Only Time in the 24 Years I\'ve Been in
the Senate Where the Senators Sat down at 9:00 at Night and Sat There
and You Could Have Heard a Pin Drop for Three Hours until Midnight and I
Didn\'t Think When I Started That Debate to Save the Battlefield I Had a
Prayer. But Because People Didn\'t Have a ‑‑ as I Say, They Didn\'t Have
a Dog in the Fight, They Didn\'t Have Money in a Campaign, They Could Do
Whatever They Wanted. They Listened and at Midnight I Won the Victory.
We Call it the Third Battle Manassis.

Shea: Having Just Take Be Our Boys out There, I Want to Thank You. It Is
a Tremendous Place.

Bumpers: That\'s Very Important to Every American.

Shea: Senator Bennett, in Your Service to Date and in Your Knowledge
from Watching Your Father, What Would You Say the Role Of the Senate and
the Congress Is in Natural Resource Management?

Bennett: I Will Not Disagree with Dale and Much of What He Said. I Think
the Passage of Nepa and Flpma Was a Wise Thing to Do and I Agree with
Him That it Was Aimed at Opening the Process Up. The Conviction That My
Constituents Have, However, Is That in Opening the Process up to Other
Voices Outside the State of Utah, Unfortunately the Executive Branch Has
Succeeded in Shutting down the Opportunity for People in the State of
Utah to Speak. And Yes, the Lands Do Belong to Everybody in the United
States But That Doesn\'t Mean the People Who Live on Them Make Their
Livings from Them, and in Many Ways, Provide Stewardship for Them, Have
to Be Frozen out and Ignored on the Basis of Somebody Who Sits to Use a
Phrase That One of the Leaders of the Environmental Group Has Used, Sits
in a Carport in Phoenix and Pontificates about What Should Be Done in a
Place Where He\'s Never Been with Lands He\'s Never Seen and Dealing
with People Whose Lives Are Being Seriously Affected. So the Tension Has
Come in My View, Not Necessarily Because the Congress and the Executive
Branch Have Moved in the Environmental Direction. The Tension Has Come
Because There\'s a Perception, Some Cases, I Think Reality, Other Cases
May Be Perception but There Is a Perception That in an Effort to
Preserve the Environment in Lands, in My State, the People of My State
Are Being Kept out of The Debate. Their Contribution to the Pristine
Nature of the Lands in Their Past Stewardship Is Being Ignored. And They
Find That Very Offensive and That\'s What Gives Rise to Much of the Heat
of the Debate.

Shea: Let Me Ask You the Same Question I Asked Senator Bumpers. In Your
Tenure to Date in the Senate ‑‑

Bennett: Much Shorter than His.

Shea: Recognizing You\'ll Continue on Undoubtedly, What Would You Say
Your Fondest Memory to Date Is?

Bennett: Well, Dale Might Be Surprised to Learn That Legislatively, the
Experience That Gave Me the Most Temporary Exhilaration Was When I
Joined with Him and We Passed the Concession Bill in the Senate 90‑9.

Bumpers: Bless You, Robert.

Bennett: I Realized after the Fact That I Was Much Too Young And Green a
Senator to Realize How Many Toes I Was Stepping on When I Helped
Mobilize the Republicans on the Committee. Dale Easily Got a Majority of
the Democrats to Vote for That Bill. I Got a Majority of the Republicans
to Vote for That Bill. And Then it Went on to the Floor and the Leader,
Senator Dole, Joined with Us and We Got 90 Votes. Frankly, for a
Freshman Senator in His First Term in a Minority Party, That Was Kind of
a Real Rush. Now That I\'m in the Majority, I Have to Work a Lot Harder.
I\'m Sure There Are Other Memories That Will Come but You Ask That
Question of Dale and That Was the First Experience That Came to My Mind.

Bumpers: Pat, Let Me Interrupt. If it Hadn\'t Been for Bob Bennett ‑‑ I
Worked 18 Years on Trying To Change the Parks Concessions Bill and Not
until Bob Bennett Came to the Senate, Did I Have a Ghost of a Chance of
Succeeding. And the Scenario He Described to You Where We Got a 90‑8
Vote on The Senate Floor, Never Went Through the House but Right Now, I
Don\'t Want to Preempt Anything but Bob Bennett and Craig Thomas And I
Have Been Negotiating for What, Three Months, Bob?

Bennett: at Least.

Bumpers: We Have Agreed on Something That I Think Is Really ‑‑ I May Put
That When I Leave the Senate, That May Be the High Watermark.

Shea: I Do Think That\'s Consistent with What We\'re Trying to Achieve
with this Program and That Is to Talk about Some of Those Discussions
That Go on and How There\'s Never a Single Day When Something Happens in
Congress. It\'s More of an Evolutionary Process. And Speaking of
Evolution, I Wanted to Ask John Leshy Who Has Served Twice in the
Solicitors Office, First in the Carter Administration and Now in
Secretary Babbitt\'s Solicitor, Also Has Worked on the Hill. Where Would
You Say, John, the Biggest Challenges Are from the Executive Branch
Perspective of Dealing with Congress on Natural Resource Questions?

Leshy: It\'s Gotten a Lot More Complicated. I Think Natural Resource
Management, Generally. We Used to Have a Lot of Open Space and Places
for All Kinds of Different Uses to Take Place. Now We Find out They All
Tend to Conflict with Each Other. Even Something as Simple as Recreation
Where it Used to Be We\'ll Set Aside These Lands for Recreation Now We
Find Recreational Uses Conflicting. The Snowmobilers Don\'t like the
Hunters and Vice Versa. Life Is a Lot More Complicated. You Lay on to
That the Role of Science and What Science Is Now Telling Us That\'s
Different from What it Used to Be. We Used to Put out Fires. Now We Find
out That\'s Not Such a Good Thing. We Have to Be Concerned about
Endangered Species Habitat and That Sort of Thing. It Is Just ‑‑ Then
You Multiply the Influences and the Constituencies and the Interest
Groups and Open it up to Public Participation as Certainly Has Been Done
in a Dramatic Way in The Last 25 Years and it Makes the Role of the
Executive Branch And the Natural Resource Manager Just Lots More
Complicated and More Difficult and More Complex. Grappling with These
Issues and Trying to Get Change in a System That Changes Pretty Slowly.
Deliberately So.

Shea: in the Preprogram, We Interviewed Each of You and One Of the
Comments You Made in That Interview Which I Thought Was Really Astute
Was That There Are a Number of Different Centers Of Power. Certainly on
the Budget Side We Have Our Own Budget Process Within the Department
Then O&b Then We Go Through the Congress. Congress Has the Authorization
Committees, the Appropriations Committees and Now the Budget Committee.
And I Have to Say That Your Observation about How Many Different Centers
of Power There Are Is Something That Really Struck Home For Me.

Leshy: I Think Frankly We Could Debate this a Long Time but I Think
That\'s Consistent with the Way the Founding Father Set the Government
Up. They Very Much Stressed Concentrations of Power and Sought to Create
a System Where Lots of Different Institutions Had Some Power. We\'ve
Opened up Public Land Management to the Court System for Example in a
Way in the Last 30 Years That Didn\'t Exist Before. Now the Judiciary
Has a Role to Play. You\'ve Got Different Senators on the Hill,
Different in the Executive Branch. We Can\'t Do Things at Interior
Without Consulting with the Forest Service or Noa in the Chamber of
Commerce. It Makes Change Difficult, Cumbersome, Slow but it Also Is a
Strength of the System in a Way Because We\'ve Had the Most Stable
Government in the World for the Last 200 Years. I Think That\'s a Large
Part of the Reason.

Shea: in Thinking about this Program, Cynthia, I Was Very Interested in
Getting Somebody like Me That Was on the Line So To Speak with an Agency
in Trying to Manage It. Given of the Rest of Us, Your Experience as the
Director of MMS, Where Would You Think Some of the Opportunities Are in
Terms of That Interaction Between Congress and the Executive Branch in
Natural Resources?

Quarterman: I Agree with John That the Challenges Are Truly Great but I
Think the Opportunities Are Even Greater Today. Just in the Five Years
That I\'ve Been with MMS, I Have Seen a Real Change in the Way People
Think about Government. I Think a Few Years Ago There Was a Lot of
Concern by People About Government Employees and That Has, I Think, Gone
Away to a Large Degree. The Changes Within Government Caused by the
Administration ‑‑ Vice President Gore\'s Reinvention Efforts Have
Changed the Way The Employees Within the Interior Think about Themselves
and the Jobs That They Do. They Think That It\'s Important to Serve the
Customer and the Customer Is the Public. And They Concentrate a Lot of
Effort on Doing That. Technology Has Taken Us Miles and Years Away from
Where We Were A Few Years Ago So That Even Though We\'ve Downsized Our
Forces, We\'ve Really Concentrated Our Energies and the Opportunities
Are Outstanding. We\'ve Been Working Towards Consensus and We Continue
to Do That And I Think the Opportunities with the Senate and with the
House, the Biggest Ones Are Are for Us in the Future to Work Closer
Together. I Think in the Past, We Have All Done Our Respective
Businesses And Not Taken the Time to Sit Together and Think about How We
Should Resolve These Resource Management Issues. During the \'70s and
\'80s, Much of the Foundation for Management Of Lands Was Put into Place
and Now Is the Time for Us to Implement it Within the Executive Branch
to Smooth out the Problems and to Go Back to the Senators and
Congressmen and Start Talking about Ok, Now That We\'ve Had These Laws
in Place, How Can We Smooth the Rough Edges. And Work Together on That
Rather than Being Confrontational About It.

Shea: I Do Think as We Were Talking this Morning, When You And John and
I Were Having Breakfast, That the Use of Technology ‑‑ I Mean Everybody
That I\'ve Talked to in BLM and the People I\'ve Met at MMS or Office of
Surface Mining Are Feeling an Enormous Pressure That They\'re Doing Much
More with Far less in Terms of Dollars. Part of That Has Been Able to Be
Accomplished in My Judgment Because We Can Use Technology. This Kind of
Broadcast Is One Example, the Use of E‑mail and the Internet Is Another.
But I Think We\'re Still Going Through the Transition Stage and I Think
You with MMS Have Really Moved Us in the Direction We Need To Be Doing.

Quarterman: When I Walk Through the Halls and Visit My Field Offices
Today, Each of Our Inspectors in the Field Can Get Information on Every
Company That\'s Available to Them. The Auditors Are Looking at Appeals
Decisions Passed over Time Where They Would Have Had to Go Back in
Archives. Everything Is Right at Their Fingertips. That Is an Amazing
Change That Allows People to Be More Productive I Think.

Shea: I Do Want to Talk about Royalty but Before We Do That, Oregon Sent
Us a Question I Want to Pose to Senator Bumpers and Senator Bennett
about Exactly What Cynthia and John Were Talking About and That Is the
Legislative Framework Was Really Established in the \'70s. You Were
Talking about Flpma but Nepa Is Certainly Part of That. There Are a
Whole Series of Legislative Acts. We\'re Trying to Come up with
Regulations. As We Go Through Those Regulations, What Role Do You
Envision Congress Playing? Are They Ones Who Will Sit off to the Side
until They\'re Completed or Should There Be a Constant Interaction Going
on as The Regulations Are Being Formulated?

Bumpers: it Would Be Better to Have Interaction While the Regulations
Are Being Drafted. That Prevents a Lot of Fires Having to Be Put out
Later On. I Don\'t Know ‑‑ for Example Right Now, What Happens
Oftentimes In the Senate and House ‑‑ Let\'s Take an Example, Flpma\...
The Real Crux of Flpma Was to Say That We Will Manage These Lands and
the Secretary Has the Responsibility of Making Sure There\'s No Undue ‑‑
and this Is the Language of Section 3908. He\'s Charged with the
Responsibility of Saying We\'ll Manage These Lands and We Will Not Allow
Them to Suffer Any Undue or Unnecessary Degradation. That\'s a High
Responsibility to Put on the Executive Branch. We in Congress Did That.
That\'s What the Law Says. So When the Secretary Starts Drafting Laws
Saying Here\'s the Way We\'re Going to Manage this Land, He\'ll Save
Himself a Lot of Grief If He\'ll Talk to the Chairmen, Ranking Members
of the Committees Involved in These Issues and Saying Here Is the Thrust
of What We Want to Do. And If We Sign off on That, He Can Be, You Know,
Fairly Well‑assured These Regulations Will Be Ok. Now, If He Doesn\'t Do
That, If He Goes Ahead and Drafts the Resolution, Hands Them to Congress
and Says Here They Are, Here Is a 90‑day Comment Period. If You Want to
Comment, Send Us a Letter, He\'s Going to Create ‑‑ He, at That Point,
It\'s Going to Be Difficult to Get this Done Because First Thing\'s
Going to Happen. Somebody Will Offer an Amendment on the Committee or on
the Floor to Say the Issuance or the Implementation of These Rules Will
Be Stopped until ‑‑ and They\'ll Set Some Date until We Have A Hearing
until We Do All of These Kinds of Things. This Is Really Almost like
Being a Member of the State Department. It Is a Matter of Diplomacy.

Shea: or There Will Be Report Language.

Bumpers: Exactly. Report Language Is Easy.

Shea: Senator Bennett, What Do You Think the Role Ought to Be Or the
Relationship Should Be?

Bennett: Well, I Agree with Dale. As His Description Is Exactly Right of
the Kinds of Problems That We Get into. The Other Thing That Comes to My
Mind Is I Contemplate this Is Of Course What Happens When the
Constituents Come Back to My Office or to Any Other Senator\'s Office
and You Find the Legislation Is Written like this. The Regulations Are
Written like this and Then the Enforcement Goes Just Right off the
Chart. You Get People out There in the Field Who Take it upon Themselves
to Say Well, this Is the Way I Think this Regulation Should Be Enforced
and I Have No Check Whatsoever on Me and You Get Some Really Wild Kinds
of Stories Then They Come Back to the Congress. They Come Back to My
Office. And Say Senator, Fix It. Well, the Only Way I Can Fix it Is to
Get Mad on the Senate Floor or Make a Phone Call or Send a Letter. And
Start Meddling in Really What Should Not Be a Legislative Activity. But
Because Part of Our Job Has Evolved into Being Some Sort of Ombudsman,
When Our Constituents Feel Wronged and in Many Cases They\'ve Been Ledge
Mately Wronged, You Get the Cycle Back. If We Can Get the Executive
Branch to Understand That They Need Some Kind of Ombudsman Device of
Their Own So That There Is a Safety Valve That it Doesn\'t Always Come
to Congress, They Won\'t Be in Quite as Much Hot Water with Congress as
They Always Seem To Be over Some of These Specifics.

Bumpers: to Give a Graphic Description of What I\'m Talking About and a
Lot of BLM Employees Ought to Pay Attention to this. This Was a
Secretarial Discretion. Bruce Babbitt Had Started Last Year to Implement
You in Rules Governing Mining. Under That Section I Mentioned on Flpma,
So‑called 3908. Harry Reed, Senator from Nevada Comes in Because Nevada
Is the Biggest Mining State in the Country and Offers a Resolution ‑‑ An
Amendment on the Interior Appropriations Bill Saying Bruce Babbitt
Cannot Do Anything Further until All 12 Western Governors Give Him
Permission To.

Shea: I\'m Very Familiar with this.

Bumpers: of Course You Are. That\'s the Effect of Saying this Is the End
of Any New Rules to Regulation Governing Mining. I Went Ballistic.
That\'s the Sort of Thing That Drives Me Nuts. I Came to the Floor of
the Senate. After Getting Most Democrats Committed to it and I Had
Gotten a Lot of Republican Votes, Too, I Said to Say That the Secretary
Ought to Consult with These Governors Is Fine but to Say That If One of
the 12 Governors Doesn\'t like this Can Veto It, Effectively Scraps All
of That Part of Nepa ‑‑ I Mean of Flpma. So That\'s the Kind of Thing
You\'re Asking Me about.

Shea: That\'s a Great Example. I Got Caught in the Middle of it as We
Call ‑‑ I Called Every Governor, Talked with Them. But You Didn\'t Get
the Governor. You Got the Staff Person. And Then You Never Were Sure If
the Staff Person Had Passed it On to the Governor and Then When at a
Certain Point, People Got Upset Because We Hadn\'t \"Consulted.\" So
There Was No Active Definition of It.

Bumpers: We Worked That out. Harry Reed and I Sat down. I Said Harry, I
Think I\'ve Got the Votes to Keep this from Happening. We Said the
Secretary Will Consult with All of Those Governors And Ask for Their
Input and Opinion and They\'re Entitled to That. No One Governor out of
12 Ought to Be Able to Veto.

Leshy: That\'s a Good Example for a Number of Reasons. A Lot of People
Think the Executive Branch Is Sitting There Loving to Write These Rules
and Make All of These Decisions. But, You Know, the Rule Making Process
Is Actually an Essential Part of the Governing Process to Give Industry
the Regulated Industry, Some Predictability and Certainty and Stability
in This Stuff. We Have a Legal Obligation as Senator Bumpers Points out
to Prevent Unnecessary or Undue Degradation from Hard Rock Mining. We
Could Implement That by Licensing All of the BLM Managers to Make Their
Own Decisions about What Unnecessary or Degradation Is. You Would Have a
Lot of Arbitrary Decision Making. The Industry Wouldn\'t Know What to
Do. The Industry Welcomes the Idea of Rules That Fill in the Details And
Tell Them What They Can and Can\'t Do. Obviously Those Are Controversial
When We Come Back to the Specifics of What They Can and Can\'t Do. As a
Result of the Reed Amendment, I Think We\'re Going Through The Most Open
Process. We\'re Posting Every Roughdraft of the Rule We Have on Our
Internet. So Everybody Has Access to Each Stage of Our Decision Making
Process. I Hope We Can Finish It.

Shea: Senator Bennett, Let Me Ask You a Question There Because You\'ve
Had Experience in the Executive Branch in the Nixon Administration and
Now as a Senator. What Do You Suggest on the Regulation Side That the
Role of Staff Be? Because I Think That\'s One of the Confusions That
Happens Oftentimes for BLM Employees Is That They Believe That the
Proper Consultation Has Been Made but They\'ve in Fact Only Talked to
One Staff Person Rather than Perhaps Two or Three.

Bennett: it Has Been My Experience That Very Often Staffers Are More
Ideological than Their Bosses. Staffers Are More Rigid than Their
Bosses, More Protective of What They Consider to Be Their Boss\'s
Position than Their Boss Would Be. I Go Back to the Concession Bill,
Just Before We Had That Meeting in the Energy Committee, Where the Bill
Was Put Together And Passed, Senator Bumpers Staff Had Told My Staff
Absolutely Not on One Particular Issue. I Can\'t Remember What it Was
Now. That Shows How Burning and Important it Was. So I Said to Dale as
We Were Getting Ready, I\'m Going to Have to Offer an Amendment to this
Bill Myself. Here Is a Situation That I Can\'t Live with in the Way the
Bill Is and I\'m Going to off They Are Amendment. And Dale Said Explain
it to Me and I Did and He Said That\'s Perfectly Reasonable, Bob, Let\'s
Put it in the Bill. I Think It\'s Important That You Keep the Principals
Involved to The Time They Can Allow So the Staffers Really Do Know What
the Principals Are of Aer Here. I Don\'t Think Dale\'s Staffer Was Doing
Anything Improper. He Was Protecting Dale\'s Position as He Understood
it and Had Never Had the Opportunity to Discuss this to the Degree That
I Think it Should Have Been Discussed. Staff Is Essential. We Can\'t
Write Our Own Legislation and We Can\'t Get Involved in The Monitoring
of the Regulations. But the Senator Should Not Leave Everything to Their
Staff Because When They Do, They End up Shortchanging the Process.

Quarterman: Pat, this Is an Example of One of Those Opportunities I Was
Talking about Where Congress and the Executive Branch Should Work Much
Closer Together. I Think the Example That Senator Bumpers Brought
Forward about Writers of Appropriation Bill Is Very Important. We Just
Had a Very Similar Situation Happen with a Piece of Rule Making That We
Were Going to Go Forward with. And Had Done a Great Deal of Consultation
Not Only with Our Constituents but Also with the Congress and at the
Last Minute, A Rider Was Put on Appropriation to Stop It. Senator
Bumpers, Thank You for Sponsoring That Legislation to Appeal the Rider.
Even with the Best of Effort Going Forward, Trying to Do the Right
Thing, Consulting Everyone, Sometimes Things Don\'t Happen As We Would
like and I Think a Lot of That Could Be Resolved If We Had Had a
Conversation Before the Rider Went Forward.

Shea: I Think That\'s a Great Example, Too. Because for People Who Are
Not Familiar with the Rules of the Senate, as I Recall, That Rider Was
Put on a Flood Appropriations Bill Even Though it Related to Oil
Activity Offshore. And I Think Most People Think That There Has to Be a
Certain Germaneness but That\'s Not the Case. The Beauty, If You Will
and Sometimes the Disadvantage of the Senate Is the Senator Can Offer it
at Any Time.

Bumpers: We Routinely Ignore the Rules of the Senate. \[ Laughter \]

Shea: I Also Think in the Interviews Done Before This, Senator Bumpers
Made the Point That When the Congress Works the Best Is When There\'s
the Least Focus on Money. That Is There Aren\'t Vested Interests Outside
Congress That Have Some Interest in the Legislation and They Really Are
Able to Come up with Some Pretty Ingenious Solutions. We Recently ‑‑ You
Know, with this Royalty and Kind Question, I Think They Saw the Reverse
of That. And That Is Where There Are Vested Interests Who Have Made Some
Significant Contributions, That Does Make a Big Difference in The
Outcome.

Bennett: Let Me Step in Here for Just a Minute Because I Read That in
Dale\'s Transcript. We Can\'t Have this All Sweetness and Light. We Have
to Disagree about Something.

Bumpers: Let\'s Go at It, Bob.

Bennett: I Think It\'s less a Matter of When There\'s Money Involved ‑‑
Money in Terms of Campaign Contributions and Special Interest Working,
than an Issue That Can Be Easily Demagogued. I Made the Point in My
Interview with You That We Can Have Issues That Are Involving a
Tremendous Number of Special Interests but the Issues Are Sufficiently
Complex That They Can\'t Be Reduced to a Quick Slogan and Therefore,
They Can\'t Be Easily Demagogued and That Is the Time When You Get Good
Legislation Usually as Opposed to Something That Regardless of How Much
Money Is There, Can Be Turned into a Bumper Sticker or A Ten‑second
Sound Byte and the Temptation to Summarize it as a Slogan Instead of
Deal with it as a Problem Is Irresistible Regardless of Which Party
You\'re In.

Bumpers: the Only Thing I Would Say Is That Bob and I Have a Profound
Difference. There Are Two Kinds of Money Interests. One Is, for Example,
Mining. The Mining Companies Have a Big Stake in the Rules and
Regulations on Mining. And They Have a Big Stake in Defeating My Efforts
to Change the Way We Handle Mining in this Country. That\'s One Kind of
Economic Interest and Incidentally When Bob Bennett Comes to the Floor
and Takes Issue with Me as He Does Every Year on Mining, He\'s Also
Defending the People That He Says Work in the Mines. Those Jobs Are
Important to Him Just Are Jobs in Arkansas and Any Area Are Important to
Me. When You Take a State like Utah or Nevada, Where So Much of the Land
Is Federal and a Lot of Jobs Do Depend on the Viability of The Industry,
the Mining Industry, Mining of the Lands, I Can Understand That
Perfectly. That\'s One Kind of Economic Interest. The Other Is Campaign
Contributions. And of Course, There, as I Say, Bob and I Have a Strong
Difference. I Have Favored Public Financing of Campaigns since I\'ve
Been on The Senate. I Know Senator Bennett Is Very Strongly in Favor
Essentially of The Present System. And as I Say, We Just Have a
Fundamental Difference on That but To Say That Campaign Contributions
Play No Role or That the Very Legitimate Interest He Takes in the Jobs,
Mining or Forest or Management or Anything Else in His State, Has on
Employment, He Would Be a Lousy Senator If He Didn\'t Take the Position
That He\'s Going to Save as Many Jobs as He Can as Long as It\'s
Commensurate with Not Raping the Land and the Forest.

Shea: Cynthia, Any Perspective from Your Most Recent Experience?

Quarterman: Well, in Addition to the Rider We Were Talking About in the
Appropriations Bill, the Royalty Legislation That\'s Before Both the
House and the Senate of Congress Is One Where I Think Money
Unfortunately Played a Large Role in Terms of Bringing Forward a Bill
That Most People Wouldn\'t Understand Why We Were Doing It. It Is a Case
Where We\'ve Tried to Take Royalty in Kind Within The Government and
Have Found That We Lost Money, the One Time We Did. We\'re Trying it
Again. Smoothing out the Rough Edges. In the Interim, Congress Has Come
in and Suggested That We Take All of Our Oil and Gas in Kind. From a
Common Sense Business Perspective, Would You Ever Think Of Doing Such a
Thing When You Lost Money in the past? I Think Not. I\'m Concerned That
Sometimes the Constituents Who Have Moneys Available to Them Can Force
Issues to Go Forward That the American People Don\'t Want to See Happen.

Shea: John, You Were Wanting to Make a Comment Earlier.

Leshy: I Wanted to Get Back to Senator Bennett\'s Point about The
Potential for Demagoguing Certain Issues. Unfortunately a Lot of the
Public Lands Issues Lend Themselves To That. We Saw a Recent Example
Where the United States Invented the Concept of National Parks. The
United States Has Taken the Lead for the Last 40 Years in Exporting That
Concept Around the World, Trying to Persuade Other Nations to Do That.
We\'ve Done Through this World Heritage Convention. All of a Sudden,
That Has Now Become the Focal Point of the Management of the Public
Lands. Loss of American Sovereignty Which Is Totally Untrue but We\'ve
Had this Big Public Debate over this Issue. Frankly, I Think Just from a
Demagogic Standpoint, Trying to Take a Very Innocent Program That\'s
Done Wonders Around the World and Been the Shining Example of American
Leadership and Turning it into Something Different. It\'s Been Very
Unfortunate.

Shea: Senator Bennett, I Want to Come to You If I May. In the Interviews
Again, it Was Fascinating to Me and as You Know, Having Represented the
Press for Many Years, I\'ve Had to Take Hard Hits about What They Do and
When They Do it but it Was Fascinating to Me to See Your Perspective of
the Role of the Press and Senator Bumpers\' Sense of the Role of the
Press. I Do Think There Is a Common Thread There and That Is That Ten
Second Sound Byte, Has Become, If You Will, Besides Money, the Mother
Milk of Politics That We\'ve Become So Caught up in the Need to Put
Forth a Message That Sometimes the Deliberative Process Has Been
Compromised by That. But Would You Give Us a Summary of What You Think
the Press Does In the Area of Natural Resource Management?

Bennett: Well, as I Said in the Previous Comment, in a Democracy, All of
the Power Lies with the People. And That Means the Most Important
Political Power When You Have So Many People Is Access to the People.
How Can I, as a Politician, Talk to My Constituents? And I Have Two
Ways. I Can Either Buy an Ad and Talk to Them for 30 Seconds or I Can Go
Through the Press. And If the Press Decides That They Don\'t like What
I\'m Going to Say, They Can Keep Me off the Air. I Say \"They.\" They
Are Always Somebody Who Puts You on the Air but in Terms of Getting the
Widest Possible Audience, There Are Only Certain Channels You Can Go
Through. And If Somebody Who Controls That Channel Says \"A,\" I Don\'t
Want Bennett on the Air Because I Don\'t like His Views and I\'m Not
Going to Let Him Say What I Think He\'ll Say So I\'ll Find Some Reason
to Keep Him off or \"B,\" Yeah, I\'ll Put Him on the Air but I\'ll Put
Him on the Air with a Commentator Who Will Attack Him In Every Turn,
Make Him Look Bad, Every Politician Is at the Mercy of the Press Lords,
If You Will. In Order to Get His or Her Message to the Constituency in
Order To Appeal for Support. The Only Way Around That That We Have Is
Advertising. And That\'s One of the Reasons Why I\'m Not in Favor of
Mccain Feingold and the Other Things That Come along That Would Limit My
Ability to Buy an Ad and Use My First Amendment Rights to Say What it Is
I Want to Say Because That Makes Me All the More Dependent upon the
Press Channels and it Gives Them That Much More Power in Controlling My
Access to Get to My Voters.

Shea: Senator Bumpers?

Bumpers: Well, Pat, First of All, My Bill ‑‑ I Have a Bill in The Senate
and Have Had since Early Last Year on Public Financing. And Most of the
Developed Nations of the World Do a Combination Of the Two but a Lot of
Them Rely Heavily on Public Financing. My Thought Is Number One, We
Would Not Spend 30% to 40% of Our Time Raising Money If We Had Public
Financing. Number Two, You Wouldn\'t Have the Press and I Agree with Bob
to Some Extent on this. You Wouldn\'t Have the Press Every Time You Cast
a Vote Going to Look at Your Contribution List to See Who Benefitted
from Your Vote That Gave You Money Last Time. That\'s One of the Things
the Press Loves Because it Sells Newspapers. And You Could Eliminate
That. And Thirdly, You Would Not Take Away the Thing That Bob Is
Concerned about. You Would Not Take Away His Right to Buy Television
Time. He Would Still Get Television Time. He Could Still Spend His Money
However He Wanted to but it Would Be Based on Money from ‑‑ it Would Be
Based on Money That Would Come from the Public Coffers. People Would
Contribute Through the Tax Code. I Don\'t Want to Turn this Forum Here
into an Issue on Campaign Finance. All I\'m Saying Is Anybody Who Thinks
That We Vote up There Without Paying Any Attention to Who\'s Giving the
Money in Our Campaigns Is Naive. And I\'m Not Saying it Will Always Be a
Perfect ‑‑ it Will Never Be a Perfect System Even Public Financing but
You Can Take Away The Argument of the Press That the Reason He\'s Voting
this Way Is Because of Some Obscure Arcane Reason. If Had You Public
Financing and Incidentally Public Financing Has Worked Beautifully in
the Presidential Race So When People Sit Around Saying I Don\'t Want My
Taxes Going for Campaigns, If You Look at the Way It\'s Worked in the
Presidential Race, it Has Worked Extremely Well. But I Don\'t Think
You\'ll Ever Get Rid of the Problem until We Do This.

Shea: I\'m Sure One Question Most of the BLM People Are Having Watching
this Is Any Advice Any of the Panel Would Have as to How They as Public
Servants Should Deal with the Press. There\'s Never an Occasion That
Doesn\'t Arise Where Some BLM Employee Is Confronted with a Press Person
and I Think the Common and Very Understandable Fear Is That If I Talk to
the Press, They\'re Going to Convey a Story That\'s Not What I Said. And
So the Tendency Is to Not Say Anything and Then One of the Advocacy
Groups Steps in and Creates a Perspective That Is Beneficial to Their
Point of View but Has Nothing to Do in Many Instances with Good Public
Policy. Any Advice to the BLM Employees on That?

Bumpers: I Feel like I\'m Dominating Too Much of this Conversation. I
Personally Think They Do Very Well. When I See a Forest Service or BLM
Spokesman Quoted in the Paper, it Is Almost Always Very Thoughtful and
Compromising. Saying We\'re Doing the Best I Can. These People Have the
Responsibility of Using ‑‑ God Just Gave Us One Planet. He Just Gave Us
One Environment. We Don\'t Get Seconds on It. We Either Save it or We
Destroy It. And These People Are Charged with the Responsibility That We
Have Given Them for Saving It. And What They\'re Saying Is this Doesn\'t
Go down Well with You. It Doesn\'t Go down Well with You and I Recognize
That but Our Responsibility Is to Save the Land, to Use Is it but Make
Sure We Don\'t Degrade it Unnecessarily and We Don\'t Destroy it Because
Our Children Have Rights, Too. I Think, as I Say, I Couldn\'t Have ‑‑ I
Don\'t Have Criticism With the Way Most People Handle Themselves. Think
the Quotes I See Are Pretty Good.

Shea: Senator Bennett, Any Thoughts?

Bennett: Well, the Advice I Try to Follow in My Own Relationships with
the Press, Be as Honest and Straightforward As You Possibly Can, Even If
You Think You\'re Going to Be Embarrassed. I\'ve Discovered Somewhat to
My Surprise That Looking at a Reporter and Saying I Don\'t Have the
Slightest Idea What You\'re Talking about Improves Your Press
Relationships Rather than Trying to Pretend That You Know Something.
You\'re Always Embarrassed. Gee, You\'re a Senator, You\'re Supposed to
Know Everything. And I Tried That a Little at the Beginning of My
Campaign and I Got More Embarrassed and So I Quickly Have Said and Have
Always Said to My Employees, Tell Them the Truth. And the Other Thing
That I Was Told a Long Time Ago by an Old Friend I Try to Live By, Maybe
You Can\'t Do this If You\'re a Federal Employee, Never Go off the
Record. Always Say Everything on the Record and You Find That Produces a
Tremendous Restraining Force on You in What You Really Are Going To Say.

Shea: Let Me, If I May, Raise a Different Topic and Then Direct it to
John. I Think One of the Frustrations That People in the BLM Feel Is
Most of the People There Are Not Lawyers. And They Feel Oftentimes That
They\'re Moving down a Track, Getting a Problem Solved, Getting the
Local People or the State People or Sometimes Federal Advocacy Groups
Satisfied Then When It Goes in for Solicitors Review, it Gets Changed.
Sometimes I Understand It. Sometimes I Don\'t. How Would You Describe
for BLM People Their Relationship to the Solicitors Office since it with
All the Legislation and All the Regulations We\'re Doing Oftentimes Can
Be a Very Complex Question.

Leshy: We\'re Here to Help. And the Basic Rule, I Think Is Consult Early
and Often. So That You Don\'t Sort of Put an Entire Package Together and
Then Come to Us and Say Now, Is this Legal? We Want to Be Involved in
the Front End of These Efforts to Make Sure That, You Know, Life Is More
Complicated than it Used to Be As I Said. There Are More Legal Hoops to
Jump Through in Terms of Doing Regulations for Example. And Our Lawyers
Have to Be Involved and Want to Be Involved All The Way along. Not at
the End Because That\'s When it Just Gets Frustrating for All. Our Job
Is to Keep the Department and the BLM and its Programs Out of Court or
at Least Avoid Disabling Court Orders and Injunctions and That Sort of
Thing and Make Sure We\'re Following The Law. It Really Is the Function
of Our Office to Help and the More ‑‑ The Sooner We\'re Consulted and
the More Often, the Better.

Shea: One of the Things You\'ve Done in Your Stewardship of The
Solicitor\'s Office Is Create the Dispute Resolution as a Great Emphasis
and I Think That Can Serve Oftentimes in That Early Consultive Process,
Identifying Where There Are Issues That Are Capable of Mediation or Even
Arbitration to Avoid the Litigation Costs That Go On.

Leshy: We Want to Be a Part of the Movement Going Throughout Society Now
Because Everybody Recognizes Litigation Is Expensive And Often
Frustrating for All Involved. Think the Success the Department Has Had
of a Lot of These Collaborative Approaches to These Difficult Natural
Resource Problems Demonstrate the Value of Sitting down with the
Stakeholders and Trying to Achieve Solutions Everybody Can Walk Away
from Feeling They Got Something and Not Rushing off to Court.

Bumpers: Pat, One Point Bob Will Be Interested In, in the Escalante
Staircase, There\'s an Agreement Bob and I Haven\'t Had A Chance to Read
it Between the Interior and the Executive Branch and the Governor of
Utah. I Hadn\'t Looked at it but I Think It\'s Going to Work out Just
Fine. Now, There Is a Case Where I\'ve Seen You Make Speeches about the
Trust Lands and That 1.7 Million Acre Monument That the President Set up
and Which Was Just an Anathema to You but Here Is Something That Looks
like it Will Turn out Ok Because Reasonable People Began to Work
Something out. I\'m Not Committing on this Program to Being for it
Because I Haven\'t Looked at It.

Bennett: We\'re Depending on Your Vote, Dale. \[ Laughter \]

Bumpers: Doesn\'t it Deal with One of the Things That Was Controversial
to You?

Bennett: Absolutely. It Is One of the Demonstrations of Good Faith I
Very Much Welcome on the Part of the Administration. Because That\'s One
of the Promises the President Made When He Created That Monument. The
Thing That Affected Us All about the Monument Was Not Necessarily its
Creation but the Fact That None of the Rest of Us Was Consulted and We
Never Had an Opportunity for Input. As Leon Panetta Call Said When He
Called Me to Tell Me about It, He Said Now We\'ve Got Three Years in
Which to Pick up the Pieces. I Don\'t Think That\'s a Good Way to Do
Business but It\'s Done. And Now this Is One of the Pieces That We Have
Picked up and I Think Quite Successfully and I\'m Hoping That it Will
Work Itself Out Properly.

Bumpers: You Know, Pat, it Is an Interesting Anything. Bob Bennett,
We\'re Very Good Friends. I Say We Have Some Political Differences but I
Have Spent My Entire 24 Years in the Congress Trying to Get More Lands
in the Federal Ownership in My State. \[ Laughter \]

Shea: I\'m Sure He Would Be Happy to Create ‑‑

Bumpers: We\'re a Small State. We Don\'t Have All That Much. I Think
We\'ve ‑‑ I\'ve Added Between 300,000 and 400,000 ‑‑ Counting the
100,000 of Wilderness Which We Just Set it Aside. I\'ve Gotten 40,000
Bought on Land Exchanges, Another Couple Thousand. I Want to Save it and
I Know That\'s Where it Will Be Saved.

Shea: I Know Senator Church for Whom I Worked Shortly Before He Passed
Away Said to Me His Proudest Accomplishment Was the Wilderness, the
Frank Church Wilderness Area in Idaho. One of Those Things That Always
‑‑

Bumpers: I Want That to Be My Legacy. The Wildlife Refuges, the
Purchases, the Money I Got from the Appropriations Committee. I Want My
Children to Know What I Was Doing up There Trying to Preserve Something
for Them.

Leshy: I\'ve Worked on These Issues for More than a Quarter of A
Century. We\'re Going to Lose a Great Champion in the Senate. Come next
Year in Senator Bumpers.

Bumpers: I Ask for People to Send Money Now That ‑‑

Leshy: He\'s Left a Rich Legacy Not Only in the Parks Created But in
Fiscal Reform That He Stood Four Square For, the Oil and Gas, Old
Lottery System No Longer Exists Because He Protected The Interest of the
Nation\'s Taxpayers in Finally Persuading His Colleagues to Vote to
Reform It. He Has Been a Champion for Mining Law Reform. He\'s Also
Stopped Many Bad Things from Happening in His Time in The Senate. The
Nation Doesn\'t Have Any Idea the Debt it Owes this Man.

Bumpers: John, You Are Very Kind.

Shea: as I Predicted, We\'re about out of Time. I Would like to Begin
with Senator Bumpers and Ask Him for a Few Closing Thoughts about
Natural Resource Management Around What We Might Do with Congress.

Bumpers: Let Me Go Back to Where I Started in the Beginning. Flpma and
its Counterpart, the Forest Lands Management Act, We Did the Same Thing
in the Forest Service We Did for BLM, Flpma And the Forest Management
Act. In Both of Those, the Thing We Did Was Design to Try and Apparently
We Have Not Succeeded Because of What Bob Bennett Has Said and I Know
this Is Probably True and He Feels Very Strongly About it as Do His
Western Compatriots but the Real ‑‑ What Shall I Say ‑‑ Crowning Star in
Those Two Bills Was Inviting Public Participation. That Was Sort of
Strange to Me When I Came to the Senate. I Didn\'t Really Quite Know
What We Were Doing but I Decided How Can You Ever Really Lose by
Inviting the Public to Come in and Comment. There Have Been Times When
That Has Worked Very Badly. There Are Organizations in the Country Who
Have Abuse Their Appellate Rights for Example in Sales of the Forest for
Timber Cutting. About 20% of Those Are Appealed, Contested. That Does
Not Seem to Me ‑‑ 20% of the Challenges to Forest Sales Doesn\'t Seem
Too Much to Me to Have Public Participation. In the Case of Flpma and
That\'s the BLM People Who Are Watching This, I Would Say to All of
Them, Don\'t Be Too Depressed When Some of These Guys Give You a Bad
Time. After All, You Have the Responsibility. They Have a Right to
Participate. That\'s What We Did in Flpma. And So We\'re Trying to Save
this Land and We\'re Depending on You To Implement the Rules and
Regulations That Have Been Enacted to Do That. And as I Say, I Would
like to Compliment Them. I Think They\'re Doing a Pretty Good Job.

Shea: Senator Bennett?

Bennett: Well, I\'m Willing to Join in Complimenting the BLM. I Think
They\'re Doing a Pretty Good Job. The BLM Directors That I\'ve Dealt
with since I\'ve Been a Senator, Have All Been Very Thoughtful,
Exemplary Public Servants. And Many of the BLM Employees That I\'ve
Dealt With, Same Thing Can Be Said. That Having Been Said, I, like Dale,
Economy Back to What I Said In the Beginning, That There Is a Sense and
I Can Document it With Particulars, That People Who Live on the Land,
Who Have Had Stewardship of the Land for as Long as Five Generations,
Are Automatically Branded Polluters and Spoilers by People Who Have
Never Seen the Land. And It\'s Wonderful to Have a Reverence for the
Land When You\'re Many Miles Away from It. Don\'t Assume That Those Who
Live on it Don\'t Have Their Own Reverence for the Land and Their Own
Determination to Save it For Their Grandchildren. And That, to Me, Has
Been the Ultimate Source of the Friction Over this. I\'ve Never Used the
Words \"War on the West\" in Any Attack on Secretary Babbitt Because I
Think That\'s Unfair, it Is a Demagogic Way of Dealing with the Issue
but I Do Think There Is A Misunderstanding of the Motives and Attitudes
of the People Who Do Live in the West and Who Live There and That\'s
What\'s Given Rise to Much of the Controversy over How These Things
Should Be Handled.

Shea: Thank You. John?

Leshy: One of the Things That Makes These Issues So Much Fun To Work on
Is this Sort of Creative Tension That Has Always Existed and Probably
Always Will Between the Local Concerns and Interests That Senator
Bennett Expressed and the National Interests in How the Lands Are
Managed. With the Mobility of the Population and the Rise of Tourism,
the Western Lands Are an Asset of World Class Value. How We Reconcile
Those Is Often Difficult. I Guess I Would Say in Closing That from the
Standpoint of the BLM Employee ‑‑ One of the Things That Burns Me up the
Most About Working in the Government Is to Hear Faceless Bureaucrat. BLM
Employees Are Not Faceless Bureaucrats. By in Large, Many of Them Grew
up in the West. They Know the Lands. They Were Educated in Western
Schools and They Are Doing Their Best, Day by Day in Very Difficult
Circumstances to Try to Manage These Lands and Reconcile These Competing
Interests in The Best Way They Know How and I Think They\'re Doing a
Very Good Job and Don\'t Get Enough Credit for It.

Shea: Cynthia?

Quarterman: I Think These Gentlemen Have Said it Very Well And
Demonstrated What We Started out with Which Is the Opportunities That
Are Available by Working Together Both on a National Level and a Local
Level. The Key Here Is for Us All to Work Together.

Shea: Thank You. As We Come to Our Conclusion, on Behalf of the 9500 BLM
Employees, I Want to Thank Each of Our Panelists for Taking the Time to
Be Here with Us Today. I Think We Have Each Learned Important
Perspectives about How Working for the Federal Government Is a Very
Demanding Job but a Job with Many Rewards. The Legacies We Are Creating
Will Survive, If We Are Successful, For Many, Many Generations to Come.
I Thank Each of You for Your Thoughts. I Remind Our Viewers That Our
next Natural Resource Forum Will Feature Secretary Babbitt as Moderator,
Mike Dombeck as Chief of The Forest Service, Bob Stanton as Director of
the National Park Service, Jamie Clark as Director of the Fish and
Wildlife Service and Myself as the Director of BLM. The Topic Will Be
Natural Resource Management in the 21st Century. I Look Forward to
Seeing You on June 18th for the Third and Final Natural Resource
Broadcast. Thank You and Be Careful.

Announcer: this Broadcast Has Been a Production of the BLM National
Training Center.