**Public Lands - Public Trust**

**Natural Resource Management in the 21st Century**

**A BLM Telecast Originating from Washington, D.C.**

**June 18, 1998**

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

It may contain errors and omissions in transcription.

Good Morning.

Thank You for Joining Us.

We Are Gathered Here Today Around this Table for a Discussion That I
Think Is Really Something of an Historic First, Because We Have Together
Around this Table the Director Of the National Park Service, The Chief
of the Forest Service, The Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service and
the Director of the Bureau of Land Management.

Which Are, of Course, the Four Large, Important Land Management Agencies
of the United States.

Now, What\'s Brought Us Together Is Because I Think There\'s Something
Really Important and Historic Happening in All of Our Agencies, and That
Affects All Of Us Together.

That Is for the First Time in History, We Are Beginning to Reach Out,
Beyond the Borders of Our Own Agencies and to Understand That in Terms
of the Way We Relate to the Public, in Terms of the Services We Provide
Our Resource Management Functions, We\'re All Kind of Looking Across
Boundaries and Beginning to Understand That Natural Systems Are a Unity,
That the People, the Voters, Citizens of the United States Don\'t Spend
Much Time Worrying About What the Badge Says, They Want a Recreation,
Access to Public Lands for the Goods and Services They Provide.

So, That\'s Kind of the Reason That Really for the First Time, We
Thought it Would Be Appropriate for All of Us to Talk Together.

Now, I Want to Thank Pat Shea, The Director of the Bureau of Land
Management for Sort of Getting Us All Here Around this Table on this
Day.

And Pat Is of Course the Newest Of Our Little Directors Group Here,
Having Come Recently from Utah to Become the Director of BLM.

He Brings with Him to this Job a Really Wonderful Diverse Experience as
a Natural Resource Lawyer.

He Began Here in Washington in a Different Field as Counsel to The
Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

And, of Course, Brings a Western Utah, Perspective to His Job.

Jamie Clark Is a Career Civil Servant in the Fish and Wildlife Service.

She Is a Biologist by Training And Has, like Many of You, Worked Her Way
up Through the Ranks, and by the Time I Came Into Office, She Was
Already Kind of a Superstar.

And She Is Now the Director.

Bob Stanton Started off in Grant Teton National Park as a Summer Intern
When He Was Still in College, and Has Kind of like Jamie, Worked His Way
up Through The Ranks of the National Park Service to Become the
Director.

Now, Mike Dombeck Is a Little Bit More Complicated, Because He Is Got
Wonderful Academic Credentials, but He Started off As a Fishing Guide,
and Spent Some Years out There, Before Kind of Coming Back to the Real,
Or less than Real World, of Federal Service.

He\'s Also the First Person in History to Have Been Both the Director of
the Bureau of Land Management and the Chief of the Forest Service.

So, with That, I\'m Going to Start by Asking Mike, If He Would Reflect
Briefly on What It\'s like to Have Been on Both Sides of the Fence, and
What it Means for All of Us Working Together.

Bruce, Two or Three Things Are Really Striking.

First of All, I Can Remember When the Phone Rang and Dale Robertson
Called Me and Asked Me If I Would Consider Going to Work at BLM after
Having Been With the Forest Service for 12 Years.

It\'s Sort of Like, What Have I Done Wrong Was the First Thing That Came
to My Mind.

Once I Went over There and Saw The Quality of People in the Bureau of
Land Management, and As I Then Spent Six Years in Your Department,
Before Coming Back to the Forest Service Last January, Was the Quality
of Employees That We Have in All These Agencies Are Just Phenomenal.

In Fact, It\'s Striking When You Travel Around the Country, That We Have
the World\'s Best Conservationists, the Best Recreational Planners,
Firefighters in All These Agencies.

And I Believe That\'s the Most Striking Thing.

The Other Thing That\'s Important Is We\'re Moving into an Era Where
We\'re Working to the.

Some Months Ago, When I Had You Over to the Auditors\' Building For
Breakfast, I Had Employee There Is to Make Sure the Rumor Wouldn\'t Get
out That You Were There for Something Else.

And the Most Important Thing Is That We All Worked Together, and I Think
it Was Just Last Week That Bob and Pat and Jamie and Someone from the
National Marine Fishery Service, from the Natural Resource Conservation
Service.

The More We Can Work Together, The Better.

So the Quality of Employees That We Have, the We Have a Lot More In
Common than We Have Differences.

And the Fact Is, the Public Wants Good Service and They Don\'t Really
Care What Badge We Wear.

\>\> Pat, What Are You Doing with The Forest Service.

\>\> Well, We Sometimes Joke, Mike And I Talk Probably Four or Five
Times a Week.

And He Has Things above 7,000 Feet and I Have Them below 7,000 Feet, but
We Overlap in So Many Areas.

And There Is Just Such Good Collaboration Opportunities.

Mike and I Have Been Talking About How, with the Strategic Plan and Then
the Necessity to Have Real On‑hands Budgeting, We Are Going to Share
Information.

And Indeed, like in Oregon and Washington, Where We Have People From the
Forest Service There Working on Very Important Projects.

I Think in the Day and Age of The Budgets That We\'re Having to Live
With, That\'s the Only Way To Achieve Our Mission Is to Have the
Collaboration We Have Outside the Building and Certainly Within the
Department Of Interior, with Bob and Jamie\'s Help, We\'ve Been Doing a
Lot of Collaboration.

\>\> It\'s Really Interesting.

If You Look at a Map, Particularly of the West, in a Lot of Areas, What
You\'re Going To Find Is Kind of like Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada And
Yellowstone, a Natural System at the Core, a Natural Park, like Yosemite
and Yellowstone Entirely Surrounded By National Forests.

And Then with BLM Down, off the Forest in the Lower Elevations.

And, Bob, Are You Giving These Folks Guidance?

\>\> It\'s Reciprocal, I Assure You.

I Want to Echo the Comments Made By Mike and by Pat, That It\'s
Critically Important, in Order For Us to Be Successful Individually and
Collectively as Stewards of Public Lands That We Collaborate, Cooperate
Across The Imagined Organizational and Land Boundaries.

And in Doing That, I Think We Maximize Our Resources for the Common
Good.

And it Is a Great Team.

And I\'m Proud to Be a Part of This Team.

\>\> Now, Mike Was Telling Me Once About Some Sort of Deal Going on In
Southwestern Colorado That Involved, What Do You Call It, Trading Posts?

\>\> Yes, Well, a Few Years Ago We Started the Trading Posts.

In Fact, When I Was Sitting in Pat\'s Chair and Jack Ward Thomas Was
Sitting in the Chair That I\'m Sitting in Now.

We Basically Gave the Direction To the Employees of Both Agencies, If
You Can Save Money F. It Makes Sense, If You Can Provide Better Customer
Service, Do It.

Don\'t Ask for Permission, Just Don\'t Break Is Law.

Where You Need Barriers Removed, Tell Us, When We Will Help You Do That.

And Colorado Was Fascinating.

They Had a Wedding.

The Thing I Don\'t Know\^‑‑

\[ Laughter \]

\^‑‑ Is, with the Bride and Groom.

Pat, I Don\'t Know Which Agency Was the Bride and Which Was the Groom.

\>\> We Just Sent out the Announcements.

\>\> They Have Uniforms with BLM And on One Side and Forest Service on
the Other Side.

The Thing Is, We\'re Getting Strong Public Support for That.

I Was at the Resource Advisory Counsel Sill Meeting When We Talked about
this and Elizabeth Still, the Regional Forester Was There.

As We Explained the Trading Post Concept to the Resource Advisory
Council and Members of the Public There, it Was Sort of Like, Why
Haven\'t You Been Doing This All along?

It Makes So Much Sense.

\>\> I Commend You on That.

We May Want to Look at That Concept, but Was There a Prenuptial
Agreement?

\>\> Great!

\>\> We Trust Each Other.

\>\> Oh.

Okay.

That\'s Good.

\>\> Okay.

Jamie, Now, What I Want to Hear From You Is about this Endangered
Species Act Stuff.

When I Was out West in Some of My Earlier Career as Governor And Other
Things, I Think Some Of the Land Management Agencies, Forest Service and
Bureau of Land Management, Park Service Said, Wait a Minute, What\'s All
This Stuff about the Fish and Wildlife Service Coming to Town And Sort
of Handing out All Kinds of Orders about What You Can and Can\'t Do
under the Endangered Species Act?

Are You a Partner or Super‑regulator with a Whip in Your Hand?

\>\> Well, Certainly from Your Voice, I Know the Right Answer.

No, We Are Clearly a Partner.

The Discussion That We\'ve Been Having Thus Far about the Collaboration
among Us as Bureau Chiefs Is Filtering down Throughout All Levels of Our
Organization.

The Endangered Species Act Is a Law with a Lot of Teeth That Has Been
Very Intimidating.

But the Most Obvious Issue That I\'ve Seen Very Evidence in All Of Our
Agencies about the Endangered Species Act Is That All of Our Employees
Are Committed, Very Passionate about Preventing the Extinction of
Species.

And Us Working with Our Land Bases, with Our Respective Expertise, Has
Gone a Tremendous Distance to Recovering Many of The Species on the List
Today.

\>\> Let Me Give an Example.

Jinx Fox in Washington Has Been Doing a Lot of Work on Mine Cleanups.

As You Know in the West, There Are a Bunch of Abandoned Mines And
They\'re Having Significant Environmental Impact on the Streams.

We Couldn\'t Work Without Fish And Wildlife Coming in and Giving a
Heads‑up on the Aquatic Life.

We\'ve Been Having the Meeting With Secretary Glickman on the Southwest
Initiative.

And, Again, Whether Somebody Is Objecting to the Forest Service, The
next Minute, It\'s Going to Be National Parks or the Bureau Of Land
Management.

So, We Need To, and I Think We Are, Moving in That Direction.

But the Scientific Expertise That Jamie Brings and Fish and Wildlife
Brings, Combined With Usgs Is Where We\'ll Establish Good Public Policy.

\>\> Sure.

\>\> Do Any of You Have Some Examples about These Watersheds Or River
Basins Where, in Fact, Land Managers Are Working Together?

\>\> I Think, for Example, the Platte River.

Mike?

\>\> the Creeks Are a Prime Example in Southeastern Oregon.

But Before That, I Want to Make One Point That I Think Is Really
Important on Endangered Species.

I Was in Jackson about a Year Ago and Someone Asked Me, What Is the
Forest Service Going to Do about this Endangered Species Problem?

I Hadn\'t Thought about That Question Quite That Way Before.

And I Think the Responses That We as a Society in the United States
Ought to Be Thankful That We Have the Habitats Left Where The Species
Can Still Survive.

Because in Many, Many Developed Countries, If You Go to Europe, They
Don\'t Have to Worry about That, Because They\'re All Gone.

\>\> Yeah.

\>\> Now, the National Forest Management Act Has Some Standards for
Forest Service, Specifically, Does it Not?

\>\> What We Have Is We Have the Viability Guide about Lines That Take
Species Management a Step Beyond What Flipma Does, Pat.

That\'s One of the Key Differences Is That That One of Our Mandates Is
to Maintain Viable Populations of Species.

We Apply the Viability Test.

Like the Endangered Species Act, It Can Be Very, Very Complex.

\>\> So, When Jamie Clark Says It\'s Time for Wolves in Yellowstone and
Bob Stanton Says Yellowstone Needs Wolves, Mike Dombeck and Pat Shea Are
Going to Be of Necessity, Part Of That, as Well?

\>\> No Question about That.

\>\> Wolves Don\'t Read Maps.

\>\> Shoulder to Shoulder.

\>\> the Story about Watersheds, I\'d like to Relate the Trout Creek
Story, Which Is I Think It\'s About, There\'s about 15\^or 16\^BLM
Permits on That, Pat.

And Suddenly We Decided, this Work Was Done, and We Had an Endangered
Species There.

We Could Have Gone Two Ways.

We Could Have Gone Did Way to The Spotted Owl, Right to Court.

But the Fact Is, Thanks to Our Employees at the Local Level, They Got
Together and They Decided, We\'re Not Going to Let This Happen.

And, They Worked it out.

Decided on Some Common Goals, Were Able to Do Some Reductions In
Stocking Rates, Pat, and They Started out in about 1988\^or 1989, and My
Numbers Aren\'t Exactly Right, Because It\'s Been Awhile, with about
8,000\^end of The Year Cutthroat, by 1995, They Were up to 40,000.

The Streams Were Recovering.

And it Didn\'t Take the Court System, You Know, No Ranchers Went out of
Business.

It Was a Prime Example Where Washington Didn\'t Help, but They Didn\'t
Need Washington.

In Fact, They Didn\'t Want Us Because They Worked it out at The Local
Level.

\>\> the Secretary Last Week Visited the River Preserve, Rick Cooper Is
the Manager There, and Ed Hastes, Also.

But It\'s a Great Project, it Started out at 5,000\^acres, It\'s Now
50,000.

It\'s the Last Undammed Rivers Into the Bay Delta.

We Have Enormous Cooperation, Not Just Amongst Federal Agencies, Which
Are Important, But Also with State and County And Even Municipal
Governments And Then Not for Profits, the Nature Conservancy Is a Big
Partner There.

What\'s Happened in the Last Five Years Is, Our People, Be They in Any
of These Agencies, of Been Given License to Be Entrepreneurial, You Put
it Quite Well.

Just Do It.

Don\'t Violate the Law, Just Get It Done.

And I Think with Our Help, We Can Facilitate That.

There May Be Times Where We Have To Seek Forgiveness, but We\'re Moving
in the Right Direction, I Think.

\>\> Jamie, Tell Us about the Habitat Conservation Plans.

Because as I Look at the Evolution of the Plans, It\'s the Land Managers
Who, the BLM in California, Forest Service in The Pacific Northwest, Who
Are At the Very Heart of this Process as it Relates to Private Land and
Protection of Species.

\>\> and They Are.

I Think the Common Theme That We\'re All Discussing Is the Notion of
Local‑led Solutions.

And Locally Developed Ideas for Conserving Species for the Long Term, at
That Time Conservation Plans Originated as A Way to Provide Relief for
Private Landowners That Had Endangered Species on Their Land.

But More and More, as We\'ve Gotten More Creative with Land Management
and with the Protection of Intact or Entire Ecosystems, Agencies like
Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management and Even the Park Service,
Are Playing a Role, We\'re Linking Together the Lands.

We Have the Private Lands Protection Needs.

But, Especially in the West, There Are Forest Lands, Forest System Lands
and Parks and Certainly a Lot of BLM Lands, That Are Becoming
Increasingly Critical to the Solutions.

And It\'s Extremely Progressive, But It\'s Also Working at the Ground
Level.

That\'s What\'s Important.

\>\> So, What You\'re Saying Is That the Public Lands That We Administer
Really Ought to Be Viewed as Sort of an Essential Part of These Plans
and this Process?

\>\> for Sure.

An Essential Part, Mostly Because, You Said it Earlier, Endangered
Species, Any Species, Don\'t Understand Political Borders.

They Don\'t Know Whose Land They\'re On.

We Need to Listen to the Species To Look at the Land and We Need To
Connect All the Pieces That Are Critical for Long‑term Survival.

And Federal Lands, Especially in The West, Are an Important Component of
That.

\>\> One of the Titles That We Had Worked with on this Program Was
Public Lands, Public Trust.

And I Think the Trust Obligations That We Have, Not Just to the Local
Area, but to The State and the Nation, and The Future Generations.

You Think of the Inheritance That We Received from People Who Occupied
Your Seat or Our Seats, And the Foresight That They Had To Create These
Preserved Areas, Was Essential to Being Able to Do What We\'re Doing.

I Do Want to Add, Though, I Mean Pamela Lewis Is a Person in Wyoming Who
Does Our Renewable Minerals.

That\'s a Very Important Component to Our Program as it Is with the
Forest Service.

And I Want to Make Sure That We Understand That We Need to Continue
Doing the Development Side, Certainly under Flipma, We Have That
Obligation, but We\'re Doing it in a More Enlightened Way, We\'re Using
the Expertise That Jamie Has and the Fish and Wildlife People, Usgs Has.

And We\'re Going to Come up with A More Defensible Plan.

It Will Satisfy Even Some of Our Most Harsh Critics.

\>\> Let\'s Talk about the Critics.

We\'ve Been Through Some Pretty Difficult Times in the Last Four Five,
Six Years and Many of You Out There Who Have Been on the Front Lines,
Kind of Taking a Lot of That Heat.

I, Too, Sense That We Are Turning That Around.

And Let\'s Explore, Why Is That?

What Are We Doing Differently?

Or Better, in Terms of Our Relationships with Private Landowners, Who
Obviously Have a Real Expectation of an Economic Return and Use of the
Resource.

Jamie?

\>\> I\'d like to Start off and Discuss That.

I Think the First Thing We\'re Doing Is Listening.

We Got a Wake‑up Call That Was Serious a Few Years Ago.

And I Remember Being Right in The Middle of it in What Was a
Fast‑approaching Collision Course with Endangered Species.

We Listened, We Heard about the Frustration.

What I\'ve Found in Wandering Around the Country, Is That I\'ve Yet to
Find Anyone That Condones Extinction, but I Have Found a Lot of People
That Fear Regulation.

And They Fear Regulation from Something They Don\'t Understand.

Communication, Discussion, and Working out Solutions That Are
Collaborative Have Been So Important, Rather than Us Just Cruising in
with Our Uniforms, Saying, this Is the Way it Is And this Is the Way You
Need to Do It.

And I\'m Right, Don\'t Ask Questions.

We\'re Often Dealing with Landowners and a General Public That Aren\'t
Trained Biologists, Aren\'t Trained Negotiators and They Don\'t
Understand What We\'re Trying to Do.

They Have Different Needs and Different Interests.

And Certainly Listening and Communicating Has Taken Us a Far Distance.

Expanding Beyond That to Innovation and Creativity.

Five, Six Years Ago, the Fish And Wildlife Service Would Never Have
Imagined That We\'d Be Where We Are Today.

The Role of Our Refuge System And Endangered Species Recovery, In
Linking up with Habitat Conservation Plans, as the Other Land‑bases, but
the Innovation And Flexibility That We\'ve Tried To Implement, That
We\'ve Tried To Implement Our Laws with Have Been Received Well, I
Think, at All Levels.

\>\> Bob?

\>\> I Think That Jamie\'s Summary Of What Has Occurred in the Recent
past with Respect of Reducing If Not in Some Instances Diminishing
Antagonism Or Severe Criticism of Our Land Management Practices and What
Have You, Is I Think it Equates Only to Maybe One Term, That\'s
Education.

And I Think That as We Reach out To Private Property Owners, State
Officials, Local Officials Educators, Conservationists, It\'s Really a
Form of Education That Becoming Actively Engaged Outside of Our
Boundaries or Forest Boundaries, BLM Boundaries, That We Contribute To
the Public Again in a Greater Appreciation and an Awareness of The
Public Lands That Are Really Part of Their Heritage.

And, as a Result, They Share in The Responsibility of Preservation.

\>\> I Think That\'s True.

National Parks Used to Be Islands.

That Is, They Were Insulated From the Pressures of Urbanization and
Development by Surrounding Forests and Vast Amounts of Open Spaces.

The Open Spaces Are Now Filling Up.

\>\> That\'s Right.

\>\> That\'s True.

\>\> and it Seems to Me That the National Park Service Has Kind Of, in a
Sense, Had to Make the Largest Cultural Transition, Starting to Deal
with Neighbors And to Deal with All the Issues Of Air and Water Quality,
and Gateway Development and All of That.

So, You\'re in the Business of Getting along with Your Neighbors and
Doing Good Politics.

\>\> Yes.

\>\> Bob\'s Leadership of Getting The National Park Programs into The
Inner City Schools and Getting Kids to Buy off on the Fact That These
Are Their National Parks, I Think Are Lessons That Could Be Applied to
BLM, Forest Service, U.s. Fish And Wildlife.

The Other Component, Though, and It\'s Interesting How Politics Shifts
Back and Forth.

I Think Oklahoma City and the Tragedy That Was There Really Was a
Serious Wake‑up Call to the American Public and to the Leadership of
Yourself, Included That Articulates the Pride with Which We Ought to
Approach Government Service.

I\'m the New Person Around this Table in Terms of Government Service.

And like Mike Was Saying, I\'ve Been Impressed by the Quality And the
Dedication of People Under Very Adverse Circumstances.

\>\> Very Much So.

\>\> the Budget Wars That Have Been Going On, I Don\'t Think, Are
Understood by the People Who Are Perpetuating Them, by the People Who
Are in the Field.

When You Go Talk to People in The Field Who Are Literally Faced with a
Task of Doing Much More with Either a Static Budget Or less of a Budget,
it Really Creates Extraordinary Pressures.

Is One Thing I Have Consistently Tried to Do, and Mike Did a Great Job
and Is Doing a Great Job, but When He Was with BLM, Getting Employees to
Understand That the Leadership Is There With Them.

That\'s a Very Important Part.

\>\> So, How Are We Doing with That?

\>\> Well, Jerry Meredith Has Done With, Again, Help from Everybody
Around this Table, and Their Respective Organizations, of Reaching out
in the Community.

I Was There When the Announcement Was Made, and August of 1996, and I
Was Energized.

I May Have Been the Only Person In Utah Who Was, Because Everybody Else
Was down in Arizona at the Signing.

But We Have a Very Good Planning Process Involved.

Jerry Is Reaching out to the Communities.

And I Think People Are Beginning To Realize That There Is a National
Asset, 1.7\^million Acres That Will Be There for Many Generations to
Come.

And Will Be a Magnet That Will Draw People into a Constructive Economy
as Opposed to a Depleting Economy.

\>\> Do You Think the Surrounding Communities Are Buying into That?

\>\> I Do.

There Are Some Counties That Are Still, It\'s Hard to Break Old Habits.

When You\'ve Been Beating up on The Federal Government for a Long Time,
it Doesn\'t Happen Overnight That You Switch.

But, Even Some of the County Commissioners Who I Know Have Been
Complaining Are Beginning To Say, Well, this Isn\'t a Bad Thing.

And We Can Participate in this.

And That\'s One of the Things That the BLM Planning Process, Ibm Lam,
Our State Director There, Has Been Really Pushing, Is to Make Sure the
Communities Understand Their Opportunity to Create an Infrastructure
That Will Be Economically Viable, but Complementary to Preserving
What\'s in the National Preserve.

\>\> this Is BLM\'s First National Monument?

\>\> T, and We Want to Do a Good Job.

\>\> Forest Service Has Some National Monuments?

\>\> with We Have Natural Areas, a Wide Variety of Classifications.

I Want to Respond to Your Initial Question, Because I Think It\'s a
Really Important One.

And the Fact of How We\'re Dealing with the Conflict.

And I Want to Commend All of the Employees That Are out There, Because
They Not Only Help Us But They Also Pick up Pieces Behind Us.

\>\> Yeah.

\>\> the Most Significant Observation in My Short Tenure As a Public
Servant Is That Government Is More Open Today Than It\'s Ever Been from
the Standpoint.

And People Are Interested and People Want to Be Part of the Process.

And That Makes Our Life More Complicated.

And as the Reinvention Hearings That the Forest Service Conducted When
Jack Was Chief, And Hank Montre Is Now Retired And Dave Rattleof,
Another Excellent Employee.

We Held Ten Hearings Around the Country, Saying, What Do You Expect of
the Agency Was the Question?

And the Answer Was, We Expect You to Be the Educators, the Facilitators
and the Catalysts For Bringing People Together.

And at That Time, Sitting Across In Your Chair, Pat, I Heard the Same
Thing at the BLM.

That St. a Changing Role for Employees.

As We Think about What Is the Resource Manager of the Future?

The Resource Manager of the Future, Not Only Has to Be the Technical
Expert, or Know Where To Get the Technical Information But Then Has Also
Has to Be an Expert in Communication and Facilitation.

Because the Conflicts Are Always Going to Be There.

\>\> Yes.

\>\> Jamie, What about the Biologist Who Went to College Thinking, I
Love Biology.

I Want to Do Science Who All of A Sudden Finds Himself or Herself in
Front of an Angry Audience of a Couple Hundred Folks Worrying about the
Impact Of an Endangered Species?

What\'s Happening?

\>\> Well, I Can Speak from Personal Experience.

I\'m One of Them.

Never in My Wildest Imagination Did I Believe I Would Ever Find Myself
in That Kind of Position.

We Go to School, We\'re Typically Introverts W. We Go to School Thinking
We\'re Going to Wander Around and Count Ducks and Wildlife and Loving
Life.

You Get a Serious Wake‑up Call When I Realize That Your Passion Of
Protecting the Land, and Wildlife Conservation Involves Communicating
with the Public.

And it Has Been a Very Significant Evolution, I See, in The Fish and
Wildlife Service.

We Have Realized the Cultural Change That Needs to Occur and We\'ve
Taken Training, Our Folks, Very Seriously.

Training and Communication.

In Negotiation, in Partnerships.

Our Refuge System and Endangered Species Recovery Would Not Be at The
Stage it Is Today If We Were Not Integrating Our Decisions And
Integrating Our Goals with Those of the Local Communities.

Like the Park System, Our Refuges Used to Be in the Boonies.

And Now, They\'re Surrounded by Major Urban Sprawl.

And in Many Parts of the Country We Depend Heavily on Friends Groups,
the Coordinating Associations, to Further the Refuge Objectives and
Goals.

But, I Talked to Biologists All Over Who Ask Me, What It\'s like To Be a
Bureaucrat and I\'m Still Figuring That out.

But, How They Deal with this Stress in the System.

And it Really Takes a Lot of Internal Change to Be Able to Communicate
Your Passion in a Way That Others Understand and Commit To.

\>\> Mike, I Take it Your Folks Go Through the Same Thing?

I Think of People Brought up To, And Educated to Be Foresters, All of a
Sudden Dealing With, You Know, Urban Expansion Proposals, the Grand
Canyon with Bison Management in Yellowstone.

Recreation, I Suppose, Coming up A Brand New Function That Involves
Managing People, as Much as Managing the Resources.

\>\> Well, We Are Going Through I Think a Major Transition in the Reward
System Within the Agencies, How We\'re Funded.

One of the Big Challenges I Have And I Know It\'s the Same Challenge
That Pat Has, Is the Reward System Within the Agency T Forest Service Is
Coming out Of a Couple of Decades Where We Were Able to Put the Cost of
Management on the Back of Timber.

That\'s No Longer the Case.

We Have to Examine the Support Base.

In Fact, Bob and I, Fifth Month In the Job I Gathered the Four Other
Chiefs of the Forest Service, We Went up to Gray Towers and No
Facilitators, Just Sat There and Talk.

What Is the Future Support Base Of the Forest Service?

What Is the Future Support Base Of All of Our Agencies, and How Do We
Connect with Them?

How Do We Determine What They Want?

One of the Thin That Is Bob Mentioned, in Fact, I Think All Of Us Have
Hit it That Is a Key Challenge That We Have, Is Education.

80% of the American Public Today Is Growing up in Urban Areas.

We\'ve Got Intense Competition With Nintendo and Netscape and Star Wars
and All That\'s Going On.

And Yet, the Land and the Quality of Life and All That We Do Is So
Important.

And I Believe in All the Agencies, That When We Sort of Reverse the
Trend of Spending in The \'80s for Conservation, Education, We Need to
Somehow Ratchet That up and Really Connect with Theme.

Because People Are the Delivery System.

It Comes Through with the Resource Advisory Council Concepting, Our
Employees and We Achieve That Through Education.

\>\> Two of You Who Have Dealt With the Resource Advisory Councils on
Grazing Front and Who Have Had Similar Experiences With Other Resource
Management.

How Are We Doing?

I Mean, I Hear Occasionally from People in the Field Who Say, Look, I
Spend My Life Going to Meetings, Driving Around, Talking and Meeting and
Process To the Point That Sometimes I Wonder What Else I\'m Doing.

\>\> but the Racks in My Mind Were The Vehicle That Allowed the
Transition from Open War and Hostility to Her People Were Literally
Sitting Around the Same Table.

We Were in Colorado with Governor Romer to Give out a Golden Hammer
There and There Was a Rancher from Grand Junction And They Were Joking
How at the First Meeting They Wouldn\'t Sit At the Same Table.

And it Took Them about Two Months to Break the Ice.

And, Now, They\'re Best Friends.

They Still Disagree on Some Policies, but the Racks Have Provided a
Forum for Discussion.

And I Really Think One of the Traditions of the West Is an Open
Pragmatic Approach to Problem Solving.

Let\'s Figure out How to Do It.

And I Think the Racks Have Done That.

The Real Tricky Part Is How We Can Continue to Get Very Important Advice
but Actually Implement the Standards and Guidelines.

At Least for BLM, I Think in Some States We\'re Making Enormous
Progress.

In Other States, We\'re Beginning To Bog down.

We\'re Going to Have to Push the Process along.

\>\> I Think Some Are Working Well And Others Have a Ways to Go.

And I Think That\'s to Be Expected.

The Place That I Think We See The Most Progress Is Where People Focus on
Common Goals.

We All Have So Much Energy and No More.

And We Have Financial Resources.

And One of Our Challenges Is, And I Ask All the Employees of Every
Agency Is to Do this Is to Focus as Much Organizational Energy at Common
Goals.

Because That\'s the Way You Get Ahead.

That\'s the Way You Spend Taxpayer Money Efficiently.

That\'s the Way You Get Results On the Land and You Make Friends With
People and Then Some of the Issues That Are Really Tough, I\'ve Call it
the Red Zone, Green Zone, Yellow Zone Concept, If We Spend All of Our
Time in the Red Zone, We\'re Not Using Our Resources Efficiently.

We\'re Always Going to Have Disagreements, and That\'s Okay.

But Let\'s Focus in Areas of Common Goals.

\>\> There Are a Couple of Large Projects under Way That I Think Have a
Lot of Hints about What The next Century Is Going to Be Like.

One Is the Restoration of the Florida Everglades with the National Park
Service and Fish And Wildlife Service at the Core Of an Effort Which Now
Extends Virtually Statewide, as Well as down into the Florida Keys and
Florida Bay.

What\'s Interesting about It, of Course, Is Not Just the Interagency
Stuff, but the Role Of Science and the Amount of Public Support and
Financial Support from State and Local Governments and the Congress.

Now, at the Other End of the Country, We Have a Similar Undertaking
under Way in the Bay Delta System of California, Which Involves the
Forest Service in its Administration of the High Ground, the Fish and
Wildlife Service with Many of The Fish Runs.

The Park Service on the High Ground and the BLM with Land Everywhere in
Between.

And, Again, the Interesting Thing Is That We\'re Getting a Lot of
Support.

Sometimes We Think That We\'re Bound to Have Opposition in Congress over
a Lot of Resource Policies.

Here\'s an Area Where in California Delegation Is Seeking Funding,
We\'re Getting It, the State Legislature Is Putting up Funding as
Occurred in Florida.

And I Guess I\'d like to Kind of Reflect on the Meaning of this.

What\'s Going on Here?

Why Are These Things Popular?

What Is it That\'s Happening in Florida and California That We Ought to
Be Saying to Beleaguered Folks in Some of the Rocky Mountain States, You
Can Learn about this.

\>\> That\'s an End Result of a Better‑informed Public, If You Will.

And Elected Appointed Official, Private Citizen, That I Think Everyone
Began to Recognize That If We Are to Preserve These Areas, the
Everglades, the Bay Area of California, the City West Areas, It\'s Going
to Take a Community of Common Interests to Achieve That.

And I Think What Is Happening With the Everglades Is a Classic Example
That it Takes the State, All the Federal Agencies That Have a Land
Management Responsibility in Florida, to Take it to Private Interest to
Pull Together as a Team to Preserve That Great Ecosystem.

\>\> I Think the Other Thing That You\'re Seeing in Both of These In
Particular, Is Forward Movement.

\>\> Yes.

\>\> the Public Expects The\^‑‑ See What\'s So Interesting Is the Public
Expects the Government to Work Together.

You Know, There\'s a Real Frustration When They See Meltdown among the
Agencies.

And They Don\'t Believe There\'s Any Excuse for it and There Probably Is
Not.

\>\> What Do You Mean by Forward Progress?

\>\> We\'re Seeing Changes on the Land.

We\'re Seeing More Flexibility And Decision‑making.

We\'re Seeing Incentives for Engagement.

\>\> What about this Word Restoration?

\>\> My Last Point.

\>\> Yes.

\>\> and Seeing, We Are Actually Seeing Restoration of the Landscape.

We Are Seeing in the Everglades In Particular, We\'re Seeing Habitats
Being Protected.

We\'re Seeing Kind of Rejuvenation of the Habitat and We\'re Seeing
Increasing Numbers Of Endangered Species.

We Have Almost 70\^species in the Everglades.

\>\> I Want to Get into This, Because it Seems to Me That There Is
Something New, Something Magical about this Idea of Restoration, about
Recapturing a Vision of the Past.

And I Just, I Want to Pursue This.

For the Last Century, We\'ve Been Talking about Preservation, We\'re
Going to Preserve the Land We\'re Going to Not Let it Get Degraded Any
More.

Now, All of a Sudden, We\'re Talking about Restoration.

\>\> I\'d like to Think That We\'re Moving into as We Move into the 21st
Century, We Know That Protecting the Fragments, the Pieces, the Isolated
National Parks, Wildlife Refuges, Isn\'t Enough.

That We\'ve Got the National Forest, the BLM Lands, the Watershed
Restoration Councils, This All Ties Together.

And I Think the Bay Delta, the Everglades, the Pacific Northwest Forest
Plan, the Trout Mountains That I Talked about Earlier, the Kissimmee,
Example After Example Where Restoration Is Occurring.

And We Have Got a Track Record For Restoration, It\'s Not a New Thing.

Look at the Appalachians Today, As Compared to What They Were Like at
the Turn of the Century.

\>\> What Was it like at the Turn Of the Century?

\>\> Clear Cut and Burn T Watersheds Are in Better Shape.

Last Night, I Met with the Employees in Our Regional Office With Bob
Jacobs and His Staff, We Had a Cookout at Bob\'s House After the
Meeting.

And Jake Cravens Was There.

Jay Took Me to the Airport.

And I Said to Jay, How Am I Doing?

He Said, Well, Hang in There.

You\'re Doing Fine.

He Said, Take Care of the Soil And the Water, and Everything Else Will
Be Okay.

\>\> I Want to Make One Point, Though, Because I Think We All Sort of
Growing up in a Similar Time Period.

And in That Post‑world War Ii Environment, I Think the Notion Was Afoot,
Certainly in Government, That We Were Masters Of the Universe, That We
Could Do Things, and There Was Unlimited Resources, and Some Senses,
Unlimited Time.

As We Have Gotten More Sophisticated in Our Science and As We Began to
Understand the Inner Relationship of Species And the Importance of
Preserving Species, I Think Policymakers Began to Talk and it Spilled
Over into the Public and the Public, I Think, Has a Very Common Sense
Approach.

We Need this.

And They\'re Going to Be Supporting It.

And Some of the Harsh Critics, Who Have Been Willing to Go After the
Species and Try to Make Fun of the It, Succeeded in The Beginning
Because There Wasn\'t a Good Knowledge Base, But as People, and
Particularly Our Employees Have Begun Talking To Their Neighbors and
Gone to City Meetings and Said, No, No, There Is an Important Point Here
This Is Not Just about Us, but It\'s about Our Children and
Grandchildren, That\'s Begun to Be Embraced as an Ethic That Was
Certainly Mentioned in Sand County and Other Works That We\'ve All Read
and Accepted.

\>\> Now, Let\'s Carry this on to Rivers.

There Is Something about Rivers That Is Attracting the Imagination of
the American People.

The President Has Proposed a Heritage Rivers Program, We\'ll Be Shortly
Designating the Rivers.

And I Tell You, the Response Has Been Absolutely Extraordinary.

There Is Something about this Word Restoration and about the Word
Rivers, and Watersheds.

That I Think Has a Lot of Power.

I Can\'t Quite Put My Finger on It.

What\'s this All about?

Bob.

\>\> Well, Rivers, I Think, as You Look at the Movement of the
Population, or of Our Country, And Look Here at the Nation\'s Capital,
as an Example, the Potomac River or Look at West Virginia, That They
Have Been The Location of Industrial Growth of this Nation and What Have
You.

And, Now, People Are Beginning To Realize That Rivers Inherently Have a
Way of Contributing to the Quality of Life.

Not Only the Beauty of the Rivers, but the Recreational Use And What
Have You as Opposed to Just Looking at an Area That Perhaps Can Generate
Power, or Meet Other Domestic Needs Is That They\'re Beginning to Become
Extremely Valued Resource That Contribute to the Quality of Life.

Rivers Are Going Through Cities Such as the River Through San Antonio
Now That Has Been Upgraded Substantially in Terms Of Quality That Has
Contributed To Economic Growth in the Area.

Again, Contributing to Better Quality of Life.

\>\> Jamie?

\>\> Well, There\'s Not a Whole Lot More I Can Add to Bob.

I Think He Did a Fine Job.

But I Do Believe That the American Public Connects Rivers And the
Aquatic Resource Environment with the Life Blood Of the Nation.

It\'s Where Probably the Greatest Diversity of Species Exists and It\'s
Also Where the Greatest Majority of Human Species Want To Be for
Recreation, for Opportunities to Be among the Natural Environment.

And There\'s a Lot of Utility in Rivers.

The Additional Issue, Though, That I Believe Has Gotten Out, Is That the
Future of the Quality of Our Rivers, Have Our Aquatic Environment
Connects Directly to the Future of Us Through Water Quality and Human
Health.

And That Connection Is Something We Never like to Talk about.

Not Too Long Ago, the Connection Of Environmental Health and the Economy
to the Health of Us as a Species.

And That Message Is Really Being Spread Across the Country.

If You Look at Endangered Species, I Know I Keep Harping On That, but
It\'s on My Radar\^‑‑

\>\> it Is Your Radar.

\>\> it Is My Radar.

We Have 1100\^listed Species in The United States Today.

45% of Those Depend on the Aquatic Environment Just for Survival.

\>\> 45%?

\>\> Depend on the Aquatic Environment.

And the History of That Act Since 1973, We Have Never Delisted One of
Them Due to Recovery.

That Says a Lot about the Health Of Our Aquatic Landscape.

And it Also Says a Lot about Where We as a Federal Government But Where
We as an American Public, Should Focus Restoration.

\>\> What\'s this Bringing Back the Natives Campaign Associated with
You?

\>\> Well, this Is Wonderful Example of a Partnership Between BLM and
the Forest Service And the Private Sector in Many Cases, Where Trout
Unlimited in Fact, it Was Pam and Jack Williams, BLM Employee, Now in
Boise, and I That Sat Some Years Ago, Before We Even Named the Program,
the Fish and Wildlife Foundation Was a Major Part of This.

And What We\'re Really Doing Is, Through Land Acquisition, Restoration
Projects, Making Significant Progress on the River in Nevada with
Bringing Back the Natives Program.

And It\'s Then Sort of Grown to Move All Around Parts of the West and
Even Now to the East as We See Work That\'s Being Done.

There\'s Tremendous Interest Interest in Native Fish Population.

\>\> What Kind of Natives Are You Talking about?

\>\> Well, We\'re Talking about the Greenback.

\>\> the Kind You like.

\>\> the Kind We\'d like to Be Able To Catch.

I Caught My First on the Forest Last Fall.

That Was a Real Thrill.

\>\> Do You Get Some Public Response from These Partnership Restoration
Projects?

\>\> the Thing That We Do Is They Focus People on Common Goals, And They
Focus the Energy on the Land.

This Is Another Thing That\'s Important about What I\'ve Seen Some of
the Resource Advisory Councils Do and Many Others.

Somehow, When People Move Away From the Conference, and Away From the
Scoping Meetings, the Public Hearings and They Start Looking at the
Resource, Something Magical Happens.

They Suddenly Stop Worrying About Their Differences, and Whether
They\'re Republican or Democrat or a Member of the Sierra Club or the
National Cattleman\'s Association or the Western Forest Products
Association, but They Focus on The Progress That\'s Being Made On the
Land.

And That\'s Important.

And That\'s Why I\'m Very, Very Strong Proponent of People Getting out
on the Land.

\>\> Mime Dombeck Says, Never Meet Within Four Wall When Is You Can Go
Outside.

\>\> the Other Thing That Has Happened, Utah Has this Incredible Aquatic
Lab That All Of the Agencies Are Doing to Use Assessments of Where
Aquatic Life Stands Is That as You Begin To Understand the Needs of the
Native Coming Back into the Waters, You Begin to Understand The Entire
Ecosystem in the Rivers and Streams.

I Remember, 1969, Coming to Work In Washington, There Was a Sign That
Said, Do Not Get in the River.

It Is Polluted, Dangerous to Your Health.

And When You Went to New York, Just Last Year, and Highlighted Some of
the Industrial Pollution That Still Remains, I Think People Are
Beginning to Recognize That as You Said, It\'s Our Life Blood.

If We Don\'t Take Care of It, We Won\'t Be Healthy.

\>\> and this Is Not New.

One of the Four Natural Resource Agenda Items of the Forest Service That
Our Management Team Identified Last Year and Then I\'m Talking about a
Lot Is Watershed Restoration and Health.

\>\> Right.

\>\> I Sort of Looked at It, this Is the Returning to the Roots of The
Forest Service.

The 1891\^legislation Focused on Watersheds.

The 1987\^administration Act Focused on Watersheds.

The 1911\^focused on Watershed Restoration.

And 80% of the Rivers in the United States Have Their Headwaters on
National Forests And Probably the Other 15\^on National Parks, Bob.

You Mentioned the Bay Delta.

I Was Amazed to Learn That 80% Of the Water Delivered to the Bay Delta
Flows off a National Forests, So this Value of Water, If We Place the
Value of Water And Our Water about Sheds and National Forests and
National Parks, it Would Blow Every Other Value off the Map,
Economically.

And One of the Things That I Think We All Need to Do, and I Would Ask
All Employees So Do, Is to Communicate this Simply Because What Do
Watersheds Really Do?

Wayne Elmore, Leader of Our Joint Riparian Services Theme, Taught Me a
Lot about Communicates.

You Want to Recharge Aquifers.

\>\> That\'s Right.

\>\> What I Did, as a Ph.d.

Aquatic Ecologists, I Talked About Analysis to the Public and The
Strongest Supporters of Watershed Restoration and Protection Ought to Be
the People That Live in Las Vegas And Scottsdale and Reno and All Over
the Country.

We\'ve Got to Get That Message Out.

That\'s Where We Come Back to Our Education.

\>\> Jamie, this Is Relevant in The Southwest, Too, Is it Not?

From Your Perspective?

\>\> it Sure Is.

\>\> What\'s the Problem There?

\>\> Not Enough.

\>\> Okay.

\>\> Certainly, Not Enough.

And Just the Stress on the River Systems down There.

Not Only from Lack of Water, but The Quality of Water and What\'s
Happening along the Banks.

All Four of Our Agencies, and The Employees in the Southwest, Are
Mounting a Huge Campaign to Save the Southwest.

Save the Southwest Not Only for Our Programs and Our Constituents, but
to Save the Southwest for the Sake of the Southwest.

It\'s the Most Fragile Part of The Country Right Now.

And, We\'re Spending a Lot of Time Trying to Stabilize the Effects of a
Lot of Use of the Southwest.

It\'s Where Most of the People Happen to Be Migrating Right Now As Well.

\>\> Sure.

\>\> We\'re Coming up on the 10th Anniversary of the Great Fires In
Yellowstone.

I Was Reading an Article Last Week in One of the National Newspapers,
Suggesting That Ten Years Later, What We, as Land Managers, Can Learn
from Yellowstone Was, Let it Burn.

Now, I Suspect These an Oversimplification, but I Sense There\'s
Something Equally Important Going on in All of the Land Management
Agencies about the Use and Misuse of Fire.

And I Suspect That I\'ve Got to Give Kudos to the National Park Service,
Probably the Earliest To the Use of Fire with the Sequoia Research in
California, With the Kind of Early Let it Burn Policies.

Fish and Wildlife Service Not Far Behind.

I Think the Service Has Known it For a Long Time.

Now, I Think the Forest Service And BLM Have Been, Have Come to This
Stuff a Little Later On.

So I\'m Going to Start with Mike Dombeck.

Isn\'t it True the Forest Service Used to Say, Still Says, If It\'s
Burning, We\'re Going to Stomp it Out by 10:00\^the next Morning.

Still Doing It?

\>\> Some Places, Depending on the Objective.

I Think We Have Learned an Awful Lot about Fire in the Last Decade or
More.

And I Have to Say That the Smoky Bear Campaign Is One of the Most
Successful Educational Campaigns Ever in the United States.

And We\'ve Got Tremendous Resource Management Challenges In the Urban
and Wildland Interface and Preaching the Safety Message and Making Sure
People Fireproof Their Hopes to The Greatest Extent That We Can.

And I Think One of the Challenges For All of Us at this Table and Our
Employees over the next Couple of Years Is to Get the Funding, Make the
Investments, To Get the Land in the Condition That it Needs to Be in
from the Standpoint of Returning Some Sort of a Natural Cycle of Fire
And the Right Density, the Right Stocking Rates of the Appropriate
Species of Trees and We Saw this the Tahoe Basin at The President\'s
Summit Last Summer We All Participated and The Challenges We Had There.

\>\> So What Did You See?

What\'s Wrong with the Forests?

\>\> Too Many Trees.

\>\> Why Are There Too Many Trees?

\>\> What We\'ve Done Is We\'ve Stopped the Cleansing, the Natural
Cleansing Effect of Fire.

I Look at Fire, Wind and Water As Sort of the Cleansing Agents Of The,
of Nature.

And Where We Stop That Cleansing And Have Invasions of Us, of First
Species, Where We Had Ponderosa Pine, We Allow the Fuels to Build up
over Time.

We Have Stocking Rates of 300\^or Perhaps 3,000.

We End up with Uncontrollable Situation Where Nature Does What Nature
Will Do at Some Point.

\>\> Forest Service Folks out There Can Have Explaining to Do.

Chief of the Forest Service Says Too Many Trees in the Forest.

Of Course, He\'s Absolutely Right.

And Pat, Do You Want To\^‑‑

\>\> One of the Biggest Challenges We Have, Mike and I, Is to Find A
Systematic Way to Reduce Biomass.

I Was Sitting with a Friend at Their Cabin out in the Woods, And I He
Just Bought it and I Said, What Are You Going to Do About this?

He Said, What Do You Mean, Reducing Biomass?

See How Many Trees and Vegetation There Is out There?

You Get a Fire and There\'s No Way You\'re Going to Save this.

And He Said, I Have Good Fire Insurance.

Too Many Times, I Think We\'ve Had the Attitude That a Federal Agency
Will Be the Fire Insurance, We Will Go in and Be Able to Snap Our
Fingers and by 10:00\^have the Fire Put out.

And the Inter‑agency Fire Center Does an Extraordinary Job, and I Think
the Science They\'re Using, Both on Fighting the Fires, but Of Equal
Importance on the Rehabilitation.

We Had Done an Experiment about How to Reintroduce Native Plants Once
the Fire Had Gone Through There.

We Had 100% Recovery Rate for Native Plants.

When We Went Old Method, Napweed Was Back There 90%, 95%.

There\'s a Lot to Be Learned There.

\>\> If I Could Put Forward One Model for What it Is That All of Us Need
to Do by Example and All Of Our Employees Need to Do, in Terms of
Working Together, it Would Be the Interagency Fire System, Which Has
Grown up in Such an Extraordinary Way with The Incident Command System
with The Marshaling of Resources.

It\'s Remarkable to Walk into a Fire Camp and See an Incident Commander
in the Forest Service And People Working Underneath From State,
Municipal Fire Departments, from the Park Service, BLM, Fish and
Wildlife Service.

It\'s a Nice Example.

\>\> Some of the Models That We Apply to Our Resource Management Issues
Have Come out of the Fire Community.

If We Ask Ed Hastey and Lynn Sprague in California, the Coordinated
Resource Management Model Came out of the Fire Community in Southern
California The Incident Command Model Came Out of California.

The\^‑‑

\>\> and it Works.

\>\> the National Interagency Fire Center and the Level of Expertise We
Have in Fire Management Is Phenomenal.

In Fact, It\'s in Demand Around The World.

I Was Just in Mexico, and We Have 41\^advisers down There.

We Have to Integrate Our Fire Expertise into the Planning Process So
They\'re Looking Ahead.

And\^‑‑

\>\> When They\'re Going to a Fire, They Ought to Be Able to Have a Plan
That Has Been Used in the Past for Rehabilitation So That As They\'re
Fighting the Fire, If There Are Marginal Judgments to Make, They Can Do
That.

In Utah, They Have a Computer Program So That They Can Call up The past
Records of What\'s Been Successful, What\'s Not Been Successful.

That\'s Where the Fish and Wildlife People Really Need to Get More
Involved in Fire Program.

Because You Have the Scientific Knowledge That Would Be Applicable.

\>\> and I\'d Take it One Step Further and Say We\'ve Got to Apply the
Fire Management Expertise into the Long‑term Planning Process.

So They\'re Part of Determining The Condition, the Desired Future
Condition, Call it What You Will, That You Want out on The Land, Refuge,
on a National Forest.

\>\> and to Wave the Red Flag and The Plans Are Going to Cause,
Particularly in the Urban Rural Interface, Some Places in Reno, I Think
Are Just Waiting to Have A Fire, Have Some Enormous Destruction.

And We Need to Be Able, Either The Forest Service, BLM, National Parks,
Say That\'s Not Going to Work Because of the Fire Danger.

\>\> What Are We Doing?

Then, Bob, What Are We Doing in Terms of Consulting When We Do Land
Management Plans?

Are You Doing an Rnp, Do You Talk To Neighboring Land Managers, Park
Service, When You Do a Gnp?

Are You Talking to the Forest Service?

\>\> We\'re Doing That.

It\'s an Area Where I Think There\'s Opportunities to Increase That
Level of Cooperation and Coordination and Information Sharing.

In Some Instances, We May Designate BLM, Say, as a Cooperator Agency
with Respect To the Lead for That or an Environmental Assessment and
Share Common Data Bases That Will Help Us to Determine What The
Resources Are, What the Impact Will Be, What the Plan or Development in
Such a Fashion.

And There Are Examples of Many Successes in Terms of Coordination, but I
Think It\'s An Area Where We Need to Continue to Work on in All
Locations Throughout the Country.

\>\> Michele Chavez in New Mexico Has the Petroglyph Situation Outside
of Albuquerque.

And We Are Putting in Place a Plan That Has Had Significant Input from
National Parks and Forest Service.

In Certain Nevada, We Announced Our Resource Management Plan.

And That Was after I Think 45 Public Hearings, Where Forest Service Was
Involved, Fish and Wildlife Was There.

So, Again, as Everybody Has Said Communication, Communication Is The Key
Component There.

\>\> Let\'s Talk a Little Bit about Employee Training, Workforce
Diversity, How it Is You Sense That All of Our Employees Feel About the
Direction of Our Organizations, about Their Own Opportunities, about the
Way We Are Recruiting and the Future of Our Organizations.

Anybody?

\>\> Well, I Think the Point That Has Been Made in Our Discussions Here,
That the Dedication, Professionalism on the Part of Our Staffs, I Think,
Epitomizes What Public Service Should Be.

But I Think That\'s Being Said, There\'s a Continuing Obligation On Our
Part as the Directors of Our Respective Bureaus, to Give Employees the
Opportunity to Continue to Develop Their Skills Their Knowledge, as Well
as Their Potential for Advancement.

So Committed Resources for Training Programs Within Our In‑house You
Have Is Critically Important.

Coupled with the Responsibility We Have to Assure That Our Workforce
Reflect in the Words Of President Clinton, Face of Mesh.

And We Do Have an Aggressive Program in Our Individual Bureaus That
Speaks to That.

And We Feel Very Comfortable With That It\'s Keeping with the Letter and
Spirits of the Department\'s Plan under Your Direction.

And We\'re Making Some Progress.

But We Still Have a Ways to Go, Secretary.

\>\> Jamie?

\>\> Training Is Essential to Keep Us on the Cutting Edge.

Not Only Technical Training, and I Certainly Feel That Myself, as A
Biologist, to Keep Current With the New Thoughts and Restoration Ecology
and the New Thoughts in What\'s Happening and Fish and Wildlife Science,
but As I Mentioned Earlier, I Think We Are Asking Our Biologists to Be
Much More than Biologists.

We\'re Asking Them to Be Communicators and Negotiators, Land‑use
Planners.

Some of Us Are Kind of Shade‑tree Lawyers on Occasion.

No Offense.

\[ Laughter \]

But I Really Believe That Providing Our Employees the Opportunity to
Stay Current, and To Continue to Grow Themselves, Both Personally and
Professionally, Is Essential to Healthy Workforce.

They Are Competing with Some Folks on the Outside, or Engaging with
Folks on the Outside, That Remain on the Cutting Edge and Our Employees
Deserve That as Well.

We Have Invested a Fair Amount Into Our National Training Center in West
Virginia and We\'ve Opened it up Not Only to Our Federal Agencies, but
State Agencies and the Private Sector As a Place to Come Together.

Solve Problems.

Deal with the Natural Resources Issues of Current.

But Employee Training Essential.

On the Diversity Side, it Is Absolutely Important That We Have a
Workforce That\'s Reflective of the Nation\'s Citizenry.

\>\> Reflect on Your Own Experience.

You Obviously Are a Role Model, Having Made it All the Way Through.

Surely, Has the Work Environment For Women Been Changing?

And How, in Your Experience?

\>\> Well, I Think it Has.

I Mean, I Try Not to Dwell on The Fact That I\'m a Woman.

I Mean, I like Being a Woman.

That\'s Okay.

\>\> Good.

\>\> But, You Know, I Came up as a Graduate Student, the Only Female in
My Class, and While it Was a While Ago, it Wasn\'t 100 Years Ago.

And I Started My Federal Career As a Low‑level Technician, Working among
Men in the Military.

And So the Military Being Very Male‑dominated, I Was Oftentimes The Only
Biologist.

And the Fish and Wildlife Service, Once Transferring to Them, it Was
Back When I Transferred, Fairly Male Dominated.

But the Role of Women in Natural Resources, I Think, Has Evolved
Tremendously.

I Have a Number of Colleagues, Women, in High Positions, in High Places.

And I Think It\'s Great.

I Think That the Role That I Play on Behalf of My Gender, the
Responsibility That I Have, I Take Very Seriously.

But I See the Opportunities Coming All the Time.

What I Believe as a Woman, I Would Expect, Is a Fair Chance.

Not Because I\'m a Woman, but Because I\'m a Professional.

And in Recruiting for Diversity In Our Agencies, We Have a Very
Broad‑based Campaign to Reach Out into Universities, into Areas Where We
Can Reach a Diverse Audience.

Not Only from Gender, but from Ethnic Background.

Then, We Work Very Hard to Pick The Best Qualified.

What We\'re Finding Is, Really Well‑qualified Women and Well‑qualified
Minorities All Over the Country.

You Just Have to Look for Them.

And We Have Not Reached out into These Places Before.

And We Need to Look at Nontraditional Ways of Recruiting into the
Natural Resources Field.

\>\> Bob?

\>\> Yeah, I Echo Jamie\'s Comment About Recruitment.

It Has to Be an Active Management Program to Make Sure That Prospective
Candidates or Applicants for Jobs Within Natural Resources or Cultural
Resources, Are at Least Aware The Opportunities Are Aware and Hopefully
They Will Compete for Those Jobs.

But One of the Gratifying Developments of this Country, I Mean, One of
the Developments of This Country That Have Been Most Gratifying to Me Is
That as I Looked at the Number of Areas That Have Been Added to the
National Park System over the Past, Oh, Two to Three Decades, Is That We
as a Nation Are Becoming More Proud of Our Cultural Diversity,
Recognizing That the History of Our Country Have Had Eras in Which We
Are Not as Proud as Perhaps We Would Like to Be, Because They
Represented Some Types in Which Our Individual Differences or The
Diversity Was Not Fully Accepted on Par with Perhaps Others of the
Society.

But If You Were to Take a Look At the Number of the Areas That Have Been
Added to the National Park System, We Commemorating The Achievements and
Achievements of Women, Native Americans and American Indians, Is That
While There Have Been Some Dark Pers in Our History Relative to Some of
Those Groups What Have You S. That Now We Commemorate the Contribution
and Sacrifices That They Made.

And It\'s Our Responsibility to Preserve and Interpret That Heritage.

And by Making the Greater Public Aware of Those Resources Are Now A Part
of the National Park System, We\'re Finding That More Women and More
African‑american, Asian/american Say I Want to Be Part of the Team,
Preserves My Heritage as Situated in the National Parks.

So I Think That\'s Very Gratifying.

\>\> That\'s Wonderful.

You Mentioned Native Americans.

And of Course the Native Americans Are a Trust Responsibility of the
Interior Department.

\>\> Sure, That\'s Right.

\>\> There Is a Large Responsibility in the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The Bottom Line Is the Tribes Are Their Own Land Managers but They\'re a
Very, Very Important Part of Our Federal Responsibility.

\>\> Very Much So.

\>\> and I Guess I\'d like to Hear Anybody Who Wants to Elaborate On How
it Is We\'re Faring in Our Relationships with Each Other, And with the
Native Americans That Are Also on the Land.

\>\> I Think, Kevin Gover Has Provided a Real Energized Leadership
Force.

We\'ve Been Having, as You Know, Some Tough Times in the Ward Valley.

With Kevin\'s Assistance, We\'ve Intervened in a Constructive Way.

I Think in the Whole Diversity Area, it Would Be Fair to Say, Were
Whether It\'s with Native Americans or Other Groups That Have Been
Excluded, That We\'ve Been Doing a Lot of Talks.

And That\'s Important.

But Now Is the Time to Start Walking the Walk as They Say.

\>\> Sure.

\>\> I Think with the Native Americans We Have Opportunities.

BLM, We Have 300\^different Tribes That We Have Relationships with.

We Do a Lot of the Oil and Gas Operations for Them.

But We Only Have 50\^cooperative Agreements with Them, Bob Laidlaw Is
Going to Help Us Try To Double or Triple the Number Of Agreements That
We Have with Tribes.

I\'ve Been Doing a Lot of Work in Spokane with the Spokane Tribe Where a
Uranium Mine Closed down In 1981.

They Have Been at the Forefront Of Assisting Us with the Forest Services
Help, on How to Reclaim The Land.

And I Think When You Approach it As We Need Your Equal Help on This, You
Get Help.

If You Come in and Say, Here\'s The Solution, We\'re Going to Properly
Reject It.

That\'s One of the Things That Kevin Has Been Systematically Putting the
Message out in the Department, and Throughout the Executive Branch, for
That Matter.

\>\> I Remember Whether Molly Beatty Went out to the Apache Indian
Reservation in Arizona.

It Made an Enormous Difference In Terms of the Fish and Wildlife
Service.

\>\> and from That Start, When Molly Went into Arizona, Dealing In Fact
it Was Endangered Species Again, Mexican Spotted Owl, Everything Comes
Back to That, but We Negotiated over a Period of Time, a Secretarial
Order Dealing with Endangered Species and Harmonizing Our Tribal Trust
Responsibility.

That Was Quite Significant.

I Negotiated Part of That, and What I Found Very Important Was Really
Finally an Open Acknowledgement from All Sides How Much in Common We
Had.

A Love of the Land.

A Tremendous Ethic.

The Need to Share Resources.

The Acknowledgement That the Tribes Do Have a Tremendous Natural
Resources Capacity That\'s Very Value‑added to Solutions, and
Decision‑making.

And That They\'re an Important Component, Not to Be Treated as A Federal
Agency or a Private Landowner, but One That Is Very Valuable in Ensuring
the Long‑term Health of Our Lands.

And it Has Transcended Through Our Agency, Especially in Dealing with
Things like Endangered Species or Declining Species, Aquatic, Fisheries
Is An Area Where We\'ve Worked Very Closely Together.

\>\> I\'ve Had a Lot of Dialogue With My Management Teams with
Relationships with Native Americans.

I\'ll Speak to the Native Timber Council in Arizona next Week.

We\'ve Got a Lot to Learn.

As I Lessen to the Warm Springs Tribe, in Fact, Some of the Best
Management Forest Management That We See, I Think We See in Some of the
Tribes in My Home State of Wisconsin.

The Only Old Growth White Pine Left in the State of Wisconsin Is in That
Tribe.

It\'s on Their Land.

And They\'ve Harvested Timber in A Sustainable Way.

They\'ve Protected Their Fisheries, They\'re Medicinal Plants, Cultural
Values.

And I Want to Learn More from Them and See What We Can Apply To the
National Forest System in A True Partnership with Them.

\>\> Let\'s Talk a Little Bit about Science.

We\'re Nearing the End of Our Allotted Time.

And Again and Again and Again We Talk about Issues That Have Come Back
to the Importance of Science, Whether It\'s Fire Ecology in Yellowstone,
the Much‑noticed Artificial Flood Release Through the Grand Canyon About
a Year Ago.

The Interminable Debates about Salmon in the Pacific Northwest And What
the Causes Are of Decline Much.

Issues Relating to Range Land, To Mining Law, Forestry.

Seems to Me That Again and Again And Again, What We\'re Saying Is, That
If We\'re Going to Take a Pragmatic Place‑specific, Hands‑on Approach,
We Have to Start by Really Understanding The Science.

Now, I\'d Be Interested in People\'s Response to That.

I Don\'t Want to Get Started Myself Because It\'s Something That\'s Very
Close to My Heart, As You All Know, We Have over The Last Five or Six
Years, Tried Very Hard to Bring Science Together.

This Is Another One of These Issues of Getting out of the Box Getting
Across Boundaries, Learning to Work with States With Universities,
Consolidating Some of the Basic Research Functions into the Biological
Research Division.

And My Sense Is this.

And Then, I Will Get Back to You My Role of Discussion Leader, Rather
than Preacher.

\>\> Yes.

\>\> My Sense Is That at the Field Level, Scientists and People
Understand This, That You Really Science Can\'t Be Kind of Chopped Up by
Jurisdictions.

That Maybe it Hasn\'t Been So Apparent Here in Washington.

Well, Here\'s Washington.

Tell Me What You Think.

\>\> I Think You\'re Right.

That the Field People, Neil Armitron Is a Good Example in Oregon, a Fish
Biologist Who Is Doing a Great Job on the Salmon Recovery.

He Brings in Anybody Who Is Going to Have Expertise and Who Is Willing
to Roll up Their Sleeves and Do It.

But Science Provides a Common Language of Resolution, Sometimes All of
the Political Rhetoric That Bounces Around Within the Beltway Can Be
Significantly Dampened down Whether the Facts of Science Are Put out on
the Table.

And I Don\'t Think Anybody Can Object When You Say, this River Has this
Health Problem, Based On the Following Scientific Observation.

Nobody Can Argue with It.

The Resolution Is What Needs to Be Focused On.

Where I Think We Need to Really Move, Also, Is to Use Science as An
Educational Tool with Young People.

Because I Think That\'s Where I Get Alarmed Is I Watch Some of The Kids
Coming on Public Lands, BLM Administers, and They\'ve Been Watching like
My Kids, \"Star Wars\" or Something on Tv And Science Is Pushing the
Right Button Come Business, It\'s Not Getting Your Hands Dirty on the
Soil, So I Think We Need to Redouble Our Effort to Reach out And Educate
People about How Science Can Be Applied.

\>\> as I Thought about How Do All Of Us, I Thought this as I
Contemplated this Job, When I Was over at BLM, How Do We Chart A Course
in a Politically Charged Environment in the Forest Service?

We Deal with People That Across The Spectrum, Those That Think It\'s a
Sin to Cut a Tree, to Those That Want to Cut Them All.

And as I Said, How Do We Develop Policies?

If We One Thing We Have in Our Organizations and the Professionalism We
Have, Is the Science to Go Back On.

If We Use That Science Continually, as the Yardstick For Policy
Decisions, Sometimes They\'ll Be Popular.

Sometimes They Won.

The Roads Policy That Is Not the Temporary Suspension of Road Building
Has Not Been One of My More Popular Decisions in Some Quarters.

But If You Look at the Science Behind That, It\'s Almost a No‑brainer.

I Am Worried about One Thing With Science.

And That\'s as We Look at Cost‑cutting, That We\'re Not Making the
Invest Machines We Need to Make in Basic Sciences.

We\'re Doing a Good Job, I Think, In Integrating Science, the Columbia
and Management Decisions, the Northwest Forest Plan, in the Southwest,
the Sierras, Some of the Best Science Is Being Integrated into The
Planning Process.

But Are We Making the Investments in the Very Basic Science, the
Building Blocks of Where We Need to Go?

I Know in the Case of the Forest Service, We\'re down from about
750\^scientists to about 530 Scientists.

What We\'ve Cut Is We\'re Cutting Away at the Basic Stuff That\'s Going
to Carry Us Three or Four Decades from Now.

\>\> I Was on a Plane to Missouri Last Weekend, Talking to a Forest
Service Scientist Who Said That There Is a Kind of Trend Coming Together
in Montana Around the University of Montana In Missoula, in Which the
University Was Kind of Becoming The Base for Bringing Together Forest
Service and BLM and Fish And Wildlife and Park Service Scientists.

He Was Specifically Involved in That Particular Case, in Wilderness
Issues and He Was Making the Point, Wilderness Is All of Us.

And it Looks like It\'s Kind of Coming Together in One Place.

And in That State.

I\'m Wondering If There Isn\'t Something Pretty Important.

If There\'s Some Way, on a Regional Basis, Draw People Together.

\>\> I Believe Science Is the Key.

And I Certainly Been in the Middle of it in Decisions That We Have to
Make in a Policy World under the Endangered Species Act, Whether It\'s
Upholding the Listing of the Ferry Shrimp, That Had a Lot of Emotion and
Rhetoric, and One Could Argue Politics That Happened after the Decision
Was Made to Add it to the List.

Or Whether We\'re Trying to Make A Decision on the Best Management
Prescriptions on One Of Our National Wildlife Refuges.

Science Is Critical.

The Challenge That I See Is That We Have Coming up in the Future, Is
Figuring out the Ways to Better Integrate Basic Science Into
Decision‑making.

\>\> Yes.

\>\> and Focusing Our Scientists, Which Have Just a Really Full Plate,
into Areas That Will Further Policy Decisions, or Decisions That We, as
Land Management Agencies Have to Make For the Future.

The Thought of Missoula Operation Where We\'re Bringing Scientists
Together at the Local Level, I Think, Is the Way of The Future.

It\'s Efficient, It\'s Causing Us To Work Smarter.

It\'s Causing Us to Rely on Each Other.

And It\'s Causing Us to Look at a Greater Chunk of the Landscape Than,
Rather than Our Own Part Of the World.

And We\'re Seeing it in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem Because of the
Work in the Montana Area.

\>\> Bob\^‑‑

\>\> I\'d like You To, in Addition To Your Comments, Say a Word About
Cultural and Historic Preservation.

This Is a Role Where the Park Service Really Is the Leader and I Think
it Has Ramifications for All of Us.

\>\> Let Me Just Speak F. I Could, Mr.\^secretary, Briefly, about The
Natural Resources with Respect to Science.

I Believe That We Are Taking Appropriate Actions under the Leadership of
Dr.\^bill Brown and Others at Usgs, in Terms of Coordinating and
Discussing Our Relative Needs Within Fish and Wildlife, BLM, Forest
Service, And How We Tap the Services of Brd.

I Think We Have a Ways to Go.

But as Mike Mentioned, You Have To Commit the Resources If You Want to
Good Science.

It Doesn\'t Come Through Osmosis, Necessarily.

But I Think We\'re Attempting to Do That.

We\'re Trying to Increase Our Capability at the Park Levels.

And Regional Levels as Well, That Once You Have the Science, That You
Need to Act on it as Part of the Decision‑making.

And We Are Void of Having the Kind of Capability, I Would Be Comfortable
with at the Park and Regional Levels.

And We\'re Committed to Increasing Our Staff Skills and Those Areas.

With Respect to the Cultural Resources, Entrusted to Our Care I
Appreciate Your Comment That We Do Have a Tremendous Legacy As
Representatives of the National Parks of Some of Our Cultural Heritage.

I\'m Pleased to Announce along Those Lines That on August the 15th of
Last Year, President Clinton Announced a Major Initiative, Umbrella, If
You Will, That Commits Us as a Nation to Support the Theme of Honor the
past and Imagine the Future.

And to That End, We Are Working With Other Federal Agencies, State
Governments, with the Private Sector, to Lend the Necessary Financial
and Other Kinds of Support, to Make Sure That the Preservation of Those
Resource That Is We Consider Icons, If You Will, of Our Democratic Way
of Life, Are in The Very Best of Condition as We Move into the New
Century.

Among Those Resources Would Be Edison Laboratory in New Jersey, The
Washington Monument Here in Our Nation\'s Capital, Mesa Verde In
Colorado, and There\'s Beginning to Be a Tremendous Increase of Interest
on the Part Of Very Various Individuals to Join with the National Park
Service and Other Land Management Agencies to Contribute Them to the
Care of These Irreplaceable and Priceless Resources.

And I Think We\'ll Be in a Much Better Condition in the next Two A Year
or So, to Welcome in the New Century, the New Millennium.

\>\> Anybody Else?

Yeah.

\>\> this Is I Think an Issue That Affects All of Our Land Management
Bases Because There\'s A Lot of American History Both Pre‑european and
in More Recent Times Across All of These Landscapes of Real Importance.

\>\> One Thing I Wanted to Add Quickly in That Regard Is Each Of Us Have
Law Enforcement Responsibilities, Too.

And as We Witness in Colorado, With These Folks Trying\^‑‑

Killed the Sheriff There, We Really Do Have to Be Cognizant Of
Supporting Them, and Making Sure, Between Agencies and Even Within an
Agency, That When People Are under That Kind of Stress, They Understand
That They\'re Not There by Themselves.

And Whether It\'s a Park Service Ranger, BLM Ranger or Forest Service,
We Need to Really Have That Kind of Sense of Solidarity Of Being in this
Together and Making Sure That We Preserve the Cultural Sites That Are
There.

\>\> One of the Areas of Science That We Also Need to Bolster Is Our
Socioeconomic Piece of the Equation.

In Fact, Marion Clausen, Who Just, You Know, Recently Passed Away Here,
Former Director of BLM, Was One of the Champions of This.

Said We Would Pay a High Price At Some Point for a Lack of Socioeconomic
Understanding of That Integration of the Natural Resources.

I Think We\'re Paying That Price Now, in Understanding How to Integrate
Sociology and Natural Sciences, Physical Sciences, in An Economics and
the Whole Arena Of Policymaking and Decisionmaking in Agencies.

\>\> Seems to Me Is That It\'s Exceptionally Important That We Make this
Transition from a Very Different, Much More Diversified Economy, with
Inevitable Changes Within Communities, and the Emergence of an
Extraordinary Array of a New Opportunities.

Pat?

You\'ve Spoken about That.

\>\> Certainly on the Information Side, I Think We\'re Going to Have an
Explosion.

I Do Want to Add Quickly One Thing.

And It\'s on the Socioeconomic Side, the Role of the Solicitor, And the
Need for Timely Legal Advice, Is Critical.

And Shade Tree Lawyers Notwithstanding, We Do Need to Incorporate as We
Go Forward.

And There\'s a Dynamic Tension There.

They\'ll Be Saying, Quite Rightly You Can\'t Do That Because of the
Following Case.

\>\> Put in a Pitch for Elmer\'s And Information.

\>\> on the Information System, I Just Think That\'s the Way We\'re
Going to Have to Manage, Whether It\'s on Budget Where We Have Real‑time
Budget Figures or Mineral Records System Which Will Lou Us to Layer out
Information That Jamie\'s People Have Produced, National Parks Have
Produced and Have it Recallable Immediately.

Not Just for Us, but the Public.

And I Think We\'ll Marriage Together Those Two Have a Great System.

\>\> Can We Converge Information Systems Together?

\>\> Certainly.

We\'ve All Signed the Memorandum Saying That That\'s What We\'re Going
to Be Architected.

\>\> If We Don\'t, Somebody Else Will Do it for Us.

\>\> Yes.

\>\> I Had a Fascinating Presentation by a Forest Service Employee by
the Name of Peter O\'grady.

We Were in Milwaukee Yesterday.

And the Various Mapping Technologies, the Cd‑roms You Can Buy for
\$39\^that Tie Them to A Gps and They Can Actually Track Your Trip and
Tell You Where the Campgrounds Are and Where the Hotels Are and the Rest
Areas.

It\'s Amazing.

And We\'ve Got to Be Nimble as Agencies and Do That Kind of Thing
Because What\'s Happening Is the Entrepreneurs Are Making This
Information User‑friendly, Simplicity Is the Key.

I Was Just Amazed by Some of the Things That\'s out There.

\>\> We\'ve Introduced and Have 40,000\^hits a Day.

It\'s Across All Agencies.

Now Need to Make Reservations Available.

\>\> on That Positive Note, I Am Told by the Voice in My Left Ear That
It\'s Time to Wrap this Up.

And I Would like to Do That by Again Thanking Pat Shea, Particularly,
for Taking the Initiative to Bring Us All Together and to Bob Stanton,
Mike Dombeck and Jamie Clark for Spending this Time Together.

I Hope That All of You out There Have Gotten Some Insights from This
Extraordinary Team, and Their History as Land Managers, As Career Land
Managers.

And That You Can Sense the Emergence of a Common Managerical Vision
Here.

Lastly, Let Me Just Say to All Of You, I Recognize That It\'s Not Always
Easy in this Day and Age, Being out on the Front Lines as a Public
Official.

But the Fact Is That You Are Making an Incalculable Contribution to Our
Country and To Our Future and to the Heritage That We Leave to Our
Children.

And I Just Want to Say That There Are a Lot of People Who Recognize
That.

And Recognize the Sacrifices That All of You Make in Terms of Making
Frequent Living Adjustments, in Terms of Foregoing Lines of Work in
Careers That Could Be a Lot More Economically Rewarding.

And I Just Hope That You All, From Time to Time, Have a Chance To
Reflect on the Importance of Your Agencies\' Tradition, the
Extraordinary Benefits That You Are Conferring on the American Public.

And I Know That I Speak for All Of Us in Saying That We\'re Very
Grateful for What You\'re Doing.

Thanks Very Much.

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