Resource Advisory Council Video Conference

**A Telecast Originating**

**from the**

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

**November 20, 2002**

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

It may contain errors and omissions in transcription.

**Announcer:** The Bureau of Land Management's Satellite Network
presents live from the BLM National Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona,
*Partners Across the West*, a satellite teleconference bringing together
members of the Resource Advisory Councils and BLM Director Kathleen
Clarke. Now, the moderator of today\'s program, Tony Garrett.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Good morning. Welcome to our broadcast. We\'re pleased
to have members of many of the Resource Advisory Councils joining us
from BLM offices there in your communities and here in the studio we
have the chairs of all 23 councils, and we\'re especially pleased to
welcome the director of the Bureau of Land Management, Kathleen Clarke.
Good morning, Kathleen.\
\
**Director Clarke:** Good morning, Tony. It\'s good to be with you.\
\
**T. Garrett:** We are going to be coming back to you in a moment to
talk about the purpose of the conference and what we hope to accomplish.
A little bit later we will be inviting comments and questions from
council members here in our viewing audience and in the studio. We\'ll
tell you how to get in touch with us by phone, fax and our push-to-talk
audio system. Right now we want to hear from Interior Secretary Gale
Norton, who has prepared a brief message for the council members.\
\
**Secretary Norton:** Good morning. I\'m Gale Norton, Secretary of the
Department of the Interior. I\'m pleased to welcome you to this national
RAC meeting and video conference. The approach of our department is to
work on behalf of the American people through what I call the four Cs,
Communication, Consultation and Cooperation, all in the service of
Conservation. The four Cs are the basis for a new environmentalism. One
that looks to those closest to the land, rather than Washington D.C. for
answers to public land issues. The Resource Advisory Councils on which
you serve put the four Cs into action. As citizens from diverse
backgrounds you must work cooperatively to improve the health and
productivity of our public lands.

The Bureau of Land Management, which manages more public land, 262
million acres, than any other federal agency must manage these lands for
multiple uses. That includes activities like grazing, mining, outdoor
recreation and energy development. But the BLM\'s role is not to manage
these uses for the people but with the people. Who, after all, are the
owners of the public lands. The RACs facilitate the BLM\'s ability to
carry out management with the people. Your participation on the RACs is
a vital contribution to collaborative citizen-centered stewardship of
the land.

At this meeting I know you will be sharing some of the key
accomplishments of your RACs and I want to commend your successes. I
encourage you to build on those successes by finding common ground to
meet a common objective to preserve the health and productivity of the
land for current and future generations. You know the challenges you
face to achieve that objective.

Our job in Washington is not to tell you how to do your job. It is to
support you in your efforts to build consensus and find customized
solutions for the unique issues facing your state. As General Patton
once said, never tell people how to do things; tell them what to do and
they will surprise you with their ingenuity. You RAC members already
know what to do and the BLM has come to expect and rely on your
ingenuity.

Volunteerism is the highest form of public service. You are all giving
freely of your time and talents to participate on these RACs. As
self-motivated stewards of the public lands, you are contributing to
your country, not for personal glory, but for the greater good. Your
efforts will result in the collective improvement of the public lands.
For that, our department, the BLM and all Americans owe you a debt of
gratitude. Thank you for your dedication and for your outstanding work
on behalf of the nation\'s public lands. I wish you the very best as you
further consultation, cooperation and communication, all in the service
of conservation. Thank you.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Many thanks to Secretary Norton for that message. We\'re
grateful to her for taking time to be a part of this broadcast and now
once again, BLM Director Kathleen Clarke.\
\
**Director Clarke:** Thank you, Tony. It\'s great to be with all of you
today. I want you to know that this has been the first ever meeting of
all of the chairmen of the RACs of the BLM. I believe that some people
may have wondered if we were going to keep the RAC system in place when
the new administration arrived, and I hope that the RAC people who have
been with me during this meeting, and that all of you today, will
certainly get a clear message that we need the RACs and we are genuinely
appreciative of the service that you provide to us. I have been at BLM
now not quite one year, and I\'ve come to realize how much we rely on
our citizen stewards to help us accomplish our mission, and we need your
wisdom and your expertise.

Many of you have unique skills and experience that we rely on. But
others of you come to the table and bring common sense and local
perspective. We desperately need both of those. You know, someone said
once that the thing about common sense is that it isn\'t that common.
Having worked in Washington for nearly a year now, I certainly think we
need a lot of common sense in Washington. And we look to the field and
to our partners and to RAC members to help us have that perspective.

We also have a president who has called a nation to be a nation of
volunteerism and of service. President Bush recently said something I
want to share with you. He said America needs more than taxpayers,
spectators and occasional voters. America needs men and women who
respond to the call of duty, who stand up for the weak, who speak up for
their beliefs and who sacrifice for a greater good. That is what you
folks do. Those are the skills and the beliefs and the benefits that you
offer to BLM, and I want to personally thank you for your commitment to
helping BLM succeed in its very complex and challenging mission.

Mostly today I want to listen to you and learn from all of you, both
here in the audience and those of you who have joined us throughout the
west. But I want to make a few points about BLM\'s challenges as we move
forward. First of all, as you know, probably better than I West Valley
is changing.

The west is changing in every corner. Population growth over the last 25
years is an indicator of that change and what it\'s about. Montana has
grown in the last 25 years by 19% and Wyoming by 24%. On average, most
of the western states have grown by 50 and 60%. My home state of Utah
has grown by 74% and Arizona by more than 100%, and Nevada, by more than
200%. That growth translates into huge challenges for the public lands
managers in the west. Its huge challenges also are presented to our
gateway communities and interface communities.

With 22 million people living within 25 miles of the public lands, the
impacts are broad and incredibly challenging. As all of you know, we had
tremendous catastrophic wildfires this last season. We did also in the
year 2000. We\'re looking at a decade ahead of challenging wildfires.
Wildfires add to air quality and water quality problems, as does the
increased population. We have impacts to plant and wildlife habitat. But
we\'re dealing with more than just population growth here. We\'re
dealing with differences in the way people use the land. And we are
running into conflicts over priorities and values. We find ourselves
engaged in lawsuits on most every front, and more often than we would
like to admit. And the bottom line is we need fewer plaintiffs and we
need more partners. So how do we proceed with these challenges?

I came into this position with the firm belief that the answer to these
challenges is to cultivate citizen-centered stewardship and
community-based conservation. To reach out to the people who live on the
land, to work the land, and to play on the land, who are closest to it,
to help us get it right, to help us make balanced decisions that respect
and consider the interests of all of the players. When we do that, I
think we get better decisions, and we also get more sustainable
decisions.

President Bush has asked natural resource management agencies to base
their policy development on two things: on common sense and common
ground. And the Resource Advisory Councils certainly understand that and
demonstrate that those principles are effective. You have been able to
help us successfully develop standards for rangeland health and
guidelines for grazing. You\'ve worked with us on the fire program and
fuels management program, and on energy development and renewable energy
opportunities.

You\'ve worked with us on the challenges of dealing with the wild horse
and burro program, on developing comprehensive travel programs for
off-road vehicles and bicycling and you continue to help us deal with
recreation challenges and opportunities, including fee demo and the
challenges of the increasingly expanding recreation styles that we see
in our nation these days. We have partners working with weeds, and
there\'s no way to deal with weeds unless you\'re working with partners.

We also have a new series of national monuments we\'re proud of and we
appreciate the assistance of our RACs and our local communities in
helping us make plans so that those monuments are a benefit and a gift
to those communities as well as to the nation.

I also want to tell you that we genuinely appreciate the role of the
RACs in standing by BLM when we have to make tough and controversial
decisions. Recently one of the RACs in Nevada had to make a very tough
decision to \-- whether or not to support a BLM proposed action relating
to a grazing trespass, and the RAC passed a resolution supporting the
BLM and encouraging BLM to do whatever it needed to do to manage the
trespass so that we can ensure the health and productivity of the land.

It takes a lot of courage to take those stands. It takes a lot of
courage to get in the middle of a controversial issue and be a voice of
reason. We rely on our RACs to help us find that voice of reason and to
help us get that message out. We have many challenges ahead and we want
to only use the RACs more increasingly as time goes on and one of the
purposes of this conference was for us together to explore how we can
better utilize the racks and revitalize them to help us with the
challenges that lie ahead.

Some of those challenges include the implementation of the national fire
plan, the national energy plan, our land use plans, which I think are a
basis for all of the decisions we make at the BLM, how to better promote
the national landscape conservation system, which contribute greatly to
our local communities and to our national interests, and to how to
manage recreation and the explosion we have of recreational interests on
public lands.

In summary, we manage an incredibly complex mission and an increasingly
complex world, and I believe that as we make decisions on how to manage
those public lands, we need to understand that our decisions directly
impact the quality of life for the people in this nation. We need the
input of the RACs to help us understand those impacts and to balance
them so that we are making sure that we are considering all of the
players.

What we do and the decisions we make will affect our standing with key
constituencies and stakeholders. It will affect our reputation and how
we relate to our partners. And it will affect the support we receive
from Congress. The level of trust and confidence that we have at the BLM
will be greatly enhanced by our communications with our RACs and your
input into our processes. So our challenge is to balance the competing
uses, to balance them in a way that enhances quality of life and
sustains all of the elements of that quality that our public lands
contribute. Again, I want to thank all of you for your service. I look
forward to this conference and the opportunity to learn more from you
and to get your ideas on how we can better integrate the RACs into the
BLM\'s activities. Thank you. Thank you, Tony.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you, Kathleen. You talked about the goal of
learning how we can better utilize the RACs and revitalize the RACs and
we had some good discussion of that in the general session earlier this
week and yesterday\'s session, and then the RAC chairs divided into five
working groups to consider different categories of issues, and so at
this time what we\'re going to do is hear from representatives of those
five working groups, and we\'ll turn first to Gary Gustafson from the
Alaska RAC reporting on the workgroup that dealt with communications.

**G. Gustafson:** Thank you, Tony, and good morning. I had the pleasure
yesterday of serving with nine very energetic RAC members and BLM
representatives. We attacked the issue of communications, and by
communications, what we talked about were ways that we might enhance the
level of dialogue between the RAC and the BLM and the RAC and the
general public.

First and foremost, we recommend that there be established a national
RAC coordinator position. That position might be housed in your office,
Kathleen, or that of the Secretary, but the important thing is that it
be a clearinghouse on a national basis for all of the RAC functions.
This individual, he or she, would maintain a registry of all the RAC
members, bring a website up and running so that people would be able to
access who the RAC members are in all of the states and what their
responsibilities are and be able to contact them.

This individual would also provide information that each of the RACs
need to do their business and would be able to maintain the RAC
schedules so that traveling officials and other folks could attend RAC
meetings on a periodic basis. In addition, on a statewide basis, we have
a number of western states that have multiple RACs. In other words, more
than one RAC within a state. In those areas we also see the need for a
state RAC coordinator within the State Office and we recommend that if
that doesn\'t already exist that that take place. That individual could
be a BLM employee working on a part-time basis, could be a contractor,
or it could be a volunteer.

We realize there are probably a great number of ex-RAC members out there
who might be qualified for this. The important thing is that we not
change the existing BLM reporting scheme but rather we add to it with
the addition of the national RAC coordinator and the state RAC
coordinators. In terms of general coordination, we came up with a few
ideas that we felt would work and should be universally applied.

In addition to the Federal Registry notices and notices that are placed
in newspapers, most of the public is consciously aware of activities
through word of mouth and also what they read, and one of the best ways
to get the word out is through public service announcements. We need to
take better use of public service announcements, in addition, utilize
display ads wherever possible.

Also, many of the states have RAC portions on their existing websites -
a few of them do not. Let\'s have all of the states maintain RAC
portions on their individual websites, which include their RACs,
calendars, the names and addresses, phone numbers and so on their
members for contact. Also, one addition that we strongly recommend is
that there be a registry of those who are interested in becoming future
RAC members. They would understand the process and how to become \-- how
to file an application and eventually become a member of the RAC.

A couple of other ideas that various people recommended that we felt
made a lot of sense, we had some success in some states with annual
field trips. That\'s worked in Alaska. We would like to see that also
take place wherever possible. Go to areas where there\'s something
happening and visit the area. It enhances the tie between the RAC and
the BLM officials \-- the dialogue between the RAC and BLM officials.

There should be a PowerPoint presentation or CD presentation that\'s
available to be used in every state. It could be uniform \-- every
state. It could be uniform about RACs in general and the last portion be
form fit to that individual state. That would be available for them for
public presentations.

We also commend you, Kathleen, for having this meeting. We would like to
see these regular, at least yearly RAC meetings, continue, and also
where there are multiple RACs within states, have those RACs get
together on a regular basis.

Here are a couple of other ideas related to training and orientation.
When we have a vacancy, we ask that appointments be made as promptly as
possible to allow new members to attend RAC meetings before they take
office if at all possible. We encourage existing RAC members to mentor
the new members of the RAC, particularly in their particular category.
That\'s important. I realize a lot of that already occurs but it needs
to continue.

Also, any applicants for RAC positions that are not chosen, those
individuals need to be timely notified. That hasn\'t always occurred.
Also, retain the applicant lists so that it\'s available for future
opportunities. And use the RAC coordinator position to maintain core RAC
training materials that are unique to that particular state or area.

We strongly encourage the BLM and the Department of the Interior to
continue to visit RACs, to come to our meetings. There\'s always an open
invitation. And to assist with this, we plan as much as we can to make
our schedules available to you in advance so that that might help with
planning your attendance. Then finally, we encourage RACs to also take
the initiative themselves to get out into the community. We realize many
folks already do this, but establish a RAC speakers bureau, if you can,
and continue to get out there and talk about issues of concern that
involve public lands in the west. Thank you.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right. Thank you, Gary, for that report. Next we\'ll
go to Jill Workman of the southeast area RAC. Jill represented the
administrative team. Here is the report.\
\
**J. Workman:** Director Clarke, the RAC chairs appreciate your
consideration of our recommendations regarding the administrative
management of the RACs. Regarding the nomination and application
process, we believe BLM would benefit by establishing a pool of
candidates larger than what they have traditionally had.

We believe that Federal Register notices and word of mouth don\'t get
the information out about the RAC nominations and application process
and we\'d like it to be spread out a larger group of the public. BLM
should work to ensure the appointments are appropriate for the positions
filled. Good people should not be added to the RACs merely to fill the
position or because they\'re good people. We should strive to have
appropriate people appointed because this is important to maintain the
balance of the RACs amongst the interest groups.

We\'d like the state offices to be involved in the RAC nomination
process and to have someone track the process in order to keep it moving
so that appointments are then timely. To build capacity, BLM could
target younger professionals or interest group volunteers for RAC
involvement through internships or subcommittees, if not through RAC
appointments themselves.

Oftentimes RAC members are mid- to upper level career professionals and
we believe that the BLM and the RAC process would benefit by developing
a group of younger people to fill in their places.

Some of the RACs lack geographic balance, with one section of the state
being over-represented. We believe geographic distribution should be
considered in appointments when other attributes are equal. Conflicts or
potential conflicts of interest should be identified and reported during
the application process. Too often conflicts of interest are only
discovered when an issue or conflict arises. We encourage the RACs to
review their charters annually to familiarize themselves with the
content and biennially to make suggestions about possible changes to
Department of the Interior. This should be done early in the
rechartering year so that the Department of the Interior has the
opportunity to consider the offered changes.

RACs also need an expedited process to fill mid\--term vacancies so no
interest group ever goes unrepresented. We find that all charters need
conflict of interest better defined and guidance given on how conflicts
of interest should be dealt with in appointments, discussions amongst
RAC members and in voting.

Also lines of communication between RACs and various federal officials
need to be clarified. Various RACs act in different ways, and we believe
this should be uniform. Also, we\'d like the subgroup language expanded
to define who can be on subgroups. Some RACs fill subgroups amongst
themselves while others bring in members of the general public.
Responsibility for the rechartering process needs to be assigned and
followed closely so that no RAC must cancel a meeting due to lack of a
charter.

The relationship between RACs and other advisory councils needs to be
defined as well. With all the monuments and special designation areas,
there\'s an increase in advisory councils and we believe that BLM could
be receiving contradictory advice from different advisory councils.

We would also like information about the various charters, what the
differences are and why they are different. This would help us
understand the possible parameters for RACs in recommendations. In
matters of administration, all RACs should be treated equally. We would
like to see BLM standardize reimburse and RAC expense procedures so that
all RAC members are reimbursed for their travel and paid per diem and
meeting refreshments are uniformly provided. These may seem like small
things, but they are appropriate courtesies to extend to those
volunteering time in service to the RACs and to BLM.

Finally, a standard orientation process should be implemented for all
RACs and training made available to RAC members on resource issues
specific to the geographic area, because not all RACs have the same
issues due to their geographic makeup. We appreciate your consideration
of these administrative requests.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you, Jill. We appreciate that report. The third
workgroup covered resource issues and representing that group is John
Tanaka of the John Day Snake RAC in Oregon. John?\
\
**J. Tanaka:** Thank you. Our group addressed future resource issues,
and the comment was made that the future starts today, and so we
approached it that way. The items we were asked to address dealt with
demographics, funding, and then how RACs can help the BLM in addressing
these.

When we looked at demographics, what we looked at were things that were
changing that had implications for public land management. The first
area we looked at was changes in land ownership, and that included the
types of \-- or sources of income that people have that use public
lands. The second dealt with urban sprawl and fragmentation and the
issues that that brings to bear as the agency looks at land management.
Related to that was the need for continued \-- continued need for the
agency to become partners with local counties and jurisdictions in land
use planning and making sure that occurred fairly efficiently.

The second area we looked in demographics were just changes in types of
people. Changes to a more urban population, as the Director mentioned
earlier, changes in ethnic groups and their use of public lands, dealing
with immigrants, whether legal or illegal immigrants, and how they may
choose to use public lands as well. Bringing youth into the process is
also going to be important. On top of all that, as we all know and as
you mention in your remarks, just the numbers of people that are putting
demands on public lands and wanting something.

The change in land use demands we see that are going to be important in
the future, besides the standard commodity uses, are recreation use and
probably also eco-tourism on an international scale, bringing in lots of
people from around the world. The last comment we had in terms of
demographics were that while the population as a whole seems to be more
educated, they may also be less well-informed about public lands and
their management.

Switching to funding issues, the comment we had is we all recognize
there\'s going to be controversy over how dollars are allocated to
national programs and the resources. What we thought would be useful was
some sort of program in terms of education on costs of managing those
resources, so taxpayers know where their money is going, as well as the
cost of litigation, which we all know is a large dollar amount these
days.

One thing that the RACs may be able to do in this area in funding is
helping seek partners that will help fund innovative programs, and it
may be through advertising or just partnering on different programs, try
to get everyone\'s dollars stretched further.

What we addressed next were some specific things of how the RACs may
help, and some of these are items that we\'re already doing. Information
is an important area, and one way the RACs may be able to help and I
think a lot of RACs did when we did the standard and guidelines for
grazing, was to help gather some public input. Maybe less threatening
for the public to come talk to the RACs than it is to have the agency
people up in front. We use the information in our deliberations as we
make our recommendations to the agency.

As has been mentioned already, individual RAC members should probably be
out helping spread the word to local governments and to local groups in
terms of what\'s going on with public lands. One area we think the
agency ought to take more of an active role is conducting some sort of
survey of quality of life issues, and where this comes into the topic
that we\'re assigned is that as we try to figure out incentives to get
people involved in the process, involved with helping manage \-- or plan
public lands, we need to figure out what\'s going to benefit them or
what they\'re interested in. Until we know that for all those different
demographic groups we talked about earlier, it\'s going to be hard to
identify what those incentives might be.

The bottom line is this - to try to figure out how to reach those people
that aren\'t currently engaged in public land management and those
processes. The last area we talked about was education, and Gary talked
about that a little bit earlier, but one thing we think the RACs can do
is help the agency figure out how to educate the public on various land
use issues, how to reach different groups in society. We do now, and
certainly need to help in the future, evaluate current and future
programs, and that covers the whole gamut of things that the agency
does. The last point that our group made was this, can BLM and its
partners create good news and help get it out? So, thank you.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right, thank you, John, for that report on future
issues. Kathleen?\
\
**Director Clarke:** Yes, I just have a comment. You know, your question
\-- or the issue you raised about litigation is an interesting one. When
I first came into BLM, I was alarmed to learn how many lawsuits we were
dealing with. As a matter of fact, I got sued on the very first day I
took office, and I was told that was appropriate because on average I
could expect one a day. I don\'t know \-- I haven\'t monitored to see if
indeed we have kept up with that pace, but it gives you some indication
of how serious our litigation challenges are, and they are challenging
in terms of budget.

Having come from the state of Utah, I was interested when the director,
Sally Wisely, indicated to me that in one year she had a lawsuit dealing
with recreation that took nearly half of her entire state recreation
budget to deal with the lawsuit. So the money that was earmarked for her
to go out and do trails management and develop recreation programs was
lost, and, you know, that is a sad state of affairs when taxpayers\'
dollars that are being delivered to BLM for services to the people are
being lost in litigation.

I\'ve also asked BLM to start tracking the costs of those lawsuits. So
we are now trying to get a handle on that. I also want to get a handle
on how often we\'re successful, and early indications are that we
usually prevail in those lawsuits but that we spend thousands and
hundreds of thousands of dollars, and sometimes millions of dollars,
defending a position to prevail and get where we could have been before
but we\'ve lost the money and the opportunity to serve in the meantime.
So it is a real challenge.

I love the brainstorming of the RACs to help us understand that better,
but I think the real answer goes back to what we talked about first and
that is, to education and to getting more partners, to more people
understanding what we\'re about, and also being part of the
decision-making, because if they have some ownership in these processes,
and they\'re much more likely to stand by you when you make a tough
decision. So you raise some good points. I appreciate the work of all
these groups that have reported.\
\
**T. Garrett:** I saw a lot of heads nodding in agreement with some of
the things you\'ve said and we\'re going to be opening the program up to
a general discussion of all the chairs here in our studio audience and
our viewers out there at our downlink sites. That will be coming up in
just a few minutes. Right now we want to go to Pat Avery, though, with
the Upper Snake RAC in Idaho. He will be offering a report from the
planning workgroup. Pat?\
\
**P. Avery:** As indicated, our group looked at the broad area of
planning, that is, what\'s the RAC\'s role in planning, BLM\'s role and
more important how to ensure participation along the whole planning and
implementation process. We have eight findings and a number of
recommendations we\'d like to share with you.

Finding number one is that each state office and field office needs to
articulate its goals, responsibilities, projects and programs on a
regular basis. That way the RACs can understand where to help and where
to fit in on these short and long-term opportunities. We need to
understand the scope of the projects, the timing and the deliverables
involved. With dialogue, we can determine what the priority of the work
is to both BLM and the RAC. We also need to keenly understand what the
other RACs are doing so we don\'t reinvent the wheel and we can build in
the strengths and work product of the others.

Tying closely with that is finding number two, which is a RAC does need
to understand the timing of projects, the programs and the process. We
understand that there are longer and shorter-term projects. Some of
these started long before our RAC or even as we rotate off the RACs.
Some are short-term and some are even seasonable. Again, we think with
dialogue the RAC can determine what level of involvement we can play.

In some cases we\'ll just be updates, maybe BLM will be updating us,
want our advice or input. Other cases we may just have partial or just
take an element of a program or EIS or land use program. In other cases
we want to be fully involved. We hope to be involved from start to
finish, make comments, lead discussions. We think one of the keys to
this always is having regular meetings to keep that dialogue and updates
and participation going.

The third finding we had is that we do need a mechanism for prioritizing
RAC workload. That has to be a constant dialogue between BLM, the RACs
and the public. Need to understand again the participation of the other
RACs. We need to really understand the participation of the other
agencies. Many of these programs include many other federal, state and
local agencies. We also find an effective way as some cases the full RAC
could be involved or effective use of subcommittees.

Finding number four is sort of a statement with a finding, and that is
the RAC\'s role in the planning process is mostly useful when people are
fully engaged and while that sounds fairly obvious, we hear from some of
the RACs they have trouble getting quorums and it\'s key for all the
time to keep us that the work has to be relevant, has to be current,
there has to be some identified process and there has to be some
probability of success and a definition of what success is.

Finding five is that the planning is an ongoing living process. We have
all participated too much where a program or plan was made and put on a
shelf and dust collected. We know that planning really should be
regularly reviewed, it needs to be checked along the way and
post-audited to make sure it worked, that monitoring, boast in the
office and field, must take place and that, more importantly, there\'s
regular review and reporting of the monitoring results. Always need to
be aware that replanning needs to be built in as new information or
things change. We have to go back and replan or adjust. And all of us
recognize the need to get out on the ground and really understand
what\'s going on.

Finding number six is that all parties must be clear on what the targets
are. Examples of recent works and standards and guides and sage grass
work and land use, we understand there are targets to be established. We
need to know what those are. We also need to understand that they will
change as new information, new data becomes available.

Finding number seven, and probably one of the key roles of the RACs, is
that role in reporting to our constituency. We think we have a real
prime participation in explaining the whole issue to our constituent.
Also serving as a feedback link to our constituency and from the
constituency back to BLM. We\'ve heard cases where RACs are very
involved in the scoping process of projects, and, in fact, participated
from the start in scoping. Along those lines we think the RAC can really
serve as a barometer of what the public and the community is thinking.

We hear cases sometimes where BLM may have underestimated or
overestimated public interest on a certain issue. One of the issues
we\'re struggling with, we don\'t have all the answers to yet, is maybe
how to handle problem participants. We see some people that maybe come
just to vent or maybe they\'re more on the fringe and they sort of abuse
the consensus process, things aren\'t completed and yet those are
oftentimes the ones that sue at the end of the process.

We also think we can more broadly use a formal and informal and
volunteer assignments to other forums. Many RAC members are members of
other civic organizations, community organizations, things like that to
help share the message. We also think that RAC groups and our
constituents can help evaluate in the tough areas of socioeconomic
impacts, always a tough category to evaluate.

And finally, we think the RACs have a role in clarifying, educating and
amplifying the role of the BLM in the west. I think we\'re all aware of
how many acres and communities BLM\'s involved with. We need to share
the word that BLM is a great resource and part of the local area or
state. It provides expertise and jobs and science and involvement and I
think we can help get that message out. Thank you for letting us share
those findings of the planning subcommittee.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you, pat. We appreciate that report. Our final
workgroup looked at the roles and responsibilities of the Resource
Advisory Councils and Dave Billingsley from the eastern Washington RAC
has that report. Dave?\
\
**D. Billingsley:** Thank you. Well, many of the things that Pat covered
also fit with our work groups\' responsibilities. We talked about the
role of the RAC, but more in regards to policy decisions rather than
just planning. But there are a lot of overlaps. I think that the overlap
here is probably appropriate because of the one of the themes that ran
through our discussions yesterday that seemed to be very common was the
need to revitalize the RAC process.

Most of the frustration seemed to come from the need of members to feel
that our time and effort contributed valuable ingredient to the decision
making process. That seems to be the crucial item, is the need to feel
that we\'re really valued in what we put together. With that in mind, we
looked at our title of subject, the RAC role and responsibility broken
into four areas, classifying the advisory role, how RACs fit into the
policymaking, how to incorporate science, and relationships with local,
state, national stakeholders and all levels of BLM. Clarify the advisory
roles.

The RAC\'s responsibility is to advise BLM and ensure a public input on
policy and land planning issues by providing a public forum and being a
diverse sounding board for staff and one of the staff members in our
group mentioned that it\'s convenient to be able to call up a particular
RAC member that might have a special interest and get some feedback that
he can get that way without being in a threatening situation or worrying
about public response.

We\'re also called upon to be a conduit for information, concern and
opinion to travel both directions between staff and stakeholders.
Sometimes that means that we will have to be an advocate for BLM in our
own special interest groups. I know cases that we go back and they\'ve
gotten the room you are mill and get a lot of \-- room you are mill and
we\'re in a position to clarify those things and explain BLM\'s position
and the logic behind some of the decisions. At other times we\'re called
to take a concern from our constituents and push it all the way up
through the agency until we are sure there is appropriate recognition.
How the RACs fit into policymaking.

RACs need to know what is happening in BLM and what changes are being
considered. We need an annual work plan for our area so that the RAC can
consider and evaluate what things we want to put our efforts into to get
the most value in terms of decisions and the most effective use of our
time.

We need to be involved prior to major policy and land use decisions. And
we need to respond with direction and input to ongoing concerns. How do
we incorporate science? First of all, available science should be
relevant in any management decision.

The standards that we\'ve developed should apply to all the proposed
uses of land, whether just grazing or other activities, recreation or
mineral extraction. Science can help us determine what acceptable levels
of change are available for recreation uses and also the acceptable
levels of use for consumptive and nonrenewable uses \-- pardon me \--
and renewable uses.

We can provide an opportunity for lay review of science to make sure
that specific science isn\'t applied too broadly, that there\'s a common
sense approach on how it is actually used in the field. And we can
provide a forum so that other stakeholders and agencies can share in the
knowledge that has been through \-- been developed through BLM\'s
research and studies.

On our relationship with other stake hold holders and other levels of
BLM, we can be a catalyst to involve all levels of stakeholders in
actions that will affect the entire landscape. The RACs are uniquely
position to do provide the social, political discussions of
environmental decisions that may have significant economic impacts.

Our conclusion, we kind of come back to our initial statement, and that
is that the Resource Advisory Councils need to work with BLM staff to
choose wisely the important tasks that challenge us and make a
difference in policy direction and on ground-level actions. This will
require a willingness on the part of your administrative staff to seek
various levels of decision making, various levels of input in the
decision making process, and also to open up that decision making
process to that outside input. RAC members likewise need to be committed
to the \-- make the time and effort necessary to provide performed and
well developed recommendations. With this we think we can continue a
successful relationship and have real active working groups. Thank you.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right, thank you, Dave and thanks to all
representatives of all five of the working groups for those reports.
Excellent reports.

You know, Kathleen, I think those representatives of the working groups
deserve a round of applause for that hard work and those presentations.
Thank you once again.

During this teleconference we do want to hear from all the members of
the councils, both here in the studio and out there in our viewing
audience, and we want to at this time extend a special welcome to
members of the Arizona RAC who are here in the studio audience with us
and they\'ll have an opportunity to provide some input as well.

We do want you to get in touch with us, and there are several ways you
can do that, offering your questions and comments. You can reach us by
telephone or fax at any time during the broadcast using these telephone
numbers that appear on your screen.

While we\'re tracking down those phone numbers, there\'s another way you
can get in touch with us and that is to use the push-to-talk system at
your downlink site. All you have to do is push the button on the bottom
of that microphone base to get in touch with us. Give us your name and
location, and then proceed with your question or comment. It\'s just
that simple, folks, in theory. We\'ll see how it goes.

There are may be times, not often, but there may be times when we don\'t
want to interrupt someone who is speaking. We\'ll let you know when
it\'s ok to use the push-to-talk system by putting this green light in
the upper right corner of your screen. Let\'s see if we have the green
light working. Yes, we do. When that green light is on, feel free to
push to talk and get in touch with us.

Now, Kathleen, if you\'re ready, we will open up the phone lines. And
invite people to call on those phone numbers that appeared on the
screen. We will turn the fax machine on and watch for faxes to come
rolling in, and let\'s see if we can put that green light up and invite
the folks in our downlink sites to go ahead and use the push-to-talk
system if they\'d like to get in touch with us at this time. Now would
be the time to do that.\
\
**Hollis (Caller):** This is Hollis from Lewistown, Montana. I have a
question. First I will make a statement. The Department of the Interior
has indicated that it will open up many areas of formerly restricted
federal lands, including parks, monuments and wildlife refuges.
Meanwhile, the administration has stated that it is not emphasizing
conservation of energy as a national policy. With present consumption
rates it is apparent that our reserves will not last long. My question
is this: why are we placing our country in jeopardy by becoming
increasingly dependent on unstable governments that may end up with the
last remaining oil? Thank you for this opportunity.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thanks for getting in touch with us. So we\'ll try to
field that question and deal with some of the premises of that question
you offered and who should we invite to take on some of those issues
that were provided in the question.\
\
**Director Clarke:** Mr. Fulton, would you like to take a shot at that
question? We have Mr. Tom Fulton here from the office of the Secretary.\
\
**T. Garrett**: Tom, any thoughts on that question?\
\
**T. Fulton:** Well, yes. There are a couple of thoughts that spring to
mind right away. One is that the Department, as well as other federal
agencies work closely with the White House, the vice-president\'s office
in the development of a national energy plan, and those were the \--
exactly the questions that we faced, that the administration faced, and
it is a concern, both in terms of our development of domestic energy
policy, but then also our increasing dependence on foreign resources.

It\'s interesting to note that we import about a million barrels of oil
a day from Iraq, which is \-- which certainly is not a situation that we
want to encourage, and interestingly, in the effort in the
vice-president\'s office we discovered that our public lands provide
about a third of our domestic energy today.

So the BLM faces this very concrete issue and problem of how to
properly, with the right environmental safeguards in place, to continue
to increase our domestic energy security, decrease our foreign
dependence on oil and natural gas, and the Secretary has directed the
Department to not only focus on traditional sources of energy, like
coal, which we get about 50% of the electricity in this country is
generated by coal, but oil and gas, but also to look at a larger market
basket of resources like renewables, water, solar, wind power, et
cetera.

So the department has really taken a hard look at where it gets its
energy, the role that an agency like the BLM can play, and that question
is one that\'s in front of the department a lot.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you, Tom. Let\'s go to one more quick question
that\'s along the same area and this one comes from Andrew Berg in the
eastern Washington RAC, and he says threats to our national and economic
security are closely tied to our dependence on imported oil. Because of
this we must lessen our dependence, and ANWR represents the best
opportunity to relieve the situation and he says the RACs should explore
this topic and send the recommendations to the congressional committees.
We need to approach this problem programmatically and as Resource
Advisory Councils. We\'ll see if Gary Gustafson from the Alaska RAC has
any thoughts.\
\
**G. Gustafson:** Excellent suggestion. I couldn\'t have done it better
myself. It was not planted. It does represent a great opportunity to
reduce foreign consumption of oil. I know the Congress in the next
upcoming session as part of the national energy bill and otherwise,
it\'s important, and I think we\'ve proven already that we can safely
produce oil from the North Slope of Alaska and encourage people to learn
what they can and get educated on this issue, because most people really
don\'t understand the very small area that would actually be impacted
and the fact that ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, is actually
an 18million acre refuge, the area even being considered, let alone what
might be leased but the area being considered for leasing is only 1.5
million acres.\
\
**Director Clarke:** Can I take a minute? We also have a former state
director from Alaska here who is now my operational deputy, and that\'s
Fran Cherry. We also have Pete Culp here, who is my special assistant
for energy. I\'d like both of them to comment, because under the
national energy plan, BLM has a long list of tasks that we are moving
forward to accomplish to make sure that we are decreasing our dependence
on foreign sources of energy. So, Fran, and then Pete.\
\
**F. Cherry:** I\'m happy to respond to that. One of the things that we
forwarded to the administration was the energy potential in Alaska, and
we had all kinds of ideas, including the further development of the
national petroleum reserve in Alaska. And also the consideration of
development at ANWR, recognizing that to develop in ANWR would require
additional legislation.

However, we felt so strongly about the potential in Alaska that we came
up with our whole entire section of the president\'s energy plan dealing
with public land issues in Alaska. They include reauthorization of the
trans-Alaska pipeline, about 11 different lease sales that could be held
up there, and in fact we have already held one of the additional lease
sales up there that brought in \-- which is almost unheard of in the
secondary sale, another \$55 million in bonus bids.

There is a tremendous amount of interest in Alaska and as Gary indicated
we have proven that we can drill successfully on the North Slope and in
those harsh Arctic conditions. Across the nation, we are engaged right
now in the development and approval of many, many time-sensitive plans
that lead to further energy independence, and we are very tight time
frame to make sure we can get those land use plans done in a timely
manner so that we can address additional areas to lease. Maybe with that
I\'ll turn it over to Pete who is worried about energy issues for us.\
\
**P. Culp:** Thank you, Fran. It would certainly be very appropriate, I
think, for the RACs to make recommendations, as the questioner
suggested, to the appropriate congressional committees, which will be
looking at the issue of leasing ANWR in the very near future, and like
Fran said, I think it would also be worth the time and effort to take a
look at the development that\'s occurred in other portions of Alaska,
particularly NPRA, where the drilling has been very successful and we
have very similar conditions to the conditions that would pertain in
ANWR.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right. Thank you, Pete. And we want to thank Andrew
Berg in the eastern Washington RAC for faxing in that question. All
right. The green light will be appearing on your screen, and once again
I invite you to get in touch with us using your push-to-talk system. You
can also contact us by telephone and fax and we\'ll be putting up those
numbers on your screen from time to time.\
\
**Director Clarke:** Tony, maybe we have some questions from the folks
here with us in the audience.\
\
**Tom (Caller):** I\'m Tom with the RAC in Alaska.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Yes, Tom. Let\'s go ahead with your comment or
question.\
\
**Tom (Caller):** Ok. I\'m a little unsure about-how our microphone
system works here, but I am assuming that you can hear me. I apparently
blank you out when I talk.\
\
**T. Garrett:** That\'s true, but we can hear you fine. Go ahead, Tom.\
\
**Tom (Caller):** Thank you. This is an issue that\'s not so much an
issue in Alaska, but I\'m curious how other RACs may be addressing it in
the lower 48, and that involves land disposals. I know that this is an
issue that\'s been in the news lately and I guess I\'d like to hear more
about how RACs elsewhere are involved in the land disposal mechanism and
how that role should maybe, well, be modified.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thanks for that question. We\'ll see which of our RAC
chairs would like to address the issue of land disposals and tell us how
those things are being handled in your state or region. Anyone? All
right, Dave Billingsley.\
\
**D. Billingsley:** In the Eastern Washington RAC, I don\'t know \-- I
assume it\'s what he\'s talking about, we had a large number of small
scattered parcels that they were able to dispose of and use that as
funds for exchange to block up and get larger holdings in other areas
and areas that they felt were critical and appropriate to the long-range
plans of BLM and so that was done through an exchange program. Keeping
essentially equal values of government property.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right. Thank you, Dave. Any of the other RAC chairs?
Jerry?\
\
**J. Helton:** Southern Nevada has been the recipient of a lands act,
which has allowed the BLM to offer federal lands around \-- in Clark
County around the Las Vegas valley for auction. The role that the RAC
has played in that process, once the lands are sold, the BLM is allowed
to use the funds to acquire other \-- allowed to use the funds to
acquire other sensitive lands or provide improvements on existing BLM
lands that would improve the quality of life to that urban area, and the
RAC has been involved in setting some of the criteria and guidelines for
making the land selections for acquisition that the BLM would be
considering. They consider some riparian areas or some areas that would
further protect T&E species.

Also we reviewed the selection \-- or the nomination lists that end up
going to the director for the selection criteria and then make our
recommendation up to the State Director as to either in support of the
list or questions on certain selections. So we do get involved in the
recommendations that go forward to the state director and then forward
to Kathleen for the expenditures of the funds that BLM is allowed to
make with the auction \-- with the money that\'s \-- that comes into the
BLM from the auctions.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right, thank you, Jerry.\
\
**Director Clarke:** You know, land exchanges are a very important part
of the BLM program, and it\'s part of our program we want to embrace,
but it\'s a part of the program we need to be very cautious about and
that I would welcome more engagement from the RACs, because of the
concerns of the public that we are watching out for their interests and
making good decisions when we proceed with land exchanges. I think it\'s
also important to note that there are two kinds of land exchanges.

One is authorized by FLPMA, and we have to go through a very methodical
process which has been outlined in the law, and then there are
congressionally mandated land exchanges where Congress takes it on
itself to decide that they want to arrange for a land exchange, and they
may or may not abide by a process. Both of them can be effective, both
of them can be successful, but they can both be very sensitive.

So we are right now in the process of reexamining the way we do land
exchanges, the way we conduct them, the way we do outreach, our
appraisal methodology to make sure that we improve on those processes
and have the public\'s confidence and trust as we proceed, and this is
an area that I would welcome some input and suggestions and ideas and
validation from the RACs if they would like to engage in that discussion
with us.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right. Thank you, Kathleen. We do have one member of
our audience who has a comment at this time. Let\'s go all the way to
the back.\
\
**Norm (Audience):** Thank you. Is this working? Norm with the Arizona
RAC - Quickly a comment on ANWR. I think that the issues related to oil
and ANWR are a great deal more complicated than we have heard. I think
there are a lot of people who are well informed who have serious
questions about whether that\'s a good idea. I think it\'s just not a
matter of showing we can do and it it\'s a small area but I think
it\'s - it\'s much more complex than that.

I was delighted to hear that the RAC is going to be asked to make
recommendations and that BLM is under the request to look seriously at
alternative sources of energy. My question is, in addition to that, what
the administration recommending to BLM related not to finding more of
the traditional sources of energy or even alternatives but simply
reducing our national dependence on energy, reducing the amount of
energy that we, in fact, have become accustomed to thinking we need.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you.\
\
**Director Clarke:** Tom, did you want to comment on that?\
\
**T. Fulton:** I could.\
\
**Director Clarke:** Please.\
\
**T. Fulton:** Thank you. It\'s important to remember, I think, that the
administration represents a wide diversity of federal agencies that
include the Department of the Interior but aren\'t limited to the
Department of the Interior, and in the vice-president\'s national energy
plan, all of us together made a conscious effort to individually focus
on those areas that we had some possibility of impacting. The Department
of the Interior has no jurisdiction over things like cafe standards,
corporate average fuel economy standards. That\'s under the jurisdiction
of the Department of Transportation.

So the vice-president\'s national energy strategy was valuable in that
it brought all of the federal players together to talk about what they
as individual agencies could do, and the Department of the Interior
focused on those items that it has some ability to impact. Renewable
fuels, such as geothermal production, particularly in Nevada, wind
farms, solar, biomass production, those were the renewable fuels that
the Secretary wanted added and considered and grown as a portion of our
national energy mix, along with our traditional fuels. But the
Department of the Interior did not play a central role, certainly a \--
it participated in those discussions, but it didn\'t play a central role
in methodologies for reducing calm some shun. Those were fundamentally
outside our area of jurisdiction.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you, Tom. We had one other chair of the RAC here
in the studio who wanted to comment. I think that was a comment on land
exchange and then we\'ll move on. Go ahead, Kathleen.\
\
**M. Magee:** I\'m Kathleen Magee from the New Mexico RAC and I just
wanted to say that our subcommittees have taken very seriously the
question of land exchanges and have accepted the responsibility of
helping to lend credibility to what the BLM is doing. This is a terrific
opportunity in some instances to consolidate parcels of land that affect
our Native American culture and/or the urban interface that we\'re
experiencing where pieces of BLM land are becoming isolated within the
urban environment, and so they can be exchanged for parcels that have
more benefit to the recreational user or to the sensitive areas that we
all are very interested in protecting.

So what we have found, what our subcommittees have found, is that the
processes that at least in our state are being observed are very, very
judicious and very well thought out and, in fact, are very lengthy.
These processes of exchange don\'t just happen overnight. They take
years sometimes in putting the necessary science together, the necessary
partners together and the necessary legal documentation together to do
them. So it is not a process that we\'re finding is at all being done
casually.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right, thank you, Kathleen. We want to welcome all
of our viewers that are at our downlink sites to participate in this
program as well and we\'ve had some excellent questions and comments
from the field. I believe the green light is on inviting you now to use
the push-to-talk system.\
\
**(Caller):** Hi, this is \--\
\
**Jeff (Caller):** This is Jeff \-- \[multiple voices\]\
\
**T. Garrett:** We do want you to participate, but not all at once. I
heard the central \-- I think I heard a Montana RAC in there. Can we
take Montana first?\
\
**Caller:** We\'ll be playing in a part in that process looking at
opportunities where they might contract out certain services and even
projects to some degree with obvious oversight to get perhaps the
largest bang for the buck. I\'d appreciate a comment on that. Thank
you.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right. The person who just posed that question, if
you give us that again, we had some other people trying to get our
attention as well and so we missed part of your question, so I want to
ask you to repeat that question quickly and we\'ll put it to the
audience.\
\
**Director Clarke:** I\'d also like a name.\
\
**Bob Dirk (Caller):** Ok. This is Bob Dirk from the North Central
Montana RAC and I guess I continue to push down the microphone. Ok. With
the recent talk about privatization coming out of the administration and
perhaps contracting out certain services currently provided by the
government, I was wondering if the BLM will be playing a part in that
whole process, assuming that perhaps they will look at possibilities
where they might get the greater bang for the buck, realizing that
funding is going to continue to be extremely tight. Thank you.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right, thank you.\
\
**Director Clarke:** I\'m happy to respond to that question. The
president has put forth a management agenda for all of government,
including the BLM and the Department of the Interior that includes a
commitment to competitive sourcing. It isn\'t necessarily a commitment
to contracting out. We don\'t necessarily have to go outside to have
those services supplied, but we do need to evaluate the value that we
are getting for the taxpayer dollar, and to determine whether the value
\-- whether the best value is to be providing services in-house or to go
to outside sources. Yes, we are engaged in that.

We are currently in the processes of assessing which positions at BLM
could appropriately be considered for competitive sourcing and then we
will make those determinations. We will try to be sensitive about that
and contemplative as we deal with a diminishing workforce to make sure
that we don\'t lose critical staffing and strategic staffing at a time
when we have so many issues to deal with. But we will be looking at
that. We are doing it now and I\'m sure it will be a continuing
process.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right. Thank you, Kathleen. We\'re just about at the
midway point in our teleconference now, so at this time we\'re going to
take a very short break, but we know we have a lot of people out there
in our audience who want to be a part of the program. We ask you to keep
your fingers on that push-to-talk button and we\'ll be back 10 minutes
from now. Thank you.

**\-\-\-- 10 Minute Break in the Video Conference --**

**T. Garrett:** Welcome back to our live satellite teleconference,
partners across the west, with members of the Resource Advisory Councils
joining us from BLM offices around the west as well as the chairs of the
councils here in our studio in Phoenix, and BLM Director Kathleen
Clarke.

Just before we went to break we had a lot of folks out in the remote
sites using their push-to-talk system and eager to get in touch with us.
I believe the green light is on now and so we\'ll invite our viewers at
the downlink sites to go ahead and use that push-to-talk system, and
remember, when you push the button, give us your name and the location
you\'re calling from, and then wait for us to acknowledge that we\'re
going to come to you for that question or comment. So please go ahead if
there\'s anyone out there.\
\
**Caller:** \[ inaudible \]\
\
**T. Garrett:** We have a caller from the Colorado Front Range RAC.
Would you give us your name again.\
\
**Bruce (Caller):** This is Bruce and I\'m with the Front Range RAC in
Canon City, Colorado and I have a comment that regards the RACs
throughout the 11 states, and it\'s more to hopefully encourage
uniformity with the concept of public lands as opposed to rangelands or
some other dichotomy of lands and look at our public lands as a whole,
something that we\'ve done here in the Colorado RACs, and then secondly,
the idea of applying land health standards to all of those lands for
whatever multiple use activity we\'re looking at.

I noticed in reading the reviews of the various RACs that some of the
states are doing this in some ways, but I think it\'s important that the
BLM and the RACs as a whole embrace this very keystone concept of
applying land health standards, and those standards allow us to apply
the science, but also to listen to the individual needs of the
communities or the various parties of interest. So that was the main
concept that I wanted to comment on.

Secondly I would like to say that here in Colorado we\'ve been involved
with the very important concept and process called Service First where
BLM and Forest Service, other federal agencies, are working closely
together to provide seamless products and activities to the public and
to reduce confusion over different kinds of regulations and so on, and I
think we\'ve had a tremendous amount of success in piloting that
program, and I would just like to encourage the other RACs throughout
the 11western states to do the same. Thank you very much.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right, thanks for those comments, Bruce on Service
First and also, Kathleen, we had some discussion yesterday during the
general discussion period on the issue of land health standards.\
\
**Director Clarke:** We did. I appreciate your comments about land
health standards and it was a suggestion that came up yesterday. It\'s
one that we need to take back and discuss and consider how to best apply
land health standards. I do believe that the greatest strength of the
RACs is working at the local level to give us local input and insights
and perspective and while I don\'t want to dismiss the idea of working
across the board at land health standards, I would be reticent to try
and have a one size fits all program, because one thing I really believe
in is that cultures and customs are different across the west and that
the needs of the people and the land is different, and the way we use
the land is different. So I don\'t want to lose our ability to be
responsive at a local level. It goes back to my commitment to
community-based conservation and citizen-centered stewardship, and
that\'s where I believe the RACs can really add to our successes.

I did like the suggestion you made about taking a look at landscapes as
a whole and not just saying we\'re going to manage this little piece and
someone else is responsible for that. Certainly natural systems don\'t
respect political or judicial boundaries and we need to understand if
we\'re going to be effective we need to work together with our neighbors
and our partners and with other federal agencies, and that leads right
into your next comment about service first, which is a wonderfully
successful model for two federal agencies that have found ways to come
together and both of us do a better job by sharing not just space, but
starting to share missions and vision and planning and resources and
setting goals and priorities together, and Colorado has done a wonderful
job of developing service first. You\'re a model.

Excuse me. Somebody rescue me. Fran?\
\
**T. Garrett:** Kathryn Richmond wanted to address this issue.\
**\
Director Clarke:** I will pass the hat and have a drink of water.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Go right ahead.\
\
**K. Richmond:** My name is Kathryn Richmond, I\'m from Salmon --
Clearwater. The Central Idaho RAC brought this up a couple of weeks ago,
the service first concept, where money from stewardship projects could
stay in the local area instead of going back to the U.S. treasury.

We recognize that the BLM is constantly having monetary problems, and
budgets are being cut and money is of a concern, and our suggestion to
the BLM would be that perhaps money from stewardship projects such as
green tree sales, outfitter and guide fees, grazing permute fees, money
left over from paying timber contracts could stay within that area and
help on projects that are particular to that particular area, so that\'s
something that I know the Forest Service is doing with the fee
demonstration project when we pay for river rafters. They pay a
particular fee, and then that stays in the area. So I think it\'s a
great idea.

**T. Garrett:** All right. Thank you, Kathryn. I think we\'d like at
this time to go to our telephone system and hear from one of our callers
who has checked in with us. Let\'s try Jeff from the \-- calling in from
the northwest Colorado RAC. Jeff, are you with us?\
\
**Jeff (Caller):** Yes, can you hear me?\
\
**T. Garrett:** Yes, we can hear you fine.

**Jeff (Caller):** This is Jeff Blakesly in Craig, Colorado. I\'m with
the Northwest Colorado Resource Advisory Council. I appreciate this
opportunity to make a comment or ask a question. Our RAC has begun a
weed subcommittees and we are trying to come up with recommendations for
BLM regarding the Colorado of invasive species on public lands, and one
of our recommendations is that BLM cooperate with a Colorado statewide
strategic plan for weed management that is being administered by the
Colorado Department of Agriculture, and one of the main stumbling blocks
that we\'ve come across is the funding for \-- inconsistencies for BLM
and the different area managers and I would like to know if there is \--
if this issue is going to be addressed and if we can\'t maintain some
funding consistencies with BLM.\
\
**Director Clarke:** I appreciate your comment and I have to tell you
that one of the main stumbling blocks I run across at BLM is funding and
consistencies. Funding is a huge problem, and we are facing tremendous
budget challenges in the federal government as a whole. The need for us
to hold out as a very strong priority our homeland security and I don\'t
think any of us would argue with that priority, but it is siphoning
money from many, many agencies, and we are contributing our share to
homeland security by dedicating our law enforcement services to homeland
security among other things.

So we do have budget challenges, and budget is an unpredictable animal.
The Congress makes decisions on an annual basis. So we can\'t always
determine what we\'re going to have at the national level, which makes
it very hard for the states to anticipate. We are trying to have some
predictability, particularly in programs that need ongoing maintenance,
programs that need consistency, and where their effectiveness is
dependent on a budget stream that goes beyond one year. So we\'re trying
to insulate ourselves against budget cycles and the ups and downs of
available monies, but it\'s one of the realities of dealing with
government. We have Doug Koza here who is the Acting Director for
Colorado. He may want to make a comment.\
\
**D. Koza:** Thank you, Kathleen. I do want to say that we\'re currently
in our budget allocation process in our state and as well as other
states. We certainly will look at this from the in-state perspective of
trying to make sure that we have some consistency, especially in the
weed program with respect to your comment. We also recognize, as
Kathleen indicated, that the \-- our partners expect a significant
degree of consistency over a period of time beyond just the budget year
in not only the weed program but other programs, and we are striving to
make sure that that also is an issue that we take care of both at a
local level and we\'re bringing that issue to the state level and
working with the director\'s office on that. Thanks.\
\
**Director Clarke:** Noxious weeds are a problem. I really think the
RACs could give us a great deal of help with this problem. It is
pervasive. I think it is kind of a sleeper issue that one of these days
we could wake up to and find that we are losing many, many of our uses
because of invasive weeds. I would love your input and participation in
those challenges. I also want to invite Fran Cherry, my deputy, to make
a comment on weeds.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Fran?\
\
**F. Cherry:** I think you raise a serious point that we need to pay a
lot of attention to. We really are losing the war on weeds still even if
we are putting the extra money into it. But I have found out one thing
over the years, the weeds simply don\'t care who kills them. We can be a
lot more efficient in the way we apply our herbicides and the way to go
clearly is in partnerships with counties, with weed control agencies
around the various states. The dollars just go that much further when we
can do it that way, and, in fact, it probably has half again as much
potential if we all pass each other going down the road each spraying
our own patch of weeds. So we have to explore these partnerships much
more than we do, and I would like to also \-- I think we have those
partners in place it gives a much higher priority to get funding to
those locations.\
\
**Director Clarke:** One other point, Fran, is \-- somebody up here made
the suggestion that many of the RAC members belong to other groups. They
belong to Kiwanis, or they belong to the Sierra club or belong to the
grazing associations. That would be a tremendous way to expand our
partnerships to take a look at noxious weeds. It certainly won\'t do me
any good to spray my weeds if my next-door neighbor doesn't spray his.
This is going to take all of us working together and I think the RACs
could be a tremendous help to us.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Let\'s hear from a couple RAC members in the studio.
Let\'s go to the back row.\
\
**Steve (Audience):** My name is Steve with the Arizona RAC, and my
comment pertains to the RAC process and we\'ve heard some good ideas
this morning and I\'d kind of like to echo some things that came out of
the communications group. One of my concerns is being more effective and
collaborating on the land use planning efforts.

In Arizona we\'re looking at about six of those major efforts ongoing,
and each of those efforts will have opportunities to provide input or
advice, and in order to do that, it seems to me that in addition to our
regularly scheduled meetings, and in addition to having subcommittees or
working groups, that we ought to look at establishing a collaboration
center on the website. I think each BLM State Office probably has a
website. And on that collaboration center, we could post documents for
RAC members to access and provide comment to. These could be informal
working documents of BLM staff maybe before it goes public and,
therefore, we have an opportunity to exchange some ideas. I just a
thought that we might want to look at using the information age more.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right, thank you. We had some discussion about that
yesterday, use of the Internet for providing information and sharing
information and best practices and I think we\'re probably going to see
some progress on that. We had another hand raised. Vince, I think you
had your hand raised and then, Doug, we will take a quick comment from
you.\
\
**V. Garcia:** I\'m Vince Garcia from the Northeast Great Basin RAC. To
follow up on some of the questions on the weeds, and to some of the
findings on the committees earlier this week on the appropriate people
that are sitting on the RAC and the influence that they may have, we
were fortunate to have a member, faculty member, from the University of
Nevada-Reno who had connections with a student group there in Reno and I
believe we had someone out of the Utah State University who came into
the Elko district and took a total inventory on invasive weeds, plotted
them on a map and now are in the process of getting a team together to
eliminate some of the problems we are having in northeast Nevada.

It\'s not to go without saying that our conservation spray weed
districts have been a tremendous amount of help up in our area, and like
Kathleen says, we need to get a jump on the invasive weed problem, but
if our neighbor doesn\'t do it, then we\'re fighting a losing battle. So
I encourage the \-- all the media \-- all the people out there to take
an aggressive stand against invasive weeds because this is just like a
non-healing wound to our land if we let it go as it is now.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you, Vince. We\'ll get to some more questions from
our viewing audience. Doug White.\
\
**D White:** I wanted to say in my area of California, the counties are
doing a great deal to work on invasive weeds and we have a very big new
Cache Creek natural area that encompasses several counties in central
California, and the areas infested with Western Starthistle, and so you
can\'t ride a horse through it. It\'s about three feet high, and it is
in a position \-- we\'re in a position to exploit these 77,000 acres by
bringing back and making them useful to people, which, of course, the
BLM wants to do. It wants to allow recreation activities and give the
land the use of the land to the people. We can\'t very well do that
unless we can somehow or another figure out a way to get rid of the
Western Starthistle that\'s infested the area. I\'m certainly hoping
that we\'re going to be able to manage to do that with government aid of
some sort.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you, Doug. Fran Cherry, deputy director, has a
comment. Fran?\
\
**F. Cherry:** One of the things again about weeds is, as said several
times by the group, we have to all pull together on this because it's no
good to do one part without doing another part of the land adjacent to
it. BLM in this case doesn\'t have to be the lead and probably is not
the best people to be the lead. We can provide a lot of assistance, a
lot of dollars to the table. We can provide experts to help identify the
weeds, but the heart and soul of this has got to come from our local
county commissioners, the folks \-- the ranching community in there and
that we all team together to solve the problem.

It\'s not something I think BLM should be having the lead on at all but
one thing I want to commit that we\'re ready to partner one anyone. I do
remember from my days in Montana pulling the annual weed day in Beaver
County when the county commissioners expressed an invite to come up and
help pull weeds, mostly a symbolic gesture but it was something we were
doing along with the spraying. Also working with the Stillwater County
Commissioners, BLM had some clout to get some beetles to take care of
some of the invasive species and that was a project that started when I
first went there and the results are starting to show eight years later.
These things are going to take a long time but only through cooperation
and also we need to bring the university system into this effort.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you, Fran. We\'ve had a number of faxes come in,
and we want our viewers to know we\'re going to get to as many of those
as we can. Let\'s see how quickly we can get through some of the issues
raised in these faxes. This one comes from Ken Sanders, Idaho Upper
Snake River RAC. What can the RACs do to lessen the endless
environmental analyses that tie up BLM employee's time so they can spend
more time in the field monitoring and managing the resources? Ok, Ken,
thanks for the question. It is what can the RACs do to lessen
environmental analyses? Any RAC chairs want to take that question on?
You are going to just make me pick somebody. All right - good. Ron,
thank you.\
\
**R. Kemper:** I think what we can do as RACs is that we can promote
partnerships in the field. There\'s certainly a lot of grazing interests
that are doing their own monitoring, hiring outside monitoring to make
sure that it gets done, making sure that they\'re protecting the plant
community and I think it\'s important that we continue to network and
make those studies available to the agency and work in a cooperative
manner so that we can benefit by the information.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you, Ron. Any \-- yes, Tina.\
\
**T. Nappe:** I think one of the ways we discussed yesterday was being
involved early on in a lot of these planning processes so that we can
reduce the negativity that comes in, and we talked a lot about the
updating of the land use plans when we have new national conservation
areas, for instance, people are getting involved early, and it\'s the
participation of the RACs early on to help cover those bases.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right, thank you, Tina. Kathleen?\
\
**Director Clarke:** We were also looking at the agency level on ways
that we can improve our management of the NEPA and of the Endangered
Species Act to make sure we are eliminating where possible \--
eliminating cumbersome duplication of processes while not shortcutting
any of the processes. We just want to try to find ways to be able to
deliver products so that, again, we add value to those \-- to our
efforts and that we can move for quickly. The world is changing very
quickly and if it\'s taking us three and four years to do a land use
plan, then we\'re really behind the 8 ball. So we\'re working to improve
those processes as well.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right. Another question that came in by fax from
Bruce with the Utah RAC, how can the state RACs coordinate and provide
input on or influence regional issues such as fuels management? We
talked about invasive weeds and wildfires. Are they a vehicle to
coordinate with other RACs on a regional or national basis for some of
these issues? Are there any thoughts on that from our RAC chairs? We had
some discussion yesterday. Yes, go ahead, please, Lee.\
\
**L. Chauvet:** I guess what comes to mind is the fact that several of
the RACs are already beginning to have joint meetings within the state
boundaries and then others are having meetings across state lines, which
is kind of building towards an overall ability to coordinate those
things, and that even points to that recommendation earlier today
relative to having a Federal Coordinator for all the RACs, getting this
information together and getting it fed back to them, and so I think
we\'re starting to move in that direction by having these joint meetings
and things and we\'ll continue to expand and work on and it share all
the information and the resources we have available and we can be far
more effective.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right, thank you, Lee. Kathleen?\
\
**Director Clarke:** One of the suggestions that was made yesterday was
that we put together a national RAC website where we could showcase all
of the activities of the various RACs throughout the west, and in that
\-- with that operational, all of the RACs could see what other RACs are
doing, and would it give them an opportunity to reach out to share
ideas, to maybe decide to have some joint meetings.

I really believe that we need to let the RACs be very self-directed
where that works for them and to discover where they can work together
best. I don\'t want to necessarily orchestrate that we want you all to
meet with your neighbor once a year. But if there\'s a reason to do
that, and if that can help you accomplish your mission, then we would
certainly encourage and endorse that. I am excited about the support for
having this group of chairmen meet with me once a year. We\'ll look
forward to planning that and working with all of you to develop linkages
at this level and I think this will allow \-- help with the connectivity
throughout the RAC system.\
\
**T. Garrett:** At this time we\'re going to turn that green light back
on so that you\'ll know it\'s ok to use the push-to-talk system and get
in touch with us, and we\'re eager to hear from you. So if we have a
viewer out there who would like to do that, now is the time.\
\
**Caller:** Tom Harris.\
\
**Caller:** Jim from the Central Montana RAC in Lewistown, Montana.\
\
**T. Garrett:** I am going to ask Montana to hold on because I heard
another caller come in first. Tom Harris, would you go ahead, please.\
\
**Tom (Caller):** Yes, thank you for the opportunity. I noticed that
there yet another attempt to retire WSAs in 10 years or provide a
moratorium for them. Personally I would like to see something like that
to allow some flexibility in local management and to allow some
recreational diversity. The problem that occurs is that would mean
dropping a level of protection. As an OHV advocate that has some worry
about that, I wonder if there had been any thought given to what sort of
protective mechanism that would be applied to provide those
environmental sideboards.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right. Thank you for that question, Tom. Let\'s see
if our audience, anyone in our audience, would like to address that
question. Kathleen, you want to...\
\
**Director Clarke:** I would just like to let you know there\'s a lot of
discussion going on about how to provide appropriate protections to all
of the land that BLM manages. I don\'t believe that wilderness is the
only scheme that allows us to protect land. There are many different
ways that we can address land needs and land issues, land opportunities,
and provide appropriate protection and appropriate use. I think we are
constantly trying to assess that.

We would welcome your input and again when those decisions are being
considered as a local level, that\'s an area where RAC could provide a
lot of support and insight into how we can address a land area and
provide uses but appropriate protections as well. Goes back to that real
basic challenge that we face every day at the BLM, and that is to ban
the competing interests and desires for use or for nonuse. So your help
on that would be great.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right. Thank you, Kathleen. Now, we had a caller
from Montana trying to reach us at about the same time. Montana, go
ahead.\
\
**Jim (Caller):** Yes, my name is Jim McDurmond, I\'m from the Central
Montana RAC in Lewistown, Montana. In my \-- my comments are regards to
hunting outfitting on BLM lands which are isolated from the general
public which, in turn, leads to exclusive use of our public lands for
hunting by an outfitter or permitees, and I would just like to see some
consideration given to this you a \-- disallowing all outfitting permits
on those lands that do not have equivalent public access.\
\
**T. Garrett**: All right. Thank you for that question. We\'re surveying
the audience waiting for a volunteer, and we know we have a studio full
of volunteers, and let\'s call on our newly minted Alaska State
Director, Henry Bisson, a long-time BLM manager. Henri, would you like
to add to that question?\
\
**H. Bisson:** Yeah, I would. I was conversing with you for a second and
didn\'t get the complete question. I know it has to do with hunting
access on isolated parcels.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Jim in Montana, quickly rephrase that question for Henri
if you would, please.\
\
**Jim (Caller):** Yes, my question or comment was in regards to hunting
outfit on BLM lands which are isolated from the general public and which
in turn leads to exclusive use of these public lands for hunting by an
outfitter or a permitee and I\'d like to know if there\'s been some
consideration given to disallow outfitting permits on those lands that
do not have equivalent public access.\
\
**H. Bisson:** I\'m not aware that there\'s been any discussion along
those lines. I can tell you that access to public lands is a huge
national issue, and I believe there are some RACs that have worked on
the issue of trying to identify where additional public access would
help in terms of hunting or outfitting to make those lands available.
But, you know, the fact is there are a number of isolated tracts and
they don\'t have legal access and it\'s very difficult for us to prevent
the kinds of activities that happen out there.

So all I can say is that many of our offices are working with local
ranchers and private land owners to try to get some voluntary access
agreements in place so the public can get to those isolated tracts and
where it\'s feasible and appropriate we are trying to acquire public
access, but at this point I don\'t think that we\'ve examined the
possibility of eliminating uses on those lands as you propose.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right. Thank you, Henri. We appreciate that
response. Let\'s go back to our audience now and see if there is anyone
else who would like to use the push-to-talk system to get in touch with
us.\
\
**Bob (Caller):** Bob McMullin, Northwest California.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Bob, thanks for checking in with us. Go right ahead.\
\
**Bob (Caller):** Yeah, Bob McMullin, Arcata office, Northwest
California and my question here reflects to the consultation requirement
and the nexus rule and what that involves is basically where \-- if an
inholder that\'s surrounded by BLM or an individual who has need to use
a public road to access property for a commercial purpose, then a
consultation is required. And that this consultation or this nexus rule
really originated back from some litigation that was regarding some
spotted owls and some individuals wanted to use a road for commercial
purposes.

Well, there was a court hearing and so forth, and the judge found that
consultation had to occur with a federal biological specialist to review
and recommend the use of this jointly maintained road. So what\'s
occurring now is this consultation has become so extensive that it
really precludes the individual from being able to use passage on these
roads in a timely fashion. So it\'s not a law, but it\'s an
administrative agreement initiated late in the Clinton administration,
late 1988, because it\'s causing such a significant problem and time,
seems to me that it\'s important that BLM really look at this national
policy and review it to a point where maybe it needs to be tempered
where national marine fisheries not be permitted to extend this
consultation for years and years and draw out and make it very difficult
on the fellow \-- or the individual who wants to use a road. So I was
hoping we could have some discussion regarding that.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thanks for that question, Bob. We\'re going to turn to
Tom Fulton, the deputy Assistant Secretary.\
\
**T. Fulton:** Thank you, Tony. It is a big problem, and it\'s one that
not only the BLM has been looking at for quite some time, but other
federal land management agencies as well, the Forest Service and the
National Marine Fisheries Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service and
there has been considerable number of discussions about the access for
commercial uses of some of these inholdings. There have been some rather
\-- there have been some incidents where value has been lost because of
a lack of ability to get into these inholdings, and it is something that
the Department is working on with the Department of Commerce and the
Department of Agriculture and we\'re hopeful that we can have a policy
announced soon that will help answer those problems.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right, thank you, Tom. Let\'s go to one of our RAC
council members here in the studio, a man I recognize, welcome to the
broadcast.\
\
**G. Collins:** Glen Collins from the Arizona RAC. You talked earlier,
Kathleen, about the need to protect the public lands outside of things
like wilderness or national monuments. It\'s difficult for the public to
support the protection of something that they really can\'t see or
visualize. BLM lands, we know them on land status maps, but they don\'t
appear on national maps or state maps. Is there any consideration being
given to the establishment of the BLM lands into a national land system
likethe Forest Service system or the park system as a national public
land system? If you want the public to support the protection of BLM
lands, that would be a step that would be a great step forward to
galvanize public support for them.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you, Glen. Kathleen?\
\
**Director Clarke:** The BLM is looking at that challenge of having the
public better understand who we are and what we do. We have not
specifically looked at trying to create a land system such as the Forest
Service or the park service, but we are looking at ways to increase the
public\'s awareness and appreciation of the mission that we have and the
land that we manage.

Certainly the creation of the National Monuments was a step in that
direction where we now have a system under the national landscape
conservation system, a system of lands and wild and scenic areas that
are under our management that have special designation, but the other
lands are so integrated into communities, they\'re so much a part of
people\'s way of life, and they\'re checker boarded throughout the west,
so it\'s very difficult to draw boundaries around them and say this is
the BLM public land system. It\'s a good idea, however, I think it\'s
one we can look at.

We are aware of the need to enhance the image and identity of BLM. It
would help tremendously, I believe in getting support, not just from
Congress, but from the public, support and understanding as to what we
do and why we\'re there.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right. Thank you. Let\'s turn the green light back
on and invite our viewing audience once again to get in touch with us on
the push-to-talk system. Go ahead, please.\
\
**Paul (Caller):** This is Paul from Alaska.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Welcome, Paul.\
\
**Paul (Caller):** I\'d like to say, first of all, hi to Henri Bisson
and Gary Gustafson. We would like to stack our Alaska State Director and
our RAC chairman against any other chairman and director from the other
states. My question first of all is, how can RACs be better involved in
off-highway vehicle planning, particularly with regard to whether lands
are designated, opened, closed or limited to OHV use?\
\
**T. Garrett:** Good question, Paul. OHV planning and, Fran, would you
like to address that question?\
\
**F. Cherry:** Sure. Give me the tough ones. I think it\'s an issue
that\'s all across the western United States right now. In fact, it's
the source of a couple lawsuits against the Bureau at this point. I
think, though, one of the things that really has to be done is to have
our RACs involved.

You folks are the ones that have legitimacy in the local communities.
Tomorrow morning I am giving a speech for county officials and BLMers
and my opening comment is, the most feared statement in the rural west
right now is, I\'m from the BLM and I\'m here to do a land use plan with
you. And the next words out of that person\'s mouth is, oh, by the way,
I have a degree in anthropology from Slippery Rock University in
Pennsylvania. The legitimacy is pretty low at that point.

You\'re the folks that know the local land use patterns, the one where
people have traditionally gone and haven\'t gone, and also have a good
sense of those special lands that need extra protections. We can come up
with general science and findings on the things, but for you to work
with constituent groups, to be a viable force in that community, to say
why we need to have these lands opened or closed or designated is
probably the strongest thing you can do to make these things happen.\
\
**T. Garrett:** Thank you, Fran. Unfortunately, we\'re nearing the end
of our broadcast, so we want to go to one last question or comment.
Let\'s see if the green light is on and invite one more caller.\
\
**Donna (Caller):** This is Donna from the Lower Snake River District.
We have a couple questions for you. It sounds like the RACs have worked
very hard at this conference. The RAC chairs have offered some BLM staff
the valuable input on some key issues about RAC participation and
involvement. I have two questions. One is, what are the steps for BLM
for following through with this information that they have received and
for implementation? And a direct question to Director Clarke is, what
are your priorities for the RACs?\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right, thank you, Donna, and Kathleen, do you want
to start with that second question first about your priorities?

**Director Clarke:** I\'m going to start with the first one first, Tony,
because it will lead into the answer on the second one. I intend to go
back and create a RAC recharge team to take a look at all of the
recommendations that have come in. I told the folks that are here in the
audience with me yesterday, we\'re first going to identify the
low-hanging fruit, the things that we could do quickly and one of those
will be to identify a RAC coordinator in Washington. Someone that I can
charge full time with taking a look at what our needs are with the RAC
system. We\'ve had some great suggestions here.

Certainly we need to do a better job of training. We to do a better job
of orientation, letting folks know what the opportunities are for them.
But one of the priorities I have for the RACs is that I would like to
create a network of \-- a communications network so if that I am dealing
with a new issue in Washington, if we were looking at grazing and we
want to consider some changes in that program, or if we are
contemplating a policy shift, that I would have a very quick way to get
some information out to all the RAC members and say, get back to me. I
want the pulse of the RACs, the pulse of the communities, the pulse of
the states out there. How does this feel? What are we missing? What do
we need to know before we walk down this road?

So I think the RACs could provide a tremendous tool for the executive
leadership of BLM in Washington to stay in touch. Someone yesterday
joked that Washington is 10 square miles surrounded by reality. We need
to stay in touch with the reality out there and I\'m a firm believer
that the folks on the ground have the perspectives and the understanding
and the passion to help us make good decisions about the public lands,
and they are the public lands.

So those are some things I commit to you that we are going to follow
through. I\'ve heard a lot of support here for getting this group back
together on an annual basis, and we\'ll certainly look to planning that,
but I hope that long before another year comes around that we have
developed those communication links to really build bridges and move
forward together.\
\
**T. Garrett:** All right. Thank you, Donna in the Lower Snake River
district for those two questions. We want to thank all our viewers for
getting in touch with us by telephone, tax and push-to-talk, and also to
the folks in the studio for your participation. You\'ve added a lot to
our discussion today and we appreciate it. Now we turn once again to the
Director of the Bureau of Land Management, Kathleen Clarke for any final
comments to our viewers.\
\
**Director Clarke:** I\'m just delighted to be here and I sort of made
my closing statement just a moment ago, but I want to thank you for your
participation. For those of you out in the field, I would ask that when
your RAC chairmen get back and you have your next meeting, I would like
you to have a discussion about how meaningful this broadcast was. Was
this useful to you? Did it get you engaged and involved? Or was this
just an exercise that maybe, you know, asked you to drive a long way and
attend something that didn\'t make much difference?

So I would really like some honest feedback about this. I do, again,
want to express my genuine appreciation to you for your commitment to
the BLM. We could not do what we do without our partners, and you are
just key to our success. You\'re unpaid heroes us to and we appreciate
you and encourage you to continue the good work, to continue to be brave
and bold in your ideas and to work with us in finding new and better
ways to do things. I wish you all a good day and thank you again for
joining us.\
\
**T. Garrett:** We want to express our appreciation to the staff of the
BLM National Training Center for producing this broadcast and all those
in the BLM who helped organize the conference and especially the council
chairs and the council members who joined us here in the studio and
joined us out in the field. Thanks to all of you for being with us, and
so long from Phoenix.\
\
**Announcer:** To help your office participate in future telecasts, see
the BLM Satellite Downlink Guide and visit the NTC homepage on the World
Wide Web. NTC\'s Internet address is www.ntc.blm.gov. Transcripts of
this program and other NTC broadcasts are available on the homepage. For
more information on upcoming distance learning events, as well as
traditional courses, call the Training Center at 602-906-5500. Or visit
the homepage. This broadcast has been a production of the BLM National
Training Center.