INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED 

AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2012 

HEARINGS 

BEFORE A 

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE 

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND 

RELATED AGENCIES 

MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho, Chairman 

JERRY LEWIS, California 

KEN CALVERT, California 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

TOM COLE, Oklahoma 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia 

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota 

MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York 

JOSE ́ E. SERRANO, New York 

NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Rogers, as Chairman of the Full Committee, and Mr. Dicks, as Ranking 

Minority Member of the Full Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees. 

DAVID LESSTRANG, DARREN BENJAMIN, JASON GRAY, 

ERICA RHOAD, and COLIN VICKERY, 

Staff Assistants 

PART 7 

Page 

Major Management Challenges at the U.S. Forest Service .................... 1 

U.S. Forest Service FY 2012 Budget Oversight Hearing ......................... 97 

Fish and Wildlife Service FY 2012 Budget Oversight Hearing .............. 165 

U.S. Geological Survey FY 2012 Budget Oversight Hearing ................... 272 

Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement 

(BOEMRE) and Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR) FY 

2012 Budget Oversight Hearing ................................................................. 333 

Bureau of Indian Affairs FY 2012 Budget Oversight Hearing ............... 451 

Indian Health Service FY 2012 Budget Oversight Hearing .................... 511 

National Endowment for the Arts FY 2012 Budget Oversight Hearing 567 

National Endowment for the Humanities FY 2012 Budget Oversight 

Hearing ............................................................................................................. 609 

Smithsonian Institution FY 2012 Budget Oversight Hearing ................ 635 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations 


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MMCFS 

PART 7 

FS 

USGS 

FWS 

BOEMRE/ 

ONRR 

NEH 

NEA 

IHS 

BIA 

Smithsonian 


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INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2012 


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INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED 

AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2012 

HEARINGS 

BEFORE A 

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE 

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND 

RELATED AGENCIES 

MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho, Chairman 

JERRY LEWIS, California 

KEN CALVERT, California 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

TOM COLE, Oklahoma 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia 

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota 

MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York 

JOSE ́ E. SERRANO, New York 

NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Rogers, as Chairman of the Full Committee, and Mr. Dicks, as Ranking 

Minority Member of the Full Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees. 

DAVID LESSTRANG, DARREN BENJAMIN, JASON GRAY, 

ERICA RHOAD, and COLIN VICKERY, 

Staff Assistants 

PART 7 

Page 

Major Management Challenges at the U.S. Forest Service .................... 1 

U.S. Forest Service FY 2012 Budget Oversight Hearing ......................... 97 

Fish and Wildlife Service FY 2012 Budget Oversight Hearing .............. 165 

U.S. Geological Survey FY 2012 Budget Oversight Hearing ................... 272 

Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement 

(BOEMRE) and Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR) FY 

2012 Budget Oversight Hearing ................................................................. 333 

Bureau of Indian Affairs FY 2012 Budget Oversight Hearing ............... 451 

Indian Health Service FY 2012 Budget Oversight Hearing .................... 511 

National Endowment for the Arts FY 2012 Budget Oversight Hearing 567 

National Endowment for the Humanities FY 2012 Budget Oversight 

Hearing ............................................................................................................. 609 

Smithsonian Institution FY 2012 Budget Oversight Hearing ................ 635 

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

66–897 WASHINGTON : 2011 


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COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS 

HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky, Chairman 

C. W. BILL YOUNG, Florida 1

JERRY LEWIS, California 1

FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia 

JACK KINGSTON, Georgia 

RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Jersey 

TOM LATHAM, Iowa 

ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama 

JO ANN EMERSON, Missouri 

KAY GRANGER, Texas 

MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho 

JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas 

ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida 

DENNY REHBERG, Montana 

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas 

RODNEY ALEXANDER, Louisiana 

KEN CALVERT, California 

JO BONNER, Alabama 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

TOM COLE, Oklahoma 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania 

STEVE AUSTRIA, Ohio 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

TOM GRAVES, Georgia 

KEVIN YODER, Kansas 

STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas 

ALAN NUNNELEE, Mississippi 

————— 

1 Chairman Emeritus 

NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington 

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio 

PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana 

NITA M. LOWEY, New York 

JOSE ́ E. SERRANO, New York 

ROSA L. DELAURO, Connecticut 

JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia 

JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts 

ED PASTOR, Arizona 

DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina 

MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York 

LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California 

SAM FARR, California 

JESSE L. JACKSON, JR., Illinois 

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania 

STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey 

SANFORD D. BISHOP, JR., Georgia 

BARBARA LEE, California 

ADAM B. SCHIFF, California 

MICHAEL M. HONDA, California 

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota 

WILLIAM B. INGLEE, Clerk and Staff Director 

(II)


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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 

2012 

THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 2011. 

MAJOR MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES AT THE U.S. 

FOREST SERVICE 

WITNESSES 

ANU K. MITTAL, DIRECTOR, NATURAL RESOURCES AND 

ENVIRONMENT, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

PHYLLIS K. FONG, INSPECTOR GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF 

AGRICULTURE 

OPENING REMARKS OF CHAIRMAN SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. The committee will come to order. Once again, I 

would like to welcome the members of the subcommittee as well as 

our panel of witnesses this afternoon from the Government Accountability Office and the Department of Agriculture’s Office of Inspector General to present testimony on the major management 

challenges of the Forest Service. 

The Forest Service manages a great deal of land for the public, 

including several national forests in my district. There is certainly 

no lack of issues to discuss, so I would like to keep my comments 

to a minimum and focus on the testimony. This hearing will help 

prepare the subcommittee’s members for tomorrow morning’s Forest Service budget hearings. 

Before introducing our witnesses, I would like to yield to Mr. 

Moran for any opening statement he might have. 

OPENING REMARKS OF MR. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Thanks so much, Mr. Chairman. We invariably 

schedule these hearings at the same time as Defense, but there is 

nothing we can do about it when we compress 4 weeks into 3. 

Thanks for having the hearing, and it is nice to see Ms. Mittal 

again, and of course, the Inspector General for the Agriculture Department. I do not know if you know Ms. Fong is a special Inspector General because she is the Inspector General of Inspector Generals. Yes. She is the first chairperson of the Council of Inspectors 

General on Integrity and Efficiency. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I did not know that. 

Mr. MORAN. Oh, there you go. Seventy-three different Federal Inspectors General, and she is the boss of all of them. I appreciate 

the fact that the chairman is having these hearings which, whether 


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it be a Democratic or Republican majority, we found that the Inspector General’s enlightenment serves us very well in subsequent 

hearings and the General Accounting Office as well. I guess it is 

General Accountability. It will always be General Accounting to 

me. 

But there are forest management issues that are worth looking 

at. Last week I was down at the Agriculture Department with Secretary Vilsack where we were recognizing the centennial anniversary of the Weeks Act. That was a situation where we had so many 

denuded forests, particularly in the east, and they were just being 

allowed to lie fallow. The folks who had clear-cut those forests 

would not even pay taxes, so the states and localities picked it up 

and that enabled the Federal Government to pick it up, and that 

led to 52 national forests in the east and 26 different states. So the 

Forest Service has a great record of oversight and management, 

but it can always be improved, and that is what we want to talk 

about today. 

So, again, thanks to both of you for being here. I look forward 

to your testimony. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Our first witness is Ms. Anu Mittal, Director of 

Natural Resources and Environment Division of the GAO. She will 

be followed by Ms. Phyllis Fong, the Inspector General of the Department of Agriculture and the Chief Inspector General. We appreciate you appearing before the subcommittee this afternoon. We 

will give you each 15 minutes to outline your concerns, followed by 

questions from committee members. 

TESTIMONY OF ANU K. MITTAL

Ms. MITTAL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, for the opportunity to be here today to discuss management challenges facing the Forest Service. 

As you know, in 2009, we testified before this subcommittee on 

three areas where the Forest Service faced major management 

challenges. These included the lack of strategies to effectively use 

wildland fire funds, the lack of data on programs and activities, 

and inadequate financial and program accountability. 

Based on the work that we have undertaken since 2009, we believe that these three areas are still challenges today, and we have 

added a fourth area relating to the lack of program oversight and 

planning. I would like to briefly summarize each of our concerns 

in these four areas for you. 

As we reported in 2009, the Forest Service still lacks key strategies needed to effectively manage wildland fires. As you know, over 

the past decade wildland fires have dramatically worsened, and 

their associated costs have substantially increased. Likewise, for 

over a decade we have made numerous recommendations to improve the Forest Service’s efforts in fighting these fires. 

While the agency has taken some steps to implement our recommendations, much work remains to be done in all of the areas 

that we have highlighted in the past. For example, the Forest Service and Interior still have not completed the Cohesive Wildland 

Fire Strategy that we have recommended since 1999, and that Congress mandated in the Flame Act of 2009. Congress required this 

Cohesive Strategy to be completed within 1 year of the Act’s pasVerDate Mar 15 2010 04:44 Jun 29, 2011 Jkt 066897 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A897P2.XXX A897P2

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sage, however, according to the agency, while the first phase of the 

strategy has been drafted, it has not yet been finalized, and it is 

unknown when the second phase, which will include the development and analysis of different options for wildland fire management as we have called for, will even be completed. 

Similarly, the Forest Service has not yet clearly defined its 

wildland fire cost containment goals. Without taking the fundamental steps of defining its cost-containment goals or developing a 

strategy for achieving those goals, the agency cannot insure that it 

is taking the most important steps first, nor can it be assured that 

it is taking the right steps first. 

The agency also has not fully implemented all of the improvements we have recommended for allocating fuel reduction funds 

and still lacks a measure to ensure that fuel reduction funds are 

being directed to those areas where they can best minimize the risk 

to people, property, and resources. 

And, finally, in the wildland fire area, we continue to be concerned that the Forest Service is several years behind schedule in 

developing an interagency fire program budgeting and planning 

tool known as FPA. The development of FPA has been characterized by delays and revisions, and the project has not yet been subject to peer review as we had recommended. 

It is, therefore, unclear to us whether the tool will meet one of 

its original objectives which was to identify cost-effective combinations of assets and strategies to fight wildland fires. 

The second major management challenge that we have repeatedly identified in the past and which continues to be a concern 

today is the Forest Service’s lack of complete and accurate data on 

its program activities and costs. Over the last few years we have 

continued to encounter shortcomings in this area during our audits 

of Forest Service programs that reinforce our concerns. 

For example, we recently reviewed the data in the agency’s Planning Appeals and Litigation System, and we determined that these 

data were not always complete or accurate. As a result, we have 

to conduct our own survey of field office staff to get the information 

that we needed. 

Similarly, on our review of abandoned hard rock mines, we found 

that the Forest Service had difficulty determining the number of 

such mines on its land, and the accuracy of the data that it did 

have was also questionable. 

The third area that we have been and remain concerned about 

relates to financial management and performance accountability 

shortcomings. While we moved the Forest Service’s financial management issue from GAO’s high-risk list about 6 years ago, there 

are lingering concerns about financial management at the agency, 

especially in the wake of recent reports from the Department of Agriculture and the IG. 

For example, in its 2010 performance and accountability report 

the Department concluded that the Forest Service needed to improve controls over its expenditures for wildland fire management, 

and it identified the Wildland Fire Suppression Program as susceptible to significant improper payments. 

In addition, the Forest Service has not fully resolved the performance accountability problems that we have identified in the 


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past. According to the IG, the longstanding problems that we have 

identified with the agency’s inability to link its planning, budgeting, and results reports continues to be an issue today. 

The final area that I would like to talk about relates to challenges that the Forest Service faces in delivering its programs because it lacks adequate oversight or strategic planning. Our recent 

work provides a number of examples in this area. 

For example, as part of its land management responsibilities, the 

Forest Service acquires and disposes of lands through its Land Exchange Program. However, we recently reported that the Forest 

Service needed to improve oversight of its Land Exchange Program 

because it lacked a national strategy and process for tracking costs, 

and it did not require its staff to take mandatory training. 

Similarly, we have been concerned about the ability of the Forest 

Service to maintain an effective workforce because it has not clearly aligned its workforce plans with its strategic plan and has not 

monitored and evaluated its workforce planning efforts. 

Because of this lack of planning and monitoring, we concluded 

that the Forest Service remains at risk of not having the appropriately-skilled workforce it needs to fulfill its mission. 

Finally, our recent work has raised concerns that the Forest 

Service, like other federal land management agencies, lacks a riskbased approach for managing its law enforcement resources. In 

2010, we reported that the Forest Service needed a more systematic method to assess the risks posed by illegal activities that are 

occurring on its lands, and if it developed such an approach, it 

could better insure that it is allocating its limited law enforcement 

resources in the most effective manner. 

Mr. Chairman, we recognize that these are not easy issues for 

the Forest Service to resolve, but we also recognize that these are 

not new issues for the agency and that many of them have been 

very well documented for a very long time. In light of the Nation’s 

long-term fiscal condition, we believe that it is imperative for the 

agency to expeditiously address these management challenges now 

so that it can insure that going forward it is fulfilling its mission 

in the most cost-effective and efficient manner. 

That concludes my prepared statement. I would be happy to respond to any questions. 

[The statement of Anu Mittal follows:] 


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Mr. SIMPSON. Ms. Fong. 

TESTIMONY OF INSPECTOR GENERAL PHYLLIS FONG

Ms. FONG. Thank you, Chairman Simpson and Ranking Member 

Moran and members of the subcommittee. I really appreciate this 

opportunity to come up here today and talk about our audit and 

investigative work concerning the Forest Service, and at the outset 

I want to express our appreciation, the OIG’s appreciation for the 

agency’s mission of sustaining the health and diversity of the Nation’s grasslands and forests. We deeply respect the Forest Service’s dedicated efforts in this area and the very many professional 

employees that they have across the country. 

In that context, we offer our remarks. We are here to try and 

help the Forest Service address the issues that we have identified. 

You have my full written statement for the record, so I just want 

to offer a few brief comments on the three areas that are of concern 

to us that we have been focusing on in the last year. 

These three areas are basically: Improving the health of the forest system and fighting wildfires; secondly, implementing strong 

management controls; and third, delivering the Recovery Act programs as effectively as possible. 

So let me just start out with the firefighting topic. We have done 

quite a bit of work in fighting wildfires and how the Forest Service 

manages that because it is such a key part of the agency’s mission. 

We recently completed a couple of reviews in this area that I want 

to draw your attention to. 

First off, we looked at the workforce at the Forest Service and 

concluded that the Forest Service really needs to focus on developing, recruiting, and retaining its very critical firefighting management jobs. As our report identifies in great detail, we see that 

that workforce is turning over very quickly, and we do not believe 

that the agency has adequately addressed that situation. The Forest Service has generally agreed with our recommendations in this 

area. 

The other topic that we looked at which is related to that deals 

with the usage by Forest Service of contract labor crews to fight 

forest fires. We took a quick look to see how the agency was overseeing that program, and we found that there were a number of 

things that the Forest Service could do better in terms of assessing 

how effective contract labor crews are. And we have made a number of recommendations, which, again, the agency has generally 

agreed with us on. 

Turning to the issue of management controls in the Forest Service programs, I know management controls is a topic that people 

say, ‘‘what is a management control?’’ We IG’s, we like to talk 

about that. Very simply put, what we are trying to get at here is 

does the Forest Service have in place the ability to effectively manage its programs, to deliver the programs the way Congress intended, and to report on how it is doing. 

As an example, we took a look at the Invasive Species Program, 

which is intended to address the problem of invasive species in the 

forests, and we found that this program is illustrative of the challenges that the Forest Service faces. We concluded that the program lacks a lot of the kinds of controls that you would expect in 


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a federal program. The Forest Service, for example, does not have 

an inventory of all the different kinds of invasive species that are 

out there in the forests. The Forest Service has not assessed the 

various risks associated with different species, and it has not really 

assessed the efficacy of the different treatments that are available 

to deal with different species. 

And so when you take all of that together as a whole, we felt 

that the Forest Service really needed to focus on how it is delivering that program and tighten up its management controls, and 

we made a number of recommendations, which, again, the agency 

generally agreed with. 

Let me turn to our work in the Recovery Act arena. Congress 

saw fit to make available $1.5 billion in recovery money to the Forest Service for capital improvement and maintenance, and for 

wildland fire management. As part of our oversight responsibilities, 

we are charged with looking at the expenditure of those funds to 

make sure that the Forest Service is delivering those programs as 

effectively as possible. 

We have already issued 18 fast reports on this. We have taken 

a look, and we plan to look at every program within Forest Service 

that received recovery money. We are right in the middle of all of 

that, but I can give you right now a general sense of where the Forest Service is. 

With respect to the wildland fire management funds, we took a 

look at a number of grants and contracts that the Forest Service 

made to non-federal entities, namely state and local entities, private entities, and we found some instances where recipients were 

getting reimbursed for expenditures that were not appropriate. We 

found that the grant agreements did not include all the right terms 

that they should have included. So there is room there for some improvement. 

In the area of capital improvement and maintenance projects, we 

took a look at those and again found that there were some instances of inappropriate purchases where those grantees have 

sought reimbursement. We also questioned some of the sub-grants 

to some recipients, and we have found some issues with the execution of contract awards. 

And so overall, as we look at the Recovery Act, I would say that 

the Forest Service has done a good job of putting the money out. 

They have done a very fine job of getting the money out into the 

country and the local jurisdictions. We found a few issues with regard to grant and contract awards, and by the end of this coming 

year we should be able to give you a pretty good assessment of how 

that all looks from a macro perspective. 

I think I will stop at this point and just say that we, again, 

thank you for the opportunity to be here, and I would be very 

happy to address any questions that you might have. 

[The statement of Phyllis Fong follows:] 


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IMPLEMENTATION OF OIG RECOMMENDATIONS

Mr. SIMPSON. It has been a couple of years since the GAO and 

IG testified before this subcommittee, and we find that a lot of the 

issues seem to repeat and repeat and repeat. What percentage of 

the recommendations that you make do you feel are addressed by 

the Department and which ones find themselves on the shelf? Any 

idea? 

Ms. FONG. Well, let me just preface by saying that when we work 

with the Forest Service, we start out our audit engagements and 

try to reach a very clear understanding with the agency as to what 

we are looking at. We try to ascertain what their concerns are so 

that whatever report we come out with is useful to them and useful 

to the Hill and to the Secretary as well and addresses the issues 

that we have identified. 

And what we have found generally is that we have a very good 

professional working relationship with the agency. By and large, 

when we sit down and issue our reports and our recommendations, 

they by and large agree with them. There will be a few areas 

where we may not have agreement, and that is to be expected, but 

generally they see the value in our recommendations, and they 

agree to take action. 

Where we start to perhaps lose the bubble, as they say, is that 

it takes a lot of effort to implement recommendations, and some of 

these recommendations do involve quite a bit of work to think 

through. It may involve some staff time. It may involve the need 

for independent looks. It may involve quite a bit of focus on the 

part of the agency, and so if the fix is not something that can be 

done quickly, we have seen the recommendations that involve more 

long-term analysis tend to take quite a bit of time, and those, of 

course, are the big issues. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yes. 

Ms. FONG. Those are the very difficult issues. 

Mr. SIMPSON. And wildfire management is a big issue. 

Ms. FONG. Exactly. 

ALBUQUERQUE SERVICE CENTER

Mr. SIMPSON. The Albuquerque Service Center, specifically the 

IT and HR functions, have been problematic and, frankly, demoralizing for many Forest Service employees as I have talked to Forest Service employees over the years that I have been in Congress. 

I was surprised when the report came out in 2009, maybe not so 

much surprised after talking to many of them, that out of the 216 

agencies—in terms of the best place to work—the Forest Service 

ranked 206, which you would have thought, you know, anybody 

that ought to be happy with their job is working in the forests and 

stuff. 

And it seemed like a lot of it came back to the Albuquerque Center and the centralization of a lot of those efforts there. Have you 

looked at that at all? 

Ms. MITTAL. We actually have a review ongoing right now at the 

request of this subcommittee and the Senate Subcommittee on Appropriations, and we are doing a comprehensive review of the Albuquerque Service Center consolidation. We are looking at how much 


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it has cost to consolidate all of the business services in Albuquerque. We are looking at the savings, if there have been any, as 

a result of the consolidation. We are also taking a very thorough 

look at the effects that it has had on agency operations. 

So we are looking at effects across the agency, both at the agency-wide as well as the field office level, of course, paying particular 

attention to the field offices and the field staff. 

And, finally, we are looking at how the Forest Service is measuring progress in implementing the consolidation and centralization. So that review is ongoing. We are in the process of completing 

our audit work. We should be done by the end of April in terms 

of our audit work, and at that point we should be able to sit down 

with the staff, the committee, and give them a pretty good overview 

of our preliminary findings. The report will be issued later this 

summer. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Later this summer. 

Ms. MITTAL. Uh-huh. 

INTEGRATED RESOURCE RESTORATION PROGRAM

Mr. SIMPSON. The 2012 budget request of the Forest Service proposed combining several operating line items such as wild fire or 

wildlife, forest products, watershed, hazardous fuels, and road 

funding to create a large bucket of funding for the Integrated Resource Restoration Account. Presumably this line item would pay 

for projects that would achieve numerous goals such as road maintenance, foresting projects that would also improve the watershed 

and produce wood products. 

In concept this sounds like a good idea. I am concerned, however, 

that if the Forest Service in your findings lacks, or you have concerns about their oversight and strategic planning process and 

their financial management systems that currently exist, throwing 

all of these different line items into a big bucket of funding may, 

in fact, do more harm than good in terms of being able to do that 

strategic planning and financial oversight. 

Is that a concern? Would that be a concern to you? 

Ms. MITTAL. I can start by saying that we have not actually 

looked at how they are going to do this consolidation, so I cannot 

comment on the IRR, but what I can say is that you are absolutely 

right. Given how much difficulty they have in providing oversight 

over individual programs and ensuring that they are tracking 

costs, which they oftentimes do not do, it really is a concern that 

if they bundle everything together and lump it together in this account, then how are they going to manage it. It does raise some 

concerns given their past management control issues. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Moran. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is an ongoing issue 

we have in so many agencies, you know. We worry about duplication and overlap, but then on the other hand when we consolidate 

programs, we have difficulty in tracking and auditing the money as 

well. I would like to kind of see what the Integrated Resource Restoration Program is able to achieve. 

But I share the chairman’s concern on the other hand if we can 

achieve the economy to scale and efficiencies, then management 

and operational, that would be good. 


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STEWARDSHIP CONTRACTING PROGRAM

There is a Stewardship Contracting Program in the Forest Service that allows it to trade goods like timber for services to improve 

the condition of the public lands. The Forest Service wants to do 

a lot more of that with its forestry and restoration projects using 

these in-kind swap contracts. 

Can we be assured that the various field units are getting a fair 

return for the timber that they are trading for services? I would 

think that would be a difficult thing to monitor, and either the 

GAO or the Inspector General can respond. 

Ms. MITTAL. We did a comprehensive review of the Stewardship 

Contracting Programs a couple of years ago and generally what we 

found is that the, again, and I hate to sound like a broken record, 

but the agency did not have comprehensive data on the stewardship contracts that it had used, and it was hard to figure out what 

they had used them for, and they did not have a national strategy 

for the use of stewardship contracts. 

What we did find is that they have been using stewardship contracts for very small projects. They have not been using it for some 

of the more complicated, multi-year types of projects that it has the 

potential to be used for. 

FIRE SUPPRESSION

Mr. MORAN. Has the Forest Service adjusted its fire programs to 

fit the new reality of changed climates and increased suburbanization of the wildlands? We know that the last decade has been 

the hottest on record with some of the most volatile temperature 

changes and temperature events. 

Has there been a change to reflect what has happened in terms 

of climate and its impact upon the forests of the country? I guess 

I will ask the Inspector General. I know each year we get lip service to it saying that we are going to, but I do not know whether 

it has actually been done. 

Ms. FONG. Well, we had done an audit a couple of years ago on 

large fire suppression and wildland fire and the ways, the different 

ways that the Forest Service addresses that, and we identified a 

number of concerns with respect to fire suppression and the WUI, 

the Wildland Urban Interface, and we made a lot of recommendations on how the Forest Service could improve how it manages that 

program. 

We understand from the Forest Service that they agreed with 

our recommendations, and they have told us that they have taken 

action. Now, we have not gone in yet to verify. We do have two audits on our books that we have planned to start later this year that 

will go in and take a look at whether those recommendations have 

been successfully implemented, and we should have a better view 

on that probably in the next year. 

SPECIAL USE PERMITS

Mr. MORAN. Okay. One other area of questioning. The IG mentions the work that has been completed on special use permits; 

74,000 authorizations for over 180 different kinds of land uses. Can 

you give us a sense of what you found and whether or not the ServVerDate Mar 15 2010 04:44 Jun 29, 2011 Jkt 066897 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A897P2.XXX A897P2

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ice is providing adequate oversight, public resources, and seeing 

that the public gets a fair share of revenues? 

In your testimony you talked about 15.7 million, in 2008, and 

that the funds go to the Treasury. You know, at Interior funds stay 

with the bureaus, and I wonder if an incentive program would 

serve us better in which the agency can reinvest some of the funds 

in managing the program or restoring natural resources. They 

would have a greater incentive, and I wonder if that would not be 

beneficial to all of us, Ms. Fong. 

Ms. FONG. Well, I think you have really hit the nail on the head. 

I think you make a very good point about the program as it is run 

at the Forest Service compared to how it is run at the Department 

of Interior. As you point out, the monies that come in, the Forest 

Service spends quite a bit of time on that program, but the monies 

all must be delivered over to the Department of the Treasury, and 

so they do not benefit the Forest Service. 

We are getting ready to issue that report, and it should be out 

in the next month or so, and at that point I think you will find 

those recommendations very helpful to you. We will make sure that 

the committee gets a copy of that. 

Mr. MORAN. Very good. Thank you. I am fine, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Calvert. 

BORDER PATROL

Mr. CALVERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. Thank 

you for coming today, Ms. Fong. I appreciate that. I represent the 

Cleveland National Forest out in southern California, and we have 

had a lot of challenges with the Cleveland National Forest, especially as a smuggling route up from Mexico. I was wondering in 

your investigation did you look into how the Forest Service works 

with DHS and with the Border Patrol? Do they coordinate their activities and work well together? 

Ms. MITTAL. We actually did look at all of the land management 

agencies and how they are working with the Border Patrol along 

the southwest border, and what we found is that they have established a number of MOUs, memorandums of understanding, to increase cooperation and coordination with Border Patrol but not in 

all cases does that coordination and cooperation actually occur. 

And so we made a number of recommendations to encourage 

them to enhance the coordination and cooperation with Border Patrol. Some of the concerns that we had is that they do not receive 

the threat assessments from Border Patrol, they have not developed joint budgets for operations in those areas, they have not developed strategies and joint operations for their law enforcement to 

work together. 

Mr. CALVERT. Does the Forest Service allow access for the Border 

Patrol, for DHS and for local law enforcement into those areas? 

Ms. MITTAL. Yes, it does. If Border Patrol requests it and they 

are required under the MOU to grant them access as long as they 

comply with the environmental laws. 


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LAND EXCHANGES

Mr. CALVERT. Okay. On the issue of land exchanges, there have 

been a number of land exchanges, usually for public benefit. Usually for roadways or some other purpose. Trying to get these land 

exchanges done virtually in every case is time consuming. It seems 

that the process is never ending, and even when it is to a mutual 

benefit to the Forest Service and to the public agency. Why is that 

the case? From my anecdotal information, people say it is generally 

the fault of the Forest Service. Why do these land exchanges take 

so long to complete? 

Ms. MITTAL. Land exchanges are a very complex process. One of 

the challenges that the land management agencies have shared 

with us, including the Forest Service, is the fact that they do not 

have the adequate staffing with the right types of training to conduct all of the different aspects of a land exchange. It is generally 

a lower priority within the agency so it does not get the attention 

it deserves. 

In addition to that, we found that they do not have a national 

strategy on how they are going to go about doing land exchanges. 

So they have not set priorities for what land exchanges they should 

be focusing on, and in terms of the training for the staff, they have 

not made mandatory training available to the staff, and they do not 

track that training. So even though they have these challenges, 

they have not taken the steps that would help move the program 

forward. 

Mr. CALVERT. I assume fees are paid for these land exchanges. 

Has the Forest Service looked into bringing in outside help to move 

these things along, or do they have the authority to do so? 

Ms. MITTAL. I do not have the answer to that question. I would 

have to check. 

INVENTORY OF RESOURCES

Mr. CALVERT. Okay. You mentioned inventory of invasive species, 

and certainly we have a significant amount of invasive species 

throughout the national forests, but what about an inventory of resources? Over the years has the Forest Service kept an inventory 

of those resources? Some as you know are abandoned hard rock 

mines or abandoned resources of one kind or another. For potential 

future benefit, do they keep an inventory of that? 

Ms. FONG. I am taking from your question that you are talking 

generally about whether the Forest Service has an inventory of all 

its capital assets and property. 

Mr. CALVERT. Right. Well, like the Bureau of Land Management 

supposedly has an inventory of their resources that they are able 

to call up at any moment. Is that the case in the Forestry Service? 

Ms. FONG. I am not sure that we have done specific work on 

that, but I do recall a few years ago that there were some questions 

about inventory of capital property within the Forest Service, and 

that may address your question. If you would like, I could provide 

information for the record. 

[The information follows:] 

Forest Service has many systems to track its resources and assets. Specifically, 

Forest Service’s fixed asset system(s) track and account for its property for invenVerDate Mar 15 2010 04:44 Jun 29, 2011 Jkt 066897 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\A897P2.XXX A897P2

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tory and financial management. This was the system I referenced during the hearing where I recalled a few years ago that there were some questions about inventory 

of capital property within Forest Service. The issue related to capital property and 

inventory has been resolved over the years and there are currently no outstanding 

reported deficiencies related to property attributed to the financial statement audit. 

The most recent deficiency reported in FYs 2008 and 2009 (but closed in FY 2010) 

was related to the plan to improve the quality of the 5-year pooled real property 

physical inventories. 

Forest Service does track the quality and number of abandoned mines on Forest 

Service property. Currently, we are conducting audit work reviewing the use of Recovery Act funds for remediation of abandoned mines on Forest Service lands. This 

work was referred to in our written testimony. 

In regard to resource deployment, Forest Service does maintain systems to manage and provide resources for its various missions. Specifically, there are various 

systems to deploy human and tangible resources in relation to its wildland fire management and related mission lines. Some of these systems are fully in-house, while 

others are multi-organizational systems linked to other Federal and State agencies. 

Additionally, Forest Service employs many systems to manage assets related to the 

National Forest lands. These include timber growth, sales, revenue, and recreational 

assets used by visitors to National Forests and other Forest Service-managed lands. 

Mr. CALVERT. That would be helpful. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Flake. 

RECOVERY ACT FUNDING

Mr. FLAKE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the testimony. 

With regard to the Recovery Act funds, you mentioned that there 

were problems, some inappropriate expenditures and what not. Obviously that is from a lack of some kind of controls there. It seems 

that these things seem to come up routinely. Why has it been so 

hard to get them to put these controls in place? Why do we have 

to discover it with an IG report or GAO report? 

Ms. FONG. I would say generally that grants management and 

contract management is a very specialized area, and it is an area 

that within the Department of Agriculture as a whole we need to 

spend a lot of time on, because the expertise there really needs to 

be further developed and refined. 

We are seeing that coming out in our work in the Forest Service 

because the money for the Recovery Act had to be put out very, 

very quickly; there were some statutory requirements on that. 

Mr. FLAKE. We are finding that in a lot of areas. 

Ms. FONG. Exactly. It is not an issue that is confined to the Forest Service, and so as we go through and do our oversight work, 

we are seeing at the back end controls that really should have been 

addressed at the front one. I think that would be very useful to the 

Forest Service moving forward as it administers its grant and contract programs, that they will have benefited from the experience 

that they are going through right now with Recovery, and this will 

enable them to put in effective controls for the future. 

Mr. FLAKE. What percentage of the 1.5 billion that was provided 

was subject to these lax controls or whatever else? A big chunk of 

it, all of it? What are we looking at here? 

Ms. FONG. From the IG’s perspective we are looking at all of the 

funds that the Forest Service received under the Recovery Act. We 

are in the middle of our work. We have done, we have reviewed 

field work on about half of what we need to look at, and we are 


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in the middle of the rest of it. At this stage of the game what we 

are seeing is individual instances here and there of inappropriate 

claims for expenditures, inappropriate documentation. We will 

probably have a more comprehensive overview and can give you a 

better sense of it in about 6 months when we finish all of our 

fieldwork. 

Right now all I could give you would be bits and pieces, anecdotal evidence. 

Mr. FLAKE. All right. Thank you. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you. Mr. Lewis. 

LAW ENFORCEMENT TECHNOLOGY

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am sorry about arriving 

late and going to be leaving early, but in the meantime I very 

much appreciate both of you being here. 

The Forest Service and San Bernardino National Forest dramatically impacts at least two of us here in the room and the work over 

the years, our relationship with the agency has been overall extremely positive. You know, the fire problems and the challenges, 

the difficulties have been very, very real. 

I want to ask two questions quickly. One takes me back to an 

early day when another guy and I went to visit some of the forests 

in northern California, and part of the reason for this overflight 

was to have the Forest Service show us an example of the way the 

forest oftentimes is abused. And we landed our helicopter somewhere nearby and then we went up to visit the fields of one of 

those growth ag products that are not automatically a part of the 

forest work. 

And what occurred to me at that point in time as you are dealing 

with invasive species, if you will, I wonder just how well we have 

developed our IT programming to be able to automatically be in a 

position to get response to challenges like that without the Forest 

Service becoming the police officers for the world. 

It would seem to me it would be software programming that 

would say when something like this occurs, the first thing that 

happens is you plug it into your computer, and you notify the appropriate agencies, not just federal but local and otherwise, about, 

hey, we got 16 acres of pot growing out here, and why do you not 

do something about it. 

Do we have that kind of software interaction? I mean, does the 

Forest Service think aggressively in terms of that sort of use of resources? I think the answer is no. Right? 

Ms. FONG. You know, let me just comment generally. I know the 

Forest Service is trying very hard to bring its IT systems up to 

date and current. They face a lot of challenges. Funding is one, design is another. 

Mr. LEWIS. Well, we have heard a lot about their not being very 

good at being able to get one piece of the agency to communicate 

with another and using the IT, why do we have computers in the 

first place. But this is just kind of a fundamental rifle shot at an 

example of how we might be able to accelerate the value of these 

computer assets. I am sorry. 

Ms. FONG. Well, I think it is a very good point, and I believe we 

have some work that we will be doing shortly on law enforcement 


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issues within the Forest Service, and I will make a note that we 

should take a look at their IT systems. 

Mr. LEWIS. I would be very interested in your response. 

Ms. MITTAL. If I could just add to that, when we did look at the 

law enforcement programs at the Forest Service, we did not see 

any indication that they were using that sort of software or IT facility. They could not even tell us how many incidents were occurring on Forest Service land, they could not tell us what the effect 

of those incidents were. They knew in certain places they knew it 

was happening, like the marijuana growing and things like that. 

Mr. LEWIS. Correct. 

Ms. MITTAL. They knew about it, but they could not quantify 

that for us. 

Mr. LEWIS. Which is an indication of potentially a very serious 

problem that we tend to build walls between our sub-agencies of 

a department like Interior, then we build walls between their law 

enforcement people and their responsibilities to see that the reports 

are used appropriately. And if we are not exercising simple things 

like computer programs, man, we have got a long ways to go. 

PERSONNEL TURNOVER

One other very brief thing, Mr. Chairman. I will be very interested in your report regarding what the thoughts are about turnover of personnel, young people being hired, trained, and bang, 

somebody else locally or otherwise hires them out the door. I hope 

we have some imaginative ideas besides just pay as to how we can 

have these agencies not be 106th on the list or whatever—206th. 

Yes. 

Ms. FONG. We have issued a report on firefighting succession 

plans, and I think you might have noticed it in my testimony today 

that we have identified this as a very significant challenge for the 

Forest Service because their turnover rate, their rate of retirements is very, very high, and the length of time it takes to train 

somebody to be an incident commander, for example, averages 23 

years, which is just not a good thing. 

And to my thinking, I think one of the most critical issues facing 

the Service right now is to get that pipeline going, or we are going 

to have major problems in the next few years. 

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Chairman, I think we need to look carefully at 

both the—GAO has to say about a subject like that personnel turnover critical to our being successful. We should not be training people for the local government takeover or something. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Well, it is certainly an issue when we have the 

Forest Service in to talk to them about what they are doing to address that turnover. I have met some marvelous incident commanders that have done fantastic jobs, but as you said, they are 

not going to be around forever, and it bothers me. I mean, most 

people that have not been out on a forest fire do not understand 

it is not just picking up a shovel like it used to be in 1910 and 

going and throwing dirt on it. When I was first elected, we had one 

that burned 1.8 million acres up in Idaho, and I took my chief of 

staff and said, let’s go fight a forest fire, and he thought I was 

nuts. 


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But we called the local Director of the Forest Service and said 

we were going to come up, we wanted them to treat us like a forest 

firefighter so that we knew that it took. And we spent a couple 

days up there with them, and it is huge. You have 5,000 people out 

there to fight one of these fires to make sure that the personnel 

are in the right place the next morning, that they have the food 

and water they are going to need. I mean, it is a huge undertaking. 

And incident commander is a hell of a responsibility. 

Mr. LEWIS. By the way, Mr. Chairman, as I was closing that out, 

I really am appreciative as well as you are, but I wanted the Forest 

Service to know there is a lot of interest in this subject here. I am 

sure you will make sure that is available. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Cole. 

Mr. COLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am always hesitant when 

we get on this subject. When you are from Oklahoma, if we see 

three trees together, we think it is a conspiracy, and that they are 

talking to one another. We do not know a lot about forests, but I 

wanted to pick up on an area, I had actually marked this in your 

testimony, and I apologize for arriving late. 

But the same concerns that Mr. Lewis expressed, just about the 

aging of the workforce that you mentioned in your testimony, 

which those are really striking figures about what percentage, 64 

percent within a few years of retirement. And when you say they 

have not planned adequately, before you asked the questions was 

there any plan? Were people thinking about this? Were people recognizing it, or did you say, hey, look around the table you guys are 

getting old here. Anybody thinking about who would be here next? 

Ms. FONG. My sense is that there is an awareness of the issue, 

and it is certainly not an issue that has taken anybody by surprise. 

You know, throughout the Federal Government there has been this 

whole issue of the baby boom generation all approaching retirement, and so it is an issue of general concern to every agency in 

the Federal Government. 

I think where perhaps we have added some useful thinking to 

the subject is that we have tried to identify what is going on within 

the Forest Service that tends to act as a disincentive to people to 

get their training done more quickly, and we have tried to point 

out to the Forest Service things that they can do to actually address these issues, to create some incentives, to perhaps require 

people to serve on fires, perhaps direct the training to be done 

much more quickly. 

And I think all of those things will spawn a debate within the 

Forest Service as to whether this works for their organization, culture, and mission. 

Mr. COLE. In the Forest Service how do they identify how they 

want to recruit people? Let me give you sort of an example where 

I have seen a similar problem addressed I think pretty well. 

Tinker Air Force Base has an aging workforce. That is one of the 

big depots and getting mechanics is difficult and it is a very skilled 

profession, particularly when you are rehabilitating air frames that 

are 50 years old. It is almost a craftsman. It is not an industrial 

process of mass production. 

And they literally saw this coming, went to local community colleges, sat down with the state government, helped them design the 


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training programs that would begin to produce people because they 

are good jobs. They are well-paying jobs, and the schools produced 

the kind of worker that they wanted to hire. Literally went into the 

high schools in some places, sat down with retiring military personnel who acquired the skills working on aircraft, did a really 

masterful job and now have an ongoing training program, and we 

are not going to miss a beat. And that was all driven by the institution. That is by the Air Force and by the folks that saw this coming. 

Do we have anything like that in the Forest Service? Did somebody say there has got to be community colleges in Idaho and 

places like that where here is this promising career or a career 

tech-type situation, sit down and develop programs for those people 

so they would actually direct their graduates towards you? 

Ms. FONG. Well, I think you have a terrific idea there, and I 

think it makes a lot of sense for agencies to be thinking very creatively about how they can partner with educational institutions. 

In the case of our work, we focused on the senior fire management positions, which are the incident commander and the position 

that coordinates all of the support services, which would not necessarily be entry-level types of jobs. And I think, you know, some 

of your ideas perhaps we should explore with the Forest Service to 

see if they would apply to the way the Forest Service is addressing 

its issues at the senior level as well. 

Mr. COLE. Well, I would just assume since you pointed out that 

this is a generational problem. It is a problem across federal service. There ought to be a sort of best practices almost agency by 

agency. When you have got this problem, here are some of the 

things you should be thinking about. They are not my ideas. They 

are just ideas I saw applied by one institution. 

Ms. MITTAL. If I could add to that, when we looked at their workforce planning efforts, one of the things that we noted is that the 

Forest Service had identified key competencies that it needs to conduct its mission, but one of the things that they had not done was 

a gaps analysis. And that actually feeds into exactly what you were 

saying, that if they do a gaps analysis which tells them where the 

competencies that they do not have and what are the types of people and what are the types of skills they need to hire, then they 

can start making those kinds of decisions and looking for those relationships with community colleges, with other places where they 

can start getting those skills and those abilities into the organization. 

But because they have not done that critical gaps analysis, they 

are not there yet where they can start implementing those strategies. 

Mr. COLE. Have they committed to do that, though, in their discussions with you? 

Ms. MITTAL. They have told us that they are going to do the gaps 

analysis. Another area that we found that there are limitations is 

they have not used all of their human capital flexibilities available 

to them, and that would also help, you know, things like retention 

bonuses or paying back tuition for the new hires, those types of 

things. 


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So those things are available to them as well, and they have not 

used them as effectively as they could, but they do plan to do so 

in the future. 

RECOVERY ACT FUNDS

Mr. COLE. I do not want to overuse my time, Chairman. I have 

one or two other areas. Well, the other area that interested me in 

just looking at the testimony was your discussion and your analysis 

about what had happened with the Recovery funds. 

And I want to ask a very general question, and you just sort of 

take it where you want. I look on this whether you were for it or 

not, this was an enormous, one-time opportunity that is unlikely to 

ever come again to really focus on big capital items or some, the 

one that you just cannot deal with on a yearly basis. 

If you had to judge broadly how well has the Forest Service used 

the money to deal with big one-time problems as opposed to here 

is my kind of wish list, and I want to get this IT thing. That is 

just dealing with immediate need. It is sort of like money comes 

in, this is your chance to put all the money back to educate your 

kid, or we can go to Bermuda. There is just no plan to it. 

And I know they had to move very rapidly, but were they able 

to do that sort of thing? 

Ms. FONG. Well, looking at the money that the Forest Service 

got, they got two pots of money: half for capital improvements and 

half for wildland fire and hazardous fuels. And as you mentioned, 

they got the money out very quickly. 

As we are starting to look at it, we are identifying questions in 

our own mind as to whether or not the money went to the areas 

where it was intended to go. In particular, we are asking questions 

like, ‘‘did the money really go to communities that were underserved?’’ I think that was one of the requirements that was put on 

by the Recovery Act, to send the money to the communities that 

really were economically distressed. 

And we have some initial findings on that. As we move through 

the next year and we look at the results of the Recovery money to 

see where the money ultimately went and what was accomplished 

with that money, I think we will be able to give you an assessment 

as to whether or not the Forest Service was able to effectively use 

that money. 

Mr. COLE. At GAO are you doing that across the board so to 

speak? Because I suspect again whatever problems we find with 

the Forest Service, if there are any, you are going to see in other 

places. 

Ms. MITTAL. Right. Most of the GAO Recovery Act work has focused on funds that were provided to the state and local governments. So we have not looked agency by agency at the Recovery 

Act spending. We have been primarily focused on the money that 

passed through to the state and local governments. 

Mr. COLE. Is there a plan to do that at some point? I know the 

volume of work we are talking about here is enormous. 

Ms. MITTAL. Right now I am not aware of it. Most of the work 

that we are doing on the Recovery Act has been requested by individual committees where they are concerned about their particular 


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department or agency, and so we do not have a government-wide 

effort ongoing right now. 

Mr. COLE. That is something, Mr. Chairman, maybe you as 

chairman talking with the other chairmen, it would be nice to 

have, because this was massive. Again, it was one-time. We spent 

more money in one bill than we spent on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, I think, combined up to that point, but that kind of effort. 

So there needs to be some sort of sense of whether or not this 

huge one-time investment got us something that was tangible and 

long-lasting. 

Anyway, I yield back. Thank you very much. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mrs. Lummis. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. And I apologize for being late. It is Ms. Mittal? 

Ms. MITTAL. Yes. 

FIRE PROGRAM ANALYSIS TOOL

Mrs. LUMMIS. It is very nice to meet you. Thanks. You noted that 

the GAO has consistently been concerned about the interagency development of the Fire Program Analysis tool that is intended to 

allow agencies to analyze asset combinations and strategies for fuel 

reduction and, you know, determine a more cost-effective approach 

or the most cost-effective approach. 

What do you recommend as a path forward here so the fire program can develop a tool to analyze that? 

Ms. MITTAL. Well, they have been working on this tool for almost 

a decade now. Congress required them to develop the Fire Program 

Analysis tool in 2001, and in 2002, the agency started working on 

the tool. They were supposed to be done with the tool in 5 years, 

and it is about 10 years later, and they are still not done. What 

we would like to see is that they have science that underlies the 

tool, be peer reviewed so that we have some assurance that the tool 

will be developing good analysis and the data that comes out of this 

tool is reliable. So we think that that is a very important step that 

needs to be undertaken. 

We were also concerned by some of the changes that they made 

during the course of developing the tool that they did not document 

as to why they were making those changes. So that is an important 

aspect of the development that needs to be done. 

The other thing is that the way they have been rolled out, the 

tool has been a little bit confusing, because even before it was 

ready they were starting to use it, and so I think what that did 

is it raised some concerns about the effectiveness of the tool. 

So not only has the development been a little bit choppy, but 

then you have got the management of the tool has been not very 

effective. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Would you care to comment on that? 

Ms. FONG. No, thank you. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. That is fine. Well, do you think we are going 

to be able after this investment of time, Ms. Mittal, to get a useful 

tool that is worth all the time and effort that is being put into it? 

Ms. MITTAL. Honestly, I cannot answer that question right now. 

There is so much uncertainty about what this tool is going to be 

able to provide in terms of results that I cannot answer that quesVerDate Mar 15 2010 04:44 Jun 29, 2011 Jkt 066897 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A897P2.XXX A897P2

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tion at this point in time. I mean, it had a lot of promise. There 

were a lot of things that they were doing. It is a very complex modeling process that they are going through. We recognize that, but 

it has also been a very long time and a lot of money that has gone 

into it, and at this point in time we are not sure about the results 

that are going to come out of this tool. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Let me ask just a couple other questions. 

INVASIVE SPECIES

You mentioned something near and dear to my heart, invasive 

species. I have had several organizations, groups, county WEED 

personnel, others meet with me about trying to change the way we 

do invasive species, and their argument was, and I think the number that they gave me, I might be off, but it was like only about 

5 percent of the funds being spent on invasive species actually 

killed invasive species, those that are used on the ground to spray 

invasive species. 

Do you know if that is true or accurate or anything like that? 

Ms. FONG. Yes. In our work on invasive species we did not look 

at that, and I am looking at my staff here, and I am not sure that 

we can provide you any additional information. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. I will ask the Forest Service that. 

CLIMATE CHANGE

One other issue that I have been concerned with over the last 

several years, and I do not know if you have done any work on it 

yet or not, deals with climate change, in that in this budget we are 

spending about $500 million, close to half a billion dollars, on climate change studies, and the Forest Service gets some, you know, 

namely the agency within the Interior budget, gets some money to 

study climate change. 

My concern is not that we are spending money on studying climate change, but that I do not see any coordination between all the 

other agencies. It has become the key phrase, as I like to say after 

9/11 the key phrase was homeland security if you wanted to increase your budget. Now the key phrase is climate change, so everybody is putting in money for climate change. I suspect some of 

the science that is actually being done is science that was being 

done before, but now we are going to define it as climate change 

science because it is easier to get money for that because everybody 

is concerned about climate change. 

Have we done anything—have either of your agencies done anything—to look at the coordination of the amount of money? I mean, 

it is hard to tell how much just within our budget we are spending 

in climate change, but government-wide it is incredible how much 

we are spending. 

And I do not mind doing that. I just want to know that there is 

some coordination between all of it, and that it is not just how 

agencies are rebuilding science programs that they would like to 

rebuild. 

Has anybody done any study of that or anything related to it? 

Ms. MITTAL. We do have an ongoing engagement looking at the 

total amount of money being spent by the Federal Government on 


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climate change, and that report is going to be issued at the end of 

April, early May. And it looks at how the strategic priorities are 

being set for climate change funding and whether the funding is 

actually going to those strategic priorities. 

At the Forest Service we have looked at their R&D Program, and 

climate change research is one of the five emerging issues that they 

are focusing on. We also looked at coordination between the Forest 

Service and other agencies that do similar research, and we actually found that the Forest Service R&D Program had put in improved coordination mechanisms with these other agencies so that 

they were not duplicating one another but were actually complimenting each other’s research. 

Mr. SIMPSON. That is good to know. My impression in just talking to all the different agencies, and I do not have anything to back 

it up—it was just my impression—is that the Forest Service probably does a better job of overseeing their climate change science 

than just about any of the other agencies. 

Ms. MITTAL. Well, I think overall we were very surprised, pleasantly surprised that the Forest Service R&D Program is a very 

well-managed program. Usually when we go in we always find negative things, but for the R&D Program over at the Forest Service 

we were surprised by how well they are managing that program. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I have thought seriously about putting together a 

line item within the budget, and it would take some authorizing 

legislation, too, that, say, within the Interior budget puts the 

money not into each specific agency, but into a climate change 

budget and then has, I do not know, a panel, I have not considered 

yet who that would be, and that different agencies might apply to 

that panel with their research projects of what they want to do and 

how they want to spend it. Then somebody coordinates it centrally 

to make sure that it is being done wisely, and we are using it in 

the highest priority areas that we should. 

So, anyway, those are some discussions that I think will probably 

be coming up over the next year. 

Any other questions, Mr. Cole? Mrs. Lummis? 

Mrs. LUMMIS. No, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you both for being here today. Your reports 

are actually very valuable to us in that they form the basis for a 

lot of the inquiry we will have with the Department. I hope that 

the Department, I am sure the Department knows that we are 

looking at your reports also and will ask them questions about why 

some of the things are being implemented and why some of them 

are not, but I appreciate the work you do, and thanks for being 

here today. 


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FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2011.

U.S. FOREST SERVICE FY 2012 BUDGET 

WITNESSES 

TOM TIDWELL, CHIEF, U.S. FOREST SERVICE 

KATHLEEN ATKINSON, DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC PLANNING, BUDGET 

AND ACCOUNTABILITY 

OPENING REMARKS OF CHAIRMAN SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. The committee will come to order. 

Today we meet to discuss the President’s fiscal year 2012 budget 

for the Forest Service. I would like to start out by saying that we 

are very happy to have the chief with us here today and thankful 

that you are healthy and clearly on the mend. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Thank you. 

Mr. SIMPSON. First, I would like to highlight a positive story in 

Idaho. On the Salmon-Challis National Forest, the Salmon Valley 

Collaborative has made some great progress putting together 

projects to protect communities, improve forest health and reduce 

the threat of catastrophic wildfires. The Forest Service has been 

working with the BLM, Fish and Wildlife Service, state agencies, 

the community, industry, environmental groups and numerous others to solve problems. To me, this is exactly what the Forest Service should be doing. Chief, I applaud these efforts and hope to work 

with you to expand and build upon these success stories. 

This is one of many positive examples of things the Forest Service is doing in my state and across the country. I am concerned, 

however, that the Forest Service’s fiscal year 2012 budget reflects 

a major shift in priorities by putting land acquisition before fulfilling the agency’s mission to manage forest health. I support the 

President’s America’s Great Outdoors initiative and recognize the 

value of providing opportunities for people to connect with our forests, National Parks and amazing natural resources. But it does 

not make sense to me that we would use this initiative to dramatically increase land acquisition instead of focusing our limited resources on desperately needed efforts to improve forest health and 

address the maintenance backlog, grazing permit backlog and numerous other problems across the country. 

At a time when our forests are significantly overstocked and 

unhealthy, the Forest Service proposes reducing spending on hazardous fuels, forest health, grazing and fire suppression. Many of 

these programs support private jobs in rural communities from 

ranching and forestry to recreation and wildlife management. 

These important programs, so valuable to rural communities, 

should be a priority. The budget also proposes taking $328 million out of discretionary 

funds for the Secure Rural Schools Act, which up until this proVerDate Mar 15 2010 04:44 Jun 29, 2011 Jkt 066897 PO 00000 Frm 00097 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 E:\HR\OC\A897P2.XXX A897P2

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posal has been a mandatory program. This program is critical for 

many rural counties in the West, and I appreciate your recognition 

of that. I am concerned, however, that this proposal moves this program from mandatory to discretionary spending, essentially taking 

funding away from fire and hazardous fuels to make counties 

whole. I would like to work with the Administration on a better solution that does not sacrifice firefighting for the counties. 

I have a couple other concerns about this budget. The combination of line items under the National Forest System, known as the 

Integrated Resource Restoration budget line item is also concerning 

to us, mostly because the Forest Service has difficulties explaining 

how the fiscal year 2010 and fiscal year 2011 funding and line 

items would be changed as a result. The Forest Service needs to 

demonstrate accountability and robust performance measures before the subcommittee can support this proposal. We are the stewards of taxpayer dollars and need to accurately report them. 

As you know, the travel management plans were defunded in 

H.R. 1, mostly because Members of Congress are hearing complaints from their constituents. I do not think defunding travel 

management plans is the solution, but I do know this issue will 

continue to come up again, very likely on the House floor. I know 

there are forests that have done a good job handling travel management plans, including some forests in my own district, but others have ignored the public and concern from local officials. That 

is not right and, in my opinion, when the Forest Service has not 

adequately addressed the concerns of the community, they should 

redo these plans. Chief, again, I would like to work with you on solutions to this problem. 

In closing, I would like to commend the Forest Service employees 

in Idaho and really across the Nation. They do a great job in an 

environment that is making it increasingly difficult for them to do 

so. I reiterate my concern about the report that came out a few 

years ago ranking Forest Service employees as some of the most 

dissatisfied employees in the Federal government, and I hope that 

you are taking steps to address these issues. If anyone should love 

their job, it is a Forest Service employee. I look forward to working 

with you on many of these issues and thank you and your staff for 

their hard work that you are doing and for your assistance. 

Mr. SIMPSON. With that, I am happy to yield to the gentleman 

from Virginia, Mr. Moran. 

Mr. MORAN. Well, thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. 

OPENING REMARKS OF MR. MORAN

Good morning, and we are delighted to see you, Chief Tidwell 

and Director of Budget Ms. Atkinson. 

The Forest Service as we know manages substantial land in 43 

states and Puerto Rico. It has national responsibilities as well with 

the state and private forestry and research branches. It is a terribly important agency. The open space and water produced in 

these forests is of tremendous importance, even to the Bronx where 

while we have some large windowsills, we do not have a lot of national forests, and Mr. Hinchey has a few more, but all of us have 

a stake in the health of our forests whether we live in urban or 

rural areas. 


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Last week, as I mentioned yesterday, I joined the Agriculture 

Secretary Vilsack and Chief Tidwell and a number of conservation 

leaders to celebrate the centennial of the Weeks Act. That was an 

act that was passed 100 years ago this month that allowed the Forest Service to work with counties and states to acquire denuded 

lands in the East and restore forests and watersheds. At that time 

the timber industry had gone through and clear cut hundreds of 

thousands of acres and just left them, and as a result the water 

was blocked from running. It had begun to toxify. There were no 

navigable waters in much of the East as a result, and people knew 

something had to be done but they did not know what to do, and 

it was Congressman Weeks that went forward in a time that the 

political context was very much like it is today. There was an aversion to federal activity and yet he was able to get that legislation 

through, and it has been a tremendous success. It allowed 52 new 

national forests to be developed in 26 Eastern United States, and 

it covers more than 27 million acres today. 

Now, with this budget we are being asked to continue funding 

forest and watershed restoration activities. And as strongly as we 

support the concept, obviously the devil is in the details. There are 

some issues that I know we want to pursue and we are going to 

pursue it often-times from different perspectives. 

Mr. Chairman, I know you would be disappointed if I did not 

share with you a quote. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I wait for it every morning. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you. The chairman has a real affinity for 

John Muir particularly, so we are going to quote John Muir. He 

wrote in his opening to American forests, and I am quoting, ‘‘The 

forests in America, however slighted by man, must have been a 

great delight to God for they were the best he ever planted. The 

whole continent was a garden and from the beginning it seemed to 

be favored above all the other wild parks and gardens of the globe,’’ 

and he continued, ‘‘Every other civilized nation in the world has 

been compelled to care for its forests and so must we if waste and 

destruction are not to go on to the bitter end leaving America as 

barren as Palestine or Spain.’’ 

Now, he wrote that a long, long time ago but certainly the wisdom is just as needed today, so while we move ahead with the watershed and restoration agenda, we want to remember that our job 

is to improve the environment and the forests for the next generation and for all generations to come. Foresters and biologists are 

trained to be a patient lot, much more than Members of Congress, 

I might say, but the Congress also needs to oversee the activities 

on the public lands because so much is at stake. And as we heard 

from the GAO and Inspector General yesterday, the Forest Service 

does have some room for managerial improvement in some areas. 

With that, again, Mr. Chairman, thanks for holding the hearing 

and we look forward to the testimony. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, and thank you for the quote. I am not 

sure that Palestine and Spain like that quote. 

Mr. MORAN. You have to call it like you see it. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Chief Tidwell, thank you for being here today, and 

the floor is yours. 


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Mr. TIDWELL. Well, Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, it is a privilege to be here today to discuss the President’s 2012 budget request for the Forest Service. I am here today 

with Kathleen Atkinson, our budget director, and she will be ready 

to answer your very specific budget questions once we get into 

those. 

I really appreciate the support that this subcommittee has shown 

the Forest Service in the past, and I look forward to continuing to 

work with you for us to be able to provide more of the things that 

the American public want and need from the Nation’s forests and 

grasslands. 

The President’s budget is designed to support the Administration’s priorities for maintaining and restoring the resiliency of 

America’s forests. Additionally, this budget request reflects our 

commitment to fiscal restraint with significant reductions to ensure 

that we are spending efficiently and focusing on the priorities of 

the American public. The budget request supports these priorities 

through four key objectives. 

The first is to restore and sustain the forest and grasslands by 

increasing our collaborative efforts, Mr. Chairman, that you referenced, to build more and more support for the restoration activities that need to occur that create jobs. The budget requests full 

funding for the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Fund. 

It increases the emphasis on protecting and enhancing watershed 

health with a request of $80 million for a new priority watershed 

and jobs stabilization initiative that would really help us focus on 

funding large-scale projects. It does propose a revised Integrated 

Resource Restoration budget line item to align our budget structure 

with the work that we are doing on the ground. This will help facilitate a more integrated approach to developing project proposals 

that will result in more work and more jobs. We will continue to 

track the traditional targets such as board feet, miles of stream improved, but we also will track the overall outcomes of restoration 

and watershed improvement so that we can show you that based 

on the investments that we are making, we are making a difference 

at a landscape scale. We are going to continue to incorporate our 

climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies that have been 

developed by Forest Service research to determine how our management needs to change, to be able to increase the ecosystem’s resistance to increased frequency of disturbances like fire, insects 

and disease, invasives, flood and drought. 

The second objective is the budget request’s funding for wildland 

fire suppression that includes a level of preparedness that will continue our success to suppress 98 percent of the wildland fires during initial attack. It is also a realignment of our preparedness and 

suppression funds to more accurately display cost. It provides for 

the FLAME fund to increase accountability and transparency for 

the cost of large funds, and to further reduce the threat of wildfire 

to homes and communities, we want to do more of the hazardous 

fuels in the wildland-urban interface. 

The third objective is to increase support for community-based 

conservation with the America’s Great Outdoors initiative, and we 

want to do this by helping America reconnect with the outdoors by 

increasing our conservation education and volunteer opportunities 


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through our youth programs. We want to build on the success of 

our 28 Job Corps centers by supporting the creation of a 21st Century Conservation Service Corps program that will help build skills 

and provide work experiences for more of our youth. We want to 

continue to work with our states to use their state and private programs to promote conservation and to help keep private forests forested, and we are requesting an increase in LWCF funding and our 

Forest Legacy program so we can use conservation easements and 

land acquisition to protect critical forests and acquire public access. 

And the fourth objective is to further support the economic opportunities in rural communities by supporting our recreational opportunities that not only add to the quality of our lives but support 

these communities with over $13 billion in annual spending by 

recreation visitors. We want to encourage biomass utilization and 

other renewable energy opportunities while we explore ways to be 

able to process oil and gas permit applications and energy transmission proposals more efficiently. 

And then, Mr. Chairman, as you mentioned, we are proposing a 

framework for a five-year reauthorization of the Secure Rural 

Schools Act with $328 million in our budget request to fund the 

first year. We want to work with the subcommittee to consider options for mandatory funding and also with the overall legislative 

proposal. Our goal is to increase the collaborative efforts to encourage public involvement in management of their national forests 

and grasslands. To maintain and restore healthy landscapes, we 

need to take care of the ecosystem but we also need to support 

healthy, thriving communities and provide jobs in rural America. 

Again, thank you for the opportunity to address the subcommittee, and I look forward to answering your questions. 

[The statement of Tom Tidwell follows:] 


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GRAZING ALLOTMENTS

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you. I appreciate that opening statement. 

Let me first ask a couple of specific questions relative to Idaho. 

Last year, the Payette National Forest made a formal decision to 

end sheep grazing on a number of allotments because of concerns 

about possible impacts that domestic sheep have on wild bighorn 

populations. I recognize that this was a difficult decision for the 

agency, and I commend the leadership and supervisors of both 

Payette National Forest and Boise National Forest. Chief Tidwell, 

I know that you share my concern not only about the impact of this 

decision on wool growers directly impacted by eliminating these 

permits but also about the larger impact the decision would have 

on domestic sheep grazing throughout our national forest system. 

One of the concerns I often hear from the wool growers is that 

there has not been enough research done to determine with certainty that bighorn sheep were dying as a result of contact with the 

domestic sheep. Could you tell me what research is being done by 

the Forest Service or the USDA to provide sound science, what efforts are being undertaken to provide a vaccine that might mitigate 

any impacts with the domestic-wildlife interface, and is the Forest 

Service working to find alternative grazing allotments for those impacted by this decision and would it be helpful for Congress to include language directing that this issue be addressed quickly? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Mr. Chairman, I do share your concern with this 

issue and it is one that I have tracked not only in my current job 

but also when I was a regional forester in our northern region 

where one of the sheep permittees grazed in both regions. This has 

been a longstanding, difficult issue with bighorns and domestic 

sheep, and it is an area where there is a need to develop probably 

more science. Our research scientists are working with at least one 

effort at a university to be able to do a better job considering what 

is going on with disease transmission between domestic sheep and 

the bighorns, so there is a need for us to be able to continue to do 

that research and we are working in conjunction with the universities on that. 

In the near term, the best solution is to find some alternative allotments that we continue to work on to be able to find places that 

are substantial, and I know both forests have been working on this, 

and it is a difficult situation because some of the other sheep allotments have been closed because of grizzly bear habitat, for instance. So it is one of the things we want to continue to work on, 

but I tell you, I cannot stress enough how important it is for us 

to be able to find solutions and not so much just for this particular 

situation. The livestock industry is very important to help us, not 

only the economic opportunities that come from that but also it 

helps us to be able to maintain open space. What I am talking 

about is on the private lands because when these ranchers go out 

of business, almost always they sell out to a developer. Instead of 

having a ranch that provides wildlife habitat, and in this case some 

bighorn sheep habitat, what we will get is some really nice, beautiful cabins built there instead that will complicate not only our job 

as far as providing wildlife habitat but then also it really complicates our mission when it comes to wildfire too. There are just 


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tremendous benefits for us to be able to maintain the livestock industry for a lot more reasons than just the direct economic benefits. 

And so we are going to continue to focus on that to expand the research but then also do everything that we can to maintain the industry. 

Mr. SIMPSON. There are people who suggest that we should remove all grazing from public lands, who attempt to get cows and 

sheep and so forth off of public lands. There are a lot of ways to 

reduce wildfires, fuels mitigation and those types of things. Is grazing an important aspect of reducing the likelihood of wildfires? 

Mr. TIDWELL. That is not a dominant tool. It is more of an opportunity that comes along with it. But the focus that we have is to 

be able to work with our permittees to manage the resource and 

to lay out that these are the conditions that the resource needs to 

be in when your livestock are removed. These are the conditions 

that we are striving for over the next five or ten years so that we 

can maintain that resource so that the forage is there for the livestock, the forage is there for wildlife, and that it is sustainable. 

That is always going to be our primary focus on this. I know there 

has been criticism in the past with some of our grazing allotments, 

but I can take you out and show you places where the permittees 

are just doing an excellent job of management and those issues are 

not there. They work—as far as provide for the wildlife habitat, 

they do a good job to maintain the riparian areas and they understand that goes with the job. And I will tell you, on those allotments we do not have the issues. Throughout the country, the industry is doing a very good job, but it is like everything, there is 

always one or two. I mean, we have over 10,000 allotments, and 

I am not going to tell you that every one of them is in great shape, 

but I tell you, we have made great strides and we are going to continue to work on that. 

WILDFIRE SUPPRESSION

Mr. SIMPSON. One other question you brought up in your testimony, you said you put out 98 percent of all wildfires when they 

start, keeping them very small, right? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yes. 

Mr. SIMPSON. You know, as I have studied wildland fires, you 

have to ask yourself, do we have the right strategy? I know it is 

tough to say ‘‘let things burn’’ but if some of these things do not 

periodically burn, the fuels build up and then the likelihood that 

when a fire starts it is a catastrophic sort of fire increases. How 

do we balance that? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, we are balancing it through our approach to 

wildland fire. We recognize that there are places where fire needs 

to play its role in the ecosystem. Then there are also places, often 

because of the wildland and urban interface, where we do not have 

those options. So when I talk about the 98 percent success rate, 

and actually last year it was 99 percent, I am focusing on the fires 

that we take initial attack on. It is the ones where we make a decision that we have a fire that is burning in the back country, in the 

wilderness, where we want to manage that. We do not count those 

because we are not taking initial attack, we are applying a management strategy. So we are doing a combination of suppressing 


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the fires that need to be suppressed but at the same time recognizing the benefits of fire in the ecosystem and being able to manage both. 

And it works out very well except once in a while on some of the 

fires that we are managing, weather conditions change from what 

is forecasted and they become larger or they leave the area that we 

were trying to keep them in, and that is usually when we receive 

the criticism. I understand that, but we are doing a really good job 

working with our communities and getting folks to understand 

when we are going to suppress, the location of fires, and the set 

of conditions that it is okay for us to manage. We are doing it with 

our communities so that they also have, I believe, a higher confidence level; they understand what is going on so they feel a little 

bit better about it. We are going to suppress the fires that need to 

be suppressed. 

COST RECOVERY

Mr. SIMPSON. One other question. In 2006, the Forest Service finalized regulations that allow them to recover costs for the processing and monitoring of special-use permits including those that 

are issued to outfitters and guides. Outfitters and guides in Idaho 

are deeply concerned about the impact that these requirements will 

have on their businesses, especially during an economic downturn 

that has hurt the recreation industry. I have appreciated the Forest Service’s willingness to engage with these small business owners to find solutions that are mutually beneficial. In particular, Regional Forester Harv Forsgren has committed to sitting down with 

the outfitters and guides in June to discuss this and other issues 

facing the recreation industry. 

However, I still have some concerns about the Forest Service’s 

cost recovery policy. As we have looked into this, the Forest Service 

has indicated that it implemented its cost recovery regulations in 

order to better coordinate these policies with, the policies that the 

BLM has been using for a number of years. When we spoke to the 

BLM, however, they indicated the cost recovery structure they use 

is entirely different. Can you tell me why the Forest Service decided it needed to implement cost recovery and why it chose this 

system rather than one similar to the BLM’s? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, Mr. Chairman, the reason we pursued cost 

recovery is to be able to address the backlog of applications that 

we receive every year. We have over 75,000 special-use permits on 

the national forests. We receive over 6,000 annual applications, and 

in the past we had a tremendous backlog where folks were coming 

in and it might be a year or two before we could even address their 

application. Many of these are like a one-year permit they are looking for. So doing the cost recovery has helped us to significantly reduce that backlog, and we have taken the approach that if processing the permit and doing the environmental analysis that is necessary takes less than 50 hours of staff time, then there is no cost 

to the applicant. But if it takes more than that, then there is a 

cost. 

I recognize that with our current approach, it works really well 

for the large operations. Where the trouble is, is with those folks 

that maybe it only takes between 50 and 100 hours. They are the 


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smaller operators, some of them are outfitters and guides that we 

have in Idaho and around the country. That is where the impact 

occurs. So it is one of the things where we need to take another 

look at what we are doing to see if there is a better way to do this. 

I would love if we did not have to have cost recovery. I wish that 

we could just have the staff to be able to process these permits as 

they come in and do it very efficiently and that people would not 

have to wait, but the reality is, that is not the case. So this is what 

we have tried to do to find this balance and it is one we need to 

continue to look at to be able to find the right split between the 

small operators and the large operators. 

And then the other thing we are focused on is looking at our 

processes so that we are making sure we can be as efficient and 

as effective as we can with doing the processing, and so those are 

the things we are going to focus on. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Well, I am not opposed to cost recovery. I think it 

is the right thing to do. The process that the Forest Service has 

chosen, as I said, is substantially different than the BLM’s and you 

can understand why some outfitters are saying if it takes less than 

50 hours, I am exempt, I do not have to pay, but if it takes over 

50 hours, I do not start paying at 50 hours, I go back to hour one. 

So 51 hours, you pay the full cost recovery; 49 hours, you pay nothing, which is a little strange. But I look forward to working with 

you to try to resolve this because I do not think the outfitters and 

guides are opposed to a cost recovery program either. 

Mr. TIDWELL. We will look at what the Bureau of Land Management is doing and take another look at that and see if there are 

ways that we can improve this to make it consistent, make it fair 

and allow us to be more responsive. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thanks, Chief. 

Mr. Moran. 

CONTINUING RESOLUTION IMPACTS

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a good issue and a 

good point. 

We have gone though six months now, half a fiscal year, an unprecedented time of uncertainty for every federal agency, not really 

knowing from week to week how much money you are going to 

have to deal with or even if you are going to have any funds at all. 

We are now approaching the end of another Continuing Resolution 

period. There are certain things that you do every year that I cannot believe are not adversely impacted. For example, you hire a 

number of summer temporaries and have contracts that are seasonal. Has the uncertainty that accompanies the C.R. affected your 

ability to do that? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Congressman, it has. We are not able to enter into 

our larger contracts that we would normally be awarding at this 

time of year. We are not able to make the commitments to our seasonal workforce that we normally would be able to do, especially 

this late in the year. Each week, it is down to each week now, as 

this continues, it is becoming more and more difficult as we are 

struggling to find ways to be able to make the commitments to our 

firefighting resources, for our air tankers and our helicopters that 

we bring on. We need to be able to make commitments. These folks 


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want a commitment for the rest of the year, and as each week goes 

on, it is getting more and more difficult to be able to find the resources to be able to make those commitments. We are really focused on the ones we absolutely have to do but it leaves no flexibility to move forward with the contract work, the restoration work 

that we would like to get done. 

TRAVEL MANAGEMENT

Mr. MORAN. Thank you. I was afraid that would be the case and 

I guess it is fairly obvious. 

During the extended debate on the full year Continuing Resolution known as H.R. 1, there are any number of environmental riders, some affecting the Forest Service, and one of them, thanks in 

large part to Chairman Simpson, an amendment was defeated that 

attempted to cut funding for your international program. Another 

case, though, an amendment by Mr. Herger, was passed that stops 

the Forest Service from managing its roads. I would like for you 

to talk about your off-road vehicle management program and the 

road system generally through the forests and what impact this 

amendment would have. And let me just mention the larger context. The Forest Service has been talking about comprehensive forest transportation plans for years, identifying which roads should 

be saved, which removed and where people ought to be able to 

travel with off-road machines. I guess it is fair to ask why it has 

not been done yet and when it will be done, but I do specifically 

want to know what is the impact of that amendment if it were to 

be legislated in final form. What it would do to Forest Service? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Congressman, thank you. I first also want to thank 

the support for our international programs, and I just appreciate 

everyone’s help on that. 

When it comes to travel management, I understand the concerns 

and I understand some of the concerns that you folks are hearing 

from your constituents. Travel management is always by far the 

most controversial issue that we deal with. It affects everyone 

whether you are an active user of the national forest or an occasional user. The purpose of our travel management planning when 

it came to determining a motorized vehicle use map, there is one 

reason for that, and that was to be able to sustain motorized recreation on our national forests. When we started this process, there 

was tremendous opposition that was forming against motorized 

recreation. We were in court constantly. And so we made this decision a few years ago to move forward and have a system of roads 

and routes and travels on all of our national forests and grasslands 

that would have consistent signing. We would take a fairly consistent approach to reaching out to the public to be able to determine what the system should be and the sole purpose is to be able 

to sustain motorized recreation. We did pretty well early on and 

there was a lot of support for folks to come to the table, and we 

got about 65 percent of the forests and grasslands that have completed the work but there is still a significant portion that has not. 

I recognize the controversy that comes from this, and the thing 

that I would ask your support is to encourage us, direct us if you 

need to, to really reach out and embrace collaboration to be able 

to find solutions because that is the way forward with these issues. 


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Bring people to the table, keep them at the table until they can 

work out their differences and then we can go forward with a system so that folks who want to ride their motorcycles, their ATVs, 

their Jeeps or whatever, they will know that they have not an opportunity this year to do it but they also know that they will next 

year, the year after and so forth. 

And the other key part of it is that we can go from one forest 

to another and see the same system of maps, so it is very clear and 

easy for folks to understand which roads and routes are open and 

which ones are not so that the users can follow the regulations and 

further reduce the overall controversy. 

The other key part of this that I need to mention is that before 

we started this, there were many of our forests and grasslands that 

allowed cross-country travel. You could just take your ATV, your 

motorcycle, your Jeep and go anywhere you possibly could. It was 

resulting in a significant amount of impact to the environment, 

which just added to the opposition. That was something that we 

felt we had to basically put an end to and so not only did they identify the system of routes and trails but they also identified areas. 

There may be a specific area where it is fine to be able to have 

cross-country travel. Those are going to be fairly limited and well 

signed, but we try to provide every opportunity we can. 

LAND ACQUISITION

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Chief. That is basically the discussion 

that we had on the Floor. 

I wanted to ask you about the Federal Land Acquisition program 

because the Forest Service is such a big player in that. You have 

got a 41 percent increase to a total of $91 million in the President’s 

America’s Great Outdoors initiative. It is a reasonable concern that 

we should not be buying more land when we cannot afford to take 

care of what we have, but I understand you are not really talking 

about buying new national forests as much as it is a different kind 

of purchasing to improve management efficiency and protect what 

we have. You might also touch on the Forest Legacy program. That 

is up 78 percent to $135 million. Give us your philosophy, if you 

will, why this is not subject to the concern that we are acquiring 

more that we cannot manage but it is in fact improving our ability 

to manage what we have. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, Congressman, I appreciate the concern with 

our additional request with LWCF funding. I can understand 

where that is coming from. On the other hand, the reason that we 

have increased our request is based on what we heard from the 

public in the meetings that we had and the listening sessions that 

we had across the country with the America’s Great Outdoors initiative. There was strong, strong support for our LWCF programs, 

and the reason for that is, these are relatively small parcels. In 

fact, with the total LWCF program for 2012, we would look at acquiring about 33,000 acres across the country. These are usually 

small inholdings that are a critical habitat in some cases but also 

provide public access. One of the things we focus on is acquiring 

those properties that for a variety of reasons, the landowners feel 

they have to shut down public access. And so that is why we feel 

we need to continue it. 


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With our Forest Legacy program, and especially in these economic times, there are folks that are faced with tough decisions 

about leaving their land and selling it to some form of developer, 

some form of development, or being willing, or wanting to work 

with us. It is not willing. These are folks that want to work with 

us to acquire a conservation easement on their land so they can 

continue to ranch, so they can continue to manage forestry on their 

private lands. Those are the key benefits. It also reduces our cost 

in almost every situation, especially when we acquire an inholding, 

a 40-acre, 160-acre inholding, it reduces our costs. It reduces the 

cost of boundary-line administration. It reduces our management 

costs, especially with things like with fire. When we no longer have 

to deal with an inholding, it gives us more flexibility with our fire 

management so there is also a direct reduction in those costs. 

So I think folks need to understand that these actually help us 

reduce our cost of administration, but I sure do understand the 

concern that especially in these economic times that we have, why 

we would be asking for this increase. 

Mr. MORAN. Well put, Chief Tidwell. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Lewis. 

HAZARDOUS FUELS

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Welcome, Chief Tidwell and Ms. Atkinson. We very much appreciate the work that you are about. I think maybe the major story 

in the news this morning reminds us that Mother Nature is a little 

bit difficult to predict, let alone control. Over the years I have been 

involved in public affairs, one of the more controversial agencies 

because of the proximity of the San Bernardino National Forest 

has been the Forest Service. Early on, my predecessor was constantly, it seemed, in lines of attempted communication with the 

Forest Service, oftentimes our constituents felt with very little or 

no result. I must say, Chief Tidwell, that environment, if the original reflection was accurate, has changed radically. We have had an 

endless series of floods, fires, bark beetle, et cetera, in our region. 

With that, there has developed an amazing level of cooperation between the various agencies involved with these responsibilities— 

law enforcement, the Forest Service, people who control the highways, et cetera, really phenomenal willingness to work together 

that has helped to improve people’s sense that we are attempting 

to maintaining managing the forests adequately and at the same 

time make sure that we recognize that these are the people’s lands 

after all. 

In southern California, as you know, we have recently had a series of flooding problems. One of the major highways of access into 

two of our major communities in the San Bernardino Mountains, 

Highway 330, essential got washed out. Some of the questions that 

you have already discussed relative to the need to ensure that we 

are being careful about environmental considerations, et cetera, 

could very well be a part of the discussion but I am pleased to say 

that there is great work going on between the Forest Service and 

Cal Trans to solve that problem. We have already discussed the 


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fact that you are moving rather quickly on that and I very much 

appreciate it. 

An interesting and important note is the way we manage the forests and especially manage those portions around the urban centers as it relates to hazardous fuels. Especially around Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear, people are concerned that a backing off of 

availability of funding as well as priority could very well lead to potential disaster in pretty significant population centers. Could you 

give me an idea—I know there has been some shifting of management monies back and forth. Can you give me an idea of how we 

are going to deal with this 25 percent reduction of hazardous fuels 

and what it means to the management of that portion of my forest? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Mr. Lewis, there is not a 25 percent reduction in 

hazardous-fuels funding request. We did do a couple things that 

would maybe lead folks to see that, and one of them is that we 

wanted to increase our focus on the wildland-urban interface, as 

you mentioned how important that is, and so we have kept that 

fund and I think there is about $250 million that will be focused 

just on that with a target of about 1.2 million acres to be treated. 

The rest of our hazardous-fuels funding we did put into our Integrated Resource Restoration. This is outside of the wildland-urban 

interface. So there is another, I think, $85 million, $87 million that 

was put into that Integrated Resource Restoration, and we felt that 

by putting that fuels funding into that budget line item, it would 

help us to do a better job to integrate the overall program, so when 

we are looking at a landscape, it is not only to look at what we 

need to do for forest health, what we need to do for watershed conditions but almost always there is a hazardous-fuels component to 

every project that we do. It just made sense from our view and for 

the way projects are actually designed to actually have some hazardous-fuel funding. 

Now, there is about a $9 million reduction in hazardous-fuel 

funding from fiscal year 2010 to what we are proposing in 2012, 

and it just reflects our commitment to fiscal restraint. These are 

just tough budget times, and really the majority of our budget line 

items except for about three actually do go down. It is just one that 

we felt looking at the overall balance that we could take a little bit 

out of there. But the other thing we want to do is continue our 

focus to work with other agencies, the counties and the states, but 

there is that $9 million reduction in our request. 

EMPLOYEE RETENTION

Mr. LEWIS. As you know, in our own forestry region, the interplay with the BLM and the Park Service as well, we often talk 

about people in different shades of green uniforms. Specifically, I 

am concerned about the turnover problems that we have in the 

Forest Service, the number of people, as the chairman indicated, 

and it ought to be the most popular possible place to want to work 

and yet it would seem that we do have this turnover constantly. 

It would be easy to say that is simply because other agencies pay 

them more money and hire them. What do you think we are going 

to be able to accomplish in terms of the 2012 budget relative to 

that problem? 


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Mr. TIDWELL. Especially in southern California, we did have 

higher attrition there, especially in our firefighter ranks, and over 

the last couple of years we have made some changes to that. We 

have done two things. One, we have provided a retention, a pay increase similar to what we have been doing for decades there in 

southern California to be more competitive salary-wise, and this is 

with our firefighters. And then we also converted many of our temporary positions to full time and that is full time that where they 

are working just four or five months they have the option to work 

more like eight months to maybe a full year, and we give them the 

option of having a permanent job which has benefits. I think the 

combination of these two programs has significantly reduced the 

number of vacancies that we have. We have dropped that by way 

over 50 percent from what we have had in the past. So those are 

two things that we are doing directly. 

The other thing, and the chairman brought this up, is with the 

survey that was done a couple years ago about the overall morale. 

You know, we have the most dedicated, committed workforce, I 

think in Federal Government by far, and I may be a little biased 

but I truly believe that. For the most part, they are happy but 

there are certain things that they would like to see improved and 

they should expect to see things improved. Those are some of the 

administrative operations and functions that we did, some things 

that have actually asked all of our employees to do more administrative tasks, and those are the things we have been working on, 

to reduce that and address those concerns. So I meet once a month 

with employees who represent a cross-section of our agency so I can 

hear directly from them. These are folks who represent every level 

of the organization and I can hear from them directly about what 

is going on, what they are concerned about and that sort of thing. 

So I feel that we are making some progress. 

The biggest challenge that we have and many federal agencies 

have the same challenge is that our folks do get frustrated because 

they are not able to do everything, and they are so dedicated, they 

want to do it all and they will donate their weekends, their evenings. They will do just about anything to be able to do that, and 

so there is always going to be this concern of needing more resources to be able to get more work done, and we really stress that 

we want them to really just feel good about what we are getting 

done because it is tremendous. At the same time, every time that 

survey is going to be taken, that frustration will be reflected, and 

it is not all bad. I think most corporations would line up to have 

our workforce. 

LAW ENFORCEMENT-INTERAGENCY COORDINATION

Mr. LEWIS. Frankly, that is a very interesting response. I think 

it kind of adds to the flavor of what we have been discussing. 

If I could, Mr. Chairman, just briefly, recently when we met with 

the Inspector General and GAO, I talked about a trip to the forest 

one time by way of helicopter where we saw some very interesting 

crops being grown in the national forest, and I knew that this was 

not a Forest Service effort to raise funding across the budget, but 

in the meantime it does raise the question about the need for us 

to not only oversee these challenges but to effectively be able to 


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communicate not just with other federal agencies but also local law 

enforcement, etc. I am sure you are aware of GIS, that whole communication system that is improving all of our ability to communicate with one another. Are you involved in a project to attempt 

to figure out better ways for your agency and your personnel to 

communicate with other agencies whether they be local law enforcement or USGS or otherwise? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yes, we are, and we are probably doing the most 

in the law enforcement arena and in the drug control arena. I feel 

very good about the willingness of all the agencies that deal with 

marijuana growth on our public lands and in this country and we 

are sharing radio frequencies, we are entering agreements. For instance, we have an agreement on the southern border where the 

border patrol will actually take over road maintenance on some of 

the roads that we really do not need to have it be a fairly highlevel road for Forest Service activities but they do for their role and 

to carry out their mission and so they are willing to actually then 

take through this agreement, they will take over the maintenance 

responsibilities because they need certain roads to be at a little 

higher standard so they can be more responsive. And then also 

when it comes to not only communications but just sharing information, we are doing this not only with our federal partners but 

also with our states and counties, and that is just essential and especially in your part of the country. I believe we have a model of 

cooperation down there but we still need to improve on that and 

so those are the things we want to continue to work on so that we 

can share information between the various agencies so we can all 

be more effective in carrying our specific missions but also the missions that we share. 

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Chairman, I learned that Chief Tidwell is not the 

son of a former sheriff of San Bernardino County. But in the meantime, we are concerned about using forest product for biofuels and 

the like. Berkeley is providing a serious opportunity to experiment 

with that. Thank you. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. 

One other point that I just want to make before we go on, on the 

personnel management. This has been an issue for a number of 

years regarding the morale of the Forest Service. One other issue 

that always comes up when I talk to Forest Service personnel is 

most people enter the Forest Service because they love the outdoors. They want to be out managing the forests and so forth and 

they find themselves more and more spending time behind a computer preparing for defense of certain decisions against lawsuits instead of out doing what they love to do, and I think that adds to 

the morale problem that many of them have, and it takes away the 

resources that we should be using to manage the national forests 

and their time personally, so that is something that I continue to 

hear from personnel as I talk to Forest Service employees around 

the country. 

Ms. McCollum. 

INTERNATIONAL FORESTRY

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And as was pointed out, 

I think a lot of our thoughts and prayers are with the people in 


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Japan and that part of the world and what is about to fall on the 

West Coast of the United States. 

I want to put out there, I do not always agree with President 

Obama. I agree with him quite often. It is not too often I disagree 

with him. And I want to express my strong disappointment that 

the Administration proposed terminating the international forestry 

program, and that has been brought up here in testimony before 

Congress. I think that shows that it feels very strongly about this. 

It is a small, but vital agency and it has done a lot of valuable 

work over the past decades. It plays a very unique role as one of 

the two federal agencies working internationally with NGOs to address very critical natural resource issues that are vital to jobs and 

the economy right here in the United States. 

The international forestry program is the sole provider of technical expertise on timber and logging issues. The international 

trade agreements, you are the representative for the United States. 

You are there. It is not the State Department, it is the international forestry department. You work to stop the global flow of 

illegal wood that is undercutting our timber industry, and for this 

reason alone, the American Forest and Paper Association has also 

expressed criticism of the Administration for eliminating this program, citing the uncertainty of the agency would have technical capacity to really tackle a lot of these illegal-logging issues. 

But along with that, in addition to stopping the illegal flow of 

timber, the international forestry program has also worked tirelessly with Ducks Unlimited to protect the Canadian boreal forest 

for future generations to ensure that our hunters have waterfowl 

habitat. This is an area that is second to none for the breeding 

ground for ducks and migratory birds in the United States, and 

that means real money for jobs in our economy in Minnesota. The 

waterfowl industry in Minnesota alone contributes over $43 million 

to our local economy. 

Now, the Administration claims that the work of the international forestry program is not central to the mission of the Forest Service, but I fail to see how we are going to address invasive 

species if we do not work across international borders. The emerald 

ash borer, which originates in Asia, threatens millions of acres of 

forest in my home State of Minnesota and across this country. The 

West Coast salmon migrates to Russia, making the protection of 

the Russian watershed vital to the U.S. fishing industry, and the 

international forestry programs works on those issues. And as was 

pointed out, there was an amendment that we worked in a very bipartisan fashion to defeat to cut off funding. 

So my questions are, without the international forestry department intact, where it is identifiable out there, who will be the U.S. 

representative when it comes to international trade and protecting 

our forestry projects? Who will be the international interlocutor 

with the world, but particularly with Mexico and Canada with migratory birds? Who will be the person, the entity out there to track 

and coordinate invasive-species research and movement? Who will 

be there collectively for Congress to look to for answers and where 

the international community engages, but also where our hunters, 

our fishermen and women both commercially and recreationally 

and our timber people look to? What will happen if we do not fund 


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this? And I am very, very concerned about what will happen if this 

program disappears. It is small but boy, it is effective. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Thank you. First of all, thank you for your support, 

and I may need to apologize if we have misled the subcommittee 

on what we want to do with our international programs because it 

is not to zero it out. It is to eliminate the separate budget line item 

for international programs but still be able to continue that incredibly essential work, as you have so well described. I mean, I could 

not do it better myself. And so we were looking at increasing some 

efficiencies within just our budgeting systems so we looked at several of the smaller budget line items that we have and looked at 

some opportunities to reduce some of those with the full intent to 

be able to continue that program. 

And I do know that there is some questioning if we have the authority to fund international programs out of a variety of budget 

line items versus having just one, and we want to work with the 

committee to address that issue through either making sure that 

they have the authority or if the committee feels we just need to 

have the budget line item in there, we definitely want to work with 

you on that. 

But as you look at everything that this agency does and when 

I look at our international programs and the amount of funding 

that we request each year and the outputs, it is probably one of the 

most effective, efficient programs that we have, and granted, a majority of the funding comes from the State Department and USAID 

because of what we are able to accomplish, but as you mentioned, 

the work that we have done to reduce illegal logging has a direct 

benefit to the industries in this country. The work that we do with 

migratory species has a direct benefit to this country. There is also, 

I believe, a direct and somewhat indirect benefit of helping some 

of the developing countries to be able to move toward sustainable 

conservation and sustainable forestry. It will have tremendous benefits not only today but for the future. And so I just want to thank 

you for your support of this program and we want to work with the 

committee to be able to find ways that we can continue our international programs work and we are open to have that discussion. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Well, Mr. Chair, here is my concern. You are 

authorized to have this entity and the authorization, what it does 

is, it allows Congress when we are doing our oversight to look at 

what State, USAID and you are doing all in one area. When this 

gets divided up into different line items, it becomes very difficult 

for us to do our oversight and it also makes it very, very tempting 

when agencies are fighting for crumbs, as many will be with what 

I am seeing here happening in Congress, it is like well, this is pretty small and, maybe we will hold somebody else to do it so we will 

do it here and if this is important, somebody else will do it. And 

it starts to fall through the cracks. By having this located in the 

way that it is, it puts a lot of sunshine. I think that is one of the 

reasons why it is so efficient and why it is so effective because you 

know are getting so much scrutiny under it. It also allows us to 

kind of in our oversight capacity really see what we are doing in 

the areas of protecting our habitat as well as protecting the species 

that go across our borders. 


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I am very concerned, and I do not take great comfort in the fact 

that this is going to be micro-divided in other parts of the budget— 

other agencies. If this is important work, I guess you are hearing 

from this Member of Congress that this is a tension between us 

and the Administration and that Congress wants to be able to see 

how these programs are working and we want to be able to have 

more direct oversight on it. I think we have that when we have an 

international program which was authorized by Congress. I really 

see that the President maybe needs to kind of think this over, and 

I encourage you to have discussions with the Administration. I 

think the House of Representatives has spoken very clearly on this. 

Mr. MORAN. Would the gentlelady yield? 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. I would be happy to yield. 

Mr. MORAN. I would like to just put myself on record in total 

agreement with the gentlelady for what it is worth. Thank you for 

raising this, Ms. McCollum. 

Mr. TIDWELL. You have my commitment to work with the committee in ways necessary to maintain your confidence and support 

for this program, so we are open to work with you and your staff 

to find ways so that we can assure that you can carry out your 

oversight responsibilities and be able to do it in a way that you can 

track how the money is being spent and the performance that is 

occurring. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. I do not doubt for a second that you are a man 

of your word with that, but congressionally directed legislative 

funds earmarks, authorizations that Congress does, this is a way 

in which Congress has a direct voice on how money is appropriated 

and how it is spent. The more power agencies have, the more 

power the Administration has to determine where every single 

penny is going. That takes power away from the people and I actually see this as part of a constitutional tension between the Administration and Congress. The President is doing his job. I do not 

blame the President for wanting to have more total control over the 

dollars, but we are also doing our job in saying that there will be 

oversight, there are statutory authorizations and we expect those 

to be at a minimum discussed before they are totally eliminated 

out of the budget. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Hinchey. 

GAS DRILLING—HYDRO FRACKING

Mr. HINCHEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you very 

much for the important jobs you are doing. This is a very important set of circumstances. 

I wanted to ask a question first of all about gas drilling on national forest lands. As you know, earlier this year there were several scientists in the Forest Service who published a report about 

the effects of natural gas drilling on the Fernow Experimental Forest located in West Virginia. The Fernow was established, as you 

know, back in 1934. Research there has focused on forest management and watershed research. This drilling was significant. It followed just shortly after the expiration of a very important law here 

by this Congress, a law that was in effect for a long time which 

oversaw the way in which drilling was taking place to make sure 


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that it was not being done in contaminated ways, ways which were 

going to be deeply dangerous. Unfortunately, that expired here. 

Congress expired it back in 2005. 

So two years later in 2007, construction began on a new natural 

gas well and pipeline, and this report evaluated, this report that 

they put out evaluated the impact that this development had on 

the natural and scientific resources in that drilling on the Fernow. 

Some of the findings were pretty remarkable, and here are some 

of them as they were. Loss of control of the drill bore resulted in 

drilling fluid spewing uncontrollably into the air, turning foliage 

brown, causing leaves to fall off trees and killing vegetation. 

Fracking waste that had been deposited in pits was sprayed into 

the air to dispose of it. And there were many other unexpected impacts that were not carefully controlled or planned for in the—well, 

that were not really cared about in the way in which this drilling 

took place and was not cared about because of the fact that that 

law was revealed. They could just do whatever they wanted to. So 

the report also made several recommendations including the need 

for a better knowledge of the chemical makeup of the drilling and 

hydro fracking fluid and more thorough risk assessment that consider a variety of scenarios to help prepare for such unexpected effects of natural gas development. So these seem to be like very 

commonsense recommendations. 

So I was wondering if this is something that you have looked 

into, and if so, what was your reaction to this report, the report 

that was put out earlier this year by these scientists? And have 

any effects been taken on steps to respond to those recommendations and to try to do whatever can be done to make sure that this 

kind of thing does not continue to happen? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Just yesterday I met with Michael Rains with our 

northern research station to be able to discuss not only what occurred there on the experimental forest with this approval of the 

well but also what we need to do to address this overall issue as 

there is more and more activity, especially with this hydro fracturing technique that is being used by the industry right now. So 

we have made the commitment to dedicate some additional scientists to work with our managers to be able to evaluate the cumulative effects of this activity so we can do a better job to be able 

to understand what the tradeoffs are going to be and what the consequences are going to be. 

When I saw that report, I too was concerned. I mean, some of 

those things should have been addressed just through us doing our 

job to be able to monitor the activities of the drill rig, etc., and 

those are just unacceptable under any situation and so I have no 

response for that. I mean, those things should not occur. But we 

are really focused on the larger issue and to be able to move forward and to make sure we are using the best science to really understand the hydrology, especially with this different technique 

that seems to be quite popular now. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Well, this is something that should be corrected by 

this Congress because it was a big mistake that was made, pushed 

by the previous Administration, the Bush Administration back in 

2005. That should be changed, and I am hoping that this Congress 

is going to wise up and get that change into effect. 


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In the meantime, when it comes to public lands, we have an obligation and responsibility to oversee that and make sure that these 

things are not happening on public lands. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Yes. 

RECREATION—FOREST MANAGEMENT PLANS

Mr. HINCHEY. And I hope that that is going to take place as an 

example of the kinds of things that really need to be done in this 

regard. This hydro fracking has been very, very damaging and dangerous on a lot of private lands, also on public lands, and it needs 

to be dealt with, and I thank you for your insight and your concern 

about it. 

I also wanted to just make a quick comment about recreation 

and national forests. I understand that the Forest Service has requested comments on how the agency should rewrite the rules to 

implement the National Forest Management Act of 1976. So I applaud that, of course. I applaud the new management vision that 

has been shown into place and articulated for the national forest 

and grasslands. Focusing in ecological restoration and water resource protection, it is a very welcome development, and I know 

that you feel that way too. 

An estimated 180 million visitors make use of our national forests and grasslands. In order to serve the needs of these millions 

of people, the Forest Service manages an existing investment of approximately $4.1 billion in outdoor recreation infrastructure. Recreation is also a key economic driver representing an estimated 60 

percent of the Forest Service’s total contribution to the United 

States gross domestic product, which is really remarkable, significantly more than logging and other resource extraction activities 

combined, all those things combined. 

So as you develop new rules, I would strongly urge you to make 

recreation a focus of any new forest management plans. So if I 

could just ask you this. What is the status of new management regulations that you are developing, and how do you intend to ensure 

that recreation restoration and resource protection are incorporated 

into future forest management plans? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Mr. Congressman, we just recently released our 

proposed planning rule that would provide a new framework for us 

to complete our forest plan revisions. One of the things that we 

heard during the public meetings that we held across the country 

was the need to increase the emphasis on recreation. As we look 

back on the rule we have been using that was developed in 1982, 

back in 1982 recreation had much less importance for all the reasons you have laid out so well. So we recognized, and we also heard 

that very strongly, that we needed to really increase the emphasis 

on recreation and the importance of providing those recreational 

opportunities, not only for the economic benefits as you described 

but also just for the overall quality of life that it provides. That is 

one of the things that we focused on and now we have the proposed 

rule out. We are going through a 90-day comment period so we will 

have the opportunity for the public to comment on that. We will 

be holding basically meetings across the country to be able to sit 

down with folks and explain the intent of our proposed rules so 


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that they can provide even better comments to us. So that is where 

we are in the process. 

I feel very good about the approach, some of the changes that we 

have taken when it comes to recreation, and so I know we will be 

able to improve the proposed rule with the comments that we receive but I think we are definitely in the right direction to accomplish what you are asking. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Well, I thank you very much. I deeply appreciate 

the very important things that you are engaged in and how you are 

doing it. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Serrano. 

URBAN AND COMMUNITY FORESTRY

Mr. SERRANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I was awaiting my 

turn, I could not help but listen to my brother, Mo Hinchey, and 

I was reminded that in January of 1975, we both walked in a little 

less wrinkled and a little less gray into the New York State Assembly, and from day one Mo Hinchey was our person, our voice on the 

environment, on energy and other issues, and for those folks who 

sometimes get cynical about government and about elected officials, 

some people state what they believe in. Thirty-seven years later, 

again a couple of wrinkles and a couple of gray hairs on both of 

us, he is still fighting that fight and fighting it well. 

Mr. HINCHEY. I wish my hair was the color of yours. 

Mr. SERRANO. Some day I will tell you—— 

Mr. HINCHEY. We are envious. 

Mr. SERRANO. I am on camera so I am not going to tell you. That 

was a long time ago, Mo. My son was not born yet, and now he 

is in the State Senate. Or just barely born. 

Because I represent an urban area, I am always interested in the 

Urban and Community Forestry program, and I notice that there 

is a $2 million increase over 2011 or the estimate for 2011. Can you 

take a moment to discuss what you hope to accomplish with this 

increase? 

Mr. TIDWELL. The reason for the additional request in fiscal year 

2012 is our recognition of the importance of urban forests in this 

country. We have over 700 million acres of forests in this country 

but out of that 750 million acres, there is close to 100 million acres 

that is in urban settings. It is just essential that we recognize the 

importance of those basically for the overall quality of life they provide to folks who live in urban centers but also the benefits that 

they provide, the wildlife habitat, the reduction in energy costs, the 

improvements of water quality, air quality, the reductions in infrastructure costs that some cities are finding that by doing more with 

their urban forests, they can reduce the cost of dealing with 

stormwater drainage and actually reduce some of the systems, reduce the size of the pipes they have to use by doing more with 

urban forestry. And this is one of the areas we want to continue 

to work on and work with our communities. 

I was just in Philadelphia yesterday to basically see the signing 

of an MOU between the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and 

the Forest Service, and it is really to kick off an effort between the 

State of Pennsylvania, the State of New Jersey and the State of 


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Delaware to plant another million trees within that area where 

those three states come together in an urban environment because 

those leaders, those communities, those cities, those mayors, they 

understand the importance and they are willing to put their support behind this. What they look for in the Forest Service is for us 

to be able to provide the technical expertise to be able to provide 

some financial assistance, and that is the thing that we can bring 

to the table, to helps folks really understand how to go about this, 

what is the right approach and so that is why we have asked for 

an increase in that appropriation so we can do more in this arena. 

Mr. SERRANO. Again, as a representative from the Bronx, New 

York, I wish it would be more believable to you both and to this 

committee if I told you that I remember a young man or young 

woman coming back from an overnight week, a camp in the outdoors, coming back and saying I never want to do that again, and 

I do not remember anyone ever saying that. 

And so with that in mind, I know that you do work with the 

young people trying to get them involved. What is happening in 

that area and what can we expect? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, it is another area that we want to increase 

our efforts under the America’s Great Outdoors initiative to reach 

out to more of the youth and find opportunities for them to volunteer or actually opportunities for them to gain work experience, 

and we want to do this with our partners. We will continue to have 

our youth programs that we have always had, but we want to be 

able to reach out and use the student conservation corps networks 

to be able to continue our partnership that we have there in New 

York City with the MillionTreesNYC effort where they are able to 

provide jobs for folks, for young adults to be able to learn how to 

deal with urban forestry, and the programs have been very successful. There are graduates that come out of that program who are 

able to then find jobs right in your city. Those are the things that 

we want to continue to expand. Between our programs and the student conservation programs across the country, there are close to 

6,000 youth that we provide a work experience and then tens of 

thousands of volunteers that we also share this opportunity. This 

is one of the things that we need to increase for all the right reasons, to help our youth reconnect with the outdoors. Whether you 

spend your entire life in an incredible city like New York City or 

you are out in more of a rural part of the country, I think it is just 

essential for America to understand those connections, and folks 

need to understand why urban forests are connected to the most 

wild places in this country. By understanding it will help us to deal 

with the problems, and many of our forestry problems start in our 

urban areas so that is another reason we want to strengthen that 

connection. 

Mr. SERRANO. Thank you. 

EL YUNQUE

Mr. Chairman, as a prefacing comment to my last question, I 

want to apologize for something I did to you. When I walked in, 

I looked at that map and I did what I do everywhere I go in the 

federal offices. I say where are the territories, and all these maps 

just have the 50 states, and my point being the territories should 


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be included. That may be the only map that should not include the 

territories since I see it says Congressional districts, and that is a 

whole different issue. You are the only office that actually has the 

right map up. 

So speaking about the territories, El Yunque is the only 

rainforest, I believe, under the forestry system, and it is just one 

of the marvels of the world, as you know. It celebrated its centennial in 2003. What are we doing working with the Commonwealth 

of Puerto Rico through the Forest Service to make sure that we can 

enjoy it for at least another 100 years? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, we enjoy very good relationships down there 

and to be able to share the benefits, and one of the big benefits of 

that forest is not only the incredible habitat that is protected there 

but also the recreational opportunities that come with that, the 

economic opportunities that are tied to the recreation. Our tropical 

institute that is also located in Puerto Rico provides us the opportunity to continue our research in tropical forestry, and not only 

does that help there in Puerto Rico but it also helps around the 

world. So in combination between the forest and that institute, it 

is just a really good package of us not only being able to continue 

to provide for that forest itself and all the wildlife and recreational 

benefits but also for our tropical institute to be able to continue our 

research that not only helps this country but it is also a key part 

of our international programs. 

Mr. SERRANO. I understand, and correct me if I am wrong, that 

there good are small wildlife there and orchids, for instance, orchids that are not found anywhere else under the American flag. 

Is that correct? 

Mr. TIDWELL. That is correct. 

Mr. SERRANO. Now, aside from the one you oversee, where else 

do we have rainforests under the American flag? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, part of the Tongass National Forest is also 

a rainforest and there are also some locations along our West 

Coast, relatively small, but the Tongass would be the other place. 

Mr. SERRANO. Thank you. Thank you so much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you. 

INTEGRATED RESOURCE RESTORATION

A couple of other questions. Secure Rural Schools, we have 

talked about a little bit during your testimony and during my opening statement and other individuals have mentioned it. As you 

know, it is a concern to all of us in the West. We appreciate the 

fact that the President’s budget has the funding for the Secure 

Rural Schools program. We are concerned that it shifts it from 

mandatory to discretionary funding. I want to work with you to see 

if we can address that in the future. The concern is this, that 

school districts out there that depend on this and in some school 

districts it is like 50 percent of their funding, or even greater in 

some areas. They are planning now for next year and in negotiations with teachers and contracts and sometimes they do not have 

a clue what is going to happen, and before we did this reauthorization a few years ago in Congress, those numbers would go up and 

down and up and down and they had no certainty of what they 


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were going to do, how much they were going to have when they 

were doing their negotiations and so forth with teachers, so it created a great deal of havoc. We would like to see that in a more stable footing and more predictable footing, so I want to work with 

you on that issue, and I know it is a concern to you also. 

Integrated Resource Restoration—overall, the concept behind the 

IRR line item makes sense to me. That said, a number of groups 

are concerned that their specific needs, whether it be wildlife, watershed or timber, will not be met because their specific line item 

will have been deleted and put together in this package. How is the 

Forest Service going to ensure that all of these needs are met? I 

am pleased to see the proposed shift of $86 million in non-wildlife 

urban interface hazardous fuels into the Integrated Resource Restoration line item, that $86 million is put into that. In an October 

19th press release, you discussed emphasizing mechanical treatment over prescribed burning with hazardous fuels to stimulate job 

creation. Any idea what percentage of the $86 million is going to 

be spent on mechanical thinning rather than prescribed burns? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Mr. Chairman, I will answer that last question 

first. It depends on the projects that will be developed for fiscal 

year 2012 but I expect the mix between prescribed burning and 

mechanical will be the same it has been in the past. 

You know, with the Integrated Resource Restoration, we listened 

to the criticism that we heard last year when we first proposed 

this, and I feel that we have addressed many of those concerns and 

primarily through continuing to have targets, the traditional targets for board feet, miles of stream improved, et cetera, and so each 

region is going to have a similar set of targets from what they have 

had in the past and then they will also have this BLI to be able 

to accomplish all of that work, and so we will be able to show you 

how we are performing. We will show you how you can hold us accountable. And at the same time, it is my belief that by my pursuing this that the agency can become more efficient in some of our 

processes and thus provide more people to be out there on the 

ground getting more work done, providing more jobs. 

But I understand your concerns and the need for you to be able 

to do your oversight responsibilities and we need to work with you 

so we can satisfy your concerns and do this in a way that you can 

feel that you are holding us accountable, that we clearly can show 

how we are performing and that you can see what we plan to do 

at the start of each year so that you have the confidence that we 

are able to carry out our responsibilities in a way that you can then 

show the American public that you are holding us accountable. 

Mr. SIMPSON. There is a tendency I think for Congress or any 

legislative branch of government to line-item things down more and 

more so that we kind of direct funding more and more, and I have 

always been one who thought that we were better off if we sat here 

and set goals of what we expect from the Forest Service with a certain amount of appropriations and allowed you the flexibility to use 

that how you could best achieve those goals and then next year 

when you come in we will hold you accountable for the goals that 

you have achieved or not achieved. That seems to me like this is 

kind of the direction that this is headed in to some degree even 


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though it causes a great deal of concern to some people who depend 

on those individual line items. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, it does, and we appreciate your support in 

this arena and your thinking, and I understand the concern whether it is from the timber industry or for some of our wildlife groups 

that they want to make sure that we are doing the complete job 

and that we are not just focusing on any one portion of our mission. 

I do believe that by including the targets, and these will be targets 

that we distribute to the regions and there will be the commensurate amount of funding that will go with those targets, we will be 

able to show you that you will be able to hold us accountable and 

that we will be able to show that we are performing and that overall this will be a better approach. I understand we are going to 

have to be able to show you how, to the point that you feel confident as we can move forward. 

But when I think about the work, the way the work is done in 

the field, we want to take a look at a landscape and decide what 

needs to occur out here, whether it is some hazardous-fuels reduction, whether it is forest health work, whether it is watershed 

work, whether it is fisheries, recreation, etc. And the more that we 

can just take a look at the landscape and then if everyone could 

come together working with our communities to decide what activities need to occur there to be able to restore these areas and then 

we have just one fund code to be able to fund the majority of that, 

it makes it easier. 

Now, I will not tell you that we should not be able to accomplish 

this with our current budget structure. We can. But when I look 

at ways especially in these tough budget times that we are having 

and we need to be looking for ways where we can gain some efficiencies, this is one area where I believe we can gain some efficiencies without any additional costs because there are a lot of 

things that go on. I can remember in my various jobs that I used 

to do the same thing, that I would spend a lot of time tracking my 

part of the budget, whether it was wildlife or timber or hazardous 

fuels, and I had to make sure that we were getting X number of 

acres done and that we had X amount of money. And so when I 

would come to the table, I would make sure that my piece of the 

pie was taken care of. And then I spent a lot of time tracking that, 

and we are not talking about our budget staff, we are not talking 

about our accountants, we are talking about our foresters, our wildlife biologists, our hydrologists, our fire managers. They too end up 

spending a lot of time tracking the budget to ensure that we are 

accomplishing what you ask. And so one of the benefits of this is 

that we would free up our field folks, our biologists, our foresters 

so that they can focus more on that job and then allow the budgeting, which is so essential, to leave that to our highly skilled and 

specialized staff. 

Those are some of the concepts behind it, and it is really to help 

internal efficiencies. That is what this is about. I know it is kind 

of a tough sell to you and also to so many of our partners and stuff 

because they want to be able to see it on paper. They also want 

to be able to support those various activities, and what we would 

like to do is not only continue that support but also continue support for more of a watershed-scale approach to doing all this work. 


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Mr. SIMPSON. What I would like to see one day, I guess one of 

my goals would be that we come in and actually have a budget 

hearing on what are your goals going to be this year—if we give 

you X number of dollars, what do we expect to see for that in the 

various categories whether it is wildlife management or forest 

health restoration or wildland fire suppression or whatever, what 

do we expect to see from that, and then next year during the budget saying this is what we gave you, this is what you said you would 

do, did you do it, and if not, why not, if you did better than that, 

great. Because to me, I do not want to be the manager of the forest 

system. That is why we hire you. So I appreciate the job you do. 

I know it is always difficult but it is always hard when from every 

legislative body I have served in legislature wants to get down into 

every—you know, you cannot hire four new personnel because we 

have a freeze on hiring when that might be exactly what you need 

to accomplish the goal that we have set out here. So I try not to 

get into too much management. 

Mr. Moran. 

SECURE RURAL SCHOOLS

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I am 

going to have to address a program that I am sure is near and dear 

to your heart but I have to provide the committee and this hearing 

with a different point of view, and that is the county schools program. It is a program that is now mandatory. It would expire this 

year. The Administration is requesting a new five-year reauthorization. The money would come from that dwindling 12 percent of our 

budget which is attributable to domestic discretionary programs 

and of course virtually all of them are under attack. This is $328 

million. It is coming from your Forest Service budget request but 

essentially it will be coming from all of our domestic spending and 

it goes for county school systems out of the Forest Service budget. 

Now, let me share the perspective of my constituents. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Sure. 

Mr. MORAN. In my Congressional district, we have more people, 

almost 800,000 per district, than there are in some states, and I 

know that the cumulative amount of money they pay in to the federal treasury is substantially greater than what is paid by all the 

taxpayers in a number of states. Now, they want that money paid 

for national forests. In fact, one of the troubling things is, they 

want those forests preserved for future generations, same thing 

with BLM land, national park land and so on. They get very troubled with what they see as the extraction exploitation in a number 

of these forests. They probably would be troubled at the idea that 

one of the states that is represented by a member of this subcommittee gets $1 billion a year from the Interior Department. I 

will not go into all the reasons for that. 

But the fact is that they are having to cut back the money that 

they have available for the education of their children, and yet 

$328 million is going to local public school systems out in the national Forest Service budget. Those counties that are getting this 

money had the economic benefits that came from excessive timber 

harvests of the 1970s and early 1980s, and now they are also having to pay for the restoration of those lands because of those past 


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excesses, and I think it is appropriate to ask, how much are we 

paying for the restoration of excessive clear cutting and the like 

through timber harvests of the past? I know my constituents are 

happy to pay for enhancements of forest health and water quality. 

I do not think that they are excited about paying for local school 

systems where they are having to cut back for the education of 

their own children. Can you address that? And the chairman may 

want to address it. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Can I respond to it? 

Mr. MORAN. Yes. 

Mr. SIMPSON. There is obviously a different perspective. 

Mr. MORAN. Well, I should say. 

Mr. SIMPSON. And—— 

Mr. MORAN. Where you sit is where you stand, understandably, 

and it is our job to represent—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. How this started is those—and this is probably a 

discussion Chief Tidwell really does not want to enter into. But 

how this all started is that how much of the land in your district 

is owned by people paying property taxes? 

Mr. MORAN. Well, virtually all of it. Well, actually I take that 

back. 

Mr. SIMPSON. That would be the problem. 

Mr. MORAN. We have got the Pentagon, we have got any number 

of federal agencies and we do not get taxes from that, but I understand that because—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. You go to a county like Custer County, Idaho, that 

is 96 percent, I think it is 96 percent federally owned. That means 

4 percent of the land is paying taxes to support the school system, 

the roads, the bridges, everything else that goes on in that county. 

When you come out and visit and get lost in our mountains, our 

search and rescue on the 4 percent paying for it comes and finds 

you. That is the problem. They do not have the resources and they 

do not have the ability to create the resources to pay for the public 

schools in some of these counties that are owned by the federal government, and as you said, people out here love to have these public 

lands out in the West. We like them too. We like public lands, 

frankly. But the problem is, you do not have the taxes to pay for 

them so there are several different programs that were set up. One 

of them was counties and schools get a share of the timber harvest 

that was created in that county. Well, that sustained the schools 

districts and the counties and the roads for many, many years. 

Now, you could say it was overharvesting or not, but those have 

gone substantially down. How do they make up for it? They cannot 

do it because 96 percent of the land is owned by the Federal Government. They cannot have industry come in. Where are they going 

to put them? There is no way to pay the property taxes to make 

up for that. And that is the difficulty. When you love the public 

lands in the West, you also have to pay for them. 

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, most of my constituents are never 

going to visit the public lands in the West but they like the fact 

that they are there. They know it is the right thing. They know 

that it is an appropriate use of their tax money. But most of my 

constituents also share the feeling that I have, and I will be very 

candid: this fierce anti-Federal Government attitude on the part of 


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the very people who are so dependent upon a government being responsive to those situations, and as long as that fierce anti-government attitude prevails, I think the idea of our funding local public 

school systems with federal money that most people do not know 

about I think it is a legitimate subject to bring up. 

You know, we want to protect our environment, we want our 

money to be used for that purpose, but I have to say in the interests of transparency, some of these programs I think need to be 

publicly debated. I certainly understand your point of view and 

frankly, I do not want to be debating you because you are reasonable. Well, you are, and I think you have done a very good job in 

terms of this Interior bill but these are issues that need to be considered from a national perspective and—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. Well, there was a suggestion just the other day at 

a meeting I was at, and this was by Easterners actually, at least 

the individuals making the comments, and you know, pay off this 

national debt, sell some of those public lands in the West. 

Mr. MORAN. I know that. That is the attitude they have, and 

frankly—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. I do not favor that. 

Mr. MORAN. No. In the long run, I do not think that is in our 

national or local interests of the states. But I raise it because you 

mentioned it, and without a response I think the assumption would 

be that there is full support of this. I think this is an issue that 

bears further discussion. I understand it is a controversial one. I 

understand we come from very different perspectives, different constituencies, but I think it is an issue that bears further discussion, 

particularly when it is going to be coming out of other domestic discretionary programs. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I understand that, and we are willing to discuss it 

and certainly have discussed it over the years and will continue to 

discuss it. There are a number of programs, whether it is PILT 

payments, Secure Rural Schools or those other things, that are 

supposed to help make up for the fact that, as I said, states in the 

West that are substantially federal lands do not have the resources 

and the ability. In fact, if you looked at the amount of money funding it—Rob Bishop from Utah has probably the best map on this— 

The funding of public schools in relationship to the amount of public lands that those states have, it is amazing that the lack of funding directly tracks those states that have public lands, and it is just 

a reality. 

That was best probably not to get involved in that discussion. 

Did you have something else? 

Mr. MORAN. Well, you know, just one further comment. We used 

to have this program where the school system would be funded proportionate to the federal presence. What was the name of that? Impact. Thank you. 

Mr. SIMPSON. We still have Impact Aid. 

Mr. MORAN. Well, but we cut back severely. We do not get any 

of that anymore. It was a program consistent with this program 

but that was eliminated. 

Mr. SIMPSON. That did not deal with public lands. That dealt 

with if you had air base or something like that. 


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Mr. MORAN. It dealt with federally owned land that you were 

compensated for because it was a payment in lieu of taxes basically. 

Mr. SIMPSON. But that only dealt with the small like air base or 

a federal reservation, an Indian reservation or something like that. 

It did not deal with the 2 billion acres of land. 

Mr. MORAN. Okay. I am not going to pursue it any further. I 

think you understand that—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. I do. 

Mr. MORAN [continuing]. We will have further discussion, and I 

think we have taken the chief’s time a good deal up. My very distinguished colleagues may have further questions. 

Mr. LEWIS. We do not have easement to sell those lands. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Well, I know that. I just found it quite it interesting. I do not want to sell them either. 

Mr. MORAN. And I do not want to. 

Mr. SIMPSON. In fact, you will find that most Westerners like 

public lands. It is how we access hunting, fishing, everything else, 

the recreation that we do out there. We live there because we love 

our public lands. We sometimes have some complaints about the 

land managers just as you have complaints about your neighbor, 

and that will always be the case and it is not an anti-government 

mentality that you would suggest, it is how can we do it better. 

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, for 60 hours we debated so many 

amendments that were inspired by an anti-government attitude. 

All those environmental riders, it was this almost vehement attitude with regard to the Federal Government, and that is what inspires my reaction to the role that the Federal Government plays, 

particularly in terms of paying for local public school systems. It 

is tough to take the money and bite the hand that is providing it. 

That is all I am saying. But I am not going to pursue this any further. 

TRAVEL MANAGEMENT

Mr. SIMPSON. I would just disagree with one comment. Being 

anti what the government is doing is not being anti-government. 

You can change directions of what the government is doing or 

think it can do it better or be concerned about things that are happening with the government. That does not mean you are anti-government. 

As an example, and it is the last question I was going to ask, the 

travel management plans, as I said in my opening statement, I do 

not believe that eliminating travel management plans is the correct 

answer. There was obviously an amendment to H.R. 1 dealing with 

a specific area. In some areas, it had worked well. In other areas, 

it has worked not so well. Is that, in your opinion, because of the 

difficulty and the complexities that are unique to certain areas 

where it is having difficulty or is it the personnel that do not have 

the ability to, I guess, bring together people like they do in other 

areas to develop a management plan? 

Mr. TIDWELL. Mr. Chairman, in many cases it is the set of circumstances that occur on that local forest, whether it is specific 

issues with the need for us to recover threatened and endangered 

species, additional concerns with municipal watersheds. And so 


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often there are additional factors that have to be considered. Where 

we have been successful is when everyone is willing to come to the 

table, and that is the motorized community and the non-motorized 

community, that they can come together, and what we try to do is 

create that environment and help facilitate those type of discussions so that folks can kind of find those areas of agreement and 

then we can move forward with implementing that. 

I mean, there are certain resource conditions that we will take 

care of, and we just have to—and in most cases there is strong support for that, but then some of these situations that seem to be so 

contentious, then it gets down to how much is going to be available 

for motorized recreation and how much is available for non-, and 

even though after we solved all the resource issues, you still have 

the social issue you have to deal with, and those are the ones that 

seem to give us some of the most difficulty. And when I look at 

those and it is easy to step back and be able to look at them from 

where I am sitting and I can say well, you know, people should 

come together and work out some compromises and work together 

on these issues, and at the same time I also understand the complexities of this, and so I do believe that what we are trying to do 

is the right course. I do think it is the very best chance to have 

sustainable motorized recreational opportunities, which are very 

important not only to the user but to the economy. There are a lot 

of economic opportunities that come from that. We can manage it 

in a way that there are very few adverse environmental effects that 

are easily mitigated and primarily through a system of trails and 

roads that are well positioned on the landscape and that we can 

maintain. That is another one of the challenges we have, that we 

have to look at what is sustainable. 

And so you may have a situation where yes, the resource could 

handle another 100 miles and it is not like we do not have a lot. 

I mean, our road system is 375,000 miles of road, and that is just 

our roads, and you add all the motorized trails on top of that. But 

we also have to do in a way that is sustainable because if we are 

not doing it, then we allow these activities to continue and then we 

run into—we kind of build opposition because folks are out there 

and they do not like to see the dirt in the stream. They do not want 

to see the impacts to the fisheries. They do not want to see the impacts to the municipal watersheds. And so that is the other thing 

that brings a challenge because folks will look out there and say 

well, by just doing this, building this bridge, you know, we can 

have another trail here but part of our job is to ensure that is sustainable, and that is the sort of thing that also just adds to the controversy. 

And at the same time, there are thousands of people that are 

willing to roll up their sleeves and come together and work, and 

I just marvel at the places where the non-motorized and motorized 

communities come together, and where one group did not want the 

trail in its location but they still needed a trail, it is the non-motorized community that is out there that is building that new trail for 

the motorized folks to be able to go on it and then at the same time 

the next weekend they are out there together decommissioning a 

road, for instance. That is where we solve this, and it is going to 

take more time but I think we can get there. I can understand the 


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concern and the controversy but not allowing us to go forward with 

this planning is not going to be helpful to the motorized community 

in the long term. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Do other Members have questions? 

CLIMATE CHANGE

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Yes, Mr. Chairman. First, I am boldly going to 

go right in the middle of the previous discussion. We need to increase Impact Aid. We need to work on PILT, and Rural Schools 

and that. Minnesota, our state house, if we do not have those payments coming in, whether it is PILT or Impact or whatever other 

program, we have to make up for it. And we have national forests 

and we are very proud of them, and we love them, but they do have 

consequences and effects. 

I wanted to ask a question on climate change because in some 

of the other budgets—and the chair has been asking some very 

thoughtful questions on it too—line, there has been discussion on 

what is going on with climate change, and I know because of the 

unique place where Minnesota sits where we have prairie, forest, 

everything else, we are already starting to see of the impacts of climate change. I know our forestry council is very concerned about 

that. Could you maybe just tell us a little bit where you fit in with 

the whole climate change debate and how you are kind of watching 

what is going on? Are you working with universities? And this goes 

to my other question about is it embedded in other parts of your 

budget, but we cannot see where it is because of what you have 

done to my point about what happens with international forestry? 

Chief. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, thank you. You know, we are very fortunate, 

and I am not speaking of the agency, I am speaking of the Nation, 

that our forest research and development staff are scientists that 

have been looking into the effects of a changing climate on vegetation and on the ecosystems for close to 30 years, long before anyone 

ever coined the term, and we are very fortunate that the folks had 

the foresight and that you provided the resources for them to be 

able to pursue that. And so when it comes to the issue of climate 

change, our focus is on understanding how this is affecting the ecosystems. We do not study climate change. We understand the effects on the ecosystem, and that is where our resources have always been focused on and that is what kind of drives that. 

So when it comes to climate change, it is a big piece of our research and development budget, and that if you ask us to kind of 

tease that out for between 2010 and 2012, there is a slight reduction of funding just like there is in almost all of our programs, but 

it is not a separate program. It is what we do, and so we are focusing on using our research scientists who work in conjunction with 

our universities very closely. It is one of the things that I am 

stressing and they have been doing a good job to not only look at 

and understand what we are doing but also what the universities 

are doing and what the other agencies are doing to make sure that 

we are not duplicating efforts, because this is one area that there 

is a lot of new interest in it and some expanding opportunities, and 

it is important that we look at all of that. And so that is one of 

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tions, to make sure that we are factoring that in so we can determine where are the true gaps and we are not just duplicating research. But our focus is on using the science so that we can understand how we need to adapt our management to address the 

changes and then also how we can mitigate where we have those 

opportunities. So in this case, it is not a separate program. It is 

really just about everything that we do. 

The challenge that we have and where we are focusing is to 

make sure that our managers understand the science, they understand the things they need to be thinking about. It is a key part 

in our proposed planning rule. You will see the effects of climate 

change is mentioned in there numerous times to ensure that in our 

future planning, we are really factoring in the changes in the environment. You are seeing them in your state and we are seeing 

them throughout the country, and sometimes, depending where you 

are, there is going to be a larger change than others but there are 

definitely things that are going on. Often it is just to understand 

that when you are designing a road, the size of the culvert that you 

should put on that road, we need to understand that because of the 

changes, the frequency of disturbance events and how the climate 

has changed and some of the weather patterns, that we need to 

just put a larger culvert in. It may just be that simple. 

On another extreme is what we are seeing in some of our vegetative types is where we are seeing pests and insect and disease activity occur that we have never seen before because of the change 

in the environmental conditions, and how do we address that? How 

does our management need to change? So those are the things we 

want to continue to work on but it is just an essential part of our 

programs. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Hinchey, do you have something else? 

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY

Mr. HINCHEY. I just want to compliment you again and say the 

important things that you talked about, for example, more restoration activities, things that have to be involved in, how you talked 

about water protection and the need for water protection, and in 

the context of water protection, of course, it is going to be even 

more different in the situation of climate change that you are now 

facing. So all of those things are very important and we really need 

to work together to make sure that this situation moves forward. 

I deeply appreciate what you are doing. 

And one other thing, energy. Alternative energy is another issue 

that you may have some interest in in the context of the energy 

needs that you have across this big operation and most of the 

places in this country. So if there is anything you want to say 

about that, terrific. Otherwise just thank you very much. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Well, thank you. I would like to mention, you mentioned water. We have increased our emphasis on water, and it always has been one of the foundations of the U.S. Forest Service to 

ensure that we are providing clean, abundant flows of water. It 

goes right back to the Organic Act. One of the reasons that the Forest Service exists, one of the reasons for the Weeks Act, for the national forests we have and the eastern southern part of the country 


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was focused on water, and so it is kind of just to increase the emphasis there because it is so important. So many people in this 

country rely on the water that comes off our national forests and 

grasslands. 

On energy, we are increasing our focus on renewable energy. We 

will continue to do our work with the more traditional oil and gas 

industry but when it comes to solar opportunities, wind, hydro, geothermal, those are kind of the four areas we are increasing our 

work and we want to make sure that as opportunities and proposals come to us that we are able to quickly respond to those and 

so we are working on this set of directives. We are doing some 

analysis, and there is about 99 of our units throughout the country 

that have the potential for some type of utility-scale renewable energy. That will not occur everywhere but we do know that there are 

more opportunities out there and it is one of the things we want 

to be ready for as proponents come to the table and want to pursue 

some of these opportunities. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Thank you very much. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Chief, for being here today and for 

your testimony. 

For those who may not understand, Mr. Moran and I are actually 

pretty good friends and get along well, and I often say to people 

out in the West that oftentimes the debates that go on here are not 

really between Democrats and Republicans, oftentimes they are 

East-West debates where most of the public lands are west of the 

Mississippi, most of the private lands are east of the Mississippi, 

and while we in the West expect Easterners to try to understand 

the unique situations in the West, we have a responsibility to also 

understand some of the unique situations that exist out here in the 

East and working together, and Jim and I have talked about a lot 

of these issues before. So in spite of our disagreements sometimes, 

that is how you learn things. So I appreciate you being here during 

the testimony today and for the informal discussion that went on 

also. 

Mr. MORAN. Well, and if I could, Mr. Chairman, you represent 

your constituency extraordinarily well and I hope all of your constituents are aware of that, and I think it was an appropriate discussion and I share your reaction to Mr. Tidwell’s testimony. It was 

superb, and we thank him and Ms. Atkinson. Thank you. 

Mr. TIDWELL. Thank you. Thank you for your support. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, and thanks for the work the Forest 

Service does and the great employees that are out there on the 

ground. 


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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2011. 

FISCAL YEAR 2012 BUDGET REQUEST U.S. FISH AND 

WILDLIFE SERVICE 

WITNESSES 

ROWAN GOULD, ACTING DIRECTOR, U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 

DAN ASHE, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 

CHRIS NOLIN, BUDGET OFFICER, U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 

OPENING REMARKS OF CHAIRMAN SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. The committee will come to order. Good afternoon, 

Acting Director Gould. I would like to welcome you along with the 

Deputy Director, Dan Ashe, and your Budget Officer, Chris Nolin, 

who is instrumental in providing this subcommittee with information it needs to do its work. Both the 2011 and 2012 budgets have 

generated considerable excitement for better or worse. 

I have an opening statement, and I will tell you what. Because 

we are scheduled to have votes before too long, I would like to get 

to your testimony as soon as possible, so I am going to enter most 

of this for the record, if that is okay. 

[The statement of Mike Simpson follows:] 


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Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Moran, do you? 

Mr. MORAN. Well, since you have shown the lead, it is incumbent 

upon me to do the same. 

Mr. SIMPSON. That was my idea. 

Mr. MORAN. Shall I just give you—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. Do you have a quote? 

Mr. MORAN. I will give you a quote. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Please. 

Mr. MORAN. This one is from John James Audubon. You remember him. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yes. 

Mr. MORAN. Yes. 

Mr. SIMPSON. A good friend of mine. 

OPENING REMARKS OF MR. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Yes. He quotes, ‘‘A true conservationist is a man 

who knows,’’ and I am sure he meant to say a man or a woman, 

‘‘who knows that the world is not given by his fathers but borrowed 

from his children.’’ 

And with that we can move forward to the hearing. Dr. Gould 

has done a great job as the acting director. I know Mr. Ashe is 

going to do a terrific job as well once the Senate lifts those holds. 

We are anxious to have you take over as director, and we do thank 

Dr. Gould for all his good work, and Ms. Nolin, thank you for your 

work as a budget director. 

[The statement of Jim Moran follows:] 


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Mr. SIMPSON. Is there anybody over there on that Senate side we 

could talk to? Or is that a secret? 

Mr. MORAN. I will talk to you in private. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Welcome. We look forward to your testimony. The 

floor is yours. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF ROWAN GOULD

Dr. GOULD. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Simpson, Mr. 

Moran, and members of the subcommittee. Actually, I am going to 

try to keep my remarks very short, too, in keeping with your situation. 

I am Rowan Gould. I am the acting director of the U.S. Fish and 

Wildlife Service, and I appreciate the opportunity to testify before 

you today on the Service’s fiscal year 2012, budget request. This request will focus funding on the agency’s highest-priority conservation initiatives, while containing costs through management efficiencies and other savings. 

This is a very difficult budget year as the committee well knows. 

It does not come without some sacrifice on the part of the Service. 

The $1.7 billion request contains $26.5 million in efficiency reductions, along with program reductions and eliminations that total 

$86.3 million. Program increases for our high-priority needs result 

in a net increase of $47.9 million compared to the fiscal year 2010 

enacted budget. The budget also includes approximately $1 billion available 

under permanent appropriations, most of which will be provided directly to states for fish and wildlife restoration and conservation. 

Our request represents an excellent investment for the American 

people. For every federal dollar spent the Service supports job creation and economic development at the local level. According to our 

2006 Banking on Nature Report, recreational activities on national 

wildlife refuges generated $1.7 billion in total economic activity. 

According to the study nearly 35 million people visited national 

wildlife refuges, supporting almost 27,000 private-sector jobs with 

almost $543 million in employment income. 

In addition, recreational spending on refuges generated nearly $185 million in tax revenue at the local, county, state, and federal 

level. The economic benefit is almost four times the amount appropriated to the refuge system in fiscal year 2006. 

In addition, in 2010, Service economists published a peer-reviewed report of the economic contribution of the Fisheries Program and attributed $3.6 billion per year to the economy from fishing, aquatic habitat conservation, subsistence fisheries, evasive 

species management, and other public uses. The total number of 

jobs associated with this economic input is over 68,000. It is clear 

the investment in the Service supports economic development and 

job creation throughout the U.S. 

The Service’s highest-priority increases will help us use our resources more efficiently. Continued development of shared scientific 

capacity to obtain information necessary to prioritize conservation 

spending is reflected in our increases for landscape conservation. 

A requested increase of $17.4 million will enable the Service to 

continue working with partners to conduct collaborative landscape 

scale, biological information gathering, participate in cooperative 


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planning and will complete the network of Landscape Conservation 

Cooperatives, or LCCs, initiated in fiscal year 2010. 

The LCCs will fund science to answer fundamental questions so 

that the Service, states, and others can make more efficient use of 

their resources. Within the Service, LCCs help support ongoing 

programs, including endangered species recovery, refuge comprehensive conservation plans, fish passage programs, and habitat 

restoration. In support of LCC development and adaptive science 

management, we requested an increase of $8 million within the 

Refuge Program to continue building the landscape scale long-term 

inventory and monitoring network that the Service began in fiscal 

year 2010. 

The budget proposes an increase for the North American Wet- lands Conservation Act to $50 million, as well as an increase of $4 

million for activities associated with renewable energy development, including $2 million for endangered species consultation and 

$2 million for conservation planning assistance. The budget contains $15.7 million, an increase of $2 million, to 

support youth in the great outdoors. 

In sum, the Service has taken a very serious look at its budget 

this year and reduced our request in significant areas while focusing increases only on high-priority items. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify this afternoon. Dan Ashe 

and I are happy to answer any questions the subcommittee may 

have and look forward to working with you through the appropriations process. Thank you. 

[The statement of Rowan Gould follows:] 


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Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you. I appreciate you all being here. I am 

going to yield my time to the chairman of the full committee, Mr. 

Rogers. 

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, witnesses, 

for being here today. We appreciate your service to your country 

and to this Congress. 

MITIGATION HATCHERIES

Several decades ago when the federal construction of dams was 

in its heyday, native trout streams were adversely affected, and 

through its Fisheries Program, Fish and Wildlife Service built a 

network of 14 national fish hatcheries that specialize in mitigating 

for fisheries losses as the result of the actions of other federal agencies. 

Today the Service is proposing a reduction of $6.3 million to 

these mitigation hatcheries, which would effectively force their closure unless other federal agencies continue to supplement funding 

through, ‘‘mitigation.’’ And on top of that the Administration is proposing an across-the-board reduction to supplies, translating to a 

$900,000 cut in hatchery supplies, and that would, I believe, reduce 

the fish populations. 

Fish and Wildlife has received reimbursement from other federal 

agencies like the Corps for some of those costs in the past, but you 

have never assumed reimbursement in your budgeting process 

until now. That is problematic because the Corps fiscal year 2012 

request is insufficient to cover this reduction in your request. 

Why are you changing your policy in this regard? 

Dr. GOULD. We have been getting to a fee-for-services approach 

to doing business for almost 30 years now, and we have several examples out there where that is exactly the way things are. Most, 

if not all, of our mitigation hatcheries on the Columbia River are 

Mitchell Act hatcheries and are paid for by the National Marine 

Fishery Service. We have BOR supporting our hatcheries in California. 

So we have examples all over the country where this is actually 

occurring. In fact, we do not look at this reduction, this almost a 

little over $6 million reduction, as a reduction. We see it as a transfer of funds. We have worked out an agreement with the Corps of 

Engineers to include most of the money that was identified specifically for these mitigation hatcheries, and in fact, the amount they 

came up with is enough to operate those hatcheries. It is a transfer 

of funds to their budget, so there is no real reduction. 

We are still trying to discuss with them the exact terms of who 

pays for what. There are still some issues regarding who pays for 

some of the maintenance activities in the hatchery, which counts 

for some of the difference between what we have agreed to for fiscal year 2012, and what we have specifically identified as the need. 

So, in fact, it is our view that we are looking for a consistent way 

of dealing with these mitigation hatcheries across the country. 

Dan, do you have anything to add to that? 

Mr. ASHE. I would just add, Mr. Rogers, that specifically with regard to the hatchery in your state and hatcheries that are operated, the mitigation functions that are to be funded by the Corps 

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lieve that we are going to be able to continue operation of those 

hatcheries, and it is our goal to continue the operation of all of 

these mitigation hatcheries by working with the other federal agencies. 

In general, as a matter of policy, things like the funding for the 

mitigation is going to be most sustainable if it is closer to the action agency, the agency that is actually responsible for the operation and maintenance of the project in question. 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, the core of fiscal year 2012 request I am told is not sufficient to cover that $6.3 reduction in your request. 

Dr. GOULD. The amount we have agreed with the Corps is $3.9 million, and of the need we have identified around $4.3 to $4.7 million, and we are still negotiating that difference. 

Again, there are also other mitigation entities, fee-for-service entities, that we are working with, and those include TVA and the 

Central Utah Project. We are in negotiations with those folks right 

now to deal with that shortfall to make sure that they have those 

funds identified in their funding processes. 

Mr. ROGERS. Yes, but Fish and Wildlife is the lead federal agency 

with responsibility over fisheries, not the Corps, not anyone else. 

It is yours, and the Corps budget request does not include the 

money that would be required to fulfill the $6.3 million reduction 

in your request. Am I mistaken? 

Mr. ASHE. The Corps portion of that is not $6.3 million. Six point 

three million dollars is the entire reduction which also includes 

funds that would come from the Central Utah Project, TVA, and 

Bonneville Power Administration. As Dr. Gould said, I think the 

Corps portion of that as we identified it was—— 

Dr. GOULD. Four point seven. 

Mr. ASHE [continuing]. $4.7 million. And included in the Corps budget I believe is $3.9 million. 

Dr. GOULD. Right. 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, there is still a difference. 

Dr. GOULD. Right. 

Mr. ASHE. From a policy perspective our goal is the same, and 

that is to keep these hatcheries operating and providing the mitigation fish to support this function. I think in the long run we believe 

it is appropriate that the mitigation responsibilities be attached to 

the action agency. That really is the more common occurrence for 

us, that when an action agency proposes an action, they are responsible for the mitigation of the adverse affect. 

For the security of those hatcheries and that mitigation function 

in the long run, we believe that it is better to have that responsibility attached to the action agency, not to the Fish and Wildlife 

Service. 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, that is a change in policy, is it not? 

Mr. ASHE. Yes. With regard to these hatcheries. 

Dr. GOULD. We have been working on this transfer of funds approach as long as I have been in the Fish and Wildlife Service, almost for 30 years. 

We recognize the economic value of these facilities. We recognize 

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ation in terms of how we fund those hatcheries and when we fund 

them. But the idea is to make this conversion as soon as possible. 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, you are, I think, in effect asking us to earmark monies for the Corps of Engineers to go toward Fish and 

Wildlife. 

Dr. GOULD. It is their funds. These funds are, at least in the 

Corps case, for those hatcheries that are affected by the Corps, 

Wolf Creek and Arkansas Hatcheries. I just had a conversation 

with Senator Pryor yesterday about this very same issue. The fact 

of the matter is the money to fund those Corps hatcheries is, in effect, in the President’s budget, and we would like there to be support for their continued funding. 

Mr. ROGERS. Well, you know we cannot earmark. So what are we 

to do? 

Dr. GOULD. It is in the President’s budget right now. 

Mr. ROGERS. Not fully. 

Dr. GOULD. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Moran. 

Mr. MORAN. Suggest to the chairman of the full committee that 

if he wants to change that policy, I think he would find some receptivity on this side. I think the only guy that really wants it is the 

guy in the White House because it works to his favor and against 

ours. 

CONTINUING RESOLUTION IMPACTS

But, anyway, moving along. So, Dr. Gould and Mr. Ashe, you 

have been running the Fish and Wildlife Service now for 6 months 

on the series of continuing resolutions. I would like to have you explain some of the practical impacts of what is a toll-booth kind of 

funding of the Federal Government. Are you able to hire summer 

temporaries, for example, engaging contracts with local rural businesses? What are some of the practical implications for this process 

that we have been putting you through for 6 months? 

Dr. GOULD. Well, obviously, I can go through all kinds of examples. 

Mr. MORAN. Well, just give us some of the more glaring ones, if 

you would not mind. 

Dr. GOULD. Well, I can list a few because I have a few of them 

listed right here in front of me. 

Mr. MORAN. Okay. 

Dr. GOULD. Hiring Youth Conversation Corps employees has 

been postponed. Our Challenge Cost Share Projects, which we accomplish with partners, had to be put on hold because we do not 

know exactly how much money we have to deal with. Our wetlands 

and grassland restorations have been postponed in several regions 

because we have to deal with contracting and dealing with landowners so we meet uncertainty. 

Literally hundreds of maintenance projects have been delayed 

because we do not know exactly what we have to work with. We 

have been careful about our travel. In law enforcement there have 

been some special assignment projects that have been put off because we do not know exactly what we have in terms of funding 

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Another very specific example is that $2.4 million of invasive 

species control activities have been postponed on Florida refuges. 

This impacts the Service’s ability to meet licensing and agreements 

with the State of Florida regarding Loxahatchee Refuge, which is 

actually owned by the State of Florida. 

So there are just a few very specific examples, and we do look 

forward to, as soon as possible, some certainty in our budget so 

that we can get on with our work. 

CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS

Mr. MORAN. Thank you. The fact that our climate is changing appears to be a contentious point for some segment of this Congress. 

Could you summarize some of the changes that your land managers are already seeing on the ground such as rising sea levels destroying refuges, drought leading to wildfire and disease, disruption to ecosystems that might be caused by invasive species? 

Dr. GOULD. Well, first of all, before I came here, before I came 

to DC for my third time, I was the Regional Director in Alaska, 

and I am not ascribing it to any cause, but I know the ice is going 

away. I know that there is an incredible amount of erosion on the 

Bering Sea front. We are dealing with some of our Native Alaskan 

communities that literally, just in the last few years, had their 

houses washed out from underneath them. This is due to the open 

ice and open water situation causing erosion along the shore. We 

are seeing sea level rise. 

There are several examples of changes that are related to differences in temperature regimes across the country. Water obviously is a big issue in the southwest and California. These are all 

real issues of changes going on. 

We know change is going on, and we have to take steps to at 

least try to understand those changes. We then take adaptive actions where we can, working with our partners to deal with the situation. 

Dan, any other examples? 

Mr. ASHE. I think across all kinds of ecological regimes we are 

seeing change that is correlated to observed changes in temperature and in climate. Changing migration for birds and waterfowl, 

changes in the timing of green up in especially the higher latitudes, 

changes in flowering plants, and those all cascade through ecological systems. 

Everything the Fish and Wildlife Service does and all the things 

we and our partners are responsible for are being affected at some 

level by changing climate. That is one of the reasons we have 

placed an emphasis on learning more about the changing climate 

system and what it means for the type of work that we do and the 

things that we are responsible for. I think our partners appreciate 

that. 

The work that we have been doing has been right in the mainstream of the conservation community with partners like Ducks 

Unlimited, the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, National 

Wildlife Federation, Wild Turkey Federation, and others, because 

all land managers and resource managers see the same kind of 

changes happening and know that we have to be smarter about 

dealing with that. We have to be smarter if we are going to use 


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the taxpayers’ dollars in the most responsible way, because the decisions that we are making today are going to produce the waterfowl that our hunting constituencies depend upon 20, 30, 40, and 

50 years from now. So we have to make the right investments 

today. 

CHESAPEAKE BAY

Mr. MORAN. That was a long answer, but it was an important 

one. I appreciate that. I just have one last issue, Mr. Chairman, 

but it does not necessarily require as extensive an answer. 

You mentioned in your statement the restoration efforts on the 

ecology of the Chesapeake Bay as being important. To what extent 

does the Goodlatte amendment to H.R. 1 affect the Fish and Wildlife Service’s ability to work on the Chesapeake Bay restoration? 

Dr. GOULD. The short answer if you broadly interpret—— 

Mr. MORAN. Well, it said no federal funds. It did not specify EPA 

or anything like that. 

Dr. GOULD. Right. We have a lot of restoration work going on related to point-source pollution and coordination and restoration 

work related to wetlands habitat. Very broadly interpreted that 

work could have something to do with water quality. We obviously 

could not do that work, even though it is not directly—— 

Mr. MORAN. It was not intended, but it would include Fish and 

Wildlife Service. You would just have to stop your operations. 

Dr. GOULD. If you broadly interpret. 

Mr. MORAN. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Lewis. 

SANTA ANA SUCKER

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am sure that you will 

have anticipated at least a piece of that which I would like to discuss, but the critical habitat designation that relates to the Santa 

Ana sucker is very important to the Southern California region, but 

in a broader sense, my concern is one of making sure that we do 

not repeat the kind of fiasco that took place in the Bay Delta that 

so undermined the credibility of our work in this entire region. And 

on every side of that issue people quit talking to each other and 

began yelling about what the other was doing, and we need to 

make sure that we are preserving elements of our environment as 

well as endangered species, et cetera, in a sensible way that allows 

us to do the kind of planning that is necessary. 

I am very concerned that this designation, critical habitat for the 

Santa Ana sucker, could take us down that same pathway if there 

is not some really sensible effort to communicate with each other 

about where we ought to be going. 

And so in connection with that last week when we were discussing this, it was suggested that maybe Fish and Wildlife tends 

to want to take those analyses that agree with their conclusions 

and reject analyses that might go in a different direction, and in 

that discussion the sucker came to mind, and so I am interested 

in knowing has Fish and Wildlife on occasion sent economic analyses back to the contractor for additional work if it was found to 

be wanting? 

Dr. GOULD. We do that often is the short answer. 


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Mr. LEWIS. You do that often? 

Dr. GOULD. Yes, we do. 

Mr. LEWIS. All right. I kind of thought that might be your response. 

Dr. GOULD. Yes. In this situation, we understand there are concerns. To fully discuss the Santa Ana sucker issue you have to recognize it has been listed for a long time. We do not think this critical habitat designation is going to have a major effect on the ongoing discussions and collaborative work that has been going on there 

in the past. 

We have, however, talked to our Regional Director about the 

issue, and we are committed to sitting down with the county and 

the stakeholders and developing the kinds of working relationships 

that are really going to be necessary to avoid any of these concerns 

that we understand you have. 

Mr. LEWIS. Would that include participating in or sharing information from independent local economic analyses to make sure 

that their input is directly a part of whatever policy and decisions 

we finally make going forward? 

Dr. GOULD. Yes. That would include that kind of development. 

Mr. LEWIS. Otherwise we could find disaster in the region. The 

Santa Ana River basin was developed as a result of the 1938 flood, 

and it starts in the San Bernardino Mountains and goes all the 

way to the ocean. It is a magnificent area of potential, and if we 

can get the communities to really work together, I think it could 

be a display of the best. But if we find ourselves hung up on something like this sucker, and I do not see the Section 7 process going 

forward in a sensible way, it might destroy the following. 

We have recently completed the Seven Oaks Dam. There is a 

flood channel that goes down all the way to the ocean that probably 

is 300 yards across. During much of the Santa Ana, on my odometer right at the San Bernardino Mountain, there is a mile across 

of land, and it is my view that with the right kind of planning and 

cooperation between communities and the environmental community and so on, that could become a park all the way to the ocean, 

if we could sensibly get people to work together. 

If we start throwing time bombs in the middle of it, that dream 

will never become a possibility. So I really need assurance that this 

Section 7 designation or process will go forward here in a sensible 

way, and I would hope you keep me right in the middle of those 

discussions. 

Dr. GOULD. We will, sir. We have got a problem. The Santa Ana 

sucker is not in good shape as you are aware, so it is important 

that we work together to get to where you want to be and do what 

we can to benefit the sucker itself. 

I am sure if we continue to work together, or if we set up better 

mechanisms to work together, we will avoid any problems. 

Mr. LEWIS. If we had not really forced the Corps to change the 

way the Seven Oaks Dam would be used—— 

Dr. GOULD. Right. 

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gest that all the way down the Santa Ana many a species would 

have been dramatically and negatively affected. 

So I would certainly like to preserve that opportunity for cooperative spirit in the months ahead. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Ms. McCollum. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all 

of you in the Fish and Wildlife Service for all the work that you 

do. It has been real important to the Minnesota loon, who is calling 

out a great appreciation and thanks for all the work that you did 

down in the Gulf. Our state bird appreciates that and so do all the 

kids who have been watching on websites about what is going on. 

You have talked about creating a national network of landscape 

conservation cooperatives to collaborate landscape, biological planning, the whole works. Your testimony, if you would have given all 

of it, was going to talk about what is going on in the Chesapeake 

Bay, which brought up the California Bay-Delta, the Gulf Coast, 

and the Everglades. 

MISSISSIPPI RIVER

But there is one of our Nation’s biggest landmarks, and that is 

the Mississippi River. It is one of the world’s largest bodies of 

water. It is internationally recognized as well as treasured here nationally, and the mighty Mississippi River, which is getting ready 

to be real mighty in my neck of the woods and do a lot of flooding 

shortly, it goes all the way from Minnesota, as you know, all the 

way down to the Gulf. 

It is a large source of drinking water for over 18 million people, 

and my hometown of St. Paul probably would not have turned into 

the place that it is today, as well as Minneapolis, without the river. 

I am very proud of the work that the Upper Mississippi Natural 

Wildlife Refuge is doing, and I want to just kind of hone in here 

a little bit and ask you is the landscape cooperative going to touch 

on the Mississippi River to help the river achieve its healthy watershed? It continues to be a working river, and if it is going to be 

a working river and also support the wildlife and the recreational 

aspects of it, there has to be a well-calibrated balance between 

barge traffic, locks and dams, Asian carp coming in, everything 

else. 

You do not mention that watershed, and I know it is broken 

down into regions. Regions are fine, but what is the overall big picture plan for Mississippi protection? 

Dr. GOULD. You mentioned LCCs, landscape conservation cooperatives. Those cooperatives are a system of shared scientific expertise and money that provides science information to management entities, allowing them to make the most efficient and most 

effective use of their money to do what they need to do. 

As you are aware, that area is covered by Joint Ventures for 

birds and many kinds of agreements with the Native American 

community in terms of management responsibilities and requirements. We work very closely with the states, especially with the 

refuge, in determining what kind of restoration activities can be 

most efficient and effective for wildlife values, while taking into 

consideration, obviously, the economic value of that area. 


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So the landscape conservation cooperatives are going to provide 

the science information so people can make the best decisions 

based on the best science. I would like to say, they are not conservation delivery. Each of the entities involved have their own responsibilities, but if we can agree on the science, you can make individually and collectively the best, most-efficient decisions on how 

you use the money available. 

Our Great Lakes region is one of the Service’s leaders in working 

in partnership with all of the interested stakeholders to come to 

management approaches to solving ecological problems in a very efficient and effective manner and transparent way. 

So overall, that is an area of focus, obviously because it is so important, and we have a lot of base money going into that area. 

Dan. 

Mr. ASHE. If I could just add, especially with the Mississippi 

River and the Gulf of Mexico, I think what we envision with the 

landscape conservation cooperatives is, as Rowan said, trying to 

build shared capacity. 

And so LCCs become a mechanism for the Fish and Wildlife 

Service, our state partners, the Corps of Engineers, the Natural 

Resource Conservation Service, and others to come together to 

build a shared science capacity. This is going to allow us to make 

investments in a much more coordinated fashion so that we are 

starting to link the solutions of problems like hypoxia in the Gulf 

to farm bill incentive programs. This will allow us to get much 

more bang for the buck in terms of the public’s investment in improving the river water quality, attacking challenges like Asian 

carp, and doing that in a much more coordinated fashion. 

So that is exactly what we are trying to do. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Mr. Chair, I would like to sit down and follow 

up with you folks on what is the big picture timeline here? What 

do people have to agree on? I think I stressed it pretty well, this 

is a working river. When I grew up, if it was quiet enough, I could 

hear the guys on the barges talk up the hill in my bedroom back 

in the day before we had air conditioning. 

It is a working river, and it will continue to be a working river, 

but we are going to work the river to the bone, and we are going 

to destroy opportunities if we do not have an aggressive timeline 

here. I look forward to working with you to see how this works. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Cole. 

TRIBAL PROGRAMS

Mr. COLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know we have got limited 

time and so some of these I may just submit for the record, but I 

wanted to, number one, first ask you just broadly speaking, I want 

to focus on the interaction between Fish and Wildlife Service and 

Indian Country. What is the impact of the 2012 budget on Indian 

Country, and what are the impacts specifically on tribal-related 

programs? 

Dr. GOULD. One of our hallmark programs that we are very, very 

proud of in the southwest specifically is our ability to work with 

tribal entities to develop youth involvement programs. There is a 

big emphasis in this budget on putting more youth to work and 


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that includes a very sizable program working with Native American youth. 

The other program that we are supporting is our State and Tribal Wildlife Grants program, which we are proposing somewhere 

around $90 to $95 million. The largest portion of this money goes 

straight to the states, but also a portion of it goes directly to tribal 

restoration and recovery projects. 

Mr. COLE. Now, I was going to ask you actually about that specific program. 

Dr. GOULD. A $1 million increase. 

Mr. COLE. It is my understanding that the state funding is both 

formula and grant-driven. 

Dr. GOULD. Right. 

Mr. COLE. Tribal funding is only grant-driven. 

Dr. GOULD. That is correct, sir. 

Mr. COLE. Is there any reason why there would not be a formula 

component to tribal funding as well? 

Dr. GOULD. It is difficult to do. Tribes have different capabilities 

from one tribal entity to another, and as you are aware, there are 

over 500 recognized tribal entities out there. So what has to happen in a situation like that is we work through our tribal liaisons 

and the region to identify the highest priority areas where the most 

work can be done working with the entire community. 

And then there is the submission of project proposals. 

Mr. COLE. Just out of curiosity, and I do not know, and you may 

not know off the top of your head. When grants come in, what is 

the percentage of them that actually are ultimately funded and 

looked on favorably? I am just trying to get a feel for—— 

Dr. GOULD. I do not know that. We will have to get that information for you, sir. 

[This information follows:] 


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FISHERIES PROGRAM

Mr. COLE. I would appreciate that. Just one more, and, again, I 

know Mr. LaTourette has some questions and cannot get back, so 

I just want to ask one more. I learned a great deal about fisheries 

thanks to Mr. Dicks. We do not do a lot of fisheries in Oklahoma, 

but you have a $12 million cut in the Fisheries Program, and that 

is a big deal to a lot of tribes actually, in different parts of the 

country. 

What kind of impact that has on them, and was it disproportionate to the tribes as compared to the states, because I have 

heard some concern that when these cuts happened, the state programs tend to remain funded, the tribal programs are not funded, 

and they take the bigger hit. 

I would like your observations on that. 

Dr. GOULD. To the best of my knowledge, I do not know any specifics, but to the best of my knowledge the cuts that were taken beyond the hatchery cuts were earmarks. 

Mr. COLE. Well, of course, that does not mean it was a bad idea. 

I yield back my time. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Hinchey. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I am going to try to get through both you and 

Steve before we go over. We have one vote. 

EVERGLADES

Mr. HINCHEY. We will go very quickly. Thank you all very much 

for everything you are doing, and nice to have you down here from 

Alaska. 

I thought I would mention something way down south and very 

warm. It is the Everglades and the Restoration Act that is going 

on in the context of the Everglades, which is very important. The 

Everglades is one of the most fascinating places that we have, a 

whole host of species of all kinds, and I understand a great number 

of species that are endangered there may not continue unless the 

work that you are doing is going to be successful. And, of course, 

the Everglades has been badly treated in the past, almost disappeared in some way in the past century, almost wiped out. 

So the situation that you are engaged in there is very important. 

So I just wanted to ask you about it. I noted that in your budget 

that the Service has plans to establish a new wildlife refuge, as 

well as a new headwaters conservation area. 

So can you tell us about that, what the intentions are, what 

those plans are, and what you think they are going to achieve, and 

what we might do, what this subcommittee might do to participate 

with you in the help of bringing about this completion? 

Dr. GOULD. Well, as you are aware, the overall goal is to create 

or recreate the river of grass, which allows all kinds of water quality and the kinds of economic benefit that comes from a very solid 

ecological environment. In the Everglades area, we are planning for 

expanded refuge capability up there, but they are not the kinds of 

refuges you really see normally. These are large areas where we 

work with private landowners and have conservation easements 

where we work with especially the large ranching community. 


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These conservation easements allow them to do what they do on 

their ranch and still keep them in the kind of condition that allows 

the country to have the kind of ecological benefit that is going to 

be important from the overall Everglades point of view, especially 

for endangered species that really count on that kind of environment for their existence. 

This is a high priority for Secretary Salazar, extremely high priority. In fact, Dan has been involved in several projects with the 

Secretary. He might want to comment. 

Mr. ASHE. I would just say we are intimately involved in Everglades restoration, and it is probably one of the best examples of 

government agencies working together: us, the Corps of Engineers, 

the U.S. Geological Survey, the EPA, the NRCS, the State of Florida, and the South Florida Water Management District. Just excellent cooperation and a couple of weeks ago I was down there to a 

groundbreaking of a 55,000 acre wetland restoration project at the 

Picayune Strand, so lots of innovative, impressive work going on 

there. 

The northern Everglades or the Everglades Headwaters Refuge 

Proposal is one of those exciting proposals where we are looking at 

the core of fee acquisition, a relatively small core of fee acquisitions, surrounded by easements that will protect working landscapes. That is a model for conservation, and it is reflected in our 

budget proposal for this year. In proposals like the Flint Hills and 

the Rocky Mountain Front, we are really looking into that to be a 

model for conservation in the 21st century, with much more reliance on easements to protect working landscapes and working 

ways of life that also provide important opportunities for habitat 

conservation. So proposals like the northern Everglades or Everglades Headwaters are very exciting, and I think take us in a very 

positive direction. 

Mr. HINCHEY. And so this is one of the main focuses of attention 

right now, and is something that is going to be upgraded to some 

extent by the end of this year and then over the course of the next 

years. 

Mr. ASHE. The success of that depends upon our partners in the 

Department of Agriculture. If that vision is going to become a reality, certainly the Land and Water Conservation Fund as a traditional source of funding for a project like that, but also continued 

support for the Farm Bill Conservation Programs. The USDA is 

going to be an absolutely essential element of that entire proposal. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Well, thank you very much. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. LaTourette. 

ASIAN CARP AND LACEY ACT

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I will 

try and be brief. I just have two Great Lakes questions. One is the 

Asian carp. Courts in Ontario now are fining people up to $50,000 

for transporting live Asian carp over the U.S./Canadian border, and 

we are being urged to take a re-look at the Lacey Act and perhaps 

strengthen it. 

The reason for that call is that, we are being told anyway, that 

it can take up to 4 years as the average, I guess, to put something 

on the list, and one, I would ask if that is true, and if it is true, 


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why does it take so long, and if it is true, what can we do about 

it to take a little less time? 

In 2007, I think the agency listed the silver, the black, and the 

large-scale silver carp, but it was not until last December that the 

big head, you know, if I was in charge I think I would go big head 

first before the sort of benign things. 

Dr. GOULD. Right. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. But the big head was added in December. 

Clearly the Asian carp has the potential to be one of the biggest 

ecological disasters in the Great Lakes ever, so what can you tell 

me about the Lacey Act, should we give you additional resources, 

do you need additional resources, and can you speed up putting 

these bad things on lists? 

Dr. GOULD. I am not specifically aware of exactly where we are 

in the process, but I know that it is a priority for the Fish and 

Wildlife Service to get that species on the injurious species list, and 

unless Dan knows specifically where we are in the process, we will 

have to get that information for you. 

[The information follows:] 

ASIAN CARP: STATUS OF BIGHEAD SPECIES UNDER LACEY ACT

The Asian Carp Prevention and Control Act (Pub. L. 111–307) was signed into law 

on December 14, 2010, amending the Lacey Act (18 U.S.C. 42) by adding the bighead carp to the list of injurious animals contained therein. The statutory prohibitions and exceptions for this species went into effect upon signature into law. The 

Service will publish a final rule in the Federal Register on March 22, officially adding the bighead carp to the federal injurious wildlife list. 

But it is a priority for the Service, and we agree with you 100 

percent about the need to take that action. We are putting lots of 

resources, both resources from EPA and our own resources, in place 

to try to deal with keeping that species out of the Great Lakes. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Right. 

Dr. GOULD. With the electric barriers and the monitoring that is 

going on. But we see this as a big, big problem for that area. It 

could be an ecological disaster, and we have got to do all we can 

do to stop it. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Well, I read some place that the Asian carp 

eats like 40 percent of its body weight a day, you know. I did that 

for awhile. It was not very good, but, obviously, it can destroy the 

sports fishing industry. 

The other thing that we heard and maybe you can get back to me on another day is that, I think you have $2.9 million in this 

budget request to deal specifically with this issue. The other story 

that we are being told is of the money that is available for Asian 

carp efforts, only 5 to 8 percent of that actually makes it to the 

boots on the ground, taking care of the problem. So I would like 

to be dispelled of that rumor if it is not true, and if it is true, obviously, that is disturbing. 

Dr. GOULD. That is disturbing. I was not aware of that, but we 

will make some telephone calls, because you are right. 

[The information follows:] 

ASIAN CARP: USE OF FUNDING

The Service is unaware of the basis for the rumor that only 5 to 8 percent of funding for Asian Carp control makes it to on-the-ground projects. Most of the funding 

the Service has for Asian Carp control comes from the Great Lakes Restoration IniVerDate Mar 15 2010 04:44 Jun 29, 2011 Jkt 066897 PO 00000 Frm 00194 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 E:\HR\OC\A897P2.XXX A897P2

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tiative within the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget. This funding has a 

cap on how much can be used for administrative overhead. Furthermore, the Service, along with the other Federal and State agencies, has been very mindful of the 

need to react quickly to this threat and maximize on the ground efforts. The Service 

is a member of the Asian Carp Regional Coordination Committee, which is made 

up of Federal and State agencies. The Committee has developed a framework strategy for the control of Asian Carp and approves each agency project to ensure effective use of the funding and prevent overlapping efforts. The 2011 list of projects can 

be found at www.asiancarp.org. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Yes. 

Dr. GOULD. Most of those resources need to either get to the barriers themselves or the active monitoring that is going on or the 

sciences necessary to be more effective in identifying where a problem area may be and then attacking that area as quickly as possible. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SIMPSON. We have about 4 minutes to get over and vote, so 

we are going to do that right now. We are going to recess for a few 

minutes. We only have one vote, so it should not take us too long 

to get back, and I have a whole series of questions which should 

not be too tough. 

We will be in recess for approximately 10, 15 minutes. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. SIMPSON. We will be back in order. Mr. Moran has to go to 

a VA hearing, I think, Appropriations hearing, and obviously members are headed off to different hearings. We got to do the first 

round of questioning, at least those members had the opportunity 

to ask their questions. 

Ms. Lummis, I have got a series that I am going to ask but go 

ahead if you are ready. 

ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for joining 

us today. My questions are going to be focused on the Endangered 

Species Act, and I am from Wyoming, so you can just about guess 

what I might want to discuss. 

But let’s start with a general question. I would like to ask the 

acting director, over the life of the Endangered Species Act how 

much money has been spent on management? Do you know? 

Dr. GOULD. I do not have a specific answer to that question. We 

will have to get back to you. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. Thank you. I would appreciate it if you 

would. I will submit these questions in writing so you have them 

in front of you. 

What has been the practical result for your agency of the spike 

in listing petitions in terms of the employee hours spent and the 

funds expended as well? 

Dr. GOULD. As you are aware, we have been focusing a lot of our 

effort on litigation-driven decisions. That is based on the fact that 

we have a lot of involvement in the court system with the Endangered Species Act. There has been a considerable number of listing 

petitions that have been submitted in the form of multiple requests 

at one time. This, in effect, puts us in a position where we cannot 


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deal with these requests nor have any hope of being able to deal 

with them in a timely manner. 

ENDANGERED SPECIES PETITIONS CAP

Mr. ASHE. I would just add that I think it has been more of a 

kind of redirection of effort as opposed to more hours. There are 

only so many hours in the day to work, so it has been a significant 

redirection of effort within the Service. But one of the things we 

are asking the subcommittee for in this year’s proposal is to consider a cap on the amount we can spend to process petitions, and 

that would be an important aspect of helping us manage our endangered species more closely. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Would it work better if the decision to pursue a potential listing or at least to further a study regarding listing could 

be generated only by the agency itself rather than by the public? 

Dr. GOULD. Of course, the Act is configured the way the Act is 

configured. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. I might mention, though, that the authorization 

for this act expired in 1992, and that the authorization level that 

is the ceiling for authorization for the ESA is $41,500,000, $41.5 

million, and the fiscal year 2012 request is $282 million. 

So here we are on a five X multiple of the total authorization 

amount with no end in sight. So I am wondering whether this committee should be working with the authorizing committee to authorize or reauthorize in a way that allows the agency to better 

manage listing requests and so these multiple requests at one time 

that overwhelm the agency’s budget and personnel will not be 

dominating or driving the expenditure of funds. Rather you will be 

able to concentrate dollars and human resources within your agency on species that are actually recoverable. 

Any comment on that? 

Mr. ASHE. I would reiterate that the purpose of the listing cap 

we requested is to help us better allocate workload among basic endangered species activities such as listing, consultation, and recovery. We believe a petition cap would be helpful for us in managing 

that. 

I think that the petition process itself is very compatible with 

American government in that the public has the opportunity to petition its government to take an action. In this case, for us to consider listing an endangered species. I think, in recent years, we 

have seen that the petition process has been beyond our ability to 

manage effectively, and we are asking the subcommittee to help us 

in part by considering a petition cap. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Would the gentlelady yield for just a second? 

How would a petition cap work? I mean, right now if there is a 

petition and it exceeds what you have appropriated for that 

amount, you have to take resources from other areas and look at 

the petition? 

Mr. ASHE. Gary Frazer is our Assistant Director for Endangered 

Species, and perhaps Gary would be best able to give you the specifics about how that petition cap might work. 

Mr. FRAZER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Gary Frazer. I am the Assistant Director for Endangered Species. The way 

it works, because there are statutory deadlines associated with how 


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we must process a petition, within 90 days we must make a determination as to whether the petition is substantial. Then if it is substantial, we must make a determination as to whether the petition 

action is warranted or not warranted or warranted but precluded 

within 12 months. 

Those are deadlines that can be enforced. They frequently are enforced, and so the petition cap would serve to help us defend 

against lawsuits that are driving us to meet those deadlines. We 

can only do so much. We can only do as much as the funds appropriated by Congress allow us to do. By having a cap saying that 

Congress allows us to spend up to this amount of money for petition work, we would work up to that. Then we would essentially 

use that as our defense for not doing more, so that we can balance 

among the various duties that we have. 

Mr. SIMPSON. If you do not change the underlying law, the authorization law, how would a court look on that? Any idea? 

Mr. FRAZER. To the extent that we have had experience in this 

in the past, we have had caps in place for our listing program and 

for critical habitat designation within our listing program for a 

number of years. It has never really been brought to a head, but 

it has been lodged as a defense before. We view that as our most 

successful line of defense for maintaining balance among all of our 

endangered species program activities. 

So the Appropriations Committee has been very helpful for us. 

Mr. SIMPSON. If you do a listing as listed but precluded, that is 

essentially saying I do not have the money to do it. Right? 

Mr. FRAZER. That is what it means. Yes. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Has that ever been challenged in court? 

Mr. FRAZER. We do have many challenges to our precluded findings. Most of those challenges are still pending. 

ENDANGERED SPECIES LAWSUITS

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and a follow up to that 

comment. 

About how many lawsuits is the agency currently engaged in on 

ESA-related matters? 

Mr. FRAZER. Right now, on what we call a Section 4 of listing 

program activities, we have approximately 41 pending lawsuits. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. No, you may not know the answer to this because 

it seems a mystery to a lot of people in government, but when your 

agency loses or settles an ESA case that results in a judgment or 

the payment of attorneys’ fees, does the payment come from your 

budget or from the Treasury? 

Mr. FRAZER. It depends upon what statute is the basis for filing 

the complaint. If the complaint is filed under the Endangered Species Act, the provision in the Act is that providence for citizen suits 

to be filed and explicitly provides for reasonable attorneys’ fees to 

be awarded. Those fees are paid out of the Claims and Judgments 

Fund, and DOJ administers that fund. 

If the lawsuit is brought under another statute that does not explicitly authorize attorneys’ fees to be awarded such as the Administrative Procedure Act, then the attorney fees, if they are awarded, 

come out of the agency funds, out of the Fish and Wildlife Service 

budget. 


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Mrs. LUMMIS. And are you able to track those payments? Do you 

track those payments both under the ESA citizen suits and that 

APA type of case? 

Mr. FRAZER. DOJ administers the Judgment Fund, so we do not 

separately track those awards. We track the funds that we ultimately have to pay out of the endangered species budget, and for 

the last 9 years they have averaged about $200,000 per year. We 

do not lose many cases, but when we do, they can amount to substantial costs. Attorneys get paid well. 

GRAY WOLF

Mrs. LUMMIS. Question for either Dr. Gould or Mr. Ashe. Do you 

believe the gray wolf in the Northern Rockies is a recovered species? 

Dr. GOULD. I will just start out by saying, yes. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Perfect. That is the answer that I was hoping. 

Now, what do you need from this committee to support negotiations 

taking place between yourselves and the governor of Wyoming? 

Dr. GOULD. As you are aware, we have withdrawn an appeal regarding the lawsuit, regarding this very issue, because we truly believe that we can come to a common understanding of the kind of 

management plan that is necessary to deal with a wolf population 

that we all agree is in good shape. 

So what we are committed to doing, the Secretary and Dan Ashe, 

who has been very, very instrumental in dealing with the wolf situation, is to sitting down with Governor Mead and the State of Wyoming. We are confident that in a reasonably short period of time 

we can come up with a plan that will make biological sense and 

meet the needs of the State of Wyoming. 

Mr. ASHE. Patience, maybe, is the one thing needed because the 

governor, as you know, Congresswoman, has to work with the legislature in this case. Our immediate discussions with the governor 

are going very well, but then he will need to work with the legislature and then we will need to work within our administrative process. 

So it is not going to happen overnight, but I think we are making 

very good progress. I think we are on a good track. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. I appreciate that, and I strongly, strongly encourage you to devote a great deal of time to that as frequently and as 

soon as possible, because in the long run it will save your agency 

money, it will save my state money, and it will save a huge amount 

of aggravation and frustration within the State of Wyoming. So I 

cannot more strongly stress my hope that you will make that a priority. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Just out of curiosity, in Wyoming if a state management plan is approved, it has to be approved by the legislature? 

Mr. ASHE. Yes. The legislature has approved the previous Wyoming plan, and would have to enact any new plan that the governor might develop in cooperation with us. It is going to take an 

action by the state legislature to get to a submission of a new plan. 

Mr. SIMPSON. As you know, in H.R. 1 we added language to effectively, essentially overturn Judge Malloy’s decision, which the AdVerDate Mar 15 2010 04:44 Jun 29, 2011 Jkt 066897 PO 00000 Frm 00198 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A897P2.XXX A897P2

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ministration supported. It did not address Wyoming because they 

have not come to an agreement yet with Fish and Wildlife Service. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Chairman, I would beg to differ with that 

statement, but go ahead and continue. 

Mr. SIMPSON. If they come to an agreement on a state management plan with Wyoming, would that effectively overturn Judge 

Malloy’s decision? Because did his decision not say, no, you cannot 

just separate Idaho and Montana, you have to include Wyoming 

also? 

Mr. ASHE. Your legislation would allow us to get back to where 

we were in April of 2009. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Right. 

Mr. ASHE. With Idaho and Montana wolves de-listed and Wyoming wolves still listed. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Right. 

Mr. ASHE. And so as soon as Wyoming develops a plan that we 

can approve, then we can de-list the entire Northern Rocky Mountain distinct population segment of wolves. That is why we are, as 

we speak, engaged with the State of Wyoming to move in that direction. Governor Mead has been very forthcoming in working with 

us and expressing his concerns, but we have had very good dialogue. I think we are moving in a positive direction in Wyoming. 

Your legislation would set the stage. It would get wolf management back into the hands of Montana and Idaho, where we have 

previously-approved state plans, and then put us on a course to get 

a new plan from Wyoming that we could approve. 

Mr. SIMPSON. And once the three states have an approved plan, 

then it is time. Okay. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. I do have a follow-up, Mr. Chairman. I would reiterate that Wyoming submitted a plan that was approved by the 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 

Dr. GOULD. That is correct. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. And so the subsequent disapprovals were not by 

the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They were done in the courts 

pursuant to litigation. 

So the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service pronouncement on the plan 

that the Wyoming legislature passed was to approve it, and by all 

measures the wolf is recovered. All measures, all three states. So 

that is why this issue continues to be a burr under the saddle of 

the State of Wyoming, as well as your states because of Wyoming’s 

opinion of our plan, as reflected by the acting director and the deputy here today, was approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 

based on sound science. 

Mr. SIMPSON. But subsequently challenged in court. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Correct. 

Mr. SIMPSON. And ultimately what I am trying to get back to is 

a state where Idaho can manage its wolves, and ultimately I think 

that is what we all want. 

Dr. GOULD. That is correct. 

Mr. SIMPSON. The states can manage the wolves. 

Dr. GOULD. Just one additional layer of complexity, we approved 

the Wyoming plan in 2007 that was stricken down. Our approval 

of that plan was stricken down in a decision by Judge Malloy in 


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the Montana District. We disapproved Wyoming’s plan in our 2009 

de-listing rule and that was challenged by the State of Wyoming. 

Mr. SIMPSON. And this is the one you have chosen not to—— 

Dr. GOULD. We got an adverse ruling in that case also from 

Judge Johnson in the Wyoming District, and so we essentially have 

two judges kind of telling us different things about Wyoming’s 

plan. 

That is why we decided not to carry this issue any further in 

court. We decided to get this out of court and get back into a discussion between professionals at the state and federal level. We believe we can get a plan that is acceptable to both Wyoming and the 

Fish and Wildlife Service. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Good, because I think we all want the same thing 

here and that is to be able to have state management of the 

wolves, and anybody that believes we were going to reintroduce 

wolves into Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming and were not going to 

have some management of the wolves was living in a world that 

just does not exist. 

There are people who do not want us to do anything with the 

wolves, and that, unfortunately or fortunately, is not going to be 

the situation, that we are going to have to manage them. 

So I appreciate you working on that with me. 

LANDSCAPE CONSERVATION COOPERATIVES

In your opening testimony you talked about the Cooperative 

Landscape Conservation Initiative as being about biological planning and information gathering. What concerns me is that the messaging reflects the policy that somehow biological planning and information gathering are simply two more tools that the Service is 

adding to its toolbox, while offsetting cuts elsewhere in the budget 

suggests that other tools are being taken out of the toolbox. 

It seems to me that this initiative should be about the entire 

package of adaptive management, that is the application of science 

for biological planning conservation, project design and delivery, 

and outcome-based monitoring, all feeding back on one another. 

Please take just a few moments to comment on that, and if I am 

correct in what I just said, and I know that this initiative is still 

in its infancy, but can you give me just an example of how landscape conservation is changing the Service’s approach to endangered species recovery? 

Dr. GOULD. Based on your question, you understand very well 

what the Service calls strategic habitat conservation, which is landscape conservation with adaptive management attached to it, exactly as you described it. In that process, the landscape conversation cooperatives provide us the initial information and planning to 

start making decisions. We will then monitor actions taken and 

make any kind of course corrections that are necessary. This approach will allow us to keep circling good decisions, good outcomes, 

monitor the outcomes, make better decisions. That is the adaptive 

part you were talking about. 

The LCCs help us with the kind of initial good science information, monitoring and modeling that allows us to make decisions 

that we can eventually see if they work. It is not conservation delivery per se, but the beauty of the LCCs is the information that 


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is developed. The money that goes into the LCCs is for information. 

The information gathered is driven by the input from the steering 

committee for each LCC. They are our stakeholders. Our primary 

stakeholders are other federal agencies, the states, and other entities like Ducks Unlimited, who have a seat at the table. 

The LCCs at least have a common understanding of the information needed. That is the beauty of the LCCs, because when you do 

make management decisions that you are going to adaptively monitor, everybody at least agrees on the science. Very often in the 

past that has been a stumbling block. You have got that common 

basis. 

Mr. ASHE. Specifically with regard to endangered species, I do 

not know so much that this approach will change the way we are 

dealing with endangered species. What it will do is allow us to take 

some of the very best examples and duplicate that much more consistently across the landscape. 

A good example is the grizzly bear. You are aware that this is 

another area where we are having momentary difficulty. I think 

the general notion of establishing a population objective across a 

large landscape and then doing the science that we need to understand the issues is needed—where do we need conservation, where 

are the threats to that species, and how are we going to address 

those threats, for example, female mortality in the grizzly bear 

population. How do we deal with that? One way is by educating 

outfitters and then another way is by dealing with the hot spots 

in terms of habitation mortality. 

This LCC approach will allow us to do this more consistently 

across the landscape so that we are going to be much more effective 

at dealing with issues like sage grouse and lesser prairie-chicken 

and golden eagles. Some of these issues we can see coming. We can 

see those storm clouds on the horizon. The LCCs are going to allow 

us to do that much more consistently and much more effectively in 

the future. 

Dr. GOULD. In cooperation with our stakeholders and state partners. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Chairman, may I interject. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Sure. 

ENDANGERED SPECIES LISTING AND RECOVERY

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you. With regard to what you just said, 

under what authority can the agency move the goalposts? When 

there is a recovery plan put forward, there are criteria which determine objectively when a species is recovered, and yet with the grizzly bear and the wolves and others, those goalposts get moved as 

time goes on. 

So species that by the objective criteria which were adopted at 

the time of listing have already been met, are no longer valid, and 

those species stay listed when they have, in fact, recovered by all 

criteria that were scientifically vetted at the time of the listing. 

How can that happen, and why does that happen, and under what 

authority does that happen? 

Dr. GOULD. We have the authority to update recovery plans 

based on the best available science. The authority for a recovery 

plan is a local plan. Our regional directors sign those recovery 


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plans, and if there is new information available, scientifically-valid 

new information, they are required to take that into consideration 

in listing decisions. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, with 

wolves, that has occurred. New information based on genetic population, moving, and other factors has caused other recovery criteria 

to become important. That has not diminished the fact that they 

are recovered, but there is new information, new considerations in 

the recovery planning process. 

Mr. ASHE. I think in the case of, you know, our favorite subject, 

wolves, it is not so much that the bar has changed. Our recovery 

objective has remained the same, ten breeding pairs and 100 

wolves per state by managing for at least 15 breeding pairs and at 

least 150 wolves per state. The recovery objective has remained the 

same. 

What has happened is that people disagree with that recovery 

objective. As we have tried to de-list the wolf, we have to essentially put the machinery in reverse. We have to disprove and work 

backwards through the five listing factors in the endangered species list. People will challenge, and you know, have challenged the 

science on which we are basing those decisions. 

ADAPTIVE SCIENCE

It is not so much that the recovery standard has changed, rather 

there are a lot of people out there that disagree that that is a valid 

recovery standard. That is the crux of the debate we have been 

having. The science that we are talking about, that we hope to develop through this landscape conservation cooperative network, will 

help us to better defend our decisions in the future. 

Another example with grizzly bear is the effect of climate change 

on the availability of white pine nuts as a critical food supply for 

the grizzly bear, and one of the reasons we lost—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. Grizzly bears eat nuts? 

Dr. GOULD. Yes, they do. 

Mr. ASHE. Yes, they do. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Oh, I thought they ate people. 

Mr. ASHE. The science that we are talking about developing will 

put us in a better posture to defend our actions in the future. 

Mr. SIMPSON. We are hearing from some of your partners who 

are concerned about budget cuts to Service programs that do the 

conservation, design, delivery, and monitoring so vital to the entire 

initiative. How much of the Service’s funding under this initiative 

is returning to other Service programs as opposed to being 

outsourced to partners? How much of the funding is going into 

helping partners come to the table, particularly the tribes, and are 

Service programs having to write grant proposals or otherwise compete with external partners for Service funds? 

Dr. GOULD. I do not have any specific dollar figures that I can 

really point to. If we can pull that information together, we will. 

[The information follows:] 


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Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. 

Dr. GOULD. For 2012, we are planning on $10.2 million to com- plete the LCCs and $7.2 million for science. We are not putting a 

specific earmark on that money at all. The best person, entity, university, or coop unit, that can collect that information, that is who 

the funding will go to. 

It could be the Service collecting that information. It could be a 

coop unit. It could be Boise State. It is wherever the best expertise 

is for that sort of information. Only by doing that can we have, 

among the steering committee members some comfort. Comfort 

that the data collected is being collected in a way that is not biased 

and people can use and rely on it for a long period of time. We have 

not put any specific earmark for the Service on that money. 

Mr. ASHE. Our people do not have to write grant proposals. The 

whole idea behind this is we are asking people to bring capacity 

and to manage that capacity as partners. When we bring our 

money to the table, we are essentially saying we are going to form 

a steering committee with our partners, and we are going to set 

shared priorities. 

The Service has a voice in how those monies will be directed, but 

we are asking the Forest Service, the BLM, the NRCS, and our 

state and NGO partners to bring resources to the table, too. It 

would be inappropriate for us to say we want our money spent on 

this or that. We are looking for shared priorities, and we think the 

Service will do very well in that context. 

This is a model that we borrowed from the Joint Ventures. The 

Service has been a tremendous beneficiary from the work of the migratory bird joint ventures, and we have done that by relinquishing 

some degree of authority over the resources that we bring to the 

table. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. As many of you know, the Service tried and 

failed on a similar ecosystem effort back in the 1990s. In speaking 

with your partners my sense is that part of the problem back then 

was that new geographic assistant regional directors were hired in 

addition to existing program assistant regional directors and that 

there was no longer clear lines of authority. 

With the addition of the headquarters and regional science advisors that report directly to the director and regional directors respectively, what is different administratively about this initiative 

such that it will succeed where the other ones seem to fail? 

Dr. GOULD. The geographic ARDs, as they called them back in 

that time, were eliminated because it did not work. They were really focusing on conservation delivery, and you need to remember 

that conservation delivery is the responsibility of not just the Fish 

and Wildlife Service. It is also the responsibility of the state, other 

federal agencies, and so on and so forth. 

The primary difference between this new initiative is we are 

avoiding the turf battles that would result from us creating jobs 

that, on the face of it, would be usurping, at least in the views of 

others, the responsibility for them to do their work. We are avoiding that whole concept by saying everybody maintains their responsibility. The state still has to make the decision the states are responsible for. We are not presupposing we are going to cooperatively have a responsibility for their work. 


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What we are saying is at least we are working with a common 

scientific base. That is the basic difference and one of the reasons 

why geographic ARDs did not work in the past. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Do you think this new LCC will break down the 

stovepipes that traditionally exist in government agencies, and is 

everyone on board with this within the agency? What have the 

fisheries got to gain from this that are seeing, as Mr. Rogers said, 

a $12.2 million reduction in their budget? What is the benefit to 

them? What do they get out of this? 

Dr. GOULD. I will turn that question over to Dan Ashe. I have 

to give him credit. This guy, as far as I am concerned, is kind of 

the father of this kind of concept. He really is the person that came 

up with the basic concepts of avoiding tensions between stakeholder partners based on creating the best science, then working 

forward on that premise, using the strategic habitat conservation 

process that you described. Dan has developed the Scientific Advisor role to the Director for the last few years. 

This is an innovative process. It is the way we are going to have 

to approach conservation for the future. After I have tooted his 

horn a little bit, let me answer the question by saying that the 

Fisheries program, as you are aware, has created these kind of 

fisheries joint ventures, and these joint ventures have seen an advantage in working with the LCCs. They see it as a way to obtain 

science so that we can do conservation delivery. 

Many of the major joint ventures have actually adopted LCCs as 

a way to get the information they need to make their decisions. 

Fisheries are now looking at it the same way. National Fisheries 

Habitat Boards and other joint ventures and similar entities that 

are developing across the country are now seeing LCCs as a resource. A resource to collect the information they need so that they 

can collectively talk about setting resource priorities, not doing 

projects by random acts of kindness. This allows for the focusing 

of resources where they need to be. That is the beauty of the process. 

Mr. ASHE. The concept requires everybody to give a little, but 

with the idea that you are going to get more than you give. As we 

think about an issue like sage grouse, if we develop the capacity 

to see that 11-state landscape and work with our state partners, 

we could send work randomly across the landscape and not achieve 

our end objective and still see sage grouse in decline. 

What we need to do is hitch everybody to the same wagon so that 

we are all working together across that landscape to identify those 

core areas that are really going to be critical for the persistence of 

the sage grouse on the landscape and make the investment in 

those areas. 

If you look at it from just the Fish and Wildlife Service perspective, you might say, well, we would rather spend the money at the 

national wildlife refuge, but the more important investment is for 

Dave White at NRCS to put investment in some of the key private 

landscapes or Bob Abbey at the BLM, to make necessary investments within the BLM land base. 

What this is going to allow us to do is identify where the real 

priorities are, and then as a government make the decision. As 

partners we will make the decisions about who is going to make 


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those investments, and with aquatic resources I think that is absolutely essential. We are dealing with a group of species which on 

a whole are the most imperiled group of species in the world. We 

have to start making decisions much more collectively, not looking 

at those decisions from within the footprint of the Fish and Wildlife 

Service or the Corps of Engineers or a state fish and wildlife agency, but in a much more collective capacity. 

Especially given the difficult financial situation that we are having, it is more important than ever that we are doing that. It does 

require everybody to kind of let go a little bit and not look at it 

from the standpoint of the Fish and Wildlife Service or the Fisheries Program or the Refuge Program or the Endangered Species 

Program within the Fish and Wildlife Service but look at it from 

the standpoint of what is the resource objective that we are trying 

to accomplish. Maybe the BLM is where we need to put the resources and get people to the place where they can actually make 

those kind of decisions. 

LAND ACQUISITION

Mr. SIMPSON. Good. Let’s talk about land acquisition for just a minute. We have got a $53 million, 64 percent increase in land acquisition. Are the agency’s acquisitions for parcels already fully or 

mostly bordered by other federal lands? 

Dr. GOULD. Yes. Our land acquisitions where we are doing fee 

title is primarily, almost exclusively, within the refuge boundaries 

as they exist. Only in one case, I think the Flint Hills, are we actually establishing a new refuge, and that project is, to the best of 

my knowledge, all easements work. 

So this land acquisition budget or LWCF money, which, of 

course, comes from offshore receipts, does not go against the budget 

deficit obviously, is going to make us more efficient in the work we 

do. We actually can be more effective dealing with access issues, 

prescribed burns, that sort of thing, when we do not have a checkerboard square way of our refuges being configured. 

Now, what is important to remember also is that as we move forward with this process we are never, ever pursuing this approach 

without willing sellers. That is just the way we are doing business, 

and we are staying within our lines. 

Mr. SIMPSON. As you are I am sure well aware, westerners get 

a little bit concerned when we start talking about land acquisition 

in states that are 64, 80 or whatever percent federal land already. 

Dr. GOULD. Yes. 

NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE FUND

Mr. SIMPSON. The impact that has on the state and the tax base 

of the state. National Wildlife Refuge Fund was essentially kind of 

a PILT payment for the National Wildlife Refuge. 

Dr. GOULD. Yes. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Sort of like the same thing? 

Dr. GOULD. It is not quite the same thing, but the fund itself is 

zeroed out, and I think that is what you are getting to. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yes. 

Dr. GOULD. But our position is that the existence of those refuges 

is an incredible economic boom for that local area, and in these 


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tight budget times we had to deal with that reality. PILT money, 

I think the counties are getting approximately 5 percent of the authorized amount, somewhere in that area. 

Mr. SIMPSON. PILT runs out in 2012? Expires at the end of 2012? 

And I am concerned that this is foreshadowing what might be happening with PILT payments by the Administration saying, well, 

gee, you have such a benefit of having Forest Service land or BLM 

land or whatever federal land in your area. That far offsets any 

negative aspect of it. 

But I will tell you Mr. Moran and I had a discussion on the Secure Rural Schools funding, and he was wondering why people in 

Virginia are paying for schools in the western United States, and 

so I just brought him some maps that showed the percentage of 

federal land owned in the east versus the west. It also showed 

what we would receive if those federal lands were actually paying 

the very minimum in tax that they could pay, how our per-pupil 

expenditure is less than it is here, and our tax burden of what we 

tax ourselves to pay for those schools is actually more than it is 

here. It is because we do not have a land base. 

And so we get very, very concerned when we start looking at 

fully funding Land and Water Conservation Fund and acquire new 

lands and that kind of stuff. And, this fund, as I understand it, it 

is a little different as you said than PILT, but would essentially 

pay those counties, but the argument that while they benefit so 

much from having that wildlife refuge there that we should not 

have to make up the difference, I think is going to fall on some 

very skeptical ears among western members. 

That program was $14.5 million last year and is terminated this 

year. We will find that money somewhere. It might be in land acquisition funds or something. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Chairman, I could not agree more. Every county I know in Wyoming would be happy to have taxes in lieu of payments. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yes, and they would be substantially better off, but 

I am not one who is opposed to public lands. I think public lands 

provide a benefit to people, and Idaho loves public lands. That is 

how we hunt and fish and outdoor recreate and everything else, 

but there is a balance here that when people want to tell us how 

we are going to manage public lands that never see them from the 

east, you know, and say these are all public lands, and we should 

have some say in it, well, there is some responsibility to also pay 

for it. 

Mr. ASHE. I would say I think over the years this refuge revenue 

sharing has been very positive for the Fish and Wildlife Service 

and the Refuge System. I doubt there is a manager in the National 

Wildlife Refuge System who does not see the kind of transfer of 

that check every year as a positive with their local communities. 

I think that, however, we have been asked in the context of the 

budget to look for things and to think outside the box. With that, 

our options are always limited and I know you are aware of that. 

But it is definitely one of those things where we have done numerous studies on the economic benefits of national wildlife refuges. 

They all indicate that refuges are a benefit to local economies conVerDate Mar 15 2010 04:44 Jun 29, 2011 Jkt 066897 PO 00000 Frm 00207 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A897P2.XXX A897P2

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sidering the loss of income tax. So, it is an attempt to look at some 

new ways of thinking about public lands. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I hope this is not a precursor to what the Administration is looking at in the reauthorization of the PILT payments 

or elimination of the PILT payments, because in some counties, you 

know, when you have got a county that is 96 percent federal land, 

what the heck are they going to do? 

Mr. ASHE. I am not aware that this is connected in any way to 

any larger Administration policy. In fact, in the past we had the 

opposite discussion about should the Refuge System be included in 

the PILT System as opposed to having an appropriated fund. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Right. That is a legitimate discussion to have, I 

think. 

Dr. GOULD. Just with the Refuge Revenue Sharing Act, and I do 

not know the date, this is very specific to that particular action. 

LAKE LOWELL

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. I want to bring your attention to a situation 

that is particular to southern Idaho and ask for your assistance in 

resolving what seems to be a completely unnecessary dispute between the people of Idaho and Fish and Wildlife Service. 

As you know, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge in Idaho’s Canyon County is in the process 

of creating a new comprehensive management plan. The Deer Flat 

Wildlife Refuge is located on Lake Lowell, a manmade lake in 

southern Idaho. Lake Lowell was created over 100 years ago as an 

irrigation reservoir and remains in service for this purpose to this 

day. It has a long history of being utilized not only for irrigation 

purposes but as a recreational lake where water skiing, fishing, 

boating, and other uses are not only permitted but encouraged. 

Needless to say, Lake Lowell is an integral part of the social and 

economic life of southern Idaho. 

Despite the fact that Lake Lowell is manmade, an irrigation reservoir, and a long-time recreational destination, Fish and Wildlife 

Service continues to hold onto the possibility that Lake Lowell 

could be closed to recreational uses in the future as part of a comprehensive management plan. The failure or unwillingness of Fish 

and Wildlife to take recreational curtailment off the table has 

caused a great deal of concern and controversy in Idaho’s Treasure 

Valley and rightfully so. 

In fact, I have got in my possession a letter from the area’s four 

state senators asking me to intervene in this matter legislatively 

if necessary to make sure that your agency does not move to end 

recreational uses on Lake Lowell. 

As a result of this hearing I would like to be able to tell these 

four senators that you will—I know that at a hearing like this I 

cannot ask you to commit to anything specific like that—but I 

would like to ask you to work with me to try to solve this problem 

in southeast Idaho because it is causing a great deal of consternation that does not need to be caused. 

Do you believe that recreation and species conservation are compatible? 

Dr. GOULD. Absolutely, and we will commit to work with you on 

this particular issue. It was actually a surprise to us that we had 


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authority over the surface uses of that lake, and we came to that 

conclusion when we started into the CCP process. We have no intention of going through a process without recognizing the fact that 

this has been a recreational lake for as long as it has been in existence. 

We will work with you to both recognize that fact and get to a 

position and get to a place where the local folks are comfortable 

with the management of both the refuge and how it is dealt with 

and from a recreational perspective. 

Mr. SIMPSON. We need to do that as quickly as possible because 

if you want to get a lot of people upset at a hearing, just bring up 

the issue, and it will bring up a lot of recreationalists out there 

that think that it is nuts. I am not saying that you have been unreasonable. I am just saying that they believe that. 

Dr. GOULD. Potential. I understand. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yes, and so we want to work with you to solve this 

problem so that it can be used for the recreational uses it has for 

years and years and years and also serve as the wildlife refuge that 

is important to the area. 

Dr. GOULD. Sure. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I think we are pretty much finished here. I thank 

you for being patient and waiting during the voting process. Thank 

you for the work you do. I look forward to working with you in the 

future, and if there is anybody we can call on the other side of the 

rotunda, let us know. We would be happy to do so. 

Thank you. 


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THURSDAY, MARCH 17, 2011. 

THE U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY FY 2012 BUDGET 

WITNESSES 

DR. MARCIA K. McNUTT, DIRECTOR, U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 

SUZETTE KIMBALL, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 

CARLA BURZYK, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF BUDGET, PLANNING, AND INTEGRATION, U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 

OPENING REMARKS OF CHAIRMAN SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Good morning. The committee will come to order. 

Good morning, Director McNutt. I would like to welcome you 

along with the deputy director and the budget director, and thank 

you for being here today. We have a lot to talk about, so I will be 

relatively brief, not entirely, but relatively brief. 

The 2012 budget request for the USGS is one of those where I 

wish we could have someone from the White House come up, place 

a hand on the Bible, raise his or her right hand, and proceed to 

explain him or herself, because this is a budget that does four 

things as I see it. First, by cutting $89 million and 230 FTEs from 

core science programs, this budget runs counter to the President’s 

commitment to restore science to its rightful place. 

Second, by proposing Washington Monument-type cuts to programs like endocrine disruptor research and streamgages that the 

American people deeply care about, the budget shows that this Administration is willing to play games with this Congress by testing 

our resolve during these serious fiscal times. 

Third, by inheriting the full funding responsibilities for Landsat 9 and 10 from NASA without any of NASA’s $19 billion budget, 

and by offsetting the $48 million increase for Landsat from other 

core science programs, this budget is a sign of the untenable situation we are likely to be in two years from now when the Administration sends up a budget request for Landsat that is nearly 10 

times the increase proposed in fiscal year 2012. We might just as 

well rename USGS to National Land Imaging Agency. 

Lastly, water is life. How is it that the Nation’s premier science 

agency can claim that climate change is real and is happening rapidly, and that these changes are having profound effects on our Nation’s water supplies, and then go and cut its own water budget by 

10 percent? What does this say about the Nation when our priorities do not even include one of the most basic ingredients to 

human survival? 

With the United States borrowing 40 cents on every federal dollar we spend, there is near-universal, bipartisan agreement that we 

need to cut back on spending. But there is a right way to go about 

it, and there are ways that make absolutely no sense at all. This 

budget is one of those problems. 

The Administration has sent to this Committee a budget for the 

USGS that is simply, in my view, unacceptable. We have a lot of 

work to do between now and October 1st. I look forward to our discussions today and appreciate your help in providing this Committee with the information it needs to do its job. 


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With that, I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Virginia, 

Mr. Moran. 

OPENING REMARKS OF CONGRESSMAN MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to associate 

myself with the remarks of the distinguished chairman. I did not 

find anything that you said that I would disagree with. In fact, I 

agree strongly with the points that you have made, Mr. Chairman, 

with regard to this budget. 

Before I start, though, I do want to thank Dr. McNutt for her important work on the scientific response to the BP Transocean Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf, and Ms. Burzyk and Dr. 

Kimball and all of the staff of USGS, you do a great job. Dr. 

McNutt’s experiences as a distinguished geophysicist and expert in 

marine sciences made her contributions to the Gulf oil response 

vital. I hope we do have time to talk about lessons learned from 

that oil disaster because there is an important role for both enhanced federal regulation and enhanced federal science. 

As I say, though, Mr. Chairman, I could not agree more with you 

that this budget request is deeply troubling. It does include a large 

funding increase but for new responsibilities, the cost of future 

Landsat rockets. There is an overall increase of $50 million for 

Landsat but many of the core, reliable and necessary science programs at the USGS have been cut to make room for Landsat. That 

does not make sense. So I hope we can work together to figure this 

out and to rectify I think the wrongheaded decision, frankly, that 

the Administration has made. 

The Nation does need Landsat but it also needs the research, as 

the chairman says, on water quality, on groundwater streamgages, 

mineral science, mapping, biology, earth sciences. All of those are 

cut in this request. The budget requires the loss of 230 full-timeequivalent positions, the most of any Interior bureau and the second only in this whole subcommittee bill to the 1,760 FTE reduction at the Forest Service, which of course is in the Department of 

Agriculture. So here we are, an Administration that has committed 

itself to the advancement of science cutting 230 people in an agency that frankly is anything but a large bureaucracy. These are scientists that are highly skilled and deeply committed. So we should 

not allow this reduction and loss of scientific talent. 

Land management government activities at all levels and a wide 

range of industrial activities all rely on the science and inventory 

work accomplished by the USGS. We need to support our Nation’s 

physical and biological sciences if we are going to make the right 

decisions. So it is pennywise and pound foolish to cut these research and development programs. 

With that, I again thank you for chairing and holding the hearing, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you. I appreciate your comments and agree 

with them. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Dr. McNutt, welcome today and we look forward 

to your testimony and working with you on this budget. 


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OPENING REMARKS OF MARCIA K. MCNUTT, DIRECTOR

Dr. MCNUTT. Thank you very much for your statements, and 

good morning, Chairman Simpson, distinguished members of the 

subcommittee, and happy St. Patrick’s Day to all. 

I would like to begin my testimony with a passage from a forthcoming book by Washington Post reporter Joel Achenbach that is 

entitled, ‘‘A Hole at the Bottom of the Sea: The Race to Kill the 

BP Oil Gusher.’’ In the book’s prologue, he describes how a critical 

breakthrough in stopping the oil spill occurred in an obscure USGS 

lab. He ends the prologue as follows: ‘‘In crunch time, call in the 

nerds as well as the cowboys. You never know when someone’s fantastically esoteric expertise may be called upon to save the country.’’ And then he dedicates the book to the Horizon 11, not forgotten, and to all the people everywhere who do the hard work unseen. 

So why am I telling you this story? Well, the President’s 2012 

budget for the USGS is a delicate balancing act between executing 

the Administration’s top priorities while still maintaining the 

USGS core mission, all within an austere budget cap, so that the 

USGS will be able to respond no matter where, no matter how, 

whenever we are called upon to do our job to help save the Nation 

unseen. 

In a particular example from the Macondo well, one of the heroes 

in the story is a groundwater researcher, because not only water 

flows in reservoirs. His timely work avoided $3 billion in additional 

oil pollution to the Gulf. We have to maintain talent like that despite tough choices in our water programs. 

As another example, Japan was just hit by a tragic and devastating 9.0 earthquake and tsunami, and shame on us if we do not 

learn from their misfortune. Japan is the most advanced nation in 

terms of seismic hazard, and their earthquake early warning system saved thousands of lives. 

With ARRA funding, USGS got a big leap up on our own early 

warning system in the Advanced National Seismic System. Funding to implement a prototype is now caught up in the uncertainty 

of the 2011 budget but we continue to plan for it when our funds 

become available. 

The President’s 2012 budget does include provision to begin the 

National Land Imaging Program, as you mentioned. It is a home 

for a Landsat series of satellites. Landsat, over its nearly 40-year 

history of continuous monitoring of Earth from space, has become 

the gold standard for revealing land use from space on a planetary 

scale at 30-meter resolution. Users include educators, government 

at all levels, agribusiness, water managers, the commercial sector 

and NGOs and they have downloaded more than 4 million scenes. 

The advent of Google Earth has lowered the technology threshold 

to data usability for all. While NASA will still be our partner with 

responsibility for spacecraft instrument integration and launch by 

aligning budgetary authority with the USGS, major programmatic 

decisions will be made with the best interest of the user community 

in mind. Landsat belongs with the USGS just like weather satellites belong with NOAA. 


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USGS is also benefiting from another Administration priority, 

America’s Great Outdoors. Funds will allow us to work with existing partners on the landscape level in places like the Great Lakes 

on invasive Asian carp or on the Chesapeake on endocrine disruption in fish populations. In many cases, these funds are helping to 

maintain key capabilities in mapping, GIS, toxic-substance hydrology, water quality and other core functions that are suffering from 

cuts to our programs elsewhere in the budget. 

Finally, in closing, thank you to this subcommittee for your support in the USGS recent realignment in our management structure. 

The budget you have before you reflects the new structure which 

aligns our management with our performance metrics, with our 

strategic plan, and with our budget. The mission of the USGS has 

in no way changed and our programs are intact. Rather, I can now 

be more accountable to you and the American public for the important science and science services we provide in natural hazards, energy, minerals, water, land use, climate change adaptation, mapping and ecosystem science. I want to thank you for the strong, bipartisan and very fair support of the USGS you have provided, and 

I am happy to answer your questions. 

[The statement of Marcia K. McNutt follows:] 


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Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, and let me echo what Mr. Moran said 

in his opening statement, for the great work that you did during 

the crisis in the Gulf. There are a lot of people willing to point fingers and everything else about what went on there but there were 

a lot of good people working on it that did a tremendous job, and 

we appreciate the work the USGS did in that regard. 

We are going to have some votes, I guess about 10:15 or something like that, and I understand that you have a Defense Committee—— 

Mr. MORAN. We have General Petraeus at Defense. 

Mr. SIMPSON. So I am going to turn over my time to you to start 

with if you like so you can get your questions in. 

Mr. MORAN. That is extremely considerate of you, Mr. Chairman. 

I hope I acted like that when I was chair. I do not know. 

Mr. SIMPSON. You did. 

Mr. MORAN. I owe you big time. 

OUTYEAR COSTS OF LANDSAT

Well, let’s focus first of all on the $48 million increase for outyear 

Landsat missions because it is coming from base programs that we 

feel are vital, and that is clear on both sides of the aisle. I have 

seen a chart that shows that the plan is for the USGS share of 

Landsat 9 and 10 missions to skyrocket. Now, of course, that is a 

pun that the staff put in there deliberately. But here we are with 

zero in fiscal year 2011, it goes to $48 million of course in this new 

budget, in fiscal year 2012, but then to $159 million in fiscal year 

2013 and $410 million in fiscal year 2014. I mean, just two years 

from now, $410 million to a $1 billion agency. That is obviously 

over 40 percent of the entire agency. Are we going to lose all of the 

biology and hydrology parts of the USGS or lose all of the geology 

and mapping parts of the Survey? I think you should give us a 

sense of if this trend continues, if the budget goes in the way that 

the White House has recommended, it looks like they are going to 

wipe out major roles and responsibilities that USGS has today. Can 

you address that, Dr. McNutt? 

Dr. MCNUTT. Well, certainly we need to work with the Administration on what the outyear costs are and we would certainly not 

support a model in which Landsat erodes the core mission. I do not 

think the Administration supports that nor obviously does this 

committee. We have been assured by OMB many times in conversations with them that the cuts to the USGS program even in 

the 2012 budget should not be associated with the growth in 

Landsat, and that is what we were told. 

Mr. MORAN. That is untrue though, unfortunately. I know it is 

what you were told. 

Mr. SIMPSON. OMB lies. 

PROGRAM QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE

Mr. MORAN. It has been known to happen. It appears that some 

of your highest performing programs such as toxic substances, hydrology and the National Water Quality Assessment Program are 

slated for large reductions. To what degree did USGS and OMB 

use program quality and performance criteria when determining 

which programs to reduce? Because the information we have been 


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getting is that these are the last programs you would want to cut 

because they have been performing so well and efficiently. 

Dr. MCNUTT. To the extent that we could, we did use program 

quality, and let me give you an example. The Climate Effects Network was created before the establishment of the Climate Science 

Centers and the establishment of the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives. It was a program that seemed on track and to be a 

high-performing program but then it got overtaken by events. The 

Department of the Interior went a different direction in terms of 

how it was going to be doing data integration and providing data 

services for climate programs and so it no longer seemed that the 

CEN was the way that we should be going about it, and that is 

why we offered up that program as a cut. However, the cuts that 

we had to offer up, and USGS was asked to offer a variety of scenarios—a 3 percent cut, a 5 percent cut, a 7 percent cut, and at 

one point a 9 percent cut—and the cuts we were asked to offer up 

had to go so deep into our budget that not all of the scenarios included simply low-performing programs or programs that were simply no longer needed. We just did not have enough of those, I am 

sorry to say—well, I am happy to say. 

HAZARDS PROGRAMS

Mr. MORAN. Sure. The world’s attention has been focused on the 

earthquake and tsunami in Japan but I see this request has a $2 

million reduction for earthquake grants. We just heard about BP 

Deepwater Horizon. That was not a lot of money USGS had but 

they did perform a major role. What will be the impact of that? Are 

those grants not very relevant to what we just saw happen on the 

other side of the planet? 

Dr. MCNUTT. Well, let me give you a very real—— 

Mr. MORAN. Let me throw this in too because you have got a reduction for the National Volcano Early Warning System, which 

falls in the same kind of situation. Why? 

Dr. MCNUTT. Let me give you a very specific example. Again, all 

of our programs had to take cuts so there is basically no part of 

our portfolio that is unscathed when we have to take a 7 percent 

cut overall in our science investigations. So unfortunately, tough 

choices had to be made. But as a real example of the effects of 

these cuts to our external grants programs and earthquake hazards, yesterday the president of Caltech, Jean-Lou Chameau, paid 

me a visit to talk about areas of common interest, and as he was 

leaving, he happened to let drop, he said I have to thank the USGS 

because, he said, the fact that I am here in this country and the 

fact that I am President of Caltech is thanks to the USGS because, 

he said, I came here to the USGS on a one-year fellowship to do 

a master’s degree at Stanford University, and after that one year 

I was in danger of being deported and I was saved to complete a 

PhD here thanks to a USGS earthquake research grant that allowed me to stay and complete a PhD at Stanford. His earthquake 

research grant was to do a detailed study of strong ground motion 

shaking in the Marina District of San Francisco just years before 

that area was strongly hit by the Loma Prieta earthquake, and his 

analysis of the shaking in that district, the Marina District, actually very well matched the actual damage that was done and alVerDate Mar 15 2010 04:44 Jun 29, 2011 Jkt 066897 PO 00000 Frm 00285 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A897P2.XXX A897P2

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lowed planners in that area to prepare infrastructure in advance 

of that earthquake. So that is the kind of work that is done. That 

is the kind of person that is supported and that is the kind of leader we have in this country now, thanks to USGS earthquake 

grants. 

Mr. MORAN. That is a great story. I do think that I will mention 

to the ranking member of the full committee that in looking down 

the cities that are at highest risk for active volcanoes, Seattle and 

Tacoma, Washington, are at the top of the list. Mr. Dicks may have 

some interest in that fact. 

WATER RESOURCES PROGRAMS

The chairman mentioned water quality. You won a $9 million increase for this WaterSMART initiative to do a census of water but 

your proven water programs, like the National Water Quality Assessment Program, you have cut almost $7 million, the groundwater resources cut $2 million. I mean, it is nice to know where 

they are but if you are not doing anything about what you are 

aware of, then it does not seem to be the best use of resources. I 

will conclude with that. There is a lot of stuff I would like to ask 

about endocrine disruptors and so on but I want to consider the 

chairman’s generous latitude to go first. But do you want to say 

anything about the water quality? 

Mr. SIMPSON. If you have other questions you would like to ask, 

because I know you have to go to the Defense hearing. 

Mr. MORAN. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will just bring 

then the other issue because it does have a relationship to water 

quality, and that is endocrine disruptors. I know you have been 

working on this. We are finding out more information. We are finding that the small-mouth bass that not only do we have a situation 

where 90 percent of the male small-mouth bass in the Potomac 

River right outside the doorway really are intersex. They have both 

testes and eggs. But this is a situation that apparently exists in 

many rivers throughout the country. Can you just share a little bit 

of what you are finding in the context of the water quality programs that you operate? 

Dr. MCNUTT. Well, Mr. Moran, you have been a strong supporter 

of this program, and one thing that has been really heartening to 

our scientists at the USGS is to the extent that you have really embraced the science of this, and I remember talking to you about 

this last year, how much we felt it was important to make this a 

national issue, not just a Potomac issue, and the cuts to this program, unfortunately, while we will continue with the funding to 

Chesapeake through America’s Great Outdoors, we will lose the national focus, and I think I mentioned to you last year, one thing 

we were learning from broadening it with the national focus was 

that some of the drivers that we were focusing in on that we 

thought we know the answer from focusing in on the Chesapeake, 

and then once we broadened it to a national focus, we realized, oh, 

wait, we are finding places that are completely far away from any 

human influence and still finding some of the same problems. This 

is causing us to look more broadly at some of the drivers. Now that 

we are losing that national focus, that is going to, I think, cause 

us to lose some of that ability to again look more broadly at some 


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of the wider issues that could be causing this behavior, and that 

will be a loss for science. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you. The more people that learn about this, 

the number of fish and crustaceans we have apparently in rivers 

all over the country, the more concerned they are about eating 

them, but it obviously would concern anybody when you know that 

a species has both male and female reproductive sexual characteristics. It is disturbing. There is something wrong obviously. But apparently there is no reason to believe that you cannot eat them. 

They may be safe to eat. It is just that this water is in many cases 

the same water we are drinking and it may be having a similar effect although longer term in the human body. Is that kind of what 

you are coming up with? 

Dr. MCNUTT. The questions we need to ask are exactly the questions that you are asking now because this is an environmental effect in the water, in the environment that these fish are spending 

their lifecycles. To what extent is this a human health issue, and 

the entire reason why the USGS is concerned about it is for exactly 

that reason. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you very much, Dr. McNutt, and thank you, 

Mr. Chairman. Thanks very much. I really appreciate your consideration. 

LANDSAT

Mr. SIMPSON. Again, thanks for being here today. We appreciate 

it. I think as our opening statements and our comments suggest, 

there are areas where even in this climate of trying to reduce budgets, Republicans and Democrats agree, and one of them is that the 

USGS is one of the valuable science agencies in this government, 

and we have some real concerns about the direction that the budget is heading, whether it is from OMB or whomever. It causes us 

all a great deal of concern when we are reducing the resources for 

water management and water science, and for them to suggest 

that—and I guess what they were saying is, your budget would 

have taken these cuts regardless of whether Landsat went over to 

USGS or not. I have a hard time believing that, and I think the 

USGS is probably an appropriate place for Landsat to go, but when 

you shift it over there, you need to take the money that goes with 

it and shift it over there also, which causes me a great deal of concern. Landsat 8 goes up in December of 2012? 

Dr. MCNUTT. December 2012, yes. 

Mr. SIMPSON. When are 9 and 10 scheduled to go up? 

Dr. MCNUTT. According to the funding wedge that we have put 

together, if the funding came on schedule, it would be in the 2017 

time frame, so sort of a five-year launch window, assuming that the 

satellites are designed for a five-year lifetime, mission lifetime. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Designed for a five-year mission lifetime? 

Dr. MCNUTT. Right. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Is that how long they typically last or can they be 

extended? Could you extend out or delay, if you will, the launching 

of 9 and 10 if that were necessary in order to get the budget in 

line? 

Dr. MCNUTT. You know, we could look into that. Right now the 

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nents and things like that, they do carry fuel for a 10-year lifetime 

and so that is the expendable on board, which is the important 

thing in determining their lifetime. In terms of the components on 

board, they are designed for a five-year lifetime. We could do a 

study on what it would take to extend the component lifetime for 

a design lifetime that would be longer. Of course, our experience 

in terms of the lifetime of these satellites has been that, thanks to 

the good work of the people at NASA and their contractors, the experience has been that barring a launch failure or something of 

that sort, they have been pretty hearty spacecraft and have actually exceeded their design lives. 

Mr. SIMPSON. We may have some language within this appropriation bill directing a study of just that and the impacts of delaying it for a year or two in order to try to get the fiscal part of it 

in place too, because I am concerned that we are shifting it all over 

there, and I have seen this happen in federal agencies before where 

they take on new responsibilities shifted from another agency 

which the other agency loves to shift over there. They just do not 

want to shift any of the money with it, and that becomes problematic. So we would like to work with you on that. 

Dr. MCNUTT. And we would be happy to look at that. 

CLIMATE CHANGE

Mr. SIMPSON. I do think the appropriate place for Landsat is in 

the USGS. Along those same lines, you and I have discussed and 

had conversations about the money being spent on climate change 

both within our Interior budget and governmentwide, and I still 

have the same concerns that I have had for the last couple of years 

about the coordination of the amount of money we are spending on 

climate change. What we are trying to find out is if agencies are 

duplicating efforts and so forth and if we need a government agency—I do not know how to say it but that oversees the scope of climate change funding. I am not sure if that is the smart way to go 

or what, but if you had a line item that was climate change money 

and a federal agency that then looked at who could do what and 

agencies like the Forest Service, the Defense Department or whoever spends money on climate change actually apply to them with 

proposals. Someone could look and see, is this already being done 

within the Federal Government, is it a duplication of what we currently have, is it a high priority as opposed to something else that 

some other agency is proposing. The coordination of all the money 

we are spending on climate change is more of a concern to me than 

the amount of money we are spending on studying climate change, 

and I am trying to figure out if there is a better way to do it. Do 

you have any thoughts on that? 

Dr. MCNUTT. You know, I have been thinking about this since 

you first mentioned it, and what I was trying to do was take out 

the word ‘‘climate change’’ and put some other word in there just 

for almost historical record or reference. Climate change is something that is relatively new in terms of a topic in the Federal Government and so the other word I put in there was ‘‘water’’ because 

we know that there are many federal agencies that have purviews 

in water, and they have stakes in water that have grown up in sort 

of a hodgepodge way over many decades in an uncoordinated way 


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because of the histories of those agencies. I was thinking, because 

climate change is new, we have an opportunity now to avoid some 

of the issues that we have with water by intervening early on, and 

some of the issues right now with climate are that because it is an 

early stage, most of the issues with climate are research and they 

have not really gotten into the real issues of applications and policy 

and that sort of thing. So, could there be an opportunity to say 

okay, if we do the research part right and then apportion out the 

policy and management to the right agencies as they have their 

jobs to do when the time comes, will that simplify things and avoid 

some of the issues that we have had with water; could we do that 

right. And I was thinking yes, maybe that does make sense, because we see that for example, NSF has a huge role to play with 

research in climate change for the academic community, maybe we 

could have better federal coordination for the research that goes on, 

and if that could be done for federal research, then perhaps yes, we 

could not have some of the issues that we have with water now. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Well, as I have said before, after the events of 

9/11, everyone that came into my office whenever they wanted anything, whether it was a federal agency or whether it was a group 

outside that wanted funding for whatever program, they always 

tied it to the issue of homeland security because that was the key 

phrase at the time. Now the key phrase is climate change and I 

think there are agencies trying to rebuild science programs that 

were actually taken and given to the USGS years ago under, I 

think, Secretary Babbitt did some of that, and now those agencies, 

you know, they want their own science program. What I want is 

an efficient program where we know what we are doing and we are 

not duplicating, we are spending taxpayers’ dollars wisely, and if 

there is a better way to do that, I look forward to having some conversations with you about this and how we might be able to reorganize it. As I look at different agencies, I have kind of thought if 

there is an agency, if this were a smart idea, and I am not saying 

it is because I thought of it, but if this—— 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. It is a very smart idea. 

Mr. SIMPSON. If this were a smart idea, where would you put it, 

and I thought of different agencies. There is talk about NOAA, but 

NOAA really deals with oceans and the atmosphere, not with the 

ground that we live on, more than anything else, and it keeps coming back to me that the agency that seems to have the role and 

mission would be the USGS, but again, I would not want that to 

displace the important work that you currently do. 

STREAMGAGES

Last question before I turn over to Ms. McCollum. We are going 

to have votes, I guess, in about 10 minutes or 15 minutes. What 

happens under this proposal in your budget with streamgages? 

They are very important to the West, and all over the country, 

really. 

Dr. MCNUTT. Yes. Well, we do have some funding reduction in 

that area but we are trying to absorb it all in administration and 

not take any actual cuts to streamgages, but of course you know 

that it all is predicated on cooperators in many cases, so we 

have—— 


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Mr. SIMPSON. States are having a hard time getting their resources. 

Dr. MCNUTT. Yes, states are having problems, and we have 

issues with of course many cases where we are vulnerable elsewhere in the federal budget with what happens with Army Corps’ 

budget and other places too. We do have $800,000 in reductions but 

we are absorbing that in administration. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Ms. McCollum. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

WATER RESOURCES PROGRAMS

It is good to see you, and you were busy Friday and I was busy 

Friday. I was busy as a mom and you were busy as a scientist. So 

I want to thank you for all the work that you folks are doing, and 

I just got this e-mail this morning from Japan. I am just going to 

quote part of it. ‘‘It is hard to sleep when you are thinking about 

the next quake that is coming. The possible nuclear meltdown is 

something we have all been really upset about. Thank God for the 

American government telling us to get at least 80 kilometers 

away.’’ He is fine. He is five hours away. But I have to tell you that 

the American citizens not only dialed in on what our press was 

saying because our press was saying what our government scientists were saying, and so thank you for all the work that you did 

not only for Americans overseas, people here who care about what 

is going on in Japan but for English speakers all over the world. 

Thank you for your work. 

So if you take a second after I ask my question, maybe kind of 

let us know what your role is, and I know you are going to do lessons learned from this as well, but I would like to talk about water. 

Minnesota takes its water very seriously. In fact, our citizens taxed 

ourselves for a legacy amendment to make sure that we are doing 

the right thing with water. In 2009, I was given the privilege of 

giving a speech to the Water Resources Center at the University 

of Minnesota on sustaining clean water as a public trust, what do 

we do to make sure that it is there for the next generation, so the 

next mom or dad when they take their child to a drinking fountain 

is not worried about it, and people in this country know that they 

are going to have access to potable water. 

Now, USGS has outstanding scientists and they played a critical 

role in Minnesota being able to move forward with what it is doing, 

but as you have heard, we do have concerns about the proposed 

budget cuts and maybe one of the ways to do that is to take the 

money along with the program that they have been assigned, Mr. 

Chair. Count me as an ally. But there are a few programs I just 

want to highlight for the committee where small investments by 

the USGS have made a big impact on Minnesota, and these programs are now, I believe, threatened by the proposed reduction. 

The first is the Water Resources Institute. The head of the Water 

Resources Institute this year happens to be Dr. Deborah 

Swackhamer, a professor who heads up the Minnesota Water Resources Center. The doctor has just authored a landmark water 

sustainability framework report that is the first of its kind in the 

entire Nation and I believe other states should be looking at doing 

the same thing. It helps give us a 25-year roadmap. It points out 


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all the work that we still have left to do to make sure that we have 

an adequate, safe drinking supply, and I am going to give you a 

copy of this when we are done. 

Now, you have kind of explained why you have chosen, not you 

personally but why you are faced with the tough choices that you 

have been making as you did across-the-board cuts, but this is a 

great report and it kind of highlights a lot of things, and I am 

going to quote from the report because this just kind of, to use a 

term, blows you out of the water: ‘‘Completion of the Minnesota geological survey should be accelerated. At a minimum, the current 

investigation should be doubled to allow completion by’’—and you 

are thinking, well, doubled, you know, two, three years—‘‘doubled 

to allow completion by 10 to 12 years’’ to find out what is going on 

with our aquifers, to find out what is going on with our groundwater. So I was going to give this to you on Friday. I will give this 

to you now. 

Dr. MCNUTT. Thank you. 

WATER SHORTAGES

Ms. MCCOLLUM. So here is my question. The GAO has put out 

a study showing 36 states are at the risk of water shortages within 

the next 10 years. I am not one of those states. I want to make 

sure my water is clean and drinkable but I am not one of those 

states, but I care about our country. That is my job. How can states 

be prepared for such a crisis if you are not able to invest in state 

water research like this? What do we need to do to make ourselves 

really knowledgeable about the water that we all take for granted? 

And I think that that is part of our problem. Even in this country 

where there are limited water shortages, we still take it for granted. 

Dr. MCNUTT. Okay. Well, Congresswoman McCollum, you asked 

some pretty tough questions, and first of all, let me start by saying 

I am not sure if you know this but I am a Minnesota native. My 

family is from Minnesota from before the Great Sioux Uprising, 

many, many generations in Minnesota. I know how much Minnesotans love their water. They swim in it and play in it in the summer. They ice skate on it and fish on it in the winter. Minnesotans 

actually do not take their water for granted even though it is in 

plentiful supply. I remember as a child how the lakes in Minnesota 

were suffering from eutrophic conditions because of all the runoff 

from fertilizer on people’s lawns and how the University of Minnesota started some important studies on how to improve water 

quality in the lakes, and the predictions were that it was going to 

take generations to improve it and yet with simple steps within 

years lakes improved dramatically and people saw that by doing 

simple things, they could within their lifetimes see their lakes improve and it made a difference. So the lesson I took from that as 

a child was, never underestimate the power of people taking their 

actions into their own hands and understanding how their life 

choices can make a difference. 

So what I think is important is the USGS as the great integrator 

across the country between the states that are haves like Minnesota and the have-not like Arizona and Nevada, the consistently 

water-starved states, and how we can provide the important inforVerDate Mar 15 2010 04:44 Jun 29, 2011 Jkt 066897 PO 00000 Frm 00291 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A897P2.XXX A897P2

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mation through things like WaterSMART, the water census, and I 

know that there is concern about WaterSMART but we have not 

done a water census on water availability and use. As our population is changing, people are moving from many of the wateravailable states to the water-starved states and we need to know 

how that is changed and we have to know what the projections are 

for the future. So WaterSMART is an important program, and it 

is a tough choice that we are having to cut back on a lot of this 

groundwater monitoring. The analogy I make is that with our 

streamgages, it is easy to go out if you are an average citizen and 

see how my water is flowing but it is not easy to go out and see 

how my aquifer is doing. You cannot say oh, how is that aquifer 

doing without someone who really knows what they are doing. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. But my point is, in Minnesota where we have 

started doing things, we are saying it is going to take us 10 to 12 

years. What is the timeline for the Federal Government to even be 

able to collect information or work in conjunction? Because many 

states are not doing anything. 

Dr. MCNUTT. Well, I know, and with the cuts in our groundwater 

program instead of having 11 percent of it done on schedule, it is 

going to be 2 percent. 

Mr. SIMPSON. One of the things that—and this is not really a 

question for you because I know you have to do what OMB says. 

But when I look throughout the Interior budget, I have some questions about where they place priorities. Land acquisition for the 

Land and Water Conservation Fund, they fully funded at $900 million while they have cut some important programs in USGS for 

water and other things, and that is something that is within the 

jurisdiction of this Committee to look at how those funds are being 

spent, so I am sure that we will be looking at some of those things. 

Do you have any other questions you would like to ask? We are 

going to have a vote here in about a minute. 

THE INTERNATIONAL ROLE OF THE USGS

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Just maybe, I mean, we are focused on things 

here nationally but the international cooperation between scientists 

and what we are learning and sharing, because you have a national role that is very, very important to all of us but you also 

have an international role as part of the international scientific 

community. And then when the bell goes off, we will go vote then, 

Mr. Chair. 

Dr. MCNUTT. Yes. Our international role especially comes to play 

in something like this latest disaster in Japan, and our hazards 

program has worked internationally on many fronts. A good example is the VDAP program, the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program, which is credited by the State Department with saving thousands of lives through early warning when volcanoes are set to 

erupt and cause volcanic landslides and these lahars that are going 

to come down and destroy villages. In the case of Japan, given Japan’s intrinsic homegrown community, which is very advanced, we 

will work hand in glove with the Japanese seismological community in responding to this disaster and work with them and with 

USAID in the aftermath of this to learn what we can that will improve our disaster preparedness. For example, initial things that 


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we are learning from this is that amazingly enough, buildings came 

through the earthquake itself very well. The death toll from the 

earthquake is probably going to be maybe hundreds, where as the 

death toll from the tsunami literally thousands. And what is interesting about that is, if you look at the three major earthquakes to 

strike Japan in this century, there was the Kanto earthquake in, 

I think it was 1923, that was near Tokyo but before Tokyo was the 

size it is today that killed something like 140,000 people and then 

there was the Kobe earthquake in 1995 that killed 6,800 people. 

Those two earthquakes were both in the magnitude 7 range. The 

difference between 140,000 people and 7,000 people was earthquake engineering. The difference between the 7,000 people that 

Kobe killed and the couple hundred that were killed by this earthquake is the earthquake early warning system, and this was a 

magnitude 9 earthquake. So that is what earthquake early warning can do for you. 

But now the tsunami, I mean, talk about sea-level rise on 

steroids, you know, a 30-foot tidal wave coming in wiping everything out in its wake. People literally, you cannot outrun it. We 

often talk about vertical evacuation being the preferred route for 

a local tsunami and there were not enough solid structures for people to vertically evacuate into because they would go to the upper 

story of homes and the entire homes would be swept out from underneath them. Some people were able to get to sturdy bridges or 

overpasses, and if they were taller than 30 feet, then that might 

be enough. But, how many bridges are taller than 30 feet? It was 

truly tragic. So we will definitely be learning a lot of lessons from 

this. 

Now, we are much more fortunate here because when you look 

at Japan, there are very few places in Japan that are not prone to 

a local tsunami. The entire east coast of Japan is prone to this kind 

of disaster whereas we only have a limited part of the United 

States that will have a local tsunami hazard—part of Alaska and 

the Pacific part of Oregon and Washington, but that is the only 

part that will have a local tsunami, so we are much more fortunate 

than Japan. 

MINERAL RESOURCES PROGRAM

Mr. SIMPSON. Let me ask one other question. The fiscal year 

2012 budget proposes to cut the Mineral Resources program by 

$9.6 million, or 18 percent, with a corresponding reduction of 52 

FTEs. Give me an overview of the program and why it is important 

to America’s economic and national security interests. 

Dr. MCNUTT. This is a unique program in the Federal Government. There is no duplication here, no other program like it. The 

USGS provides a service to the Nation by taking input from all of 

the mineral industries around the country, stripping off any industry proprietary information and assembling all that information, 

rolling up into statistics that are useful for the industry itself as 

well as the Federal Government on commodities, on what is useful 

on supply, demand, what is being mined, what is being processed, 

et cetera, and provides that to everyone in the public domain in a 

way that is extremely helpful. No one in the industry could possibly trust anyone else in the industry to do that. They would not 


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provide the data. And our minerals experts are geologists who are 

trusted to do this in a way because they understand the entire 

periodic table basically, so they are able to do this in a way that 

is extremely valuable. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you. We have got votes going on now, and 

I am sorry—I mean, some of the members on both sides of the aisle 

had hearings in Defense this morning and some other things going 

on. It is a crazy time around here when we are trying to get all 

the hearings in. 

Dr. MCNUTT. Well, thank you all for your time. 

Mr. SIMPSON. But I appreciate you being here. As you can tell, 

I think among both Republicans and Democrats, you have got some 

fans in Congress for what the USGS does and the way they do it, 

and we want to work with you on this budget to try to address 

some of the concerns that we have as we move into the 2012 budget, if we ever finish the 2011 budget. I appreciate it. Thank you. 


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(333) 

THURSDAY, MARCH 17, 2011. 

BUREAU OF OCEAN ENERGY MANAGEMENT, REGULATION, AND ENFORCEMENT (BOEMRE) AND OFFICE OF 

NATURAL RESOURCES REVENUE (ONRR) FY 2012 

BUDGET REQUESTS 

WITNESSES 

MICHAEL BROMWICH, DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF OCEAN ENERGY MANAGEMENT, REGULATION, AND ENFORCEMENT, 

GREGORY GOULD, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF NATURAL RESOURCES REVENUE 

DEBORAH GIBBS TSCHUDY, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF NATURAL 

RESOURCES REVENUE 

OPENING REMARKS OF CHAIRMAN SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. The committee will come to order. Today we meet 

to discuss the fiscal year 2012 budget for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement and the Office of 

Natural Resources Revenue. 

The transition of the MMS has been a large and expensive but 

also a necessary undertaking. In light of the numerous problems 

MMS had with the royalties and last summer’s BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, I supported funding increases to better manage our 

offshore mineral resources and federal royalties. There is no doubt 

that we need to improve workplace safety, drilling safety, and royalty collection and accountability. It will take a larger staff and 

more resources to do this. 

At the same time there will be no blank check coming from this 

subcommittee. We expect results from appropriated dollars and will 

continue to rigorously conduct oversight at BOEMRE and ONRR. 

Did I say those right? 

Mr. BROMWICH. Perfect. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Recently two permits have been issued for offshore 

drilling. I understand that it may take some time after the tragedy 

last summer to review and revise the agency’s procedures and actions, but it has been almost a year. Since then oil prices have increased dramatically, and people in the Gulf have been without 

good-paying jobs in a terrible recession. Purchasing leases and 

scheduling crews and rigs for development of offshore is no easy 

task and requires a great deal of investment. 

Worse, because of recent policies many of the jobs that should 

have been American have been exported to foreign countries. There 

needs to be a balance, and all of these issues need to be considered. 

Two permits in almost one year is not, frankly, going to cut it. 

The fiscal year 2012 budget asks for increases in several areas, 

many of which I agree. You ask for additional inspectors. Clearly 

you need them, and we support this request, but we also need to 


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ensure that we have adequate staff for environmental reviews and 

permitting. We need certainty that the funding we provide results 

in inspections, appropriate environmental analysis, and permits 

issued. 

I commend you for doing this in the renewable energy category 

but urge you to also do this in the conventional energy category. 

As has been discussed in our GAO and IG hearings several weeks 

ago, I am very concerned about royalty collections and accountability. I applaud the efforts of this budget to ask for the funding 

necessary to drastically improve this program. We will be asking 

for progress updates and how appropriated dollars are being spent 

on this important issue. 

Finally, I want to thank you for being here today. This reorganization has been no easy task, and I look forward to working with 

you on many of these issues, and thank you and your staff for their 

hard work and assistance. 

And before I yield to Mr. Moran for his opening statement I 

would like to take just a moment to thank Chris Topik who is here 

with us today. This is going to be his last hearing after many years 

of service to the Interior Subcommittee. Chris came to the Interior 

Subcommittee on Appropriations as a detailee from the Forest 

Service in the mid 1990s, and since that time he has worked on 

a non-partisan basis to address many of the most critical issues 

facing our land management agencies. 

Chris is one of the most knowledgeable, professional, and widelyrespected individuals on the Appropriations Committee staff, and 

he will be greatly missed. Chris, we appreciate your dedication and 

commitment over the many years of public service and wish you all 

the best in your new endeavors, and I look forward to working with 

you in whatever they are. 

Mr. SIMPSON. And I yield to Mr. Moran for any opening statement he might have. 

OPENING REMARKS OF RANKING MEMBER, JAMES P. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank 

you for recognizing Chris. He has just been a tremendous asset for 

all of us. I think everyone knows that, and you know, I know you 

share my feeling as does Mr. Hinchey that, you know, so much of 

our success or failure rests on the backs of the staff that do so 

much of the work, and Chris does wonderful work. He is also invariably the source of the quotes that we are going to miss, but he 

has been wonderful. He is going to go to the Nature Conservancy. 

He eventually wants to make his way back out west. He loves 

those states like Idaho and California and Montana, but he is a 

wonderful person, and we will miss him greatly, and I know the 

agencies that we deal with will miss him as well. 

I will begin with some other comments with regard to this new 

organization, and Mr. Bromwich, thank you for taking it over. You 

have a very strong reputation for integrity and work ethic and a 

real commitment to seeing that things are done right, so I think 

that is a real stroke of good fortune that we have been able to have 

you take this over, what is really an awesome responsibility. 

Mr. Gould, thank you, and all of the staff that supports your 

work. 


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Almost a year ago, 11 months ago, April 20, news of that explosion on Transocean’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig broke and took 

the lives of 11 crew members. We all watched as one attempt after 

another failed to cap that spewing well. 

Between the explosion and the completion of the capping operation on August 2, almost five million barrels of oil spewed into the 

Gulf of Mexico, much more than had originally been suggested by 

BP and others. I mean, it was over 200 million gallons a day 

emptying into the Gulf. 

Now, needless to say, it has been a very tumultuous year for regulating offshore oil and gas drilling as the Chairman has said. The 

Interior Department had to restructure this bureaucracy that operated with what appeared to be some inherent conflicts of interest 

with the culture that many believed was just too subservient to the 

oil and gas industry. 

The new Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and 

Enforcement has had a challenging tenure, trying to ensure that 

another Gulf disaster does not occur, while, of course, being attacked by oil and gas interests in Congress. And those who represent those interests and the people whose jobs are dependent 

upon that industry are naturally speaking out, wanting those jobs 

to be restored. 

But I do not think, and I want to make this case, that I do not 

think that this is why we have rising gasoline prices. As we all 

know, the price of gasoline is set in the international market, and 

our net production, even with deep water drilling, opening up our 

conservation areas in Alaska and the Atlantic and Pacific coast 

would have no immediate impact on world oil prices and a minimal 

impact over the next decade. 

The Deepwater Horizon blowout proves beyond a doubt that 

there are inherent risks to drilling offshore, and it really undermines the drill, baby, drill mantra that we have heard from some. 

Drilling at all costs to satisfy this Nation’s rapacious energy needs 

is both reckless and costly. When you think that we are using up 

more energy than China and Japan combined, 25 percent of the 

world’s energy for just 41⁄2 percent of the world’s population. That 

puts it in context. 

The truth is that we will never achieve energy independence by 

drilling for more oil within the United States. Under the friendliest, most pro-oil industry Administration, and I think that, you 

know, most would acknowledge that, that both President Bush and 

Vice-President Cheney were really part of the industry before getting into politics. But during their Administration U.S. oil production declined between 2001, and 2008, and that is with generous 

tax subsidies and lax regulation. 

In 2001, the U.S. produced 2,118,000,000 barrels a year. In 2008, 

we produced 1,812,000,000 barrels a year. So it actually declined, 

and ironically during the Obama Administration’s first year, I 

know some people would think this was ironic, we saw domestic 

production actually increase to 1,957,000,000 barrels of oil per 

year. So, you know, about 2 billion barrels a year. We are back up 

to where we were in 2001. Average monthly production, which did 

decline during the temporary moratorium and issuing new deep 

water drilling permits was 174,344 million barrels for December. 


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That is the latest date that we can find. During the last month of 

the Bush Administration domestic production average was 156,751 

million brands. 

So, you know, there is a difference of 20,000 barrels roughly that 

we are producing over and above what we were doing the last 

month of the Bush Administration. I say that, not so much Mr. 

Simpson, but there have been a number of people, colleagues, who 

are putting forward a point of view that I do not think is supported 

by the facts. We are less than 5 percent of the world’s population, 

as I say, consuming 25 percent of the world’s oil. There is no way 

we can drill ourselves towards energy independence or lower pump 

prices. 

Given the overwhelming scientific consensus that fossil fuel combustion is damaging our environment and damaging the economic 

prospects of future generations, there is a legitimate interest in 

carling what really has to be seen as a profligate use of fossil fuels. 

We are not going to settle this debate today or in this hearing, 

but the ghost of Deepwater Horizon should chasten those who now 

call for relaxing the permitting and inspection process. 

So, Mr. Bromwich, you are a former federal prosecutor and associate counsel in the Office of Independent Counsel for Iran Contra. 

You have got a great background. You always come through when 

you were needed. You are needed now because we need a tough 

and thorough prosecutor of this issue, and I know you will be that. 

So thank you for being here as a witness. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you. Mr. Bromwich. 

OPENING REMARKS OF DIRECTOR MICHAEL BROMWICH

Mr. BROMWICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Mr. 

Moran, and members of the subcommittee. I appreciate this opportunity to testify today on the fiscal year 2012 budget request for 

the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement. 

This budget request supports the President’s commitment to implement the most aggressive and comprehensive reforms of offshore 

oil and gas regulation and oversight in U.S. history. Our fiscal year 

2012 request is $358.4 million, an increase of $119.3 million over 

the fiscal year 2010 enacted budget, after adjusting for funds transferred to the Office of the Secretary as part of the ongoing reorganization of the former MMS. 

This request is offset by $151.6 million in eligible OCS rental receipts, $8.6 million in cost recovery fees, and $65 million in inspection fees, resulting in a net request of $133.2 million. 

These additional resources are essential to carry out our important and diverse mission. As Mr. Moran has said and as Chairman 

Simpson has said, on April 20, 2010, explosions rocked the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, leading to the sinking of the rig, the 

tragic deaths of 11 workers, serious injuries to many others, and 

the release over the course of almost 3 months of nearly five million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. As you know, it was the 

largest oil spill ever in American waters. 

The Deepwater Horizon blowout and spill brought to light serious deficiencies in the regulatory framework for offshore drilling. 


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Over the past several months we at BOEMRE have worked hard 

to address these deficiencies and to restore public confidence in offshore oil and gas drilling. 

Our ongoing reorganization and reform efforts are informed by 

the results of multiple investigations and reviews, including inquiries conducted by the Department of Interior Safety Oversight 

Board appointed by Secretary Salazar, the Presidential National 

Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the National 

Academy of Engineering, and the DOI Office of Inspector General. 

Consistent with the findings of the Safety Oversight Board and 

the DOI OIG, the President’s Commission concluded that there 

were profound weaknesses in the regulation and oversight of offshore drilling, stemming largely from conflicting missions, a lack of 

authority, a lack of resources, and insufficient technical expertise. 

The reorganization and related reforms that would be funded by 

this fiscal year 2012 request are intended to address these shortfalls, while at the same time allowing for continuity of operations 

and ongoing exploration and production. 

The centerpiece of the reorganization is the creation of three 

strong independent entities to carry out the missions of promoting 

energy development, regulating offshore drilling, and collecting revenues. In the past these three conflicting functions resided within 

the same bureau, MMS, creating the potential for internal conflicts 

of interest. 

This reorganization process began on May 19, 2010, when Secretary Salazar signed Executive Order 3299, which dissolved the 

MMS and called for the establishment of three new entities consisting of, number one, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, 

which will be known as BOEM; the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which will be known as BSEE; and the Office 

of Natural Resources Revenue, which is known as ONRR. 

Now, the new BOEM will be responsible for managing development of the Nation’s offshore resources in an environmentally and 

economically responsible way. Its functions and responsibilities will 

include leasing, plant administration, environmental studies, 

NEPA, or National Environmental Policy Act, analysis, resource 

evaluation, economic analysis, and the Renewable Energy Program. 

The new BSEE will enforce safety and environmental regulations. Its functions and responsibilities will include permitting, inspections, offshore regulatory programs, and oil spill response, as 

well as newly-formed training and environmental compliance functions. 

As you know, ONRR, which was the revenue collection arm of 

the former MMS, has already become a separate entity within the 

Office of the Secretary. 

The fiscal year 2012 budget request supports the effective reform 

and reorganization of BOEMRE and consists of a number of critical 

investments, which are detailed in my lengthier statement. These 

include, just to touch on the highlights, first, an increase in inspection capability that will enable us to conduct additional inspections 

and oversee high-risk activities. This part of the request will allow 

the development of a sufficiently-staffed inspection program that 

will enable offshore oil and gas exploration and production to continue while protecting the environment and improving worker safeVerDate Mar 15 2010 04:44 Jun 29, 2011 Jkt 066897 PO 00000 Frm 00337 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A897P2.XXX A897P2

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ty. BOEMRE has begun to increase this capability with funds provided in the fiscal year 2011 continuing resolutions. 

Second, in investment and permitting resources, to sustain increased oversight and efficient review and processing of various 

kinds, including development activities such as permit processing 

and approval. 

These are simply two of a large number of areas in which capacity needs to be dramatically improved and enlarged. Other areas 

include an expansion of NEPA and environmental studies staff, 

funding for environmental compliance and investment in engineering studies and an increase in oil spill research. 

As I have discussed and as you have from others, the Deepwater 

Horizon tragedy exposed significant weaknesses in the way this 

agency has historically done business. A consensus has formed 

around the bottom-line conclusion that this agency historically had 

insufficient resources to provide an appropriate level of regulatory 

oversight of offshore oil and gas development. 

These shortcomings have become more pronounced as operations 

have moved into deeper and deeper waters. We believe the substantial budget increase contained within the President’s fiscal 

year 2012 budget request is an extremely important step towards 

bridging the gap between the resources the agency currently has 

and the resources it needs to properly discharge its important responsibilities. 

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Moran, other members, this concludes my 

statement. I would be happy to answer any questions you may 

have. 

[The statement of Michael Bromwich follows:] 


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Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Gould. 

OPENING REMARKS OF DIRECTOR GREGORY GOULD

Mr. GOULD. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Moran, and members of the subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to testify today on the fiscal year 2012 budget for the Office of Natural Resources Revenue 

or ONRR. 

ONRR’s 2012 budget is $148 million, which represents a significant but necessary increase over the 2010 enacted level. It is also 

important to view this request within the context of the economic 

benefit ONRR provides to the Nation and the recent challenges we 

have faced as an organization. 

On average ONRR disperses $10 billion a year to American Indians, states, and the U.S. Treasury. The budget request provides the 

necessary resources to implement the revenue management reforms highlighted by recent GAO and OIG reports and the reorganization announced by the Secretary. Our request provides the 

funding needed to improve the Department’s revenue management 

activities. 

Last year Secretary Salazar spearheaded an aggressive effort to 

reform the Department’s offshore energy and renewable revenue 

management programs. On October 1 of last year ONRR was established in the Office of the Secretary under the Assistant Secretary 

for Policy Management and Budget. With the support of Assistant 

Secretary Rhea Suh and Director Bromwich the reorganization of 

ONRR took place as planned and without disruption, eliminating 

prior conflicts of interest, mitigating the risks of organizational 

change, and allowing a greater focus on opportunities for improvement. 

Following a transition to PMB, ONRR initiated a top-to-bottom 

strategic review to concentrate our efforts on the continued improvement of the Department’s revenue management activities. 

Through this effort ONRR assessed potential improvements and 

developed the framework for implementing current and future initiatives. ONRR is now proactively investing resources to implement 

initiatives that will allow us to achieve the organization’s three priority goals: collecting every dollar due, disbursing accurate revenues and information, and restoring ONRR’s credibility with the 

public. 

The 2012 budget will enable us to implement the initiatives identified during a strategic review in response to the numerous recommendations ONRR has received. Since 2003, ONRR has been 

the subject of more than 100 internal and external evaluations, and 

we have implemented over 1,000 recommendations. The 2012 funding is critical to ensure the closure of many of the remaining internal and external recommendations. 

Recently the GAO testified before this committee on their annual 

high-risk report. The report cites three deficiencies and stated that 

the Department’s revenue collection policies needed to ensure that, 

one, the Federal Government receives a fair return on its oil and 

gas resources, also known as the government take; two, Interior 

completes its production verification inspections; and three, Interior’s data on production and royalties are consistent and reliable. 


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BLM and BOEMRE are working to address the first two deficiencies, and ONRR is supporting them as they conduct studies of 

government take under different management structures. ONRR’s 

budget request also provides funding for additional production 

meter inspectors and a feasibility study on the use of automated 

production metering systems. 

The GAO’s third deficiency relates to the accuracy of royalty and 

production data that ONRR collects from industry. We agreed with 

GAO when they first raised this issue in 2008, and we have been 

working diligently to implement improvements in the quality of 

company-reported data. 

Several of ONRR’s 2012 budget initiatives relate directly to implementing GAO’s recommendations. The GAO identified 50 DOI 

recommendations in their high-risk report. ONRR is responsible for 

implementing 11 of the recommendations. We have made significant progress on all 11 of these recommendations. In fact, five have 

been implemented, and the funds we are requesting will allow us 

to fully implement the remaining six. 

It is important to note that although companies report their own 

data, ONRR has a sophisticated accounting and detection system 

and a comprehensive risk-based audit and compliance program to 

target underpayments and to ensure that royalties do not go uncollected. Our audit program has been strengthened in recent years 

as a direct result of funding from this committee. In fact, over the 

last 5 years our Audit and Compliance Program has detected and 

collected more than half a billion dollars in companies’ initial underpayments. 

In addition to our Audit and Compliance Program, ONRR has a 

strong partnership with the Inspector General and the U.S. Attorney’s Office to jointly pursue companies that intentionally underpay royalties on federal and Indian lands. 

This is a very exciting time for us here at ONRR as we continue 

to develop, implement, and improve the Department’s revenue 

management activities and move forward on implementing critical 

reforms. 

I would like to thank the committee for all the support they have 

provided. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement, and Debbie 

Tschudy, the Deputy Director of ONRR, and I are happy to respond 

to any questions that you may have. 

[The statement of Gregory Gould follows:] 


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ROYALTY COLLECTION

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, and again, thank you for being here 

today. 

One of the issues that I think our entire committee was concerned about when we had the GAO and the IG up here was the 

collection of royalties and whether the government could be confident that it was getting what it was due, and as they said I think 

during the hearing, they were not suggesting that there was fraud 

going on out there, they just had no way of being confident that 

actual, accurate reporting was going on. 

How is this going to change this? 

Mr. GOULD. We are doing a number of things. We just finished 

a comprehensive strategic review of our organization, and during 

that review we looked for a number of ways to improve our revenue 

collection capabilities. 

One thing that in recent years and thanks to the support of this 

committee, we have been able to improve our computer systems. A 

lot of the information comes in electronically, and our computer 

systems now are upgraded so that we can actually have more upfront edits. So when the companies submit their data to us, we can 

do a quick company check from the information and the oil and gas 

operator information. 

After the computer does its work and with those improvements 

we also have an initiative in this budget request for 12 additional 

employees to actually then look at the exceptions. Every time the 

computer system kicks out information, we need somebody to look 

at that information and the discrepancy. This budget will allow us 

to hire 12 new people to enhance the data mining effort that we 

are currently undergoing. 

Mr. SIMPSON. You get your information that you count regarding 

the royalties that are going to be paid from the production records 

of the company. Right? 

Mr. GOULD. There are two types of information that come in. We 

have information that comes in from the companies that pay the 

royalties. Then we have information that comes in from the producers that includes the volumes and information related to the 

production. 

So those two pieces of information then are compared to make 

sure that we are getting all the money that is due for production. 

And, as Debbie just pointed out, we also have a third-party 

verification process where we actually get the source information 

from the meters themselves. 

RETAINING PERSONNEL

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. One of the things that was brought up also, 

Mr. Bromwich, during the IG’s report was the difficulty that the 

Department is having with personnel because qualified experienced 

personnel are being hired by the oil companies, and we are having 

a hard time retaining them. 

What are we doing about that? 

Mr. BROMWICH. We are doing a number of things about it. Part 

of it is a generational thing. Many of our employees are approachVerDate Mar 15 2010 04:44 Jun 29, 2011 Jkt 066897 PO 00000 Frm 00371 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A897P2.XXX A897P2

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ing retirement age, and so they are not surprisingly heading for the 

exits. 

We are doing several things. Number one, I have done, I think 

I mentioned to both of you when I met with you, recruiting tours. 

So I went in October and early November to some of our best engineering and petroleum engineering schools in the Gulf, LSU, University of Houston, Texas A&M, University of Texas, other schools, 

to try to recruit some of the best and the brightest of the engineers 

who were in school, telling them that their country needs them 

working for us, regulating this terribly important industry offshore. 

And the result of that recruiting tour with a very narrow jobs announcement, narrow in terms of time, was overwhelming, and so 

that was very rewarding, and we are bringing people on. 

Mr. MORAN. I would be curious. How many people were you actually able to hire? Because the process of actually hiring somebody 

in today’s Federal government seems impossible. Of all those people that tried to get hired, Mr. Chairman, would you mind my asking, how many did you actually hire? 

Mr. BROMWICH. Well, we brought on 70 new people since June 

1 of last year. Now, many of those are backfills, so I do not want 

to suggest that those are net adds, but 70. 

Mr. MORAN. But they are new people? 

Mr. BROMWICH. They are new people. 

Mr. MORAN. Okay. 

Mr. BROMWICH. That is right. 

Mr. MORAN. That is good. 

Mr. BROMWICH. That is exactly right. 

Mr. MORAN. Excuse me for the interruption. 

Mr. BROMWICH. No, not at all. And in addition to the engineering 

people that we are bringing on, we obviously have a great need for 

environmental scientists and people with environmental backgrounds. So we are going to be doing the same kind of thing that 

we did in October and November in 2 weeks. We are starting to 

go out to various environmental studies programs in our universities across the country, again, trying to recruit them and make 

them aware of the important public service opportunities that are 

available for them in our organization. 

But, Mr. Chairman, you are quite right in identifying the problem of having our people recruited away either before we get them 

or after we have them by industry, because there is a significant 

salary disparity. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Do you have any idea what the disparity is? 

Mr. BROMWICH. I do not, but it is enormous, and it grows over 

time in terms of the seniority of the people. We have anecdotal information, but we can try to collect that for you. 

One of the things we are trying to do, and this mirrors what 

other countries that do offshore regulation do, we are trying to get 

exceptions and exemptions from the normal federal salary scale in 

recognition that we are competing with an industry that can pay 

far more. So we have a package that is currently pending at the 

Office of Personnel Management that would help to narrow the gap 

between what engineers and other specialists can make in private 

industry versus what they can make in long-term careers with us. 


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I do not know the way that is going to turn out. I hope that the 

need is so dramatic that it will be granted, but it just gives you 

a sense for some of the levers we are trying to use, some of the 

tools that we are trying to use to get the best people and keep 

them. 

REORGANIZATION

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. You mentioned during your testimony that 

at the end of this fiscal year BOEMRE will be split or divided into 

BOEM and BSEE. 

Mr. BROMWICH. That is right. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Given the lack of coordination between many agencies within the Department of Interior, are you concerned that 

these two agencies might not work well together and further reduce the efficiencies and delays in oil and gas development, and 

how will you prevent this? 

One of the things that I hear from industry is that what they 

need more than anything else is predictability, and while there was 

criticisms of the old MMS and you are right, there was sometimes 

too close a relationship between the regulators and the permitees 

at least it was some predictability. And that is what they need, and 

they are saying, you know, it used to be we would submit an application for a permit, and it might come back to us two or three 

times for additional information. Now they are seeing permits come 

back to them 20 and 30 times for additional information, and it is 

just delaying the permitting process. 

How are we going to get these agencies to make sure they work 

together and that while we do the proper oversight and environmental reviews it is not just a continual foot-dragging? 

Mr. BROMWICH. Let me answer two parts to that question. One, 

how do we make the process efficient? I think as both you and Mr. 

Moran mentioned in your opening statements, Deepwater Horizon 

was a shocking event for everyone, and not surprisingly it prompted a lot of activity within the agency in terms of developing new 

rules, new processes, new procedures. 

As those were rolled out to industry, they were complicated, and 

it took some time for industry to absorb them, and frankly, it took 

some time for our people to absorb them, understand them, explain 

them, and understand how to evaluate new permit applications 

that contained the new information. 

I think that has dramatically improved over the last few weeks. 

I think if you ask industry as I do almost every day whether we 

are doing better now, the answer is yes, because we have settled 

into, I will not say a pattern but, more of a regular course of doing 

business, where most of the questions related to the new rules and 

guidance we put out had been answered and answered in a way 

that is clear to industry. 

So I think we are in a much better place now than we were in 

June or July or August or September, and I think things will continue to improve. 

Getting to the core of your question, though, how do we make 

sure that operational efficiencies are not impaired by the split. We 

focused on that risk since day one, and in fact, we have teams of 

personnel that are focusing on the inter-dependencies between the 


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functions that will now be the separate agencies, and they are 

identifying ways to make sure that the operations remain efficient 

and whole and that the split into two separate agencies does not 

cause impairment of operational efficiency. It is a terribly important issue. We are focusing on it very intently, and I think we are 

going to solve the problem. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I hope so because that is probably the primary 

complaint that I hear from people. As you know, any business that 

plans, they need to have some predictability with these permits. 

They need to be able to predict when they are going to be able to 

drill in order to keep the refineries going. 

Mr. BROMWICH. That is absolutely right, and I think that we 

have come a long way. We now have since last June when new requirements first went into effect, we granted 38 shallow water permits, and the pace has been pretty steady recently. And then we 

started as you noted in your opening statement to grant deep water 

permits. Now, it is not really accurate to say there were no deep 

water permits that were issued, because that suggests that industry was ready. 

In fact, until February 17 there was no containment capability 

that existed for deep water drilling. That is when the two containment groups, the Helix Group, and the Marine Well Containment 

Company, which is composed of the majors, that is when they announced that they have the capacity ready, and they were able to 

provide the containment resources in the event of a sub-seas spill. 

So I think, and industry, I think, agrees with me on this, that 

that is the date from which to measure the issuance of deep water 

permits, and we were able within 11 days of that readiness announced by industry to issue the first deep water permit. And then 

as you know, we issued another one just last week, and there will 

be more to come. 

So in terms of predictability, which I completely agree with you 

is so important, I think that with these first two deep water permits that have been approved and with my having said and Secretary Salazar having said that there are more to come, we are providing the kind of predictability that industry craves and needs. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you. Mr. Moran. 

GENERAL ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE: HIGH RISK REPORT

Mr. MORAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to 

thank all the witnesses for their service. 

The chairman conducted a very good hearing a couple weeks ago 

with the GAO on the Interior Department, and GAO identified Interior’s onshore and offshore oil and gas management as being on 

of the highest-risk list for fraud, waste, and abuse. 

I want to ask Mr. Gould first of all, because in the GAO testimony they said Interior collected lower levels of revenue, in other 

words, you, your organization collected lower levels of revenue for 

oil and gas production in all but 11 of 104 oil and gas resource 

owners, including states and other countries. 

Do you agree with GAO’s assessment of the U.S. Government’s 

take of oil and gas revenue compared to other countries, and can 

you give us a feel for the kind of revenue loss that the taxpayers 

are bearing? And can we rectify that? 


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Mr. GOULD. We are working very closely with BLM and 

BOEMRE on a government take study. When we get the results of 

that study, we will all be ready to implement it. 

But until that study is done I do not think we are in a position 

to know what type of revenue structure is the best. 

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Gould, before you move it over to Bromwich, 

how long have you been working in the area of natural resources 

revenue for the Interior Department, Mr. Gould? 

Mr. GOULD. For 29 years. 

Mr. MORAN. For 29 years. And so we get a GAO assessment that 

you are on the highest-risk list for waste, fraud, and abuse, that 

the share of the taxpayers’ revenue from oil and gas is at the very 

bottom in terms of what other oil and gas resource owners are getting. 

And your response is that you are going to commission a study 

and then look at the issue. After 29 years of professional experience 

in this. So it is fair then, I think, after 29 years to ask you, do you 

personally think that the taxpayers are getting the fair share of the 

revenue that is due them from these natural resources that belong 

to them, their children and grandchildren? 

Mr. GOULD. Congressman, respectfully, I am a geologist, not an 

economist. I am in charge of the collection part of that process. In 

terms of the collection part of that process and GAO’s criticisms, 

we did agree with GAO in 2008, when they said that the data 

needed to be cleaned up. And we have done a lot since 2008. Right 

now we have a sophisticated accounting detection system to make 

sure that we are collecting everything that is due. 

So in terms of the third part of GAO’s criticism of what we are 

doing, I believe we are doing a lot right now. The budget request 

that we have in front of us is going to help us to ensure that we 

do collect every dollar due. 

In terms of the fair return, we need to let the study go through 

and get the information. I honestly do not have an opinion on government take. 

Mr. MORAN. No opinion. You have been involved in the industry 

for 29 years. Now, we obviously have not been, and Mr. Simpson 

knows a lot more about it than I do, but you know, we form some 

opinions pretty readily when we see some of the numbers. The 

states get half of the royalties. You wonder if they would not feel 

shortchanged. 

I want to continue to focus on Mr. Gould and Ms. Tschudy because Mr. Bromwich, you were doing other things for the public interest while this stuff was going on. 

DEEP WATER ROYALTY RELIEF

What is the situation with regard to the royalty-free deep water 

oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico, and I am sure you must 

have had some opinion on the discussion that has taken place on 

the Floor and in press conferences and Mr. Markey, certainly he 

has a loud-enough voice to reach your ears I would think, that 

there is billions of dollars in revenue that is being foregone that 

should be going to the taxpayers because of what can only be described, well, what has been described as a screw up on the part 


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of the professionals in this area when they put together the contract. 

You know, we try to delve into it, they say, well, it was one person’s responsibility, that person says, well, it was their responsibility. The fact is that this is a situation where the contract that 

was made when oil was very cheap was supposed to yield appropriate revenues to the Federal Government when the price of oil 

went up. The price of oil went up, and they tried to collect, and 

McGee said, well, wait a minute. The staff messed up, and we are 

not legally obligated to pay this money, which amounts to billions 

of dollars, and the court upheld them saying that the staff messed 

up. 

So what happened? I mean, it is a serious issue, is it not? 

Mr. GOULD. Yes, a very serious issue. 

Mr. MORAN. Yes. Tens of billions of dollars of taxpayers. 

Mr. GOULD. As of January 31, $7.2 billion is what we estimate 

to be the foregone royalties. But it is important to note that the Supreme Court did not hear that case, did not accept that case. It was 

determined that the law itself actually prevents us or prevents 

BOEMRE from applying a price cap or price limit. 

So right now the way the law is written, a certain volume has 

to go royalty free, and we have no control over that based on the 

Supreme Court action. 

Mr. MORAN. So this is going to continue, and what would you say 

is the total cost to the federal taxpayer of this mess up? 

Mr. GOULD. We are working closely with Director Bromwich and his staff and we have estimates of $15.21 billion. 

Mr. MORAN. Fifteen point two billion dollars that should be going 

to the taxpayers in reimbursement for the oil and gas they own but 

instead is going to enhance the profit margin of the oil and gas 

companies. I am not exaggerating here. That is the case, is it not? 

That is an expensive mistake, you would agree. 

Mr. GOULD. Well, I do want to make sure it is clear that it was 

not a mistake we made in our office. 

Mr. MORAN. Who made the mistake? I do not want to belabor 

this except for the fact we are talking about $15.2 billion of taxpayers’ money. I mean, you know, we cut $1 billion out of Head 

Start Programs, we are cutting here, we are cutting there to save 

a million here and there, and here is $15.2 billion we gave up in 

revenue. 

Mr. GOULD. I truly understand your concern, and again, as a taxpayer I agree with you. 

Mr. MORAN. Yes. 

Mr. GOULD. But we do not have any legal mechanism to put any 

type of price caps on this. 

Mr. MORAN. But did there not used to be price caps? When the 

price of oil went up, then the—no? 

Mr. GOULD. No, it was not. 

Mr. MORAN. Now, so how do we protect the government’s interest 

in this oil and gas that they own? 

Mr. GOULD. At this point these are the same questions, and I am 

sorry to say, but I am going to ask the leasing office. 

Mr. MORAN. All right. Earn your pay such as it is, Mr. 

Bromwich. 


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Mr. BROMWICH. I am not thoroughly familiar with these issues, 

but hearing you describe it and hearing the magnitude of the dollars, it is a serious problem, and I will learn more about it and get 

back to you with fuller answers. 

Mr. MORAN. Okay. Well, you know, I do not really want to just 

give up at this point, but okay. Well, you need to get back to us. 

This is not going to go away. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Absolutely. We understand. 

Mr. GOULD. There is no prohibition. When they put the law into 

effect, they put the law into effect that up to certain production levels would go royalty free, and that was the only thing that the law 

said. It did not provide any other mechanism. The law does not 

allow it. 

Mr. BROMWICH. It sounds like the legislation does not permit it. 

Mr. GOULD. That is correct. 

Mr. BROMWICH. So the legislation would have to be changed. 

Mr. MORAN. So it is the Congress’s fault. Well, the Congress put 

it in with the clear impression that this was low-priced oil now. 

When it goes up higher, then we will collect royalties, but we want 

to keep the industry going because the price of oil was $20, $30 a 

barrel. Now that it is over $100 a barrel, everyone assumes that 

there should be, in fact, the head of Chevron says, yes, we ought 

to be paying this, but we are not. 

AUDITING AND COMPLIANCE

Okay. I just have one last question, and Mr. Gould, 29 years, it 

is fair to keep asking. Over the past 5 years your Audit and Compliance Program has collected $110 million from companies that 

underreported. The GAO told us in this excellent hearing that 

Chairman Simpson called that really you just take the numbers 

that the oil and gas companies give you. So you can deal with that 

with GAO, but that is what we are being told. 

And in fact, they get on time reporting, because they need to 

know what the value of their inventory is, but you are less interested, was the implication. 

So you would think, though, that the Federal Government might 

invest in more careful auditing on the industry. In the IRS for 

every dollar we spend on program integrity, in other words, going 

after people who it looks like have not paid their fair share, we collect $10. So one to ten is a pretty good ratio. 

Do you know what the ratio is? In other words, if we put more 

money into more careful auditing of the oil and gas industry, would 

it yield more revenue to the taxpayer? 

Mr. GOULD. Yes, it does, and actually our Audit and Compliance 

Program historically averages about $1 to $4. 

Mr. MORAN. One to four. So for every dollar you put in you get 

back about $4. 

Mr. GOULD. From our Audit and Compliance Program, that is 

correct. 

Mr. MORAN. Collections. Okay. Mr. Chairman, thank you. It is a 

good hearing. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Ms. Lummis. 


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OPENING REMARKS OF CONGRESSWOMAN CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

In Wyoming’s experience the auditing really does improve collections for a period of time, and then it declines for obvious reasons. 

Compliance improves and so that collection declines because compliance has been ramped up. So we had that experience as well. 

WELL CONTAINMENT

A couple questions. Mr. Bromwich, this goes back to the Marine 

Well containment and the Helix containment devices that have 

now been approved. Is the word, approved, correct? 

Mr. BROMWICH. No, and I am glad you asked the question. We 

do the evaluation as to whether containment resources are sufficient in the context of individual applications that are submitted by 

operators, and the operator has discretion which of these two containment groups to designate, or it does not have to designate either of these two groups. 

So the best way to describe it, these are resource alternatives 

available to individual operators that they can then include in their 

individual applications for permits. They can designate one, they 

can designate another, they can designate both, or if they have resources of their own, they do not have to designate any. 

And so we have reviewed and reviewed the test results of the 

capping stacks, the devices that can actually be put on top of runaway wells, and we are satisfied that those have the capabilities 

that the groups have said they would. But each assessment needs 

to be done in the context of an individual application, which has 

its own water depth, its own pressure configuration, and everything else. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. Great. Thank you. That is informative. 

PERMITTING

Now, how many permits are ready and awaiting approval now 

that February 17 has passed, and I assume that they are included 

as part of the permit now? 

Mr. BROMWICH. Right. The individual operator designates the 

containment resources that they are designating as available to 

them, that they have contracted for. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Got it. 

Mr. BROMWICH. That are available in the case of a blowout. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. How many permits fit that description? 

They are ready and awaiting approval now that February 17 has 

passed? 

Mr. BROMWICH. We have granted two. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Yes. 

Mr. BROMWICH. We have a relatively small number of permits 

that are pending. My best estimate is that we will have additional 

permits that will be granted in the next few days. 

Responsive to Chairman Simpson’s comment about predictability, 

what we are seeing now, now that we granted the first two deep 

water permits, is more coming in. So the number of pending permits now exceeds ten for the first time since Deepwater Horizon. 

And so I think that shows that industry says, okay, this agency is 


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going to approve permits, containment capabilities are now available, so we are going to move forward. 

So looking around the corner the thing that I am concerned 

about, frankly, given our lack of resources, is whether we have sufficient permitting personnel who are going to be available to process what I anticipate will be a surge in permit applications. We 

were obviously hopeful with the President’s $100 million supplemental request for fiscal year 2011 that that kind of help would be 

on the way, but you know better than I that through the series of 

continuing resolutions that help has not been forthcoming. 

So we are working on various alternatives to try to bridge that 

gap to make sure that we have the resources that we need, and one 

of the things that I have done recently is reach out and try to see 

whether we could get retired petroleum engineers from industry 

who would be willing to come in on a temporary basis to help our 

permitting personnel. They would be under the control of our people, no retired people from industry would have the final authority 

to approve permits, but they would be manpower that would help 

us do that. 

So that is just one alternative that we are considering, but it is 

our effort to act and to think about these issues before a crisis hits 

and before a bottleneck develops. And so we are working on that. 

I have talked to top executives of some companies asking them to 

reach into their ranks of retirees to see if we can get some help. 

NON-PRODUCING LEASE FEE

Mrs. LUMMIS. Good. Now, I note that you are proposing a $4 per 

acre fee on non-producing wells, so I have some questions about 

that. For example, what does an industry pay on average for a 

lease at auction? 

Mr. BROMWICH. Well, it can be millions or billions of dollars. I 

do not have a per acre figure for you. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay, and those leases are usually 10 years? 

Mr. BROMWICH. Generally. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay, and what is the annual rental on those 

leases? 

Mr. BROMWICH. The annual rental I guess it would depend. It is 

a sliding scale. The rental, just to be clear, I am sure you know 

this, is only paid until production begins, and then a royalty rate 

is assessed. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Yes, and the royalty rates are? 

Mr. BROMWICH. I do not have the percentages in front of me. I 

can get back to you on that. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. When you issue a lease at auction, do the royalty 

rates vary? 

Mr. BROMWICH. Yes. They have. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. And do they vary based on seismic data? 

Mr. BROMWICH. I am not sure. Let me get back to you on that. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. I know in Wyoming, you know, we usually 

put them out at, oh, 16 percent. If nobody picks them up, then we 

have an over-the-counter leasing process at a 121⁄2 percent royalty, 

but even that is subject to change. So I was just curious about 

what the federal system did. 


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Mr. BROMWICH. I would like to turn the tables on Mr. Gould who 

does the collection. I think he probably has a better idea and Ms. 

Tschudy about the royalty rates that we collect. 

Mr. GOULD. Eighteen and three-quarters percent offshore. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. Well, that is pretty generous, and in the private sector, leasing that is going on in the Niobrara formation in 

Wyoming, which is shale oil, royalties are running between 15 and 

20 percent. The highest I have ever heard in the last few months 

is 20 percent and almost no one is getting that. But that is better 

than most people are getting onshore in Wyoming on private land 

in the Niobrara. 

Of the leases still held have the leasees continued to pay their 

annual rent even on leases awaiting permits to drill? 

Mr. BROMWICH. Yes. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. Does your legislative proposal to charge a $4 

per acre fee on non-producing wells include wells that have been 

waiting on you over the last year? 

Mr. BROMWICH. I am not sure. I think it is one of the subjects 

of discussion, and we certainly recognize that interruptions in the 

process that had been caused by the need for regulatory changes 

and the subsequent slowdown in the permitting process should be 

recognized in this process. So I think those issues are in the process of being worked through. 

CIVIL PENALTIES

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. Very good. Regarding civil penalties, as I 

understand it the Bureau levies a civil penalty of $35,000 per day 

per incident. 

Mr. BROMWICH. That is right. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Which I think is terribly inadequate. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Too low. Okay. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Yes. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. And you might be right, but I am curious to know 

what criteria for levying civil penalties should be. So under what 

circumstances are civil penalties levied? 

Mr. BROMWICH. There is a complicated system, frankly, a toocomplicated system within the agency for referring violations for 

consideration of civil penalties and then a decision on civil penalties. One of the things that we are doing in response to the various reviews and reports on us is to look at this whole structure 

of civil fine referrals and civil fine assessments. 

My own impression, my own view is that it is terribly inefficient, 

and it is quite inadequate. So we have one of our implementation 

teams that was formed in response originally to the Secretary’s 

Safety Oversight Board report looking at exactly that issue, that is, 

enforcement issues and civil fine issues. 

So my view that the $35,000 ceiling is inadequate is based on my 

intuitive sense that when we have serious violations for companies 

that are making large revenues, that $35,000 at its peak is completely inadequate to deter violations. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Completely inadequate to deter serious violations. 


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Mrs. LUMMIS. And are these subject to rulemaking, the criteria 

under which a civil penalty is issued? 

Mr. BROMWICH. Yes. They are subject to rulemaking, but the ceiling, although we can make cost-of-living adjustments within narrow limits, a broader raising of the ceiling requires legislation. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. What additional Congressional authority 

would be required? 

Mr. BROMWICH. I think legislation specifically raising the fine 

ceiling. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Which is enshrined in law. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Just raising. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Right. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Yes. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. All right, and you have an up to criteria in your 

rules right now? 

Mr. BROMWICH. We have criteria right now. Again, those are subject to review, and my own view is that that will probably substantially change over the next several months. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Do you have a right number in mind in terms of 

a per day, per incident penalty? 

Mr. BROMWICH. I do not. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay, and when I was on Natural Resources you 

came in when you were new, and we talked about your background, and it sort of, if I recall, forensic. Do you not have a kind 

of forensic background? 

Mr. BROMWICH. Oh, I have dabbled in forensic science but only 

as someone running investigations. I never did forensic science. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. 

Mr. BROMWICH. My background as Mr. Moran noted was in law 

enforcement. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. Well, very good. My time is probably up, is 

it not, Mr. Chairman? Thank you. 

OPENING REMARKS OF CONGRESSMAN MAURICE D. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I want 

to thank you very much. Thanks for being here, thanks for everything that you do. I also want to thank and applaud you basically 

for something that is very important that you did last year, of 

course, the Deepwater Horizon management, how that spill last 

year was taken care of, how you managed it, how you did all of the 

necessary work dealing with it. It was an exemplary set of circumstances, and we applaud you and thank you very much for 

what you have done. 

A lot of progress has been made, but there are a lot of things 

that really need to be done, conflicts of interest, conflicting missions that plague the former Minerals Management Service. All of 

these things that really need to be taken care of. 

Just as a curiosity, in the context of what Mr. Moran said a moment ago, he was asking something, and you said you could not do 

it because there was a restriction in the rules. Would you be kind 

enough, not now, I am not asking you to do it now, but would you 

provide me with a play on that restriction, the details, how that is 


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set up, when it got set up, what the restrictions are that you have 

to deal with? I think this is something that, you know, that we 

should really be looking into and trying to address. 

Mr. GOULD. Yes. We will coordinate with BOEMRE to provide 

you with a detailed summary. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Thank you. Thanks very much. I appreciate it. 

ENCOURAGING LEASE DEVELOPMENT

Mr. Bromwich, I wanted to ask you a specific question. As the 

price of oil continues to increase we are, once again, hearing the 

call for more drilling on public lands and in public water. Yet before we go down that road it is important for us to understand just 

exactly what is being done, how much has been allocated for them, 

what is being done on the land that they have in their control. 

Oil and gas companies, as I understand it, currently hold 80 million acres under lease, yet the industry is only producing on 12 million of the 80 million of those acres. For offshore, specifically, there 

are a total of 38 million acres under lease, but the industry is producing on only 61⁄2 million of the 38 million acres. 

That means that less than 25 percent of the acres leased on federal lands and water are actually being used and actually producing. All the rest is just staying aside, and apparently it has 

been aside for some time. 

Before we rush to open up new tracks for oil and gas exploration 

and criticize the pace at which the Department is issuing new deep 

water drilling bases, and I think that that has been put out, that 

criticism has been put out, which to me, frankly, does not make 

any sense. I think we need to make sure companies are taking advantage of the permits that they already have. So your budget proposes a $4 per acre fee on non-producing oil 

and gas leases to incentivize current lease holders to utilize existing permits. However, that is going to require legislation here, and 

it is very questionable as to whether or not this operation here is 

going to be willing to do it. We will see how that goes. 

But in the meantime what else can your department be doing to 

make sure these companies actually develop the leases that they 

have? 

Mr. BROMWICH. Well, as you probably know, the President addressed this in his press conference last Friday. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Yes. 

Mr. BROMWICH. And he directed the Department of the Interior 

to report back to him within 2 weeks on the potential policy alternatives that might be available to further incentivize industry to 

develop the lands that are already under lease. So at the Interior 

Department we are busily at work trying to put together that report that will be delivered to the President. We are exploring a 

wide range of options, and we expect that report will be delivered 

on time at the end of next week. 

Mr. HINCHEY. What do you think so far? 

Mr. BROMWICH. Well, I think that there are a variety of techniques that we might use. We have already tried to work with developing incentives through the lease process. For example, the notion of shorter leases so there is not as large a risk that companies 

will not work aggressively to develop the properties under lease. 


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They have a shorter period of time. There is obviously an incentive 

for them to do it faster. 

Another possibility that we have talked about and experimented 

with is changing the royalty rate and charging a lower rate if the 

property is developed very quickly so that they pay rental rate for 

a shorter period. The royalty rate starts kicking in sooner because 

the development is sooner and to try to incentivize that you could 

reduce the royalty rate in the first couple of years of development. 

So those are examples. 

Mr. HINCHEY. I wonder about that, but the $4 is not a very high 

rate for them. 

Mr. BROMWICH. No, it is not. 

Mr. HINCHEY. And I think reducing that is not going to be an incentive for them to do anything positive. I think there are other 

ways of doing that. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Well, there is no alternative that is beyond consideration. We are trying to look at the full menu of alternatives 

that are out there that will incentivize development. 

Mr. HINCHEY. I hope that one of the considerations that might 

go under an alternative would be the reduction of the price there, 

because it is a very low price. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Yes. 

Mr. HINCHEY. And one of the things that we are seeing, of 

course, is a very high success of the drillers in terms of the economic circumstances. So this is something that we need to be paying a lot of attention to. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Absolutely. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Because these are materials that are owned by the 

people of this country. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Absolutely. 

Mr. HINCHEY. They are owned by the general public. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Yes. 

Mr. HINCHEY. And the general public is not really getting any 

advantage of the drilling process. In fact, they own it, somebody 

else comes in and drills it, takes it up, and then spends it for them. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Right. 

Mr. HINCHEY. You know, so there is something that really needs 

to be done here that is going to be much more effective on behalf 

of the general public of this country, not just for the oil companies 

but for the people here who are now spending so much of their income on the price of gasoline particularly. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Right. 

Mr. HINCHEY. So I appreciate that. I am looking forward to that, 

and I am hoping that we get a copy of what you sent to the President as well. 

Mr. BROMWICH. That will be up to the President. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Well, all right then. We are asking you for the 

same thing. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Okay. 

Mr. HINCHEY. We are asking you to provide for us the routine 

that you think and the circumstances that you understand in the 

context of the examination that you are engaged in now, and if you 

would be kind enough to provide us with that information that you 


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come up with as a result of the investigation that you are engaged 

in, we would deeply appreciate it. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Very good. Thank you. 

Mr. HINCHEY. When do you think we will get it? 

Mr. BROMWICH. I think you will get it soon after the President 

gets it is my guess. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Okay. 

Mr. BROMWICH. I do not usually say this, but that is a decision 

above my pay grade. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Okay. Well, no. I mean, it is not really because you 

have an obligation to the President, of course, but you have an obligation to the Congress here. 

Mr. BROMWICH. It is not my report. Let me just be clear. It is 

a Department-wide report. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Well, make it clear to the Department wide that 

this Department here has asked for this. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Okay. 

Mr. HINCHEY. And we would like to get it as soon as they have 

the information that they have been able to put together. 

Mr. BROMWICH. I will definitely pass that along. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Thanks very much. 

Mr. BROMWICH. You are very welcome. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Just out of curiosity, does every acre that is under 

lease contain resources, or are some of them actually dry? 

Mr. BROMWICH. Some of them are dry. 

Mr. SIMPSON. That is shocking. 

Ms. Lummis, did you have other questions? 

Mrs. LUMMIS. You know, I do. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

PERMITTING

I do not understand this discrepancy, and I just want to ask you 

if you can account for it. The DOJ filed in federal court in Louisiana a claim that you have 270 shallow permits pending and 52 

deep water permits pending, and this information is as I understand current as of yesterday. Do you know why there is that difference? 

Mr. BROMWICH. Yes. The information included in the Department 

of Justice filing was in connection with Judge Feldman’s directive 

for us to process a small number of designated permits in the context of a lawsuit. The affidavit filed by one of the people in our Gulf 

of Mexico region was done to demonstrate that focusing on those 

permits out of sequence as the Judge directed would divert our permitting personnel from other tasks that they had. 

The 270 number was designed simply to capture the larger universe of work that permitting personnel do, including relatively 

small but still meaningful adjustments or modifications of permits 

that are already granted. 

So included within the larger number are not drilling permits. 

They are adjustments or modifications. So I know there was a 

press release put out yesterday. It was extraordinarily misleading 

because the numbers that Members of Congress and others have 

focused on are new applications. If we wanted to start talking 

about applications to modify, we have granted thousands of those. 

Thousands. 


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But some of them can be for relatively minor things, and so we 

thought it was inappropriate and misleading to cite those numbers 

because those are not the numbers that, Mr. Chairman, you and 

your colleagues have been interested in. 

Mr. SIMPSON. We would have criticized you if you would have 

done that. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Yes, you would, and rightly so. And rightly so. 

So to have this alleged discrepancy pointed out when it is not a discrepancy at all and a simple turning to our webpage which shows 

these numbers on a daily basis and identifies what categories they 

are in, that would have been the appropriate way to handle it rather than to blast it out and suggest that people are not being candid 

about numbers. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay, and so you did explain the 270 shallow permits. Now what about these 52 deep waters that this press release 

mentions? 

Mr. BROMWICH. Same thing. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. So they are just requests to alter existing permits? 

Mr. BROMWICH. Well, the 52, I do not have the release, Senator 

Vitter’s release with me. Do you? 

Mrs. LUMMIS. I do. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Okay. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. It just says because there are actually 270 shallow 

water permit applications pending and 52 deep water permits. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Yes. It is the same principle. They are things 

like applications to modify as opposed to applications for new wells 

or sidetracks or bypasses, which are the meaningful substantive reviews that our agency does and that takes so much time. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. So it is around ten when you look at brand 

new permits to drill? 

Mr. BROMWICH. That are pending. Correct. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. That are pending. Okay. Great. Thank you. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Does that help you? 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Yes, it does. It clears that up. 

Mr. Chairman, do I have time for one more question? 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yes. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you. 

INVESTIGATIONS AND REVIEW UNIT

The IRU. I want to ask a question about how that differs from 

the inspector general, and I know you are requesting $5.8 million 

in 20 full-time equivalents for the IRU, so I am trying to understand what the IRU will do that is different from what the inspector general does. 

Mr. BROMWICH. It is a very good question. As you know and as 

the chairman knows, there has been a history of allegations of corruption and misconduct within the agency as well as mismanagement of certain issues. In my experience, and I have a lot of experience in a lot of different organizations, in order to have a healthy 

organization you need to have the ability to handle certain kinds 

of allegations and investigations yourself. 

The Inspector General in Interior, the Inspector General in any 

Department, does not have adequate resources to do all of that. 

When I was at the Justice Department and I was the inspector 


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general, all of the different components of the Justice Department, 

Bureau of Prisons, at that time the Immigration Service, DEA, 

FBI, all had their own internal affairs units. And so the inspector 

general would get allegations and then those that he did not have 

the resources or for some other reason did not want to handle 

would be flipped back to internal affairs. That is exactly the principle that we are talking about here. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. 

Mr. BROMWICH. To create an internal affairs type capability, 

which will also have the ability to do aggressive enforcement actions of oil and gas companies that are violating our rules and have 

been cited for violations of our rules. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. 

Mr. BROMWICH. So we work in close coordination with the IG, we 

do not go out on our own without checking with the IG. The IG 

welcomed my creating this entity, and I think it is serving the intended function already. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. And I am not going to disagree with that at all because, you know, I know two former MMS directors that asked for 

IG investigations when ethical lapses at MMS arose, and it took 3 

years to complete. 

Mr. BROMWICH. And that is exactly the sort of problem this is designed to address. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. Great. Now, would the IRU have authority 

to halt production on a well based on allegations if it was an investigation for a specific episode of misconduct? 

Mr. BROMWICH. The IRU itself would have no authority to stop 

production. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. 

Mr. BROMWICH. No. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Okay. Great, and one more question, Mr. Chairman, switching gears. You are so kind. 

STATE AUDIT PROGRAM

Onto state partnerships for audit programs, that program relies 

on states to perform compliance activities on an estimated $3.3 billion in royalty payments. I know the State of Wyoming has been 

doing that for years with federal mineral royalties in this state. I 

know you have agreements with ten states and eight tribes. 

And generally speaking when I was in state government in Wyoming and I felt like the states were doing a really good job, especially the State of Wyoming, on some of these compliance audits, 

and my question about this is since we have got such tight budgets, 

and we are not going to be able to fund everything here at the federal level that is being requested, do you think it would make sense 

to rely on states with which you currently have agreements to collect revenue as well? 

Obviously states like Wyoming are collecting a tremendous 

amount of state royalty, ad valorem royalties, severance tax royalty 

based on a lot of the same production from the same companies on 

the same formulas, and it might be a cost saving issue. 

Mr. GOULD. The partnership we have with the states is excellent, 

and it is something we are working on during our strategic review. 

We are including the state and tribal auditors in all our reviews 


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that we are doing within our program right now for the creation 

of our new office. We have an excellent relationship with state 

auditors, something that I think is a win for both sides. We have 

the federal collection system with computer systems in place that 

can handle all of the revenue coming in. It is a system where the 

revenue comes in and goes into the Treasury and then it is disbursed. 

So I do not see that there is any immediate efficiencies gained 

by turning that part of it over to the state, but I do see that we 

have had a lot of efficiencies by using the state auditors. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Final question, and I think I know the answer to 

this. I hope I do. 

TRIBAL ROYALTIES

Did Interior finally get tribal royalties on the same mineral valuation formula as non-tribal royalties? 

Mr. GOULD. Right now we are looking at all of our valuation regulations, and we are just starting the process on a valuation rule 

for Indian oil. We completed the Indian gas rule and now we are 

working on Indian oil. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Oh, so they are not on the same formula. 

Mr. GOULD. No, we are working on that right now. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Oh, my gosh. I cannot believe it is taking this long. 

Ms. GIBBS TSCHUDY. One of the reasons they are not the same 

is the lease terms are different. We did revise the Indian gas valuation regulations in 2000, and we are still continuing to work on 

revising the Indian oil valuation regulations, and we are convening 

an Indian-negotiated rulemaking in order to revise that regulation. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. And the Navajos in Arizona, are they pretty deeply 

involved? 

Ms. GIBBS TSCHUDY. Very much so. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. They seem pretty sophisticated back when I was 

on that committee. 

Ms. GIBBS TSCHUDY. Absolutely. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thanks. 

Mr. GOULD. Yes. We are working very, very closely with the Navajo Nation on that particular issue. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Great. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, thank you for 

your patience. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Hinchey. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

LEASES WITH VIABLE RESOURCES

When you provide that information to the President and a copy 

of it to us, would you kindly include the number of acres that are 

not likely or that you know did not have any value in them? As 

you said, there are some. 

Mr. BROMWICH. I said there are some. We will do our best to collect that data. It is obviously relevant data. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Yes. 

Mr. BROMWICH. I do not know whether we currently have access 

to it, but I will make sure that that is focused on as something that 

should be in the report. 


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Mr. HINCHEY. Okay. Whatever extent that you know that some 

of them just do not have any oil in them. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Yes. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Let us know what percentage that might be. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Yes. 

Mr. HINCHEY. That would be interesting. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Okay. 

Mr. HINCHEY. I just wanted to ask another question, Mr. 

Bromwich, if I may. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Sure. 

ARCTIC DRILLING

Mr. HINCHEY. And it is about the drilling in the Arctic, and as 

I understand it Shell recently announced that it would not be drilling in Beaufort, and they would not be drilling there this summer 

anyway, but they are going to be planning on drilling there some 

time perhaps next year. 

The plans that they have include up to three wells, as I understand it, in Chukchi Sea and up to two wells in Beaufort Sea, 

which is a pretty large expansion of activities there. The operation 

there is concerning because of the whole set of circumstances that 

they are going to have to deal with and the experience that we 

have seen from other activities up there. 

So there has been a number of tragedies. We saw in the Gulf last 

year and more recently with an Icelandic oil tanker that ran 

aground I think off of Norway, off the coast some time just recently, last month. 

So despite the bad things that have been going on up there and 

the context of those circumstances, Shell intends to rely on spill response plans that were written before the BP oil spill and the Norway spill for the Arctic operations. And that seems a little ridiculous looking at operations that they plan to take to be preventive 

but based upon not the most recent things that took place, which 

were much more tragic and much more damaging and dangerous. 

And I think that they should be at least upgraded in the context 

of what the present set of circumstances knowingly are. 

So in addition to all we have learned since those two incidents, 

Shell’s spill response plans for the Arctic are completely, seemingly 

inadequate, and in some cases not at all based on the real set of 

circumstances that they are going to have to deal with there. 

Shell’s plans assume it will remove upwards of 90 percent of an 

oil spill in the open water, a number which has never come close 

to being achieved in practice, any time. Offshore mechanical containment and recovery rates for the Deep Water Horizon spill were 

3 percent, and somewhere between 8 and 9 percent for the Exxon 

Valdez spill. 

Shell’s plan even fails to consider a potential uncontrolled blowout under their worst case scenario, despite what happened in the 

Gulf, and there are many more examples like these. 

So I am just hoping that given this information and all we have 

learned whether or not we should even allow Shell and drilling in 

the Arctic on the basis of this set of circumstances. But at the very 

least should not the company be required to develop a new oil spill 


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response and be prepared to deal with this in a much more reasonable, much more effective and rational way? 

Mr. BROMWICH. Thanks for asking the question. The Arctic is obviously one of the most significant set of issues that we have to 

deal with. It is a frontier area as people describe it, and it contains 

various kinds of challenges because of the temperatures, because of 

the ice, because of the relative absence of infrastructure, because 

the Coast Guard is not right there that are unique. 

We were working with Shell to understand the plan that they 

had submitted for 2011, for just the Beaufort, and at that time the 

proposal was just to drill one exploratory well, and before we were 

too far down the road and doing that evaluation and assessment 

and they had provided quite a bit of additional spill response-related information to us, because of problems with getting an EPA 

permit they changed their plans and announced that they would 

not be looking to move forward in 2011. 

We obviously heard the same things that you have about their 

intentions to move forward in 2012. I think they are going to have 

to obviously satisfy us that all elements of their plan and their individual permit applications are adequate, including with respect 

to containing a sub-sea blowout and dealing with other spill response issues. 

Now, as I said, the application for 2011, that is now off the table, 

was just for the Beaufort. If, in fact, they go forward with plans 

for the Chukchi, that is obviously another set of issues for us to address. 

To anticipate that and to help us with that we are doing a supplemental environmental impact statement in the Chukchi that 

goes beyond what the court had directed us to do, precisely to look 

at spill response-related issues in the wake of Deepwater Horizon. 

So we agree with you that there are lots of important and significant issues that need to be addressed and that we will address if 

we get exploration plans filed as Shell says they will be and applications to drill along with those plans. We will not rubber stamp 

them. We will give them close scrutiny, and we will look at every 

aspect of their proposals. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Well, thank you very much, and I deeply appreciate what you have just said and the way you are looking into 

this, and I think it is very appropriate and just exactly what needs 

to be done. So thank you very much. 

Mr. BROMWICH. You are welcome. 

Mr. SIMPSON. These are shallow water permits. Right? 

Mr. BROMWICH. I think they are all shallow water. I know the 

ones in the Beaufort were. I do not know exactly what Shell is 

going to propose in the Chukchi, but as you know, there is not a 

lot deep water in the Beaufort and the Chukchi, so I assume that 

they are shallow water. 

Mr. SIMPSON. So far Shell has done everything that has been 

asked of them, have they not, except for the EPA and their review 

panel? 

Mr. BROMWICH. Shell has done everything we have asked of 

them, has been very cooperative with us in supplying the information that we have requested. I have got no complaints or criticisms 

about Shell. 


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LEASES WITH VIABLE RESOURCES

Mr. SIMPSON. Just out of curiosity, sometimes to find out whether an acre that you have leased actually has oil in it or not, you 

actually have to drill. So it would be kind of hard to say how many 

acres are and why would you lease something if you knew there 

was not any oil down there or something? The number I have is 

that probably one out of four acres that are leased probably show 

no resources there. 

Mr. BROMWICH. I have been told as recently as yesterday that if 

the companies bat one out of three, they are doing well. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. Well, I appreciate it. I appreciate all you 

have done. We look forward to working with you to make sure that 

BOEMRE and BOEM and BSEE and ONRR I will get used to 

those eventually that they come into existence and do the job that 

I think all of us want them to do, and we look forward to working 

with you on this year’s budget. 

Mr. BROMWICH. Thank you very much for your support, Mr. 

Chairman. I appreciate it. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you. 


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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 2011. 

BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS 2012 BUDGET REQUEST 

WITNESSES 

LARRY ECHO HAWK, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, INDIAN AFFAIRS 

MICHAEL S. BLACK, DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS 

KEITH MOORE, DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF INDIAN EDUCATION 

OPENING REMARKS OF CHAIRMAN SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. The meeting will come to order. Good afternoon, 

Assistant Secretary Echo Hawk. I would like to welcome you along 

with BIA Director Black and BIE Director Moore to the House Appropriations Committee hearing for the fiscal year 2012 Budget for 

Indian Affairs. Assistant Secretary, you and I go back many years 

to our days in the Idaho State Legislature, and I have always held 

you in the highest regard. I hope I am able to continue to work 

with you for years to come in our respective current capacities as 

we attempt to make a difference in the lives of over 1.4 million Native Americans and Alaskan Natives. 

As you may have gathered by now, particularly from looking at 

H.R. 1, honoring this Nation’s commitments to Indian Country is 

a high priority for this Subcommittee in this Congress. Fiscal year 

2012 budget for Indian Affairs concerns us as it calls for a $119 

million reduction from 2010. I cannot help but note the irony of the 

request in light of the fact that this Subcommittee is still fighting 

tooth and nail just to keep Indian Affairs level funded for 2011. I 

have no doubt that you share our concerns about the 2012 budget 

request as those of us here today are painfully aware of the unmet 

needs in Indian Country. 

While our collective attention on international affairs is aimed 

squarely at current events overseas, here at home we continue to 

have people who live in third-world conditions. If you want to see 

real poverty in this country, go visit an Indian reservation, as I 

know you have many, many times. 

If only it were true that increasing public awareness or increasing the Indian Affairs budget alone would solve these problems. 

Earlier this year the Acting Inspector General testified before this 

Subcommittee that she could spend her entire budget in Indian 

Country issues and still not address every problem. To me that 

suggested the system in place now is fundamentally broken. 

I have no doubts about the Administration’s collective and genuine commitment to Indian Country and about your skill in identifying problems and adaptively managing those solutions. What I 

am interested in is where the Department goes from here, how it 

gets there, how it measures success. I look forward to our discussions on the budget today and in the context of those questions, I 

look forward to working with you to solve some of these problems. 


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Mr. SIMPSON. With that, I am happy to yield to the gentleman 

from Virginia, Mr. Moran, for any opening statement he might 

have. 

OPENING REMARKS OF MR. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have got to 

thank you for something else as well. I do want to say a few words 

since this is the first hearing this year we have had with regard 

to Native American programs. 

Chief, nice to see you. Nice to see you, colleagues, and thanks for 

all you are doing. I would like to put in a little quote, and since 

we have—I was not sure whether Rick Healy was going to get into 

this like Chris Topic did but he has come through. 

VOICE. You got a quote book, too? 

LEGAL AND MORAL OBLIGATIONS

Mr. MORAN. I got a quote book. So Chief and Indian Wise Man, 

Shinguaconse, is that the correct pronunciation for Shinguaconse? 

I think it is. It translates to Little Pine. But he said, ‘‘My father,’’ 

referring to basically the U.S. Federal Government, ‘‘you have 

made promises to me and to my children. If the promises had been 

made by a person of no standing, I should not be surprised to see 

his promises fail. But you, who are so great in riches and power, 

I am astonished that I do not see your promises fulfilled. I would 

have been better pleased if you had never made such promises, 

that you should have made them and not performed them.’’ And 

that has been the legacy, at least for the vast majority of the existence of this Republic, but it is changing and has to change. And 

it is one thing that we do have bipartisan agreement on, at least 

on this committee, that it will change. 

So I just want to underscore the fact that I know we feel on both 

sides of the aisle that we have a legal obligation because of our 

treaties with Indian tribes, but also we have a moral obligation to 

enhance the economic, the social and the cultural well-being of Native Americans. Tribes and individual Indians are not looking for 

a hand out but rather a hand up. I know it is a cliche, but it certainly does apply here. Great nations should keep their commitments and especially because of the long history the Federal Government has had with Native Americans. We need to back our 

promises with concrete actions. It is not to say that we do not need 

to carefully look at the funding for our Native American programs, 

and at times I have been very disappointed with some of the bureaucracy of the BIA, and for many years BIA was not on the side 

of the Indians, frankly. But while we need to make sure that the 

funds are providing the services and the programs and that we 

have concrete results for the money that is invested, we know that 

we have to make this a priority, whether we have Indian tribes in 

our district or not. 

But we have a strong, as I say, bipartisan tradition on this subcommittee, and while I obviously do not support so many of the 

provisions, almost all of the provisions of H.R. 1, I want to commend—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. The dump truck. 


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H.R. 1

Mr. MORAN. Dump truck? Riders and everything else. But I want 

to take this opportunity to commend the Chairman and the majority. And I know Mr. Cole was particularly influential in this. They 

protected Native American programs. Where everything else was 

on the chopping block, they protected Native American programs in 

the fiscal year 2011 bill. 

FY 2012 BUDGET

So as we develop the fiscal year 2012 budget for the BIA, our 

goal remains putting the BIA in a better position to move forward 

in helping tribes and Native Americans address the educational, 

social and the economic developments that the Indian Country 

faces, the challenges that they face. And that is why it is important 

to have BIE as well, and we are going to do the same, I trust, for 

the Indian Health services. 

During the 111th Congress, we addressed a number of significant 

issues affecting Indian Country, including the Cobell settlement, 

law enforcement, particularly the treatment of women on reservations, Indian healthcare, Indian water rights settlements. And so 

we very much look forward to the testimony of our Assistant Secretary, Chief Echo Hawk. Thank you for your service again, and we 

are determined on this Subcommittee to do the right thing. So 

thank you again for being here, and thank you, Mr. Chairman, for 

all you have done. 

TESTIMONY OF MR. ECHO HAWK

Mr. SIMPSON. Secretary Echo Hawk. 

INDIAN AFFAIRS

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member Moran and Subcommittee members. Let me first of all just express my appreciation for the work that has been done on the fiscal 

year 2011 budget to this point. I appreciate that very much. 

The President has requested a $2.5 billion budget for Indian Affairs, and through the work of the Tribal Interior Budget Council, 

this budget has been crafted after careful consideration with American Indian and Alaskan Native government representatives. The 

President has called upon members of his Administration to meet 

important objectives while exercising fiscal responsibility, and consistent with that directive, difficult choices have been made in formulating the 2012 Budget Request for Indian Affairs. 

As already mentioned, this request reflects a $118.9 million reduction, in other words, 4.5 percent below the fiscal year 2010 enacted level, and we have tried to make strategic cuts in order to 

fund tribal priorities. Thus, this proposal has $89.6 million of targeted increases for tribal programs that are proposed, and I would 

like to just highlight some of those targeted increases. 

ADVANCING INDIAN NATIONS

Under the category of Advancing Indian Nations or nation-to-na- tion relationships, there is a $42.3 million increase, and I want to 


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spotlight that includes Contract Support, which is a very high priority of Tribal Nations. That figure is an increase of $25.5 million, 

and there is also $4 million proposed for the Indian Self-Determination Fund which would assist Tribes to further contract or 

compact additional programs. 

SMALL AND NEEDY TRIBES

And we have also included $3 million to support small and needy 

tribes. This helps the very small tribes carry out the very basic responsibilities of tribal government, and this would affect about 114 

tribes in Alaska and about 17 in the lower 48 states. 

PROTECTING INDIAN COUNTRY

Under the initiative of Protecting Indian Country, we are proposing an increase of $20 million which includes $5.1 million for 

law enforcement operations and also a total of $11.4 million for detention center operations and maintenance. And there is an additional $2.5 million proposed for tribal courts. 

IMPROVING TRUST LAND MANAGEMENT

Under the initiative of Improving Trust Land Management, there 

is an increase requested of $18.4 million. I just want to spotlight 

that $2 million of that would go for grants to tribes directly for 

projects to evaluate and develop renewable energy resources on 

their tribal trust lands. And there are a number of initiatives 

under the Trust, Natural Resource Management to support the 

$7.7 million proposed increase. 

INDIAN EDUCATION

With regard to a fourth category of improving Indian education, 

we have requested an increase of $8.9 million which spotlights initiatives to have safe and secure schools and also allocates $3 million for Tribal Grant support costs. This is similar to the Contract 

Support cost requested for tribal governments, but these are for the 

elementary and secondary schools that we have responsibility for 

and basically covers administrative overhead. They are operating 

now at about 62 percent of what would be full tribal grant support. 

And there are a number of decreases in the program. 

TRIBAL DISTRIBUTION

I do not think in the interest of time—I know the Subcommittee 

has some votes. I am not going to go through all of those decreases, 

but I did want to just spotlight that almost 90 percent of all of the 

appropriations requested are to be expended at the local level and 

63 percent of the appropriations would be provided directly to 

Tribes. And this would amount to a 4.99 percent increase in the 

Tribal Priority Allocation which is the core program for tribal governments. 

So I know the needs in Indian Country are very great, but under 

the present situation, President Obama’s budget faithfully seeks to 

meet those needs by following the priorities set by tribal leaders. 

So we would be very happy to respond to questions, and as the 

Chairman noted, I have the Bureau of Indian Affairs Director and 


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the Bureau of Indian Education Director with me today to be able 

to answer detailed questions that I may not have sufficient information on. Thank you. 

[The statement of Larry Echo Hawk follows:] 


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TRIBAL INTERIOR BUDGET COUNCIL

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Secretary. Let me start. You mentioned 

in your opening testimony that this budget was put together with 

the help of the Tribal Interior Budget Council, and I understand 

this year you have done more consultation with them as you develop this budget. Take a minute and explain to me how that 

works, how it is put together. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. The Tribal Interior Budget Council is made up 

of 36 individuals. It includes the Regional Directors for the Bureau 

of Indian Affairs, so that constitutes 12 of them and that represents the 12 Regions of the country. And then the Tribes in those 

Regions select two representatives to serve on that Council. We 

meet on a quarterly basis, and what they do is consult with us to 

establish their priorities and funding. And each one of the Regions 

makes a presentation. We just went through this last week, where 

they come before the Council and present—I just brought as an example a packet from the Great Plains Region where they tell us in 

detail what they would like to do in that region of the country. 

After all 12 Regions make their presentations, then as a body we 

collectively—I do not say we because I do not vote on this, but the 

tribal representatives vote and establish priorities for funding. It is 

not over there because we start to craft the budget then, and then 

at various times, we will bring them back in, maybe a subcommittee to consult on more details as we formulate the budget. 

OMB

Mr. SIMPSON. And then you work with OMB on the amount that 

they have given you. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. OMB provides guidance for us so we know 

there are some parameters for funding. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Guidance is a nice word. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Interior then sends the budget over, and they 

make some modifications, pass it back. And tribal leaders have expressed a desire to have more direct consultation with OMB. I 

think that is the piece that they think is missing. I am not sure. 

We are working on perhaps modifying that system to allow them 

to have more input at that level. 

CONTRACT SUPPORT

Mr. SIMPSON. Good. You mentioned the contract support you increased by $25.5 million. That is something this committee hears 

about when we have the Nations come in and talk to us for a couple of days. Almost every one talks about contract support. Does 

your increase of $25.5 million fully fund contract support costs? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. No, it does not. It only reaches about 90 percent, and in order to get that up to 100 percent—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. And that is at 62 percent now? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. No, that is Tribal Grant Support, 62 percent. 

And the Contract Support is about 90 percent. In order to get that 

up to 100 percent which the tribes would like to see, I think it 

would take like another $25 million to reach that point. 


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TRIBAL LAW AND ORDER ACT

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. The Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 no 

doubt increases the responsibility of Indian Affairs in many areas. 

Could you take a minute and summarize these increased responsibilities and describe where the budget meets these responsibilities and where this budget, due to the limitations of funding, may 

fall short? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Well, we have significant responsibilities because that legislation is a 105-page comprehensive bill. We have 

had some deadlines that we have already had to meet in implementing the requirements of the Act which deals with special law 

enforcement commissions, standards for long-term detention, background investigations and then we are now moving into a phase 

where we are addressing the mandates of the bill to focus on adult 

and juvenile detention, long-term plan. There is also a law enforcement foundation that has to be put together. And we are working 

to organize that. 

So the budget that we are requesting in the area of public safety 

is a $20 million increase, and some of those monies will help us to 

be able to implement this process. 

DETENTION OPERATIONS

Mr. SIMPSON. One of the largest increases in the fiscal year 2012 

proposal is the $10.4 million and 13 FTEs for the detention and 

corrections operations that you mentioned. Detention facilities are 

underfunded by about 459 positions, as I understand, as the green 

book states. The Recovery Act only seems to have made matters 

worse as Indian Affairs is now on the hook to fund an additional 

323 staff at six new facilities opening between now and 2014. What 

is the plan for meeting those new staffing requirements and what 

is the estimated cost and how many of the 459 positions will be 

filled with the $10.4 million increase? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Okay, Mr. Chairman, that is a big question. 

Mr. SIMPSON. If it is too detailed, you can get back with the committee. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. We can get back. You know, just to comment, 

these facilities are mainly built by the Department of Justice. We 

have built and can build and do a good job, you know, in construction of facilities. But once they are built, we have a responsibility 

for operation and maintenance, and we try very hard now to collaborate with the Department of Justice to be able to make sure 

that when they build them they are built to specifications and that 

we can have the foresight to be able to budget in what is needed 

to staff and run those facilities. 

[The information follows:] 


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Mr. SIMPSON. One last question. The committee has recommended in language that the BIA look at regional detention facilities, and I know that we have talked about this, using the Fort 

Hall facility that they have built as an example. Is the Department 

looking at that and trying to make that more available? 

FORT HALL

Mr. ECHO HAWK. We are. We are working with the Department 

of Justice on this. This is actually one of the mandates in the Tribal Law and Order Act that we have, you know, some plan of going 

forward. And this is not new to us. 

We have previously prepared a report on how to efficiently build 

these detention facilities on a regional basis. And I was just in Nevada last week. The Tribes there are asking, pleading for some facilities because they are having to use state and county facilities 

to house prisoners. It is very expensive for them. So that is an example of how they would be very happy if we could somehow build 

a regional facility for them, and that is what we try to do now, to 

make sure that we are being efficient and smart in where we are 

building these facilities. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you. Mr. Moran. 

Mr. MORAN. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. In light of the 

fact that we are going to have some votes soon, what I would like 

to do is to underscore three areas of particular concern. I will mention the three of them. You can give a quick capsule comment if 

you want, but they are probably the kind of thing that you want 

to try to address for the record. But I wanted to bring it to light 

in the context of the hearing. But I know you cannot comprehensively respond to all of them. 

PROGRAM REDUCTIONS

You put the best face forward on this budget, but you want to 

eliminate the Lease Compliance program. I do not know how we 

can assure that leases are going to be complied with absent this 

program, so that needs to be addressed. You are cutting the Indian 

Guaranteed Loan program by 60 percent. It is a concern how Native Americans are going to get commercial loans to expand or even 

start new Indian-owned businesses without that. You are eliminating the Residential Placement program for special-needs students. 

Those are all concerns. So if you want to give a capsule commentary, but it is probably the kind of thing we could either talk 

about later or respond to for the record. Do you want to say anything about that? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Just briefly. Perhaps I can make a comment 

about the loan program, and Director Black could comment briefly 

on the lease compliance and then Director Moore on the residential. 

INDIAN GUARANTEED LOAN PROGRAM

With regard to the loan guarantee, this is a good program that 

the tribal leaders support, and they have spoken up very strongly 

after seeing the President’s budget and seeing the decrease that is 


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proposed here. And the concerns that were raised, you know, had 

to do with duplication as there are other Federal agencies that provide some loan guarantee money. 

Mr. MORAN. That they are eligible for, and you are going to help 

them find those sources of funding, of loans? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. That is the thought. Of course, there are contrary views that our program has the unique application and is 

much more flexible—— 

Mr. MORAN. Has relationships already built—— 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. In Affairs we know how to operate within the 

parameters of reservations. So I think we are going to work to 

make sure that this program has continuity. We are sort of on a 

phase right now where we are working to make improvements. 

Mr. MORAN. It is a concern. Okay, Mr. Black. 

LEASE COMPLIANCE

Mr. BLACK. Just real quick, sir. I will be happy to provide you 

further information, in the very near future here. But just in a nutshell, with the development of our TAAMS system, which is our 

Trust Asset Accounting and Management System and a lot of the 

modules that have been developed within that system that allows 

us to better monitor our leases, a lot of the compliance issues dealt 

with late payments or non-payment, and the system now allows us 

to do a lot of that monitoring so we will be able to realize some 

cost savings there. 

[The information follows:] 

LEASE COMPLIANCE

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) manages over 100,000 active leases for business, agriculture, grazing, oil and gas development and Indian housing. The vast 

majority of lease compliance issues have historically been with late rental payments 

or non-payment of rentals. With the development of various modules in the Trust 

Asset and Accouning Management System (TAAMS), BIA now has an automated, 

electronic system that will allow it to monitor rental payments and auto-generate 

delinquency notices to violators. In the past these activities were performed manually by employees at each location where the leases were issued. BIA believes that 

with the current technology available in the TAAMS system, it will do a better job 

monitoring compliance. 

RESIDENTIAL PLACEMENT

Mr. MORAN. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Moore, very quickly, on residential placement? 

Mr. MOORE. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and thank you for the 

question. Keith Moore, Director, BIE, a pleasure to be here. 

The REP program is for our most disabled students, a very difficult decision for us when we were going through our budget to 

look at cuts on that, where we are in this economy and deficit 

spending, things that we have to take into consideration. 

There are two pieces that we felt we could go and look for resources for these students, one being regular IDA funds or regular 

special ed funds. Could we service these kids through our allotment 

of funds there and work with the U.S. Department of Education if 

we needed further resources? The second piece is we felt we could 

look at our policy within the BIE of shipping these kids out of our 

communities and schools and could we tighten that policy and 


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serve them in our communities rather than send them to a very expensive residential placement program? 

Mr. MORAN. I see. Well, that makes some sense. 

Mr. MOORE. Those are the two—— 

Mr. MORAN. I understand—— 

Mr. MOORE [continuing]. We are looking at. 

Mr. MORAN [continuing]. That was the thinking behind it. Thank 

you. Now, the next two, clearly you do not need to give us an extensive response right now, but I do want to know how the Carcieri 

decision is affecting your ability to carry out your trust management responsibilities. So did you want to say anything very quickly 

on that? 

CARCIERI

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Congressman, the Administration very strongly 

supports the Carcieri fix because being able to take land into trust 

is a very important thing. Republican and Democratic Administrations have done this since 1934, and that decision disrupted everything. It affects housing, it affects law enforcement, it affects emergency services, it affects economic development. So we are very 

strongly in support of—— 

Mr. MORAN. As you know, this committee is as well, agrees with 

you. And again, I want to thank the Chairman and Mr. Cole, particularly, for the position that we took on that. 

COAL-FIRED POWER PLANTS

Lastly, it is a concern but this is something I do not think that 

you can respond to but I want to raise it. And I know the real issue 

is within the tribes themselves. But you have got two large coalfired power plants in the Navajo Nation, the Four Corners Power 

Plant and San Juan Generating Station. Fifteen percent of the population is suffering from lung disease around those plants. The 

Four Corners plant emits, I will not go through all the numbers, 

but it includes 2,000 pounds of mercury a year. You know, in my 

district, somebody breaks a thermometer and the mercury spills 

out and we get the HAZMAT team. And here we have got 2,000 

pounds of mercury being emitted every year in addition to 122 million pounds of nitrogen oxide, et cetera. 

In San Juan, you are emitting 1,000 pounds of mercury and 100 

million pounds of sulfur dioxide and the same with nitrogen oxides. 

It is a major concern. I know that a lot of the tribes have decided 

that the jobs are more important, but I would hope that BIA would 

encourage looking at renewable energy in Indian Country. There 

are some loans to develop that. There are jobs that can be available, and you have obviously less environmental impact but it is 

the kind of thing that also has spinoffs for outside the reservations 

that could be economically beneficial. Those are the three areas I 

wanted to bring up. Thank you, Chief, and thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Lewis. 

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Chief and gentlemen, I appreciate very much your being here. 


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TRIBAL CONFLICTS

Between Ken Calvert and myself in San Bernardino and Riverside County, we have in excess of a dozen tribes, and we have 

noted from time to time that not every tribal nation agrees with 

the other one just automatically. 

In our own region in the recent past, there was a major conflict 

that developed between local law enforcement and one of our 

tribes. It involved shootings where individuals were killed, et 

cetera. The importance of having tribal nations be able to have 

their own law enforcement or contract with local law enforcement 

agencies is a pretty significant area. 

Does BIA play a role in attempting to facilitate some of these 

challenges? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Congressman, we do have some role. That is 

primarily a function of the tribal governments, but we try to be 

supportive and one aspect is the Special Law and Order Commissions that we have the ability to provide, and oftentimes that becomes a critical part in the local agreements that would be made 

with these local law enforcement entities to cross-deputize and so 

forth. 

Mr. LEWIS. I might mention to you that in the past, there was 

a very successful initiative that was put forward by a local sheriff 

that brought together a commission of a variety of mix of law enforcement agencies and interests to make sure there was communication up and down the line. With some transition from one sheriff to another, the commission idea kind of fell apart, and in the 

meantime, this cooperative venture fell apart. And I would want to 

bring that to your attention in terms of how we can find programs 

and efforts that have been successful and try to sustain them beyond individual sheriff’s offices or administrations. Really, really 

important to have our tribal nations work together. So I just ask 

you to think about that as well as comment, if you would. 

INTERAGENCY LAW ENFORCEMENT

Mr. ECHO HAWK. These things about the local cooperation are 

very important. I have reached out to the National Association of 

Attorneys General and the Conference of Western Attorneys General about trying to come to such agreements to resolve law enforcement issues on a local level. So we are very much interested 

in supporting that effort. 

One of the things that the Tribal Law and Order Act addresses 

is training that opens up the option of doing training in state facilities of tribal officers, and I know that the Conference of Western 

Attorneys General thinks that is a really great idea because when 

you have the non-Indian officers having the same training as the 

Indian officer, they accomplish things that we do not seem to be 

able to do when we sit down to write an agreement. They bond as 

fellow law enforcement officers, and that was spoken of very highly. 

Mr. LEWIS. Great. I think you know that across the country there 

are a variety of mix of law enforcement effort. Tribes having their 

individual effort on the other hand, maybe contracting with local 

agencies lead to a variety of mix of experiences, and I would think 

that BIA’s role in terms of refining or at least communicating as 


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to what seems to have worked in one place versus another would 

be very helpful to the tribes. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. It is and we do have those success stories, and 

we try to share that. 

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Ms. McCollum. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is good to have you 

here, and I have lots of questions but I will just submit some of 

them in writing. But I think one of the things that has been kind 

of touched on a little bit when you were talking about helping to 

contract and do things for Indian Country, are cuts in your budget—I got a budget put together because I was trying to track what 

was going on just on Native American health when I was on reservations or what was going on with schools because Head Start 

would be in the school. And you know, there would be Impact Aid 

which is handled in a different spot, and it was like trying to put 

this spider web with all these tears in it together to see what we 

had. 

FEDERAL SUMMIT

So do you have the ability or do any of the Secretaries report to 

you from the Department of Agriculture, the Army Corps of Engineers, Commerce, Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, 

HUD, your Interior, Justice, Labor, Transportation, Veterans Affairs, I can go on and list more, that all have line items in it that 

impact or directly work with many of the bones of the programs 

that you have in the Bureau of Indian Affairs? In other words, are 

you able to get everybody together and just have a summit about 

what is going on because a cut in Commerce could affect all that 

you are trying to do with a grant program change. So that is the 

question I have. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Congresswoman, there is of course more that 

we can do, but we have tried very hard to reach across Department 

lines and to work smart and collaboratively with other Departments. Director Moore could talk about the work he has done with 

the Department of Education. We have ratcheted up the communication we have with the Department of Justice and work on a 

regular basis with other Departments like Health and Human 

Services. And you know, there is one program known as Public 

Law 102–477 that allows Interior to be a lead agency in pooling 

money from HHS and the Department of Labor and putting it into 

one fund that the tribe controls. So you know, the Tribes like that 

kind of thing when we pool resources and they have more flexibility. So that may be a template for what we could do in other 

areas. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you because it took government reform 

working with the Navajo Nation to get HUD and the Department 

of Energy and a whole group of people together to talk about what 

they were going to do about the radiation contamination that had 

taken place on some Navajo reservations, and I am going to follow 

up. 

I am not asking to jump-start schools that I visited throughout 

Indian Country, but I never understand how the school construction priority list works. There is one list for each tribe that I visited 


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in Minnesota, another one that I saw in New Mexico, and at some 

point I would like to find out and maybe it is with you, Mr. Moore, 

because I want to understand because I do not want to undo something that is good, but if something is broken and we need to fix 

it, we need to work on it. 

FEDERAL AGENCIES SHARED RESPONSIBILITIES

Mr. ECHO HAWK. May I make a followup comment? I think it is 

important. Tribal people have told me just in the last week that 

what is really important is for people to understand that the trust 

responsibility of United States is the trust responsibility of the 

United States. It is not the trust responsibility of Indian Affairs 

and Interior. So Tribes actually strongly support having other Departments of the Federal Government step up to the plate and 

meet their responsibilities, like the Department of Education or 

Justice Department, Agriculture Department, other Departments 

other than Interior. 

BIA WEBSITE

Ms. MCCOLLUM. And my time is going to run out. A Native 

American crosscut of the Federal budget is on your website now, 

too. You and I were told for years that they could not put that kind 

of a budget together so people can look at it. I appreciate the fact 

that it is on your website. 

ELIMINATION OF BIA

In the remaining few seconds I have because I want other members to have a chance to ask questions before we go vote, there is 

a bill in the Senate, and the language that went with the statement that was made by Senator Rand Paul, and I am going to 

quote him. He introduced legislation, S. 162, and addressing budget issues. And in his words, he is doing so by ‘‘By eliminating the 

most wasteful programs, by eliminating programs that are beyond 

the Constitutional role of the Federal Government.’’ He is talking 

about eliminating the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I know the Administration does not support this legislation. I know it has strong bipartisan oppositions, never to come up, never to pass. I want to be 

clear on that. But could you just maybe for the record say what 

would happen and your view of constitutional responsibility in Indian Country? Because I think you started talking about that before I cut you off before. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Thank you. Very good question. And this actually has been in part attempted back in the 1950s with what is 

known as the Termination Policy, and it was launched in 1953, had 

a very short life, and has been repudiated by every Administration, 

Republican and Democrat, since then. And within the span of my 

lifetime, you know, actually we celebrated in 2010 the 40th anniversary of the Self-Determination Policy. And there have been 

enormous gains in the quality of life for Native people under that 

enlightened policy of recognizing that the United States made commitments to Native people and having the United States as a government step up and meet its responsibilities and having Tribes 

have more say. So tribal leaders appreciate the fact that the United 


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States is doing better and turned away from the Termination Policy. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, sir, for all your work, and thank 

you, Mr. Chair, for your indulgence. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Calvert. 

Mr. CALVERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to commiserate with the Secretary, that both BYU and San Diego State are 

not in the Final Four. 

EDUCATION ASSISTANCE

I have a large Indian BIE school, and it is named Sherman. Now, 

I know it is not named after General Sherman, but anyway, it is 

large and you are very much aware of it. And one of the things that 

is frustrating I know for a lot of the BIE schools is that the flexibility they might have to get charitable contributions or to use 

their property to get extra revenue to give flexibility to the head 

school principal there, to use that money to fund extra teachers or 

tutors or whatever. Do you need legislative assistance to do that or 

do you have flexibility to do that as a secretary? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Congressman, I actually visited the Sherman 

Indian School. I take it that is in your district? 

Mr. CALVERT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. And also I visited the San Manuel Reservation. 

Mr. CALVERT. Right. 

Mr. LEWIS. That is somewhere in my district. 

Mr. CALVERT. That is in Jerry’s district. 

SCHOOL CONTRIBUTIONS

Mr. ECHO HAWK. And when I was there at the school, they told 

me about the generous contribution that the Tribe had made to the 

school, and they were struggling with an MOU that they had to 

finish when I got attention to that. We finished that up as I understand. But the Solicitors of Interior I think have indicated that 

there are other restrictions on receiving charitable contributions, 

and that probably needs to be addressed by Congressional enactment to clear the way if that is, what is deemed to be a good idea. 

Mr. CALVERT. I worked with the Chairman and the Ranking 

Member on this. I think I talked to everybody about this. I know 

I talked to Tom about it. It just makes sense. Everybody is struggling for money, and if you have got somebody that wants to give 

it to you, you should be able to take it. So you know, we ought to 

be able to work that out. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

FACILITY SPACE

Mr. MOORE. A quick response to that if I could. One of the issues 

was it was going to change facilities and they were going to add 

on facility space. So then that added in the bureaucratic issue of 

facilities and O&M and being able to maintain and operate the 

building. And that was a big logical piece, changing a facility and 

what it would mean for O&M and further cost to the Government 

with that school, was part of it. We were able to work our way 

through it, but it is something that does, as the Assistant Secretary—— 


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Mr. CALVERT. If we can work on some legislative language, it 

could fix it. 

FACILITIES NEGOTIATED RULEMAKING

Mr. MOORE. And one other comment if I could for the Congresswoman, we are working on negotiated rule-making right now for 

facilities which will, we hope, clarify the list issue. It is probably 

the number one thing that we hear in the field, facilities and how 

you get on the list and how schools get built and what is the formula and all those sorts of things. We are working our way 

through the process right now to really clarify that so that it is understandable for everybody. 

EDUCATION CONSTRUCTION BACKLOG

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Can you give us a dollar amount for your backlog later—— 

Mr. MOORE. We can take a look at dollar backlog. That would 

come from Jack Rever who operates the OFMC for us. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Is that the backlog of school construction that 

needs to be done you are talking about? 

Mr. MOORE. Well, we are roughly, and the Assistant Secretary 

may know this figure better than I, but we have $1.8 to $2.3 billion 

I believe in school backlog construction. 

[Information to follow:] 

EDUCATION CONSTRUCTION

The cost is $1.3 billion to bring the schools in poor condition to good or fair condition as measured by the Facility Condition index. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yeah, because we have got $1.3 billion here, but 

I suspect you—we have got 64 Indian schools that are listed as in 

poor condition, and then the rest are in acceptable condition, which 

is a little different sort of terminology as opposed to good or fair. 

But acceptable, I am not sure exactly what that means. 

We have got about 4-1/2 minutes left in this vote. We are going 

to come back after this, and I would hate to have us miss the vote. 

So why do not we go vote? We have got two 5-minute votes after 

this, or one 5-minute vote and then a vote on the journal. So if you 

could wait, we would pause for 15 minutes or so and be right back. 

Appreciate it. Thank you. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Cole. 

Mr. COLE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and just a couple quick things. One, I just wanted to associate myself very much 

with Mr. Moran’s remarks about you and the role you played and 

also the role he played. You guys have really set the standard in 

working together. And Mr. Secretary, it is always good to see you, 

and the longer I see you, the more I like you because it means that 

somebody is in the job for some considerable period of time. So I 

hope you continue to stay, and you have made terrific contributions. And when we have a new President, Mr. Simpson, I will ask 

that President to reappoint you. 


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COBELL SETTLEMENT

Seriously, on a couple of things, I would like to get your opinion. 

There is a lot of discussion in Congress right now, and I know you 

did not negotiate the Cobell deal, but there is a lot of discussion 

about additional legislation dealing with lawyers’ fees. Do you have 

any opinion as to whether that would be helpful or not? My sense 

is it is not particularly helpful, that this ought to be left alone, that 

it is pretty much done, the congressional part of it, and we ought 

to let the judge in this case do what he wants to do, and they can 

work this out. I hate to reintroduce the issue here. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Congressman Cole, I have one tiny comment, 

and then I have got to turn it over because I am recused from 

Cobell. 

Mr. COLE. Okay. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. So Director Black can respond. On the comment you made about my length of service thus far, I have been 

here just a little over 22 months in the position, and that makes 

me the longest-serving Assistant Secretary in more than a decade. 

So I am going for the record now. 

Mr. BLACK. Well, and unfortunately, my answer will be just 

about as short as his is. At this time, I would really be remiss to 

speak to the—— 

APPRAISALS

Mr. COLE. Okay. Fair enough. Second question, hopefully one 

that you can answer, I noticed in your budget you are cutting funding for land appraisers, but there is a backlog for land appraisal 

necessary for energy production and economic development on trust 

lands. How do you handle that? 

Mr. BLACK. Now, for appraisals, that is funded out of the OST 

budget, so I am not completely familiar with theirs. We are working closely with OST dealing with appraisal issues, and we realize 

that there is a shortfall there, you know, even in the past budgets, 

and we are trying to work with OST on how we can address their 

appraisal issues for any number of things that we do, anywhere 

from land into trust issues to home site leases to land sales and 

transactions. 

LAND INTO TRUST

Mr. COLE. Okay. Third question here real quickly, and this one 

maybe you can give us some idea on. The biggest frustration I hear 

among tribes or one of the great ones is just the length of time that 

it takes to put land into trust. What can be done or is being done 

hopefully to streamline that process? Again, I am well-aware of the 

problems you have with Carcieri and I have a question on that 

coming up as well. But is there any way we can get some more predictability into this process? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. That is a very good question, Congressman 

Cole. When I started out as Assistant Secretary, the process was 

stuck in the mud. There were backlogs, and we formulated a work 

group to try to get things rolling, and we were making some 

progress. Secretary Salazar actually weighed in with all 12 Regional Directors and called them into his office and kind of said we 


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have got to fix the problems and asked them for solutions. So you 

know, we have had a work group put together that is working on 

revising our handbook that provides how we conduct this process, 

and you know, we have had success. You know, compared to the 

last two years of the prior Administration, we have increased land 

into trust at a rate increase of 488 percent. So you know, we are 

moving down tracks pretty well right now, but we are not finished 

working on streamlining. 

Mr. COLE. I appreciate very much your keeping an eye on that 

because as you know, it is just chilling sometimes for tribes to wait 

for a long time. 

CARCIERI DECISION

Last question and one other comment, I wanted again to associate myself with the remarks Mr. Moran made about the Carcieri 

issue. There is some concern with our colleague who is obviously 

very good on these issues, of the Subcommittee on Natural Resources, about the connection between Alaskan Natives and that 

particular issue. Congressman Kildee had a bill last year, I had a 

bill, we were able to attach one here. That is fine, but do you have 

any concerns about how Alaska natives figure in to the Carcieri 

fix? 

ALASKA LANDS

Mr. ECHO HAWK. That is a consideration because of course, Alaskan Natives, they are just isolated tracks of allotted land in Alaska 

right now, but the approximately 44 million acres that Native people hold in Alaska is held through corporations and it is not in 

trust status. And so I think that naturally people in Alaska might 

want to know, you know, are we talking about making 44 million 

acres of trust land? Right now Federal regulation does not permit 

us to take land into trust. So it is a consideration that it can be 

reasonably dealt with. 

Mr. COLE. My understanding, and I am not going to hold you to 

it and I may be wrong, but Chairman Young, what he would like 

would be just an exclusion, that this legislation does not affect the 

land in Alaska. Would that cause you guys any problem if there 

were legislation that specifically set this aside so we did not mix 

up the two issues? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Congressman Cole, I think that we would have 

to consult with the Administration before we established a position. 

We do not have a position on that, but we could formulate a position on any kind of legislation. But it is not our process to comment 

on bills that are not put in place. 

Mr. COLE. Fair enough. We would like to have a discussion with 

you about that because we are working on something like that with 

Chairman Young right now, and we are trying to make this something that does not cause anybody a problem. So again, we will 

contact you at another time and just ask you if we could run some 

language by you to see if there is some particular concern or problem. If we can get one through, we would like it. Obviously it would 

be something that the President would feel comfortable in signing. 


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CATAWBA TRIBE

While Congressman Moran and I were on a trip together recently, we got a call from the chief of the Catawbas, for what you 

had done, frankly, in helping them. And you know they have had 

great difficulty in that particular tribe and where they are located. 

I just wanted to thank you very much for intervening in helping 

them with the financial situation, the problems they made. He was, 

you know, beside himself and could not say enough good things 

about you and about how well the BIA had worked with them to 

help resolve this problem. So thanks, that was a big deal. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Thank you, Congressman Cole. I was actually 

trying to dial up the chief of the Catawba this morning, and I was 

not able to get through. I have got another little piece of information that he would be happy about. 

Mr. COLE. That is wonderful to hear. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Hinchey. 

SULLIVAN COUNTY

Mr. HINCHEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and it is a great pleasure to see you once again, Mr. Secretary. Thank you very much for 

being here, and I want to express my appreciation to you again to 

coming up to Sullivan County and articulating those set of circumstances there. That situation is still unresolved. It is still trying to be addressed by a number of people in various ways, but 

nothing significant has come out of it yet. But we will see if there 

is anything else that is going to happen over the course of the next 

year or so. It very well may happen. In any case thank you. Thanks 

very much for what you did, and thanks for being there. 

INDIAN GUARANTEED LOAN PROGRAM

I just wanted to ask again about this Guaranteed Indian Loan 

program which strikes me as something that is very helpful, very 

significant to Indian business operators, people who are trying to 

start business and the fact that this proposal is being cut by about 

60 percent, from $8 million to $3 million. But as I understand it, 

the operation of this activity, over the course of recent years, has 

been very positive. There has been no loss. It has been very, very 

effective. For the most part, it has worked very, very well. So I 

wonder why or what the purpose would be of cutting this and what 

the effect of that is going to be? What kind of negative effects are 

going to arise as a result of the loss of this opportunity for some 

funding for people who are trying to start a business and change 

their lives? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Congressman, I mentioned that just last week 

we had met with the Tribal Interior Budget Council, and we got 

a pretty good earful from tribal leaders about their concerns about 

the reduction that occurred in that program, and you know, what 

they were saying to us is that this is vital for economic development. As I recall, you know, there is a 13-to-1 leverage. You know, 

for every dollar that we can come up with, they can go into private 

investors and generate 13. So it has a pretty good economic development out there where it is needed with a low default rate. But 

we are permitted to continue to work to improve the program and, 


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you know, convince anyone with any concerns that this is something that ought to be continued but, you know, right now we are 

in the phase of evaluating and improving the program. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Well, I appreciate that, that you are still looking 

at this, the cost. The circumstances that we are dealing with in 

this country, as you know, I mean, this is just a tiny aspect of it. 

But the major issues that we are dealing with her are circumstances that are downgrading the economy, and the economy is 

being downgraded primarily because of the lack of investment into 

the internal needs of this country to generate jobs, stimulate economic growth, upgrade the economy. All of this is very, very important. And this is a small example, but nevertheless, all of the history of this has been very positive. It has generated jobs, it has 

stimulated the economy. It has done things that were helpful for 

the economic circumstances. So I am hoping that this little example 

here is not going to be just pushed away, that it is going to come 

back and come back strong and effective. And I deeply appreciate 

the activities that you are continuing to be engaged in. Thank you 

very much. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Thank you very much. 

EDUCATION CONSTRUCTION

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Hinchey. Let me get back and ask 

a couple questions about schools. As Ms. McCollum was saying, we 

have apparently $1.8 million to $1.3 million backlog where schools 

that are in poor condition. And did I understand you to say you are 

putting together a priority list of schools? Is there a priority of how 

you decide which schools get construction money first? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. I will answer, and then if Keith Moore has 

something to add. There is a formal process that is underway, a negotiated rule-making, and we have a 25-member committee made 

up of tribal leaders that have held a series of meetings, I think, 

and in all, they will end up meeting about six times. And they are 

tasked to catalog all facilities, school facilities, and to specifically 

come up with a list of where the repairs and renovation need to 

be made and also new schools and make recommendations about 

what equitable distribution ought to be occurring. And we are expecting that I think perhaps even as early as later this year, I have 

seen two figures on this, or early next year, we will be able to formalize that process and then we will have a plan in place that has 

a priority list for new schools and for repairs. 

Mr. SIMPSON. What I would like to see next year when we hold 

this hearing is a priority list of those schools that are unacceptable, 

I guess, or poor, and a total of the backlog and a plan to address 

that backlog over a period of time so that the committee knows 

what we are buying into and how we are going to address that. So 

I would appreciate that next year when we have this budget hearing. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Will do. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Go ahead. 

NEW MEXICO SCHOOL

Ms. MCCOLLUM. I know you are going to do your very best working with the tribal community to identify this, but I was in a school 


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in one of the pueblos in New Mexico where part of a wing of the 

building was shut off. They think there is a crack in the ground 

underneath the sewer. They have, and I should know the right terminology following earthquakes the way I have the past couple 

weeks. They put these little plates on where they can measure 

whether or not the wall is separating because there has been earthquake damage. 

And so the school was basically condemned. It was condemned. 

Then they sectioned off part of the building, and they put a coat 

of paint on and they put these little things on to measure to see 

if the building separated anymore. This did not happen under your 

watch. Voila, the building was suddenly not condemned anymore. 

So when you are going through and you are looking at this list, 

institutional memory rather than just looking at the list, and I am 

sure you are probably going to do this working with the tribal 

council, but as well as the tribal elders in some areas to find out 

what the actual status of the building is and not just necessarily 

trusting your list because it was a miracle, you know, that a coat 

of paint literally took the school off. And I have all the documentation in my office from the pueblo on it. So it is that kind of backlog 

in trying to work off these lists as the Chairman pointed out with 

these big group all-call descriptions because I know you want to do 

the best job that you can, and I am trying to say I know it is going 

to be really hard to even come up with a category with it. 

EDUCATION FACILITY MAINTENANCE

And then if you have two pots of money, one for replacement and 

one for maintenance, if we do not get ahead of the maintenance, 

pretty soon we will end up replacing. And so my comment, speaking for myself is, to be bold, to dream big and to say what you need 

to clear this backlog up so that we do not have deferred maintenance creating even more costs later on because children know how 

a community feels about them by the shape that their school is in. 

That is our gift to our children for their future. And if a school does 

not say we respect you, we embrace you, we cherish you, we welcome you, we want you to succeed, we start out behind. And you 

already are dealing with a lot of issues. 

Mr. Chairman, I am sorry. I did not mean to take any—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. No, that is okay. I appreciate that, and I agree 

with what you said. What we truly need is an honest appraisal because that is what the committee really needs if we are going to 

plan for the future. We are not going to be able to address them 

all tomorrow, but we need a plan so that we can see whether we 

are making progress or not making progress. So I appreciate that. 

EDUCATION ANNUAL CRITERIA

One other issue is the 2008 GAO report on the BIE schools highlights failings that pertain to the selection and coordination of adequate yearly progress or AYPs under the No Child Left Behind Act. 

Among the 174 BIE-run schools, several school systems report a 

lack of direction from BIE in forming these annual criteria which 

present a challenge for each school system as it attempts to craft 

a meaningful system of performance majors. What steps is BIE 

taking to help schools create the AYP goals to measure performVerDate Mar 15 2010 04:44 Jun 29, 2011 Jkt 066897 PO 00000 Frm 00482 Fmt 6602 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A897P2.XXX A897P2

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ance so we know how children in these schools are doing? We not 

only want to provide schools that are adequate, that are schools 

that children can attend in safety, we also want them to learn 

there. How are we measuring whether students are learning there? 

Mr. MOORE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a complex system 

for us right now because we have schools in 23 states, and we have 

a set of standards and assessments that is different in each of 

those 23 states. So we have standards, you know, across the 

board—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. Most schools have adopted their state standard for 

AYP? 

Mr. MOORE. Correct. That is what happened in the previous VSE 

reauthorization, that our schools would follow the states where 

they are sitting. You know, you have CUT scores all over the 

board, high, low and so forth across the 23 states. We cannot compare apples to apples. We cannot compare our students. It is very 

difficult. So under ESEA which we obviously need to reauthorize 

as soon as humanly possible to get a good bill in place to really 

move forward educationally, we want to go to a common set of 

standards and assessments for our 23 states. We are working with 

the Council of Chief States School Officers and other states to 

make that possible for our schools which would then allow us to 

run a common operating environment when it comes to standards 

and assessments for our schools. 

ESEA REAUTHORIZATION

Mr. SIMPSON. As the Education & the Workforce Committee is 

looking at reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education 

Act, I know that is high on the priority list. Is there something specific that needs to be done in that to address this issue with BIE 

schools? 

Mr. MOORE. Well, the adoption of the common core by the states 

is the big one so that we can be uniform across the board, across 

all states, to be able to assess our students, follow standards and 

build curriculum for the students. 

VIOLENT CRIME

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. Last summer, this Subcommittee included 

considerable report language directing the Department to engage 

the Department of Justice, tribes, state, and Inspector General to 

better address epidemic levels of sexual and domestic violence, substance abuse and related criminal problems on reservations. Could 

you update the committee on where we are on that and what some 

of the major obstacles are that you have encountered and how we 

overcome them? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. We have had significant increases in funding, 

and I think one of our key projects that we are doing right now is 

the high priority performance goal on four reservations where we 

have attacked violent crime, and this has been a tremendous success so far to reduce violent crime by at least 5 percent over a 24- 

month period. We are hoping to be able to expand that into other 

areas. But one of the things that we are really trying to do to attack crime is collaborate with the Justice Department to make sure 

we are working in close concert with them. 


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I have, you know, connected with the United States attorneys 

that represent Indian Country. I have spoken to their national 

group, been in face-to-face meetings. I recently had a conference 

call with them, and we are trying to work smart together. And we 

also have an exchange where we have somebody that we have detailed to the Justice Department, they have detailed somebody to 

us, to make sure that we are properly communicating. We have got 

workgroups that connect with them to make sure that we are meeting our responsibilities under the Tribal Law and Order Act. 

So this is a high priority of President Obama, and we are really 

trying to do the very best we can to attack the crime problems in 

Indian Country, and I think we are making success. 

TRIBAL-STATE LAW ENFORCEMENT AGREEMENTS

Mr. SIMPSON. One of the real issues, and I do not know if you 

get involved in this or if you should get involved in this, whether 

the BIA should or not, that was mentioned earlier is the recognition of tribal police officers and their relationship with the state or 

the counties that they happen to live in. I use this as an example: 

For the last couple of years, the Coeur d’Alenes in Idaho have tried 

to get an agreement with the counties that surround them and 

have the state kind of approve it so that their police officers who 

go to the post academy and are trained just like the police officers 

in the counties can actually do their jobs on reservations. Right 

now, if someone is speeding on the reservation and you are a nonIndian speeding on the reservation, you can get stopped and you 

can be held there until a police officer comes from the State Police 

to give you a ticket or whatever they are going to do, which just 

seems bizarre to me. These tribal officers are highly qualified and, 

like I say, have gone to the post academy just like the other police 

officers. They cannot seem to get an agreement. One county they 

are fine with, and that county actually supports the legislation that 

was proposed in the Idaho legislature. The other county has some 

issues that probably are extraneous, but do you ever get involved 

in those types of issues, trying to help state legislatures? Both you 

and I know, coming from state legislature, that that is a sticky 

wicket to get involved in, but to you play a role in trying to help 

them understand these issues? It seems to me as I have tried to 

study over the last couple of years law enforcement and the rights 

of Native Americans and tribes, it is the most complicated set of 

laws I have ever seen in my life. Depending on what type of tribe 

you are, where you are located, whether you are a PL280, whether 

you are a non-Indian committing a crime on a reservation or another Indian committing a crime on a reservation and whether you 

are committing that crime against a Native American or non-Indian—I mean it is almost bizarre to try to understand this. And I 

know the Tribal Law and Order Act was intended to help clean up 

some of that. But there is still a long way to go in trying to make 

this. Tell me about your job in trying to resolve some of these problems. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Well, Chairman Simpson, your question takes 

me back to the good old days. I was actually serving as the tribal 

attorney, you know, at Fort Hall near where you grew up. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Right. 


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Mr. ECHO HAWK. And later becoming the county prosecutor. And 

I worked on these cooperative agreements at the local level. So I 

know there is a long list of the kind of problems that you run into 

that you have got to overcome in order to craft those agreements. 

And we have success stories all over the country now, you know, 

because people have learned over time that it is better to cooperate 

and come to agreement instead of fight these jurisdictional battles. 

But one of the really good things that we are starting to see more 

of has to do with the training because I think I already mentioned, 

the Tribal Law and Order Act has a section in there that encourages training of tribal officers at state facilities, and then we follow 

that up with the Bridge Program that allows those officers that are 

trained in the post academies to be able to get the specialized education that they need to understand the jurisdictional issues in Indian Country. 

So, you know, we need to attack the training and cooperate with 

the states, you know, at the request of the tribes. They have to be 

willing to do this. And then we have got to be able to retain those 

officers, and one of the big problems is we do not, depending on 

what area it is, some of these reservations are very isolated, we 

have housing problems, we have got issues with paying them what 

they are really worth. We train them, we get them out there, they 

get experience and then they go to work for the counties or the 

state where they can make more money. So we are working on retention issues, and I think we are progressing on these issues, and 

the big thing is can we see more of these cooperative local agreements. And you know, I think we are making progress. And actually, the Attorney General of Idaho called me about that situation 

up in North Idaho. I think that was Benewah County. And he had 

me waiting out there, ready to come in and see if I could help, and 

he never called. But he kept telling me, I am going to call you, 

Larry. I kept reading about the issue in the paper, and they should 

have called me in because it fell apart, right? So I could have saved 

it, you know. I am just kidding. But I was willing to go out. I told 

him I was willing to go out and try to be whatever positive force 

I could be. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I appreciate that. I know there are touchy issues, 

and when you were the prosecuting attorney in Bannock County, 

I was from Bingham County, and we always used to train our police officers and then Bannock County would hire them away because you paid more down there. 

NAGPRA

One last question. According to a July 2010 GAO report on Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the BIA is 

one of two agencies that have made the least amount of effort to 

comply with this Act. And that seems rather odd in that this attempt to repatriate burial objects to tribes. Please explain to me 

the agency’s position, and the reason I ask this is it had never 

come to my attention before but I was having lunch with some 

tribes and they were talking about the difficulty in getting some of 

the bones of their ancestors back from some universities which 

they would like to repatriate, and they told me at that time that 

the BIA was of little assistance, I guess is the best way to put it. 


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I do not want to put words in their mouth, but that was kind of 

that attitude, and then this GAO report pretty much says the same 

thing. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Well, the first thing I need to say, I was not 

here when any kind of bad things happened, right? 

Mr. SIMPSON. Right. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. But you know, seriously, we did respond to the 

report and cleared up I think some, things that we maybe disagreed with. And there are also some legal issues involved in that 

we have consulted with Solicitors on. But we have made improvement already, and I would be happy to, you know, have something 

presented to you in writing to mark the kind of progress that we 

have made. But we still have challenges we need to address. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I appreciate that. Ms. McCollum. 

[The information follows:] 

NAGPRA 

Indian Affairs has published a relatively high number of Notices of Inventory 

completion (32), and a high percentage (99.88%) of repatriations for the completed 

inventories. Indian Affairs is actively pursuing and following through on repatriations. In addition, the Indian Affairs Museum Program continues to fund contracts 

with museums for NAGPRA compliance activities. 

To strengthen its efforts, Indian Affairs is resurveying the non-Federal repositories which are housing Indian Affairs NAGPRA items in their collections to determine whether they have accurate and complete inventories and summaries as well 

as compliance with NAGPRA. This effort will allow Indian Affairs to have a true 

assessment of the status of inventory and summary completion and properly determine the actions, resources, and time needed for completion. 

EDUCATION

Ms. MCCOLLUM. I would like to follow up with a couple of education questions, and it might not be in your area as I listed off 

all the Departments and Indian programs within them. 

One of the issues, and I appreciated the Chairman bringing up, 

is one big issue to consider in the reauthorization of No Child Left 

Behind is the governors working together to come up with some 

uniform core standards. So that is my understanding those are the 

standards you would be looking at? 

Mr. MOORE. Correct. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. There is another thing that seems to happen at 

times, and I think it has cleared itself up. I sent a letter several 

years ago in the other Administration. When people were looking 

for money to help children succeed, the tribes were told that where 

they were not compliant and where they were not doing good on 

Title 1 because Title 1 is not fully funded even to the Native American tribal schools, to take the money out of Esther Martinez, 

which is for core language improvement. And Esther Martinez, by 

reinforcing a second language, a native language, the first language of the people in the area in which these children grow up 

traditionally, culturally, the parents, their grandparents, children 

who do a second language do much better in school. We know that 

Native American children need every option put on the table for 

them to succeed as all children do but especially we know that we 

have failed collectively as a Nation these children the most. 

So when discussions like that are taking place at the Department 

of Education, do tribes come to you and say, hey, they are telling 


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us to use our Esther Martinez money for Title 1, and that is not 

what it was there for, and that is our money for language, protection? Do you get involved in things like this with the Department 

of Education? Do they look at you as a collaborator or a person to 

go for advice and counsel, or do they just do their own thing? I 

know you had mentioned you were trying to develop those relationships, and then I am going to ask two questions and they are both 

about education. 

HEAD START

Head Start, what kind of waiting list do you have? I mean, there 

is a huge waiting list for Head Start in general across this country. 

But what kind of waiting list do you have for Head Start, or what 

are some of the barriers in Head Start? Is it dollars for transportation? What are some of the needs for Head Start? Now, that program is in Health and Human Services, but the program is also in 

Indian communities and reservations. And this is where it gets so 

complicated. I am not trying to put everything on your plate, and 

I will speak with the Department of Education, too. But it is so 

inter-connected. And then Impact Aid because not only do we have 

the BIE schools, but people come up and ask for dollars for Impact 

Aid all the time which is military but it is also for tribal schools. 

And I have been in some areas where, in urban and suburban 

areas, not only in the Twin Cities but around, in which the impact 

dollars following the student could provide more services. 

EDUCATION FUNDING

So the big picture is because you are the Bureau of Indian Affairs, does everybody think that you can solve their problem? And 

is there anything we can do as appropriators because we serve on 

the Full Appropriation Committee to help you be more effective in 

doing the kind of consultation that you would like to do so that we 

can help you be more successful in allowing Native American people, Indians, to be able to fully embrace their full rights under the 

treaty obligations. 

Mr. MOORE. Thank you. Thank you, Congresswoman. I will address the first one, U.S. DoE and Interior. I would like to really 

thank Secretary Salazar and Secretary Duncan, they have been big 

leaders in collaborating between the two, and it has been very beneficial for us. We have roughly a quarter-billion dollars that runs 

through us, the BIE, out to our schools from the U.S. Department 

of Education, so they are obviously a big player for us in terms of 

us, how we monitor that money, how it goes out to schools. So we 

have our Interior Appropriations for our schools, but we also have 

the U.S. Department of Education monies that come through the 

BIE and out to our schools. So they are vital, and they have been 

great. And we have had a number of conversations with ESEA and 

a number of other areas where we struggle in terms of the BIE 

being recognized and ESEA and different languages and programs 

and so forth. 

We have a number of issues, the second one being the Esther 

Martinez Title 1 issue. The Assistant Secretary mentioned earlier 

that we are funded right now, our tribal grant schools, at 62 percent for tribal grant school costs, administrative costs. So what 


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happens in those situations when you are only funded to a certain 

level, and we have that in a number of programs that run through, 

they are only funded to a certain level, then schools start wanting 

to dip into other funds to obviously supplement and be able to do 

what they have to do. That causes concerns. You do the A–133 

audit. Is this allowable by statute? Can they do this? And we end 

up having a number of issues across the board of, you know, how 

you can cross lines in terms of line item with budgets. There are 

a number of programs. It is not just Esther Martinez and Title 1 

and so forth that we have those issues with. So that is a struggle. 

Head Start, I mean, we would be able to talk directly to Head 

Start. That is Health and Human Services, as you mentioned, that 

they run that program. We obviously are very tied in to what they 

are doing and how they are doing because those youngsters are 

coming to our schools. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. And then you take—— 

Mr. MOORE. Right. Yes. So it is tied to us, but we do not oversee 

it, monitor it, or you know, do those sorts of things with Head 

Start. And the Impact Aid goes to public schools on reservation 

land. So BIE schools, we do not receive Impact Aid. It is public 

schools on Indian lands or schools that are adjacent to reservation 

lands that receive the dollars for Impact Aid that go into those 

schools, and it is a very strong sum of money that is really used 

for capital outlay and a number of other areas in those schools. 

So I hope that answers your questions. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Public schools on reservation land? So if you are 

not getting the dollars for the public school on the reservation land, 

I mean, do people come and say to you, why are we not getting the 

money? Why is this not happening? I mean, part of my question 

is you are the first call for help and you are the last call for the 

last solution to get something done. So I am serious, what can we 

do? I know you are trying to get cabinet secretaries and undersecretaries and other people to focus. We have some success stories. 

But this needs to be a foundation we build on, and it also needs 

to be something that we need to be mindful in talking to our colleagues about what is going on in Health and Human Services if 

we really want to have an impact on success in our schools and reduce suicide rates and reduce crime rates. Head Start, I mean, 

there is a Federal Reserve report that proves it beyond a reasonable doubt that Head Start is something that helps in all those 

areas. 

So just tell me what your average day is like in that, and then 

I will be quiet. 

TRIBAL INPUT

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Well, Congressman, I appreciate your concern 

and I can tell from your questions and comments that you seem 

well-informed about these issues, and I commend you for that. 

We have a policy that any tribal leaders that want to meet with 

us, we accommodate them if they come to Washington, D.C. But 

not all tribal leaders can. And so I have really tried hard to travel 

into their communities. I have been in 38 states in the past 22 

months and meet regularly with tribal leaders, and you know, I 

hear their voice. But when they speak up, what they tell me does 


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not necessarily relate to Indian Affairs and the Department of the 

Interior. So we try to reach across the Department lines to communicate the concerns that we hear, and I very much appreciate what 

I am hearing as an invitation to suggest ways that maybe this Subcommittee and the larger Appropriations Committee, how they 

could maybe address some of these concerns that we are hearing 

that we really do not have direct authority over. So we will consider that, and I appreciate the outreach that I am hearing from 

you today. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. But the Chairman has to agree. He is the boss. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Oh, I agree. We try to work with other committees, 

and we try to work with the Department of Justice to help address 

some of the issues in Indian Country, and we will continue to do 

that with the Department of Education. And if there are ideas that 

we have, that committee members have that we can be helpful 

with, just let us know. We are more than willing to work with it. 

I appreciate you being here today. As I said in the beginning, 

Larry, you know, we are old friends from days gone by, and you 

mentioned that you had been here 22 months and you are the longest-serving secretary in more than a decade. And that is truly one 

of the problems I think created in the Bureau of Indian Affairs is 

that it takes a long time, as you well know. And you did not come 

to this position as a stranger to Indian Affairs. It takes a long time 

to get your arms around both the problems and the good things 

that are happening out there. And I expect you to stay for a while 

because I am sure you have got your—or at least getting your— 

arms around them and starting to see some of the things that we 

can do to improve life in Indian Country. And we want to work 

with you, and we do not want to start over with a new assistant 

secretary. So I hope you will stay, and we look forward to working 

with you to try to address some of these problems. Thanks for 

being here today. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Thank you very much. 

Mr. SIMPSON. You bet. 


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(511) 

THURSDAY, MARCH 31, 2011. 

INDIAN HEALTH SERVICE FY 2012 BUDGET REQUEST 

WITNESSES 

YVETTE ROUBIDEAUX, M.D., M.P.H., DIRECTOR, INDIAN HEALTH 

SERVICE 

RANDY GRINNELL, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, INDIAN HEALTH SERVICE 

OPENING REMARKS OF ACTING CHAIRMAN COLE

Mr. COLE. Welcome, Director Roubideaux and Deputy Director 

Randy Grinnell. 

The fiscal year 2012 budget request for the Indian Health Service is a $571 million increase, or 14 percent over fiscal year 2010. 

Of that increase, $327 million, or 57 percent, is just to maintain 

current services. 

The rising costs of health care are staring this subcommittee in 

the face. The United States has an obligation to provide quality 

health care to American Indians and Alaska Natives, and as Chairman Simpson and Mr. Moran have already demonstrated, meeting 

that obligation will be as high of a priority of this subcommittee 

and the 112th Congress as it was in the 111th Congress. It will not 

be easy. 

The reality is that once this subcommittee has been given its allocation, the Indian Health Service will be competing for limited 

funding against our Nation’s aging water infrastructure, the operation of our national parks, the fighting of life-threatening 

wildfires, just to name a few. 

We are pleased to have the two of you here today to continue our 

dialog about how to ensure that every dollar appropriated to the 

IHS is money well spent. 

Mr. COLE. With that, I am happy to yield to my friend, the distinguished gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Moran, for any opening 

remarks he might have. 

OPENING REMARKS OF MR. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Thanks very much, Acting Chairman Cole and 

Chairman Simpson, and Dr. Roubideaux, very nice to see you 

again. 

I would like to put in a quote here just because Mr. Simpson enjoys them so much. 

Mr. SIMPSON. That is why I wake up every day. 

Mr. MORAN. It is by Sioux chief, Chief Sitting Bull. Actually the 

first full-length book I ever read was on Sitting Bull because it just 

happened that my parents gave it to me. He is quoted as having 

said, ‘‘Behold my brothers, the spring has come. The earth has received the embraces of the sun and we shall soon see the results 


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of that love.’’ This is springtime and that is why the quote is so appropriate. ‘‘Every seed awakens and so has all animal life. It is 

through this mysterious power that we too have our being and we 

therefore yield to our neighbors, even our animal neighbors, the 

same right as ourselves to inhabit this land.’’ Pretty wise and insightful. It certainly is as wise as any of our Founding Fathers. 

But to get back to the point before us, we are all blessed with 

the mysterious miracle of life and most people in this country are 

blessed with good health and a long life, but in Indian Country, as 

we know, it is a different story. As the Indian Health Service has 

noted, Native Americans and Alaska Natives die at higher rates 

than other Americans from tuberculosis, 500 percent higher rate, 

alcoholism, 514 percent higher incidence, diabetes, 177 percent 

higher, unintentional injuries, 140 percent higher, homicides, 100 

percent higher, suicide, 82 percent higher. And while their life expectancy has increased, it is still 5.2 years less than those of all 

other races within the United States. 

I was disappointed, therefore, that a majority in the House voted 

to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act because 

I really do think that that is going to be a terrific complement to 

the Indian Health Service, and you made that point last year, Doctor. That disappointment was compounded by the fact that the repeal included wiping out the reauthorization of the Indian Health 

Care Improvement Act. It has been nearly two decades since the 

Indian Health Care Improvement Act was last reauthorized and efforts to update and modernize the law took years of work. Enhancements that the updated law provides include authorization 

for hospice, assisted living and long-term care as well as comprehensive behavioral health, prevention and treatment programs, 

all of which would have been wiped out under H.R. 2, which did 

pass the House in January. 

There is an old saying that a person should take care of themselves because good health is everyone’s major source of wealth, 

but for Native Americans and Alaska Natives, that saying rings 

hollow when many do not have the means to afford or even the fiscal access to quality health care. 

While the proposed increase in the budget for the Indian Health 

Service does appear to be quite large, these additional funds have 

to be viewed in the context that more than 57 percent of the increase is just to maintain current services. The IHS serves approximately 2 million Native Americans and Alaska Natives. It is a population that desperately needs health services. Providing access to 

quality health care for Native Americans and Alaska Natives is the 

mission of the Indian Health Service, and that is why this is such 

an important hearing, and why we are pleased as we could be, Dr. 

Roubideaux, that you are responsible for it and it is very nice to 

see Mr. Grinnell with you and your staff. 

So again, thanks for having the hearing, Mr. Chairman and Mr. 

Chairman, and we look forward to the testimony. Thank you. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Director. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. ROUBIDEAUX

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, 

good morning. I am Dr. Yvette Roubideaux and I am the Director 


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of the Indian Health Service, and I am accompanied today by Mr. 

Randy Grinnell, the Deputy Director, and I am pleased to testify 

on the President’s fiscal year 2012 budget request for the Indian 

Health Service. 

While the President’s budget for the entire Federal Government 

reflects hard choices necessary to control the deficit, the IHS budget request reflects a sustained commitment by President Obama to 

honor treaty commitments made by the United States, reflects Secretary Sebelius’s continued priority to improve the IHS and represents one of the largest annual percent increases in discretionary 

budget authority within the Department of Health and Human 

Services. 

This budget request was built upon tribal priorities and maintains current services and also focuses program funding increases 

to be distributed broadly across as many patients and communities 

as possible. The budget request for IHS is $4.6 billion, an increase 

of $571.4 million, or a 14 percent increase over the fiscal year 2010 

enacted funding level. 

The request includes increases to maintain current services including pay costs for Commissioned Corps personnel, inflation and 

population growth and funding to staff and operate newly constructed facilities, including facilities completely constructed by 

tribes under the Joint Venture construction program, and the success of the Joint Venture program demonstrates the strong commitment of the Administration and our tribes to reduce the backlog of 

health facility construction projects and staffing needs. The budget also includes a total increase of $169.3 million for the 

Contract Health Services program, the top tribal priority for program increases, and this will help us meet the significant need for 

referrals for medical services in the private sector. The budget request also includes $54 million for the Indian Health Care Improvement Fund and will allow approximately 88 of our lowest 

funded hospitals and health centers to expand primary care services. To fund the shortfall in contract support costs, a $63.3 million 

increase is included for tribes that have assumed management of 

health programs previously managed by the Federal Government. 

The budget request also includes modest increases for health information technology security, prevention of the principal risk factors for chronic diseases such as smoking and obesity, and expanding access to and improving the quality of substance abuse treatment in our primary care settings. 

For the facilities appropriation, the total health care facilities 

construction budget is $85.2 million for construction to continue on 

the replacement hospital in Barrow, Alaska, and the San Carlos 

Health Center in Arizona, and the Kayenta Health Center on the 

Navajo Reservation. It will also fund the design and site grading 

of the Youth Regional Treatment Center in Southern California. 

This budget helps us continue our work to bring reform to the 

Indian Health Service. In the first year that I was Director, I 

sought input from tribes and staff on where improvements are 

needed in IHS. In the second year, it has become clear that input 

from stakeholders has reinforced the need for change and improvement in the IHS, improving the way we do business and to focus 

more on our oversight responsibilities to ensure accountability and 


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providing quality health care in the most effective and efficient 

manner possible. We are working hard to make the improvements 

and implement the recommendations of the Senate Committee on 

Indian Affairs Investigation of the Aberdeen Area. 

This budget also includes funding increases for direct operations 

and business operations support to help us improve our business 

capacity and oversight. While we are making progress on implementing the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, permanent reauthorization is included in the Affordable Care Act. This budget 

proposes funding for two high-priority demonstration projects: 

youth telemental health project for suicide prevention and innovative healthcare facility construction. 

While IHS has proven its ability to improve the health status of 

American Indians and Alaska Natives over the years, this budget 

request for IHS is really a necessary investment in winning the future that will result in healthier American Indian and Alaska Native communities. 

So thank you for the opportunity to present the President’s fiscal 

year 2012 budget request for the Indian Health Service, and I am 

happy to answer questions. 

[The statement of Yvette Roubideaux follows:] 


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Mr. COLE. Thank you, Director. I am only in this chair courtesy 

of Mr. Simpson, who has pressing commitments elsewhere, so I am 

going to go straight to him so he can ask whatever questions he 

cares to. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Chairman. I appreciate it, and thanks 

for taking the committee today. I apologize for having to slip out 

to another committee hearing that I have to chair here in a few 

minutes, but I did want to come down for your testimony. 

You and I have had the opportunity to talk about Indian Health 

Service, and I think as we have demonstrated, both Republicans 

and Democrats on this committee are committed to making sure 

that we improve Indian health across this country. It is not a partisan issue with this committee. I think when Mr. Moran was 

chairman, he did a great job and we appreciate that, and if you 

saw in H.R. 1, although it has been called a dump truck, among 

other things, I think everybody agreed with the increase that we 

actually put in for Indian Health Service in H.R. 1 as a demonstration of our commitment that we have got to address some of the 

real problems that exist in Indian Country, and I know that you 

are doing a great job and I look forward to working with you on 

these issues as we move forward. 

As you probably also know, I was a dentist in the real world before I was elected to Congress, which is a whole other story I will 

not get into. So I have a couple dental questions. 

DENTAL SERVICES

In 2008, the Indian Health Service’s GPRA summary report 

noted that only 25 percent of American Indians and Alaska Natives 

had access to dental care, and those that do find themselves without the ability to receive many of the routine procedures such as 

root canals or endodontics, as we like to call it. Root canals make 

people kind of cringe. Adult services are generally limited to emergency care, if at all. How does the President’s IHS budget recommendation address the dire need for dental services in Indian 

Country and what is IHS doing to help tribal nations attract and 

retain qualified professionals? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Well, thank you for your question, and I really 

appreciate your advocacy for dental care in the Indian Health Service. It is a very serious and significant need for addressing because 

we have high rates of dental caries and other dental problems. 

Well, this budget has $170 million for the dental line, which is an 

$18.2 million increase, and that includes increases for pay, population growth and staffing of some of the new clinics, and it is allowing us to continue to provide basic preventive care services and 

basic restorative and emergency care, and we really feel that this 

is an important priority, especially for our children, and that is 

why we have our Early Childhood Caries Initiative to try to reduce 

the rates of childhood caries. 

You know, I think based on a lot of encouragement, especially 

from you, we know we need to get more dental providers into the 

Indian Health Service and more dentists because we do need to 

have more health care providers. We have worked very hard on 

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have a dental externship program that brings dental students in to 

work with us, and then we have had an increased focus with our 

loan repayment program and with our bonuses, and so we have actually seen a reduction in our vacancy rate for dentists from 35 

percent to 17 percent, which is great but we still have more work 

to do. So we are going to keep working on improving dental services for American Indian and Alaska Native patients in the Indian 

Health Service. 

Mr. SIMPSON. But we have seen about a 50 percent reduction in 

the vacancy rate? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Yes. 

Mr. SIMPSON. That is good work, and we appreciate that very 

much. 

ELECTRONIC DENTAL RECORDS

In 2009, the committee directed IHS to use a portion of its HIT 

funds for electronic dental records. How far along are you in installing the EDR at all IHS dental facilities and are the tribes’ facilities also on the same EDR, and is additional funding needed to 

complete this project, and if so, how much and how many years will 

it take at a current funding level? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Well, the electronic dental records system is extremely important so we can track our clinical and administrative 

data related to dental care. Fortunately, with ARRA funding and 

with our own funds, we have been able to complete its installation 

in 60 sites, and 21 are currently in progress. There are still 149 

left to go, and we would need a significant appropriation to get 

those complete in a short period of time but we are very committed 

to it. We are installing those in both IHS and tribal sites, and it 

will help us improve and track the quality of care. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Any idea how long it will take under current levels 

to get the other 149 sites online? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Under current levels, I can give you an exact 

number through a written response, but I believe it is going to take 

several years under current levels. 

EARLY CHILDHOOD CARIES INITIATIVE

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. Lastly, last year IHS announced the new 

initiative for reducing prevalence of early childhood tooth decay 

among young American Indians and Native Alaskans by 25 percent 

and increasing their dental access by 50 percent. Could you give us 

an update on the progress of that initiative? Last year we asked 

what funding level would be needed in the IHS to make having all 

children entering school to be free of tooth decay. Have you been 

able to determine what amount would be and will any of the additional $18 million you are requesting for the dental program go to 

address this serious disease? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Well, we will definitely put resources towards 

the Early Childhood Caries Initiative because we think it is so important. It has an important goal of reducing caries and increasing 

access to dental care for children zero to five years old and getting 

more fluoride, more varnish and more sealants. We are currently 

evaluating this initiative and would be happy to provide you information as the details are available. I believe we have looked at 


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what sort of resources we would need to equal the private sector 

in terms of access, and I believe it is an increase of 600 percent 

in the amount of funding that we would need to equal the private 

sector overall for dental care, but we are really committed to doing 

the Early Childhood Caries Initiative because it is innovative, it is 

unique. It is a partnership with our communities and some of our 

community providers and CHRs and so we are very committed to 

it. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Well, I appreciate that, and I would encourage you 

as you move on in this to work with the American Dental Association and other associations that have some good ideas on how to 

address this serious problem in Indian Country. A lot of people do 

not think of dental caries as a serious disease. It is the most prevent disease in America, and what we do not understand sometimes with children, it is hard to go to school and learn when your 

tooth hurts. It is way too close to the brain to ignore, and so it is 

hard to learn when you have got those problems, and more children 

miss school time because of dental disease than almost any other 

disease, I think than any other disease. So it is not just an issue 

that I am concerned about because I was a dentist in the real 

world, it is an issue that is real and one that I know you are working on and we want to work with you to make sure we address it. 

Thank you for being here today. I apologize for having to leave 

early but I know we have had conversations in the past and we will 

continue to have them as work on this budget, and thanks for the 

work you do. 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Thank you very much for your support. 

Mr. SIMPSON. You bet. 

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I want you to feel free to leave whenever you like as often as you like. 

Mr. Moran. 

Mr. MORAN. As Mike is leaving, it should be underscored what 

a terrific job he has done on BIA and on the Indian Health Service, 

and that kind of insight into what dental caries mean in the life 

of a child is important. You are a good guy, Mr. Simpson. You really are. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

INDIAN HEALTH CARE REAUTHORIZATION ACT

One of the enhancements contained in the reauthorization of the 

Indian Health Care Improvement Act is the ability of the IHS to 

enter into agreements with the Department of Veterans Affairs and 

the Department of Defense to share medical facilities. Those are resources that we really need to take advantage of. Have you entered 

into any of those such agreements, and what are your plans for 

that part of the program that was within the Indian Health Care 

Reauthorization Act? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. We have had a few examples of entering into 

the sharing agreements. We are really grateful for the passage of 

the Indian Health Care Improvement Act that will help us do that 

on a larger scale. We have begun discussions with the Veterans Administration. I met with Secretary Shinseki last May, and I was 

really pleased to see how supportive he is of American Indian and 

Alaska Native veterans and so we signed an updated memorandum 

of agreement this past October, which is going to direct our staff 


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to work together to better coordinate services for eligible veterans 

and included in that will be a review of how we can better share 

the services and the facilities as is contained in the Indian Health 

Care Improvement Act. 

Mr. MORAN. I bet there are a lot of Native Americans who are 

veterans, are there not? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Absolutely. I meet Native American veterans 

all the time when I am out on the road. My father was a World 

War II veteran and I am very proud of his service, and I am really 

excited that we have a VA Secretary who is so committed to working on Native American veteran issues, so it is a big priority for 

me personally. 

SANITATION

Mr. MORAN. Good. Excellent. In IHS’s own data, it shows that 

about one of eight, 12 percent of American Indian and Alaska Native homes, do not have safe water or basic sanitation facilities. 

The budget increases funding for facilities construction and maintenance, as you mentioned, but it cuts funding for water, sewage and 

solid waste disposal facilities construction by $20 million. Safe 

drinking water and open dumps are major problems in Indian 

Country. Can you tell us what we are doing about that, which I 

trust is a priority of yours? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Absolutely. Well, I hear from tribes all the time 

the problems of water and waste disposal and how serious that is 

and how they need to have the sanitation facilities construction 

and there is an overall enormous need. We were very fortunate in 

the last couple of years to get funding through the Recovery Act, 

$68 million for the Indian Health Service and another $90 million 

from the EPA, and so many of those projects are still underway 

and still in progress. So when we looked at the budget for 2012, 

we have all been asked to find areas where we might be able to 

have some savings related to the budget and so this was an area 

where we felt some savings would be less painful because we already have all the projects that are involved and the funding that 

we do have in the budget for 2012 will fund 18,500 homes to get 

solid waste disposal and sewer for their homes. So it is a very important priority but we feel that there is so much funding that we 

got in the last two years that we are still working on those and 

that is really helping us. 

Mr. MORAN. But you would agree that open dumps are a serious 

problem in Indian Country? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Absolutely. 

Mr. MORAN. This is the last question I want to ask, and I am 

glad Ms. McCollum is here. I am going to have to run off to the 

defense hearing as well. 

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE PREVENTION INITIATIVE

Over the years, we have made it a priority to fund domestic violence and sexual assault programs in Native American communities. It obviously is criminal but it is really a horrible endemic 

problem within many communities, and so we upped that amount 

consistently. Can you give us a report on what we achieved with 

those additional funds? 


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Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Yes. Well, I really want to thank you and the 

subcommittee for their support of this issue. We are really grateful 

for the $10 million a year that we have for the Domestic Violence 

Prevention Initiative. We have actually awarded 65 projects as of 

last August, and they are implementing domestic violence prevention programs in communities. They are coordinating services in 

the community response to this terrible problem. We are also expanding our services for sexual assault in terms of the SANE, 

SAFE and SART at some of our 24/7 sites. We have also been able 

to update our national sexual assault policy and just recently 

signed that, and we have been working on curriculums and working on improving how the Indian Health Service addresses this 

very serious problem, and I can say that the programs are in 

progress. They are doing well. We are providing technical assistance and evaluating them so as soon as we have evaluation results, 

we will be happy to share those. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Dr. Roubideaux, and thank you, Chairman Cole. Thanks very much. 

Mr. COLE. Before I ask you a couple questions, I just want to get 

something sort of in for the record, and first of all, I want to thank 

Mr. Moran for his absolutely extraordinary leadership last year 

when he was chairman and his continuing commitment on this. He 

has just been terrific to work with on these issues, and if you are 

from Oklahoma, you sort of have to be for Indians. You would be 

pretty stupid not to be. But he does not represent a large Native 

population and yet his commitment has been every bit as great as 

anybody’s in Congress, so I appreciate it very much. 

Mr. MORAN. Not as great as yours. 

Mr. COLE. You are kind to say that, but that is not true and I 

appreciate it, Chairman. 

The second point I do want to make quickly for the record, I 

know there is some concern in Indian Country about what will happen if the Affordable Care Act is actually repealed, and the current 

Majority’s position was that should have never been in the bill in 

the first place. It would have passed separately. It had already 

passed the Senate. We actually tried to get it passed in 2008. The 

House for whatever reason did not take it up. We should have 

passed it then. And then it got put in the health care bill where 

it put it, in my opinion, personally, at risk because standing individually it would have passed overwhelmingly. It had great bipartisan support. 

I have introduced legislation that actually is the Indian Health 

Care Reauthorization bill so in the event were ever to happen, and 

it is not going to happen obviously any time soon that this legislation were repealed, there will be another vehicle to immediately 

move through the process so that we do not miss a beat in terms 

of Indian health care. We do think that is a treaty obligation, as 

you mentioned, and again, this committee in a bipartisan sense is 

very much committed to fulfilling that. So for what it is worth, I 

do not think at least Indian health care is at much at risk as others might think. 


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JOINT VENTURES

Let me ask you some questions on one of my favorite topics, and 

you are very familiar with it, and that is the Joint Venture process, 

which my own tribe has certainly benefited from enormously. How 

has IHS planned the outyear budgets for Joint Ventures as new facilities continue to come online? I think you will see more and more 

of these, and the upside obviously is you are bringing new money 

into the system that is being directed toward health care, but I 

know it has got to create some unique challenges for you in terms 

of budgeting. 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Well, we are very supportive of the Joint Venture construction program, and the reason is, is it is a great way 

for us to make progress in the enormous need for health care facilities construction, and I am grateful for your support as well. I 

know we have some great projects that have happened in Oklahoma. And the deal with Joint Venture is that the tribe agrees to 

build the facility and then we agree to request the appropriations 

from Congress for the staffing of the facilities, and we are very supportive of all the projects that we have approved and all of the 

projects that are in progress. What we do every year in the budget 

formulation process is we look at all the projects and we look at 

their anticipated start dates and how they are doing on progress, 

and some projects they go faster than we think and some projects 

go much slower than we think, and so we do have to juggle sometimes. But it does require us to have a consistent commitment over 

time in the budget for staffing so that we can be able to respond 

when the facilities are open, when they are ready to open. 

And so what we have done is for the fiscal year 2012 budget, we 

have proposed $71.5 million increase that will cover six new health 

centers that we anticipate will be completed in this time period, 

and also we have a placeholder for two Joint Venture projects so 

that if some of those projects fall into the time period of the 2012 

budget and they are ready to go, that we would have funding available for that. It is dependent on appropriations but I do think that 

there is bipartisan support for the Joint Venture construction 

project. I have heard a lot of people say it is important. The tribes 

really think this is important, and we are very committed to keep 

working with the tribes and keep offering opportunities for the 

Joint Venture program but also to be mindful of the available dollars. We do not want to promise too much. We do not want to have 

too many waiting in line. But I do feel that the request that we 

have for 2012 will help us continue to make progress. 

Mr. COLE. So you are pretty comfortable that we will not find 

ourselves in a situation where facilities have been constructed and 

you do not have the wherewithal frankly to actually meet your end 

of the deal in terms of staffing? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Well, we hope not. If for some reason we do not 

get staffing money or we get a reduced amount, that does cause 

some alarm and we are going to have to really work closely with 

the tribes on the timing, but I am hopeful that we will be able to 

handle that. 

Mr. COLE. I really appreciate your efforts in this regard, and 

would ask that you just keep us very closely apprised of your needs 


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because I do not think any of us want to see facilities built that 

then we cannot follow through from a federal side with the commitments that we have made, because this is a great way to leverage 

money. 

URBAN PROGRAM

I have got of course many questions but one other thing I want 

to ask before I yield to my colleague from Minnesota. I am also interested in your view and your plans in terms of Indian clinics that 

are not particularly affiliated with tribes. We have one in Oklahoma City, one in Tulsa. They serve all Native Americans, and the 

one in Oklahoma City actually sits outside of Indian Country theoretically because it sits in lands that were historically not assigned 

to any tribes but it carries an enormous patient load and really it 

offers first-class care, and frankly provides opportunities for Native 

Americans that are away from their tribes, to get good health care, 

which they still have a right to do. So if you could, tell us about 

clinics that may be located outside of Indian Country but serving 

Indians. What is the role that the IHS plays there and what do you 

see in the future? Again, we have got a lot of Indians in cities or 

places away from their tribal lands and they sometimes have a 

very difficult time getting access to good health care. 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Well, you are absolutely right. I mean, the 

original Indian Health Service was developed to serve primarily 

reservation and rural communities but over the years due to a 

number of factors—Indian people wanting to seek education or 

wanting to seek employment or better opportunities—have moved 

to urban areas and so if you ask the tribes, they will say the treaties apply wherever you are and so we do have a commitment to 

try to serve the urban Indians in major metropolitan areas, and we 

have an Urban Indian Health program that has 34 sites around 

the country. The Oklahoma City and the Tulsa sites are very successful and they provide great services. I toured the Oklahoma City 

site and was very impressed with it, and they actually are very 

unique because the passage of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act has given them a new status also to be a service unit 

within the Indian Health Service so they sort of have a dual status, 

and I understand the tribes are consulting on what that is going 

to mean in terms of resources and relationships in that area, but 

I think it is a great opportunity for those two sites which are doing 

such a great job, but the Indian Health Service is committed to 

doing what it can to serve the health care needs of American Indians and Alaska Natives wherever they are. 

Mr. COLE. Thank you, Director. 

Ms. McCollum. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you. One followup on the discussion of 

repealing the health care act, and Representative Cole and I disagree on parts of the main part of it, probably agree on some of 

it, but we stand, I believe, united in what was passed for Indian 

Country. 

So I will make a comment, Mr. Cole. I will not pretend to know 

how all the rules are written because this is very different than a 

state legislature where the rules stay consistent from body to body, 

and that to me is what regular order is all about. Everybody knows 


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what the rules are going to be every single time whether it is a majority or minority switches. But because it is an independent act, 

because it is a third act, I keep trying to ask my colleagues on the 

other side of the aisle who want to repeal the first two acts, leave 

the third act in place, and so I think we are trying to accomplish 

the same goal. I do not want to see the first two parts repealed but 

I do believe that unless there is some parliamentary reason why 

we cannot separate the two, why we cannot push for those who 

want to do the repeal and replace on the first two sections just to 

focus on that and to leave standing the IHCIA permanent reauthorization. But thank you for having a plan B because that is important. 

Maybe you could comment. Would it be as seamless as some of 

us would hope if the whole act was replaced and another act had 

to go through and happen? I mean, I think that there is a possibility that there would be a glitch. If you have any legal opinion 

on that, I would be happy to hear that at the end of this. 

I want to go back on two points just to kind of dig in a little 

more. I have been asking this of the schools, and I did come in here 

just a tad late so maybe this has already been asked. Have you had 

an opportunity yet to ask for a full facilities backlog? If you could 

provide to this committee a full facilities backlog? If you could also 

provide to this committee all the different ways in which you are 

interrelated to CDC, NIH, National Science Foundation doing research, all the other agencies that you work with. Because when 

I go into a health care facility and I start asking who has responsibility for this, the tribal leaders and the tribal elders, I mean, their 

eyes are huge and their hair is standing on end because the frustration of dealing with the Bureau, dealing with CDC. I mean, the 

list goes on and on and on and on. And so it is very easy when 

there is a problem for the finger pointing to start happening, not 

because anybody does not want to do their job, it is just because 

it is not clear which happens first or who has full responsibility. 

So the chairman, I think, is very interested in trying to figure out 

how we as appropriators work with even our colleagues in the full 

Appropriations committee. 

I was in a health care facility in New Mexico. I have been in 

some where I have watched the community come together with the 

Bureau and do fantastic and amazing things in facilities that were 

only designed to handle one-quarter of the population that they are 

seeing. I have also been in a facility in New Mexico in which I 

wanted to tell the people there to get up and leave. It was filthy. 

I was underwhelmed with the director. It is not a place I would 

send anyone even for triage, not even to get there to get assessed 

to see where they should go next. It was embarrassing, and I left 

there and it still haunts me. 

Another facility I was in in New Mexico does not do delivery 

service, and I can understand that maybe there is not enough 

women coming through the facility to have the obstetrics and gynecology that it really needs, but it is asking women in the rural communities to come in as far as the Albuquerque area and then drive 

another 30 minutes into Albuquerque because they do not do deliveries there. I understand why they do not do deliveries there after 

talking to some of the Native American women who were there but 


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they can still kind of go there for some of their regular checks but 

then they are handed off to a different doctor, a whole different delivery system. 

So I would be interested to know if you have a plan that you are 

putting together in rural communities to look at the following. 

Some of the hospitals should not be functioning as hospitals anymore. This is my opinion. They should be functioning as A number 

one five-star clinics, and if we are honest about that and talk to 

the community about what we can provide and provide what is top 

notch, I think everybody wins with better care. 

Secondly, I would be interested in knowing how in the major part 

of the health care bill, which I really think has some great, great 

things in it, how you go about providing that seamless care when 

you do have someone go to a hospital, when you do have someone 

who has been maybe seeing a nurse practitioner or a physician assistant for their early term of their delivery and then the delivery 

gets handed off. Do we have people who are licensed to practice in 

both places so that people can meet who is going to be doing the 

delivery later on? When does the handoff happen? I am a mom who 

had an intern deliver my second child. I know things do not go as 

planned, okay? I know that that might not be the same doctor but 

still having that ability having been in the facility, go through the 

facility and meet people ahead of time reduces anxiety. And so I 

just want you to big-picture talk about health care. As you can tell, 

this is more broad than it is specific. 

The other question that I have is, and Mr. Healy was telling me 

but I think he knew I already knew this. You know, 57 percent of 

health care for Native Americans is delivered in urban settings, 

and my district and Keith Ellison’s districts are probably the example of it. You know how they have the all-tribal call at the powwows? That is our area. So we have people who summer, who go 

back and forth, have elders visiting, whatever, that is going on, and 

that has been a huge challenge keeping that health care seamless 

too, especially for diabetes care. So some of the things that are in 

the Affordable Care Act that I really am excited about, look at the 

holistic approach—medical records, just how you work together as 

a team. 

And then my final question is, as people want to stay in their 

homes and as we see younger generations not wanting to stay on 

the reservations as much and some reservations have been very 

mindful of that and have created opportunities for their youth to 

stay there, how do we keep from having an elderly population that 

is vulnerable and is isolated when it comes to having a whole team 

approach for their health care? 

I am not asking another question and I am not expecting to solve 

things but I just wanted you to know, I know that one thing pushes 

over into another, so how are you with the best of your abilities 

trying to manage that interagency, urban-suburban, hospitals that 

should not be functioning as hospitals? How do we help you? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Well, thank you for your comments and thank 

you so much for your concern. I am really grateful when I find 

Members of Congress who are really interested about Indian 

issues. You know, when I was confirmed as the Director of the Indian Health Service about a year and a half ago, it seems like the 


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challenges are daunting and enormous and how can we possibly 

address the need, but what I found is, there is a lot of energy and 

enthusiasm about ways that we could improve the system, and my 

priorities are all around reforming the Indian Health Service, looking at how we can change and improve in both systems ways and 

big-picture ways and in small ways. 

IMPROVING PATIENT CARE INITIATIVE

I appreciate your enthusiasm about the part of the Affordable 

Care Act that talks about coordination of care. We actually for the 

last couple of years have had what is called an Improving Patient 

Care Initiative, which is our patient-centered medical home initiative, and we have so far been able to expand that to 68 sites in the 

Indian Health Service and in tribal programs and some urban programs, and we just had the launch of the third cohort of this initiative, and the level of enthusiasm in the room was unbelievable. 

People are so excited and coming up with innovative ways to really 

take a look at, okay, how do we function as a team, not just, you 

know, running around not coordinating our care, how do we make 

sure that we put the patient first at the center of care and what 

do we need to do to improve the quality and to use quality improvement tools to make sure we are improving care. And many of the 

sites are choosing different topics to focus on, and I will go back 

to my staff and see if any focused on prenatal and obstetric care 

as a part of their Improving Patient Care Initiatives and then we 

can send that to you in a followup question. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. The infant mortality rate on some reservations 

is worse than in other places in the world. 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Absolutely, and we are working very hard to 

address that issue, and I am hopeful that some of these improvements can help us improve the quality of care. 

The other thing that I want to mention briefly, we will give you 

more information in our followup responses, is that there is a provision in the Indian Health Care Improvement Act that gives the 

director of the IHS increased authority to look at how American Indian and Alaska Native health care is addressed throughout the 

Department of Health and Human Services and so I have actually 

been doing a lot of work meeting with other agency heads, attending meetings and making sure everybody is aware of what the 

issues are in tribal communities and what the issues are in Indian 

health facilities, and we have started to work on some collaborative 

efforts throughout the different agencies. One really promising one 

is the big need we have for health care providers, and HRSA, the 

Health Resources and Services Administration, I have met with 

them and we have talked about how we can get more of our sites 

eligible for and able to receive some of the National Health Service 

Corps health care providers—doctors, dentists and behavioral 

health providers—into our Indian Health sites to address some of 

our vacancy rates. One of the ways to improve quality is access to 

care. 

And so it is those kinds of collaborations that we are working on 

to try to leverage resources from other agencies to make sure that 

we are maximizing all of the resources we can bring to the table 

to improve care for American Indians and Alaska Natives and so 


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we would be happy to follow up many of the points that you have 

made in answers, in written answers after the hearing. 

SMALL GRANTS PROGRAM

Mr. COLE. Director, let me move to several other areas, if I may. 

IHS works very closely I know with the Tribal Advisory Board in 

preparing your budget request. It is my understanding that there 

was roughly $6 million in the small grants program that was zeroed out without consultation of the Tribal Advisory Board, so two 

questions. One, is there any particular reason why that consultation did not take place? Perhaps I am misinformed and I would be 

happy to be corrected if I am. And second, where in your budget 

are you going to address the needs that in the past we were dealing with in the small grants program? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Well, thank you for that question. We have all 

been asked to find ways to save in the budget and help contribute 

to the challenges we have today with the federal deficit and the 

budget and so even though we are grateful for an increase of 14 

percent, we still need to be good stewards of our federal resources. 

And so one of the areas where we are proposing savings is in grant 

savings, and we have a number of small grant programs that fund 

one to nine or 11 grantees that are proposed for elimination, and 

the reason we did this was actually based on tribal consultation. 

I know that there is word on the street that we did not consult 

with tribes but the fundamental basis for this is that tribes have 

told us that they want the funding to go directly to their health 

programs. They do not like to compete for competitive grants if 

they do not have to. They would much rather see the funding benefit a greater number of tribes and so as we looked at the budget, 

we wanted to save our clinical services and to protect the basic 

health care services that we have, and while we know these are extremely important topics that are covered in these grant programs, 

as we look around the budget it seems like the impact would be 

a little bit less because only a few sites are actually proposed. 

So what I have been doing since the budget justification has been 

public is, I have been meeting with tribes in various venues and 

discussing these proposed savings and I have been asking for their 

input on that. We are evaluating these programs for those savings 

and are definitely committed to partnering and consulting with 

tribes. So this was a way that we can maybe have some resources 

benefit more tribes and address the concerns they have about some 

of the competitive mechanisms that are in place. 

CONTRACT HEALTH SERVICES

Mr. COLE. Okay. You mentioned in your testimony the increase 

which we all really appreciate, frankly, on Contract Health Services. How close is that going to get us to 100 percent? You know, 

how much progress do you think we will be able to make with the 

additional funds that you have? This is always difficult because it 

is a moving target to ever get in balance but looking forward as far 

as you can. I understand the budget is a very difficult process. 

What sort of long-term goals do you have in terms of being able to 

sort of cover as much as possible, if not all, of Contract Services? 


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Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Well, yes, the Contract Health Services program is a top tribal budget priority because it is used to pay for 

referral services that we cannot meet in the facilities that we have, 

and that is the challenge of the Indian Health system is that some 

communities have large hospitals, some communities have small 

clinics, and each provides a different package of services and so 

whatever services we need to provide that cannot be provided in 

that facility we have to use this Contract Health Services fund. I 

am really grateful for the increase that has been proposed. It is 

$169 million increase, and that is going to help us purchase an additional 5,700 inpatient admissions, 218,000 outpatient visits and 

8,000 one-way patient travel trips, and while it is great progress 

and we are really grateful for this, there is an incredible need for 

Contract Health Services to pay for referrals in the private sector, 

and we have been able to estimate that the total unmet need for 

Contract Health Services, at least on the federal side, is about $859 

million, and that is just the information we have on the federal 

side. There are also the tribally managed programs as well, so the 

need may be greater. 

But we have made great progress. Last year in the 2010 budget, we got $100 million increase, and for 2012, now we are proposing 

the $89 million increase plus current services, which is a total of 

$169 million. So it does not totally meet the need because the need 

is so great, but it is a sustained commitment to try to continue to 

make progress and in this very important area. I had an 80-yearold woman speak to me at a listening session recently and she told 

the story of, you know, people need these referrals. These are medically necessary referrals and we are limited on the historic underfunding of the Contract Health Services program but we are really 

grateful that the increases we are getting now are helping us start 

to address that need for these referrals to the private sector. 

Mr. COLE. I have got several more but I want to go back and 

forth so my colleague from Minnesota has an opportunity to ask 

her questions as well. 

HEAD START

Ms. MCCOLLUM. A question I asked the Assistant Secretary yesterday, and it goes again to the web analogy, was about Head 

Start. The Bureau provides the frame, skeleton in which all the activities take place. Part of Head Start is that it does screening for 

children for eyes, hearing and that. How does that work or what 

is your interface with providing some of the screenings for Head 

Start, which also includes dental? Because if kids cannot hear, if 

they cannot see, if they are in a lot of pain with dental problems, 

they do not do well in school so part of Head Start is not only getting them ready with some of the tools that they need, helping 

mom and dad reinforce what they need to do for reading at home 

but also making sure that they have a healthy start when they 

start out with Head Start. So what is your interaction and collaboration with the Head Start program? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Well, I do know that there are examples of how 

Indian Health Service health care providers or nurses or community health representatives may interact with Head Start programs, which are funded by the ACF, Administration for Children 


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and Families, within the Department of Health and Human Services. I do know that some of our prevention programs also reach 

out to Head Start to do some education and so I would be happy 

to—and the ways that they reach out are very different in different 

places so I would be happy to—provide some written followup to 

your questions so we could see the range of those kinds of collaborations. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. That would be great. Mr. Chair, I talk about 

Head Start a lot because everybody talks about doing pre-K, and 

not that Head Start is the most perfect program and it is different 

because the community organizations can structure a little differently, and I think we need more uniformity for best practices for 

Head Start, but it is the only pre-K program in which we have a 

longitudinal study done on it and it was done by the Federal Reserve, so that is kind of an impassive group when you think about 

looking at kids and really kind of doing the cost-effectiveness of it 

if you just want to look at the dollars. But Head Start is complicated in community organizations. Even back home in our traditional Congressional districts, I see the dollars that the tribes are 

putting in to make sure that they have the good facilities, that they 

have the language instructors and everything else. I mean, yes, I 

am glad that tribes are doing that but there is also a responsibility, 

a treaty responsibility for us collectively as the United States to be 

doing our fair share. So I do not want Head Start programs start 

to becoming the haves and the have nots either because I think 

that will hurt the program later on and that means kids do not get 

good delivery of service. 

Could you maybe talk about dental a little bit? Because the elders get excited when there is a dental clinic. I will tell you, to use 

a term, the smiles light up when you hear there is a dental clinic. 

Mr. COLE. If I may interrupt, as we heard earlier, Mr. Simpson 

gets excited too, so we will talk about as much in dentistry as you 

want to talk about, Director. 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Yes. Well, thank you very much. I am actually 

a beneficiary of the IHS dental services, and I think they did a 

pretty great job on my dental care. We recognize there is a huge 

need for dental services in all ages in the Indian Health Service 

and particularly for the young and the elders. We talked about how 

the budget is used in the Indian Health Service for preventive care 

and restorative care and emergency care, and we have a couple of 

initiatives, the Early Childhood Caries Initiative, which is looking 

at reducing childhood caries in age zero through five, and it is sort 

of a collaboration between the Indian Health Service and the local 

community resources, and that reaches out, I believe to Head Start 

as well. And so that is a program that we are very proud of. We 

are evaluating it and we are hopeful that we will be able to achieve 

our goals in that very important program. 

We are working on implementing our electronic dental record to 

make sure that we can evaluate the work that we are doing and 

trying to expand services in dental services with the budget. Whenever we construct a new health facility, that helps bring in more 

services and more providers. We are also doing a lot more to recruit dental providers into our communities and actually have been 

able to reduce the vacancy rate from 35 percent to 17 percent 


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through a very targeted and focused effort over the last couple of 

years and I think based on the interests of this committee in encouraging us to do that and through a number of different activities that I have mentioned. 

So it is a big priority for us. I completely understand as a physician how dental health can influence the health of the entire body 

and can be both a physical, mental and social issue and we are 

committed to working on it. 

IHCIA FACILITIES PROVISION

Mr. COLE. Director, I want to give you an opportunity to expand 

on something that you mentioned in your testimony, because I am 

not sure I fully understand it, and I may have gotten the phrase 

wrong but I think it was your innovative facilities initiative. Tell 

me a little bit about that, what it entails and what you are planning. 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Well, there is a provision in the Indian Health 

Care Improvement Act that talks about demonstration projections 

for innovative health facilities construction, and it lists a couple 

types of things such as modular facilities or potentially specialty 

centers and those sorts of things that we do not normally have as 

a part of our current health facilities construction program. And so 

we know that health facilities are a top tribal priority and looking 

for innovative ways to construct any kind of health facilities is beneficial to the great need that we have for health facilities construction. So based on tribal input, we placed a $1 million request in 

the 2012 budget for a demonstration project related to innovative 

health facilities construction, so that would be further defined if we 

are able to have the funds appropriated and implemented. 

DIABETES

Mr. COLE. Okay. Can you tell me, there is probably no disease 

that afflicts Native Americans disproportionately as much as diabetes. What are your plans there and how well equipped are you to 

deal with that right now? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Right. Well, American Indians, Alaska Natives, 

we are on the front end of the epidemic of diabetes in the United 

States. We have had high rates of diabetes since the 1970s, and Indian Health Service has a diabetes program and a network of diabetes programs to address this serious and challenging problem. 

We were really fortunate in the 1997 Balanced Budget Act to get 

a Congressional appropriation for the Special Diabetes Program for 

Indians, and that program has done an incredible job in terms of 

implementing diabetes prevention and treatment services in 

around 400 communities, IHS tribal and Urban Indian Health programs. We are really grateful that Congress passed extension of 

the Special Diabetes Program for Indians for two more years 

through 2013, and we are consulting with tribes right now on what 

to do with this additional two years. 

But we also have in addition to the community-based programs 

in the Special Diabetes Program for Indians, we have a demonstration project that occurred over five years to look at prevention of 

diabetes in people at risk and prevention of cardiovascular disease 

in individuals with diabetes, and that five-year demonstration proVerDate Mar 15 2010 04:44 Jun 29, 2011 Jkt 066897 PO 00000 Frm 00536 Fmt 6602 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A897P2.XXX A897P2

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jection has exceeded all expectations. It is incredibly successful. 

The diabetes prevention program piece was able to achieve through 

community-based programs that provide basic education on nutrition and physical activity the same amount of weight loss as the 

original NIH-funded research project, and that is incredible because translational efforts that translate research into real-world 

communities usually only achieve half or less of the results of the 

original study because they are less controlled. But I think the 

enormous creativity and energy and spirit of these communitybased programs, they were able to achieve the same level of weight 

loss, which means that they could reduce the incidence of diabetes 

by 58 percent. And in the Healthy Heart Initiative, they were able 

to show in their evaluation that they were able to reduce the risk 

factors of cardiovascular disease, which is a growing problem in Indian communities as well. 

The great thing about the Special Diabetes Program for Indians 

projects, I loved working with them in my previous job, is to just 

see these communities come up with really innovative ways to 

teach about diabetes and to prevent it and to treat it and incorporating culture and traditions in some of the education has really 

made a difference. So I am very proud of the Special Diabetes Program for Indians. I am grateful it is extended for two more years 

and I think our tribes were cheering when they heard that news, 

and we are really looking forward to continuing to evaluate our efforts over the years to make sure that we are having the full impact. 

CHILDHOOD OBESITY

Mr. COLE. Another area where obviously there are disproportionate problems and where the First Lady to her credit has just 

done great things obviously is childhood obesity, and I would like 

to know whether or not you partner actively with the First Lady’s 

efforts and what are the programs that you have underway there. 

Getting kids off to a good start makes all the difference down the 

line. 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Absolutely. We are partnering with the First 

Lady’s initiative and we are really excited about that because it is 

so important to help teach children healthy habits when they are 

young and to reduce the rate of childhood overweight and obesity. 

In our fiscal year 2012 budget request, we do have a request for 

chronic diseases, and a part of that is to do a demonstration project 

on reducing risk factors such as childhood obesity, and the purpose 

of that would be early identification and referral of young children 

with overweight or obesity. And so we are going to be doing more 

screening in clinical settings, educating the doctors and the nurses 

about how to screen for overweight and obesity, how to counsel 

both the child and the family and how to refer them to get the 

treatment that they need to address that risk factor. 

We also have a Healthy Weight for Life strategy that we are unveiling in our communities soon, which is to help provide guidelines 

for both community members and for health care providers about 

what we can do as a community, and that is the thing about obesity, it is a condition that is heavily influenced by the environment 

within which the individual lives, and, you know, the United States 


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with the environment of fast food and sitting at a desk every day 

and not moving as much, we are ending up having rising rates of 

obesity in the entire United States. I think we have some good examples in Indian communities where tribes have stepped forward 

to try to help with these issues. One of the things I love about the 

Chickasaw Nation’s new hospital is that not only do they have a 

dedicated diabetes clinic and also a pediatric clinic but they have 

incorporated traditional things around the hospital to promote 

health so there is a walking trail around the hospital so that while 

patients are there they can go walk and get some exercise. Even 

the staff could go walk. And there is also traditional garden that 

they have outside of the hospital with some traditional plants, and 

it helps get back to the point that we did not have diabetes 100 

years ago, we did not have obesity 100 years ago because we were 

moving more and we were eating healthier, and if we can—one of 

the best ways to help teach our patients about how to prevent obesity or diabetes is to recall our history and our traditions, and people really resonate with that kind of education because we all respect where we came from and we know we were a healthier people, and it shows that it is possible that we can be healthy again. 

Mr. COLE. I have one last question, which is going to be sort of 

a sum-up question but I want to see if my colleague has anything 

she would like to ask. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

When you talk about the integrated facilities, I was in a facility 

about four or five months ago where they had an auto-fill prescription which freed up this pharmacist, and he was fabulous. He was 

from the community, went to school, came back. He was just an anchor and a role model for the kids. Having the auto-fill freed him 

up to have more interaction. Would that be considered part of the 

facility? When you are talking about facilities, sometimes it can 

mean some of the equipment if it is attached to the wall. Sometimes it can mean large pieces of equipment that are brought in 

as part of it. So if you do not have the answer for that right now, 

I would be curious to know because freeing up a pharmacist’s time 

to explain, to motivate, to help, to comfort can be really, really important. 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Absolutely. I am glad you have seen one of our 

great pharmacies in the system that has been able to purchase one 

of these systems to help them with the work flow. You are right, 

they can spend more time counseling, and that is what is unique 

about Indian Health pharmacists is that they do more patient 

counseling and more treatment than they would in the private sector. When we build a health facility, those things can be included. 

But I do also think that some of our health facilities are looking 

at their budgets, they are looking at their collections and they are 

trying to find ways to implement those kinds of things in the pharmacy and so we can provide a followup report about how extensively we have done that so far. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. And I had an evil earmark in the health bill 

that did not move forward, and it was a community-based request 

from the Mille Lacs Band because they are really struggling with 

diabetes, but part of what they are struggling with, and I know 

that you can get inclement weather in other places, is the travel 


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time for dialysis. Do you have or can you get this committee some 

of the challenges that—I mean, we want to prevent people from 

getting diabetes or needing that kind of intervention to begin with, 

but when we have two or three days where a blizzard, ice storms 

and that knock out travel, that how does that affect services for 

communities where you already have people sometimes traveling 

an hour. In parts of rural Montana, you can be traveling two hours 

to get to dialysis plus you do the care plus you are driving back. 

Quite often it is elderly people. Have you worked with anyone to 

see what is going on out there with dialysis and where we do have 

to provide it what we can do to make it safe? And I do not mean 

convenient like, it is almost 20 minutes away, I mean convenient 

that you are not worried about spending a whole day driving in inclement weather after the state troopers had told you to stay home. 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Well, yes. Dialysis services are something we 

wish we did not have to do but it is an unfortunate complication 

of some of the chronic diseases that we are facing. The Indian 

Health Service originally did not have the authority to provide dialysis services and so often we would have to refer people to outside facilities to have dialysis done, and you are right, in some 

rural areas they have to travel long distances to go there. We do 

have some tribes that have taken the initiative of working with private sector partners and actually building and operating dialysis 

facilities within their own communities, and that has been a great 

help for those communities where the patients do not have to travel. Dialysis is a challenge for an individual because they have to 

have it oftentimes three times a week and it is four hours at a 

time, and if they have to factor in the travel time, it can take up 

the entire day. 

What we are really excited about is the fact that the Indian 

Health Care Improvement Act now gives the Indian Health Service 

the authority for dialysis services, which we did not have before, 

and so we have heard from tribes that this is a priority and we are 

looking forward to working with them and seeing what best practices are from the tribes who have run their dialysis centers and 

also trying to figure out how we as an agency will move forward 

now that that authority is in place, and as we are planning for requesting appropriations for that kind of a service what the need is 

in Indian Country, what are the best practices and what the IHS 

versus the tribal role will be, but it is clear it is important to have 

these services in the community rather than traveling many miles 

away. We have heard horror stories of people trying to get through 

to dialysis in blizzards, as you say, during storms and transportation costs can be very costly for them as well. So we are committed to looking at this new authority and trying to plan in consultation with tribes how we are going to address this in the future 

now that we have the authority. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Well, thank you for your work and thank you, 

Mr. Chair, for your generosity. 

Mr. COLE. Thank you. Thank you for your interest. 

EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY

There is one other specific matter that I have been made aware 

of that I wanted to ask you about before I get to a closing question. 


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The committee has been made aware of an unusually high number 

of Equal Employment Opportunity complaints and other workforce 

grievances in Aberdeen, South Dakota, regional office. Our understanding is you have had an internal review. You have been looking into this. What can you tell us about the situation and where 

are we at in corrective action? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Well, yes. As you know, the Senate Committee 

on Indian Affairs had an investigation on the Aberdeen area and 

looked at various management issues. One of the issues was the 

high rate of EEO complaints and Equal Employment Opportunity 

complaints are related to allegation of discrimination, whether it is 

based on race or age and so on, and this was a big problem in that 

area, and what we did is, we reviewed how they are handling the 

EEO complaints in the area and actually at their request we have 

moved the oversight of the EEO process to headquarters rather 

than being in the Aberdeen area, and we have actually seen a decrease in the number of EEO complaints. 

I also think that there has been dissatisfaction with the EEO 

complaints because people were filing them when they had grievances about workplace-related matters, and in all of the EEO process it is very rare to find actual proven discrimination based on 

race or age or gender and so on. So really, usually what the employee has is a grievance and a problem with their supervisor or 

another coworker and what we are doing is improving our human 

resources. We are going to be doing more training for all of our employees, not just in the Aberdeen area, to try to help people manage the relationships that they have with their coworkers and their 

supervisors in the area. 

We have been very aggressive at addressing the recommendations of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. It is clear that the 

findings that they had are completely unacceptable and I am taking a very strong tone with all of our staff that we will address 

these issues and there will be no excuses. I have put in all of the 

agency performance plans measures that address all of the issues 

that were found in the Aberdeen area and in all of our leadership 

plans, not just in the Aberdeen area. We have also put corrective 

action plans in place in the Aberdeen area to address many of 

these issues and we are doing reviews of all of the other IHS areas 

to make sure the problems found in Aberdeen are not happening 

in other areas. So we are taking a very aggressive approach. I am 

grateful that Secretary Sebelius is having her program integrity 

committee help me with some of the recommendations for the 

things that we need to put in place. 

The problems in the Aberdeen area have been there since I was 

a child. I remember stories from my relatives saying oh, problems 

with this and that. So they are longstanding problems and we cannot fix them overnight, but I am really confident that we are putting in some fundamental changes that over time will help us make 

improvements, not only in Aberdeen but ensure these things are 

not happening elsewhere. 

Mr. COLE. I appreciate very much your focus, and quite frankly, 

your transparency on this and your determination just to deal with 

it directly, so thank you very much for that. 


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Let me end with this, and it is a kind of a whither Indian health 

care sort of question that I want you to reflect on. You have done 

a lot of great things as director and this committee I think in a bipartisan sense certainly is very committed in doing what it can to 

help you and to work with the Administration. We have a common 

goal here that transcends partisanship and a common sense of obligation that this is something the Federal Government has neglected for a very long time or underfunded and underresourced for 

a long time, and we all want to do everything we can to correct 

those problems and move forward. But despite that commitment 

and despite your hard work and the hard work of other people at 

IHS, I think it is worth just for the record for you to remind us 

how far behind we are, that is just generally what is the health 

care of Native Americans, their lifespan, their disease rates, whatever numbers you want to use vis-a-vis the rest of the population 

so the challenges are unique and that is something I think people 

beyond this committee need to be aware of. 

And secondly, in terms of resources, the average American, I am told, gets $6,900, $7,000 roughly worth of medical care or resources 

per capita, if you will. How would that number compare to what 

is available to Indian Country and to Native Americans in general? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Well, thank you. It is very clear that American 

Indians and Alaska Natives have an incredible need for health care 

services in addition to it being a responsibility and a treaty obligations. American Indians and Alaska Natives still suffer from significant health care disparities in a number of areas. Their average 

life expectancy is lower than the U.S. population and the health 

disparities are greater in a number of areas. The Indian Health 

Service has been able to improve that over time, primarily related 

to providing access and quality health care, but it is clear that 

there is still much to be done and so we are doing what we can 

with the improvements we are making in the system and also in 

our budget request to demonstrate strategies for trying to improve 

but it is very clear that with the historic underfunding and the 

health disparities we have a long way to go and it is an enormous 

challenge but I am confident that we can make progress over the 

next few years because there is so much support. There is bipartisan support in Congress. There is support from the President and 

support from the Secretary, and the tribes, also I have been 

pleased to see how they are willing to partner on some of these efforts because the challenges that the Indian Health Service or any 

other single entity cannot solve these problems alone. Health is not 

only a medical and health facility issue but it is also a community 

issue and that is why I really believe our priority to renew and 

strengthen our partnership with tribes is going to help us as we 

look towards improving the health of American Indians and Alaska 

Natives. 

Your question about the per capita expenditures on health care 

for American Indians and Alaska Natives, it is really clear through 

a lot of the data that we have that these numbers are much lower 

than the other federal health care systems. For example, if you 

look at the Indian Health Service, the per capita expenditures on 

health care are around $3,300 per user, and that compares to almost $7,000 per capita for the United States in total, and it is also 


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much less than Medicare, Medicaid, federal employees’ health benefits, the VA, even the prison system, and that is what our tribal 

leaders just hate to hear is that we are getting less funding per 

capita than the prisons and other federal health systems. 

But we are committed to trying to address the historic underfunding of the Indian Health Service. We do what we can with the 

funding that we have, and we do everything we can to maximize 

the dollars we have and be efficient and effective with the funding 

that we do have, and we are just grateful to Congress and the 

President for the 2010 budget, which was a big increase for us, a 

13 percent increase, and we are also excited about the President’s 

request for the 2012 budget. A 14 percent increase demonstrates a 

sustained commitment by all to try to help address some of the 

needs that we have in Indian communities. 

We understand that there is a lot of talk about the deficit and 

the need to be more responsible with dollars and to work on improving the budget, but I really appreciate how people acknowledge 

that the Indian Health Service, there are treaty commitments and 

there are responsibilities that date back many years and so we are 

doing our part to try to maximize the dollars and improve and reform the Indian Health Service so that it meets the needs of the 

patients that we serve, and I really appreciate the support of this 

committee and all of you for your bipartisan support of the Indian 

Health Service and health care for American Indians and Alaska 

Natives. 

Mr. COLE. Well, Director, we appreciate very much your commitment and your tenacity and your dedication to this over a lifetime, 

not just over your tenure in this particular position, and also very 

much appreciate your emphasis on involving tribes not only in consultation but tribes, those that have the means are almost always 

willing to invest in the health of their own people and creating 

those opportunities where they can hopefully be prosperous and 

put money back in a place that we need it and I think will let us 

stretch the federal dollars a little bit further as well. 

Thank you again very much for what you are doing. We look forward to working with you not just this year but over the years, and 

I think you will find this committee, whoever is sitting in this chair 

and whichever party is in control, as was demonstrated in the last 

couple of years, is going to be as supportive as it knows how to be 

of your efforts. Thank you very much. 

And with that, we are adjourned. 


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WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 2011. 

NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS, FISCAL YEAR 

2012 BUDGET REQUEST 

WITNESS 

ROCCO LANDESMAN, CHAIRMAN 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. The committee will come to order. Chairman 

Landesman, I want to thank you for joining us this morning to testify about your fiscal year 2012 budget request. We look forward 

to learning more about the NEA’s work and your goals for the future. 

By the end of this week, our subcommittee will have conducted 

no less than about two dozen hearings to weigh the merits of 

everybody’s budget request because of the intense competition for 

federal dollars this year. Like many of the agencies that receive 

funding through this subcommittee, the Arts Endowment finds its 

budget under pressure because of the tight fiscal environment we 

are facing. Your budget request, which is just slightly above the fiscal year 2008 funding level, reflects that reality. 

At the end of the day, I believe the focus should not only be on 

the size of the NEA budget, but on the quality of the NEA programs that serve our constituents. Whatever funding is available 

to support the NEA’s mission next year should be used to support 

proven quality programs with broad geographic reach. Changing 

the overall direction of the NEA, particularly in this budget environment, could very well undermine long-established bipartisan 

support for the arts in Congress. 

You know from our conversations in Washington and during our 

time together in Idaho last year that I am a supporter of the arts. 

I am particularly proud of the Idaho arts community, the Big 

Green, the Shakespeare in American Communities, Challenge 

America, and other NEA grant programs are the lifeblood of the 

arts in Boise, Jerome, and many other communities throughout the 

state. It is my hope that these and other proven popular initiatives, 

all of which enjoy strong bipartisan support in Congress, will continue in the coming years. 

I also appreciate the NEA’s efforts to work with state art organizations because it is how we reach rural communities in Idaho and 

other rural states in this country. In 1997, Congress wrote into law 

that 40 percent of the NEA program funds must be allocated to the 

states through their state arts agencies, or SAAs, because their 

proximity to small communities allows them to understand community priorities and be more accessible to local organizations. The 

SAAs are better positions and more successful at reaching underserved populations. 


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The NEA’s fiscal year 2012 budget places 5 million in funding for 

Our Town, but without the safeguards provided by the 60/40 split. 

This is of great concern to me as funding for this program, if provided, will likely gravitate toward large urban centers with strong 

existing arts infrastructure. Allowing specific programs to receive 

funding outside of the 60/40 split is a troubling precedent that undermines support for the state art agencies. Observing the 60/40 

split for all grant funding ensures that funding reaches more states 

and towns and bolsters the budgets of the state arts agencies. 

In recent years, the NEA has been successful because of its emphasis on promoting arts for all Americans rather than individual 

artists. Fifteen years ago, the NEA was fighting for its very survival. Today, Democrats and Republicans provide broad, bipartisan 

support for the NEA. I hope that bipartisan support will continue 

even as we scale back funding levels to address our current fiscal 

situation. 

With that, I am happy to yield to Mr. Moran for any opening 

comments he would like to make. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. And I know, as 

do the people in this room, that you do not just talk the talk with 

regard to supporting the arts. You walk the walk in terms of defending them and ensuring their funding. And it is good to be 

joined by Ms. McCollum. 

Chairman Landesman is doing a terrific job. I think we all agree. 

You know, we could not have a finer person in this job at this time. 

I like to offer a quote or two when we make an opening statement, 

if only because Chairman Simpson—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. I demand it. 

Mr. MORAN. President John Kennedy once noted that ‘‘Art is the 

great democratic equalizer calling forth creative genius from every 

sector of society, disregarding race or religion or wealth or color.’’ 

Of course, as we know, Mr. Chairman, President Kennedy was referring to democrat with a small ‘‘d’’ to say that because the arts 

do know no political party. It is a bipartisan undertaking that inspires and enriches us all. 

For 46 years, the National Endowment for the Arts has been a 

leader in advancing the arts. It has been tasked with engaging the 

public in cooperation with state and local governments and nonprofit entities. And the role that art has and continues to play in 

all our communities and our lives, these are difficult budget times. 

The budget request set forth by the President for fiscal year 2012 

reflects that reality. The NEA is being asked to do more with less 

as well, and that is what we need to discuss with you, Mr. Chairman, how you intend to carry out your mission without sacrificing 

its core values but within the constraints of very limited funding. 

These are difficult times, but in such times that we need the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities more than ever. 

For thousands of years, civilization has gained nourishment and inspiration from the beauty that art has shined upon a troubled 

world. One more little quote—an American actress and acting 

teacher who I know you are aware of, Mr. Landesman—Stella 

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tentimes, but art will remind you that you have one’’—have a soul 

is what she was referring to. 

The arts continue to serve an important purpose in society and 

I appreciate, Chairman Landesman, that you have come back after 

we had to reschedule this hearing and the chairman was very good 

about rescheduling it. It was supposed to occur right in the middle 

of our deliberations on the fiscal year 2011 continuing resolution 

back in early April, but I appreciate again the fact that you have 

rescheduled this so that we can get a full hearing in for both the 

NEA and NEH. And with that, we again welcome Chairman 

Landesman. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF MR. LANDESMAN

Mr. LANDESMAN. Chairman Simpson, Ranking Member Moran, 

and distinguished members of the subcommittee, I am pleased to 

be appearing before you to discuss the present fiscal year 2012 

budget request for the National Endowment for the Arts of 

$146.255 million, which includes support for direct NEA grants, 

partnerships with state and regional arts agencies, a second round 

of Our Town investment, as well as program support efforts, staff 

salaries, and administrative expenses. As you know, this request is 

consistent with the Agency’s fiscal year 2008 budget and would be 

a decrease of 13 percent from our fiscal year 2010 level of appropriation. 

We have worked to make the smartest decisions possible within 

the current fiscal reality. We have been guided in these decisions, 

as well as in the Agency’s grant-making by our newly revised strategic plan, which has as a central theme the Agency’s desire to 

gather and communicate even more data and analysis about the 

impact of federal funding on the arts. This data will also allow the 

Agency to refine and focus our investments in the arts to increase 

the efficacy and impact of our grants. 

The NEA’s mission is to advance artistic excellence, innovation, 

and creativity throughout the country, and we are asking each of 

our grant recipients to tell us how they will further this in one of 

three ways: one, through the creation of art that meets the highest 

standards of excellence; two, by engaging the public with diverse 

and excellent art; and three, by promoting public understanding of 

the arts contributions in the lives of individuals and in communities. 

OUR TOWN

In fiscal year 2012, we will continue our investment in creative 

place-making through which we ask local political civic and arts 

leaders to work together to shape the social, physical, and economic 

characteristics of their communities. We will do this primarily 

through Our Town, which will invest $5 million in some 35 communities across the country. 

We piloted this work through a series of grants we made in conjunction with our Mayors’ Institute on City Design, which has 

worked with mayors for the past 25 years. One of our MICD 25 

grants was moved to Shreveport, Louisiana, where the headVerDate Mar 15 2010 04:44 Jun 29, 2011 Jkt 066897 PO 00000 Frm 00569 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A897P2.XXX A897P2

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quarters of the Regional Arts Council had burned down. The mayor 

of Shreveport decided to create an opportunity out of this tragedy 

and he partnered with the Arts Council to apply to the NEA for 

funds to design an adaptive reuse of a historic firehouse to serve 

as the Arts Council’s new headquarters. This building will also 

serve as the heart of a seven-block commons that would serve as 

a creative center for Shreveport and a gateway to the city. The 

commons will become a comprehensive arts district with rehearsal 

and studio space, performance and exhibition space, community 

services, religious institutions, restaurants, and businesses. The 

NEA’s $100,000 towards this project was leveraged into $5.3 million in total investment, $3 million of which came from private 

sources, including $300,000 from a national foundation that had 

never before invested in Shreveport. 

There are similar stories throughout our MICD 25 investments. 

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania is using NEA support to create a new 

town square with a major work of public art in front of its abandoned steel mill. Greensboro, North Carolina is creating a multiuse 

greenway to encircle its downtown and connect residential neighborhoods and business districts. Phoenix, Arizona is designing public art that will both beautify the downtown and simultaneously 

provide much-needed shade for a weekly outdoor market. 

Throughout the country, mayors and towns are including the 

arts at the center of strategies to create more vibrant communities 

that will allow their citizens to prosper in place, and Our Town allows the NEA to partner with even more communities. We are especially eager to make Our Town investments in rural communities, and toward this end we have written the guidelines to allow 

entire counties to apply through a single application. Each application requires a lead public partner, and the 2012 guidelines will 

allow state arts agencies to be those lead partners and to receive 

funds directly for this work. 

PROPOSED REDUCTIONS

With a proposed appropriation that represents a 13 percent decrease from our 2010 level of funding, we have had to make some 

difficult decisions. We have worked to cut smartly and do not simply apply a flat, across-the-board decrease to all of the Agency’s 

programs. One example of this is our proposal for Shakespeare in 

American Communities. As you know, this is a wonderful program 

administered by a regional arts organization that provides funding 

for a stand-alone Shakespeare touring initiative. However, touring 

productions of Shakespeare are something that the NEA also funds 

within our core grant-making in the theater discipline. We are proposing that rather than to continue as a stand-alone program, we 

will instead encourage applicants to the Shakespeare in American 

Communities program to apply directly to the NEA theater discipline for support for their Shakespeare projects. 

By bringing this program back in-house, we will be able to save 

$400,000 in costs and administrative expenses for a program that 

in many ways duplicated our core work. Of the 40 recipients of 

Shakespeare in American Community grants awarded last year 

through the regional arts organization, over half of them also received a direct NEA grant for their Shakespeare work. This was a 


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second bite at the NEA apple for a small subset of arts organizations, an option not available to the vast majority of theaters and 

arts organizations. We will continue to make the Shakespeare in 

American Communities educational materials available free of 

charge to all interested theaters, not just grantees, through 

arts.gov. 

By taking this direction with Shakespeare in American Communities, we have the flexibility to be able to save programs that were 

not duplicated by the Agency’s other work. The Big Read, for example, is an extraordinary program that gets books off the shelves, 

into people’s hands, and transforms them into opportunities for citizens to come together and share a common art experience. The 

YWCA in Knoxville, Tennessee, for example, hosted a discussion of 

‘‘Their Eyes Were Watching God’’ in a community room that was 

part of a Knoxville area transit transfer station. Readers received 

free seven-day bus passes for participating, and this turned out to 

be the largest and one of the most active book discussions yet in 

the four years of Knoxville’s participation in the Big Read. Just as 

we have for the current fiscal year, in fiscal year 2012, the NEA 

will budget $1.5 million to support 75 Big Read grants across the 

country. 

CLARIFYING STATE MATCHING REQUIREMENTS

The state arts agencies are key partners in so much of the Agency’s work. In many cases, despite the difficult budget realities that 

many states face, state arts agencies, governors, and state legislatures have come to the NEA for clarification on the requirements 

to receive NEA funding. The philosophy of the NEA state partnerships has always been that a state arts agency is most effective 

when it is able to marry its state funds with federal support. A 

state arts agency is simply not a state arts agency when it receives 

no state support. 

To emphasize this, we requested a clarification in our legislation 

that specifies that the NEA’s investment in a state arts agency 

must be met at least one to one with funds that the state itself directly controls. Understanding the unprecedented fiscal times in 

which we are operating, we are also seeking allowance to develop 

narrow guidelines for when this match may be temporarily waived. 

These would be published for public comment before being enacted. 

HONORING ARTISTS OF ALL DISCIPLINES

We are also seeking a change to the NEA’s Honorifics program. 

As you know, since 1982, the NEA has awarded Jazz Masters and 

National Heritage Fellowships to recognize the individual artists 

who have made exceptional contributions to their respective fields. 

In 2008, the NEA expanded its ongoing investment in these lifetime honors to also include the NEA Opera Honors. This recent expansion sparked a conversation at the Agency about the possibility 

of continuing to expand the lifetime honors to embrace the full 

spectrum of the arts that the NEA supports. Toward that end, the 

NEA is seeking a legislative change that would allow the Agency 

to honor artists who have made extraordinary contributions to 

American culture, regardless of discipline. 


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COLLABORATION WITH OTHER AGENCIES

Let me end by touching briefly on two major areas of focus that 

require no additional investment in the NEA. The first is our collaboration with other federal agencies. Take, for example, the Department of Housing and Urban Development. As you know, Secretary Shaun Donovan is a huge champion of the arts and the role 

they can play in creating and sustaining vibrant communities. 

When HUD released a Notice of Funding Availability for $100 million for regional planning efforts, the arts were included explicitly 

alongside integrated housing and transportation decisions and incorporating livability, sustainability, and social equity values into 

land-use plans and zoning. When HUD announced the results of 

this NOFA, the arts were the centerpiece of many of these grants, 

including Hollywood, Florida; Rockford, Illinois; Evansville, Indiana; Greenfield, Massachusetts; and Radford, Virginia. 

I am also talking with Health and Human Services about the 

ways in which the arts and human development intersect: with the 

Department of Education, about the key role that the arts play in 

providing a complete 21st century education; with the Department 

of Transportation, about the role of the arts in smart design in connecting communities and neighborhoods; and with the Department 

of Agriculture, about the role that the arts can play in creating and 

enlivening gathering places in rural settings. In short, the NEA is 

positioning itself at the intersection of the arts and the everyday 

and we are eager to share the arts with our sister agencies. 

BLUE STAR MUSEUMS

Finally, I would like to call your attention to Blue Star Museums, which is a partnership among the NEA, Blue Star families, 

and museums across the country to grant free admission to active 

duty military men and women and their families all summer long. 

Last year was the first year of this partnership and we launched 

with some 600 museums participating and ended up with over a 

quarter of a million military families participating. We are still almost a month away from this year’s launch, and we already have 

enlisted over 1,200 museums who will welcome military families 

this summer. 

Let me end by thanking the chairman, the ranking member, and 

the distinguished members of the subcommittee for your ongoing 

support of both the Agency and the arts in general. I am now 

happy to answer any questions you may have, and I look forward 

to our discussion. Thank you. 

[The statement of Rocco Landesman follows:] 


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Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your testimony and thanks for the work you are doing with the arts. It is, 

as was mentioned both in my opening statement and Jim’s, and in 

yours, that the arts have enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress. 

As I mentioned in my opening statement, that has not always been 

the case as you remember several years ago before you came, the 

arts went through some tough times. There was an effort by Congress to essentially eliminate funding for the arts, and it was not 

fought off by very many votes. I was not here at the time, but Jim 

was here at the time, and yeah, it was a pretty tough time. And 

we have come a long way in bringing back the arts and the support 

for the arts within Congress. 

And I think part of the role of this committee is to make sure 

that we do not lose that support so that the programs that the 

NEA is involved in enjoy broad, bipartisan support. Some of those 

programs that enjoy bipartisan support are the Shakespeare in 

American Communities and the Big Read and Challenge America, 

grants that have widespread appeal because they reach underserved areas and communities in rural America. And as you know, 

rural America is kind of particular interest to me since I live in the 

second-largest city in Idaho, which is like 50,000, and that is like 

one-fifth the size of the largest city, and all the other cities are substantially smaller than that. So rural America is very important to 

me. 

Could you briefly outline the status of each of these programs? 

The Shakespeare in American Communities, the Big Read, and 

Challenge America. What is the status of each of these, the specific 

level of funding budgeted for next year, and whether the NEA 

plans to discontinue any of those? 

SHAKESPEARE IN AMERICAN COMMUNITIES

Mr. LANDESMAN. We do not plan to discontinue any of them. 

Shakespeare in American Communities is one of the great NEA 

programs. I have seen the results of it across the country. The 

issue there was simply budgetary with our reductions. It was funded in the past through a third party. We are now folding it into 

our core grant-making. We are going to be able to save about 

$400,000 by doing that in administrative costs. We are still very 

committed to Shakespeare in American Communities. I have seen 

the fruits of that work everywhere. It is a great program. 

BIG READ

Similarly, with the Big Read, even with the budget cuts we are 

protecting the funding for that at the full level from the previous 

year. We are very committed to that program as we have been all 

along. So we are very committed to these programs. We just have 

to figure out the most creative way to continue to support them 

with the budgetary constraints that we have. 

CHALLENGE AMERICA

Mr. SIMPSON. And the other one was the Challenge America. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. Which continues. 


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OUR TOWN

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. One of the, I guess, just general questions 

I would like to talk to you about is, you know, I am one who actually believes that when you get hired, you get appointed, whatever, 

as Chairman of the NEA or the Secretary of the Department of Interior or any other agency in government, that you ought to have 

some freedom and flexibility to do what you think is necessary to 

be done with the agency and decide the direction that you would 

like to take it. Our Town is kind of your initiative and what you 

would like to do. I think what you are trying to do in building arts 

in the communities and stuff—this is a different role than the NEA 

has taken on in the past. Is this something that is better left to 

the other agencies like HUD and others that do that kind of thing? 

I mean, community development is kind of out of your realm, is it 

not? 

Mr. LANDESMAN. I do not think so. I think that the arts have a 

central role to play in the revitalization of communities, and we 

have seen examples of that everywhere, that the heart and soul of 

a community is often its culture. We saw that together in Boise 

with the Basque community and we saw it in Old Town with the 

building of the Torpedo Factory there and what the arts galleries 

did to that area. We have seen it in Lowertown in St. Paul, what 

that means to the fabric of that community, both economically and 

in terms of civic engagement. We have seen it in the South Bronx 

with the Art Handlers. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Now, let me—— 

Mr. LANDESMAN. We have seen the arts connect with the real 

world in important ways where they have really affected communities. 

Mr. SIMPSON. So let me ask you, I mean I agree with that, but 

in all of those things that you just mentioned, the NEA was not 

involved in developing those. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. Well, what we have seen there is, on an anecdotal basis, the way the arts can profoundly affect communities. 

We want to take those great examples, the places where it has 

been done and been successful, and scale it out nationwide and to 

really bring the arts into the process of community rebuilding. We 

have a lot of data that has been gathered over a long period of time 

that where you have arts in a community three main things 

occur—that the social fabric of that community is enhanced. People 

who are engaged in the arts and in culture are more likely to vote, 

to join other cultural organizations or organizations of any kind. It 

is a weaver of civic fabric in those places. Arts have a big effect 

on child welfare. Juvenile delinquency and truancy decline markedly where there is a cultural presence. And finally, it is an economic driver. 

And yes, a certain amount of this is going to happen in a haphazard way, but with a small amount of money, we want to be at 

the forefront of this process and we believe that when you are talking about a renewal of communities nationwide, you have to include the arts. And we feel the arts need to be there. 

Mr. SIMPSON. And this $5 million investment that you are going 

to make comes at the expense of other programs? 


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Mr. LANDESMAN. Yes, theoretically. We have to find the money 

within our budget. We did not get a new appropriation just for 

that. But I have felt—and you frame this almost as a philosophical 

point—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. Right. 

Mr. LANDESMAN [continuing]. I felt almost from my first day on 

the job that we were going to make a case for the arts. And what 

we were doing was simply to proceed with business as usual, which 

meant funding a lot of the established institutions, what I used to 

call the big temples on the hill, you know, the big well-known institutions and so forth. Then, if there is an issue about the funding 

for those, I think people would say well, we care about the City 

Opera in New York City, but it is not at the front of our priorities 

right now given the budgetary constraints and the limited funds 

that we have all across the government. If, on the other hand, we 

can make the case about the intersection of the arts in the real 

world, in communities, in places, the Purple Rose Theater, you 

know, in Chelsea, Michigan and people can see in a very palpable, 

visceral way how integrated the Purple Rose Theater is into that 

5,000-person community, then we have a completely different narrative and are making a completely different case. 

And when I have gone across the country, and I go to mediumsized cities likes Greensboro and Winston-Salem, North Carolina; 

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; not just Boise, but Jerome, Idaho where 

the arts are important, as I travel around the country, I see that 

the arts are not just in the big cities, in the big temples of the big 

cities, but are a part of the community fabric everywhere I go. And 

I think the NEA needs to be there as a champion for the arts in 

all these places and really the—what I am calling the intersection 

of the arts and the real world. And I think we have an important 

role there. And Our Town is at the frontier of that for us. 

ARTS IN RURAL AMERICA

Mr. SIMPSON. One of my concerns is that every program that we 

take on comes at the expense of some other program. And we have 

done a great job of getting arts out of the rural communities, and 

I do not want to sacrifice or injure those programs that are making 

a difference in Jerome, Idaho, as you mentioned, and other places 

all across America because the taxpayers of this country that pay 

the taxes that fund all of this have a right to see the benefits that 

the arts provide. And so I do not want to sacrifice the programs 

that I think have been doing a good job. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. I do not think that is going to happen. 

ROLE OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL ON THE ARTS

Mr. SIMPSON. One other question before I turn it over to Jim, I 

understand that traditionally the NEA chairman relies a great deal 

on the advice of counsel from respected artists and art administrators that serve on the National Council of the Arts. I have heard 

that there is growing concern from within the council about the direction of the NEA, particularly a perception that the Endowment 

is reducing funding streams to the states or making decisions that 

the council does not support. What is the role of the council? How 

often does the council meet? Do you consult with the council on 


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proposals on specific things like creating the Our Town program or 

terminating other programs? What exactly is the role of the council 

and how do you interact? 

Mr. LANDESMAN. The main role of the council is to vote on the 

grants that are made in the various disciplines, which go through 

an exhaustive peer-review process. And it is up to the council to approve or disapprove of those. I do not believe that it is the role of 

the council to set general NEA policy, which is done by me and 

was, you know, set out pretty clearly when I came in with a fairly 

prescribed and intentional agenda. We do have conversations with 

the council members. We meet two or three times a year and I feel 

that I am very accessible to them on a daily basis. I always like 

to hear their thoughts. We do not agree about everything that the 

NEA is doing necessarily. But from my perspective, I am open to 

that dialogue at all times. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you. Mr. Moran. 

Mr. MORAN. Thanks, Mike. I do think you have shown some convincing accomplishments in terms of economic development, although some of my favorite NEA grants, I will just share quickly 

one. There was an application from a small group of Russian Jewish immigrants who came over here and suggested that they would 

teach the low performing Hispanic immigrant students how to perform in Chekov and Nabokov plays. I thought that is the most bizarre thing. But because it was so bizarre, they got a little bit of 

money over a two-year period. And these kids were learning stage 

presence; all of a sudden, both the principal and the superintendent said they just blossomed. I mean, they went through a 

transformation when they acquired confidence. And they memorized these plays. They were going to drop out of high school and 

now they are all in college. Every single one of those kids that participated is in college. 

QUALITY OF ART PROGRAMS

I wanted to ask you about a couple of things. The fascinating statistic that more people attend performing arts organization performance in this country than go to the movies; it is a great thing. 

I could not imagine. But it is interesting to consider that in light 

of the rather controversial suggestion that you made, which I happen to agree on, that in some communities we have too many fora 

for performing arts and, as a result, the quality sometimes gets too 

thin. Do you want to address that for a moment, what you mean 

by that? 

Mr. LANDESMAN. Not only the quality but also the support levels. 

One of the concerns that I have had as someone who has had a professional career in the theater, in the arts, is ensuring that the people who work in these organizations get a living wage, get a level 

of compensation that allows them to, you know, continue with some 

dignity. 

We have data that we have collected at the NEA—and others 

have collected it, too—that show that attendance, while very extensive as you point out in the performing arts and the visual arts, 

across much of the field has actually been declining while the number of institutions, organizations has been proliferating exponentially. And at a forum, I did raise the issue that perhaps there is 


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a disconnect there, that if you are having lessening demand along 

with increasing supply that there would be a reckoning of that at 

some point. And my point was this should at least be talked about. 

There should at least be discussion about this. And the feedback— 

while some people have objected to that, it was actually a very controversial remark—I was glad to get that discussion out on the 

table. One of the few things I can do as the chairman of the NEA 

with the limited budget is to use the platform, the bully pulpit to 

start conversations like that. And I think people first got a little 

hysterical. Are there going to be death panels now at the NEA? Of 

course not. I do not think there should be a moratorium on that 

kind of conversation. Resources are very limited, and that is not to 

say that we should not be funding the biggest organizations or even 

the most viable organizations. We want to fund the most compelling ones. But it does not mean that we have to fund them all and 

that all have, you know, some kind of a right to exist if they cannot 

be supported. 

REDUCTIONS TO UNDERSERVED COMMUNITIES

Mr. MORAN. Good for you. Good. One other area I want to ask 

you about, under state and regional partnerships, you are proposing to cut funding for underserved communities by $9.4 million. 

Under the rulebook of advancing, understanding, and appreciation 

of the arts, how do we justify cutting funding for population and 

communities that, by the very definition of the program, have been 

underserved in the past? 

Mr. LANDESMAN. You are talking about funding within the NEA? 

Mr. MORAN. That is right, within the NEA under that line ‘‘Un- derserved Communities,’’ it is cut by $9.4 million I think it said. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. I think we have been cutting across the board 

and, you know, that must be a proportionate—the specifics of that 

is something I will get back to you on—— 

Mr. MORAN. Yeah, that is fine. 

Mr. LANDESMAN [continuing]. But, you know, we have had to 

sustain cuts just about every place, many of them we do not want 

to make. 

Mr. MORAN. Okay. In fact, all of the other questions you have addressed in your testimony, again, I think you are doing a phenomenally outstanding job as chair, Mr. Landesman, and I thank you for 

that. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. MORAN. Thanks, Mr. Simpson. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Flake. 

Mr. FLAKE. Yes, thank you. And I am sorry I missed the testimony. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. Good. 

GRANTS TO ORGANIZATIONS AND UNIVERSITIES

Mr. FLAKE. We know that we are having to cut and the budget 

reflects that, but when you look through and see a lot of the grants 

that have been awarded, I think maybe we could stand a few more. 

For example, the International Accordion Festival, $30,000 award; 

the Fabric Workshop and Museum, $50,000 award; San Francisco 

Mime Troupe, $50,000 award. Those just kind of lend themselves 


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to ridicule when federal taxpayers see us cutting popular programs 

and programs that they have counted on, like Social Security and 

Medicare. They see that coming but then they still see grants like 

this. It is just tough to justify. 

Now, I understand moving art to rural communities and whatnot. I grew up in a small town in Northern Arizona with limited 

opportunities in that regard. But then you see grants going to institutions like Boston University, New York University, Notre Dame, 

Columbia, Yale; all of these with substantial endowments. I think 

all of these have endowments exceeding $1 billion. Let’s take one 

in particular, Yale University. National Endowment for the Arts 

funded the U.S. premie`re of the Autumn Sonata, this despite the fact that Yale has a $16.7 billion endowment, a $30,000 grant. How 

can we justify those kind of grants, particularly to institutions like 

that? 

Mr. LANDESMAN. I will try to answer most of them in not necessarily the right order. Taking the last one first, I happen to know 

about the Yale Rep because I was a professor at the Yale School 

of Drama for many years, so I am very familiar with the Yale Rep. 

The Yale Rep has to pay its own way and receives very little support from Yale University. And the School of Drama, likewise, has 

to raise a lot of its own funds. So the question was often asked 

while I was there is, you know, Yale is this incredibly rich institution. Why can they not pay for everything they are doing? But the 

drama school and the Repertory Theater, the professional theater 

there, has to raise its own funds and pay its own way. So an NEA 

grant to a production that they would be doing if the production 

is worthy and goes through the peer process, it seems to me is a 

very legitimate source of our funding. 

Among the other grants you named, I am not familiar with all 

of our grants. We give 2,700 grants each year. They go through a 

peer process where peers evaluate the validity of the grants. They 

are not made by the chairman. The first two that you mentioned 

I am guessing were grants to underserved communities. The third 

one, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, was not a grant that I had 

any participation in, but I happen to know something about that. 

The San Francisco Mime Troupe is a world-renowned, first-class 

theater organization that has made a significant contribution to the 

field of dramatic arts and from my perspective, as a theater professional, I would think would be very worthy of support from the 

NEA. 

GRANTS TO UNIVERSITIES

Mr. FLAKE. Back to these grants to universities, is it the case 

with the other institutions as well that they have to seek their own 

funding? 

Mr. LANDESMAN. I am not aware of us making grants to universities per se at all. We may do a particular production that is done 

at a professional theater that is housed at a university. University 

grant-making is much more done by the NEH, National Endowment for the Humanities, than by the NEA. 

Mr. FLAKE. But still, I mean one could probably legitimately 

argue that if it did not have to go through the Federal Government 

or elsewhere, if it is a performing troupe at Yale University that 


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they could seek funding from the university just as easily, could 

they not? 

Mr. LANDESMAN. They seek money from as many sources as they 

can. In many of these organizations we are a small part of the 

budget, but for a particular production, we can play a significant 

role, and I am glad to see that we are supporting what are disciplined people and our peer-group reviews are important contributions to the art. 

Mr. FLAKE. Let me just say that it will be difficult when we get 

in the fiscal year 2012 budget when there are items like this in 

there. You understand that it is going to be tough. And for people 

who see other more essential programs that they feel are essential 

being cut, to justify giving $30,000 to a theater troupe at Yale, even 

if it is not Yale, so just that thought. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. That is a true process. 

REPEAT GRANT RECIPIENTS

Mr. FLAKE. How do you feel about these grants that seem in perpetuity to a lot of these groups just every year, and in some cases, 

increasing. I think there is a theater probably in New York—it may 

be in Congressman Serrano’s district—I have gone after them before so I will be careful here. There is a theater there I think that 

has received more than 513,000 in NEA grants and it seems every 

year an increase. How do you feel about these grants in perpetuity? 

It would seem to be a good principle that, hey, you go three years 

and out for a while. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. Well, in the theater program, which I know a 

little about, the grants are made for particular productions so there 

is not a built-in perpetuity of that. Each production or each proposal is applied, you know, new each year. The appeal group makes 

a decision on that for that particular year. If an organization does 

a lot of work that they consider worthy, I am sure they are going 

to get repeat grants. But there are no grants that continue year to 

year. Each year that process comes up for the review process and 

the decision is made through our normal panel process. 

Mr. FLAKE. But have you not, in the Challenge America FastTrack program, stipulated that they cannot come back after three 

years? 

Mr. LANDESMAN. But in the Challenge America program, there 

is that stipulation but that is just a small part of the whole NEA 

grant-making process. 

Mr. FLAKE. But even there they can come back, they can just 

switch categories and get funding for a different category, right? 

Mr. LANDESMAN. Theoretically, they could, yeah. 

Mr. FLAKE. All right. Thanks. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Ms. McCollum. 

GRANT SELECTION PROCESS

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And to kind of follow up 

on that, they could switch but the panelists know, the judges know 

somebody is trying to pull a fast one. And I say that as a member 

on the Council of Arts and Mr. Tiberi also serves and you get a 

booklet that is about this thick—and I am not involved in doing the 

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To the best of my ability, I kind of try to do a little bit of oversight as to what they are doing, where the grants are going, who 

did not get grants, and when you see all the wonderful, wonderful 

grants that are denied because there are not enough funds and the 

painstaking process in which they try to make sure that there is 

equity to the best of their ability throughout this country, large and 

small, that everyone gets a chance to participate, the judges in my 

opinion do a really good job. 

And if you would like—because I know you kind of see the finals, 

you know, when it kind of comes through here in Congress—the 

staff would go out of their way to make available anything, or to 

come in and just sit and listen to the judges’ discussion on it. 

Now, having said that, I do not always agree with what they 

chose, but that is why I do not jury my own Congressional art show 

either and the five judges all came independently and picked out 

the same top three pieces of art. Which just goes to show that what 

I liked—two of them I had in my top ten; one I did not have at 

all, but after listening to the judges explain to the students why 

that one was chosen, I went wow. So if you want some more information on that, you might want to stop for a day when they are 

meeting next. It is in the spring, the next one, June? 

Mr. LANDESMAN. June. 

ARTS AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Yes. I wanted to kind of make a couple of observations and then kind of generalize and then ask you a question. 

One of the things that I was very much involved in supporting was 

a Republican during the time I was on the city council in north St. 

Paul. We both got elected to the State House. He was from 

Lanesboro. They were trying to rehab an old theater. They were 

bringing in a bike trail, B and B’s, all kinds of stuff. The economic 

development that they thought was just going to be in the spring 

and in the summer turned into the fall and into the winter for 

Lanesboro. And then they had local artisans and women doing 

quilts and all kinds of economic cottage industry growth from in 

and around the neighborhood. It was just phenomenal. So your 

point about the integration between HUD and transportation, how 

dollars are limited, but the need for sustainable, livable communities and getting the best investment for our federal dollars is 

critically important. 

We have a rail project going through Central Corridor, which is 

going to be very disruptive, but the community kind of came together and said how do we celebrate this disruption? They have 

done it with photographs of people that are living on the corridor, 

both old-timers from the days of statehood all the way through to 

the vibrant community with the new immigrants that have lived 

and established businesses on it. I was not able to get over there, 

but I caught it on the news, they decorated the hardhats. And I 

will tell you, some of them were pretty whimsical, but all ages were 

involved in doing that. 

But to the point of getting transportation stops in an urban core 

where there is art and something of pride put in the community, 

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tive and whether or not we even receive a nickel from it is that it 

is an opportunity for communities when they are planning to be 

mindful of how to build sustainability, joy, reflection. Part of that 

is the arts because that is who we are with being creative. 

So if you could maybe just talk a little bit more—I almost called 

you Rocco—Mr. Landesman—— 

Mr. LANDESMAN. Everyone else does. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM [continuing]. About kind of what you are hearing 

working with the Secretaries. As you are going through the planning stage, are they open to being mindful of the arts? 

LEVERAGING EFFECT OF ARTS FUNDING

Mr. LANDESMAN. Well, with the limitations of our budget, we 

have to be creative. And I would like to tie to something that the 

chairman asked about before, which is why do we need Our Town 

to be in there working when a lot of this can happen spontaneously? And I think part of the answer is that the particular leverage that the NEA has. In Shreveport we put in—you know, maybe 

this firehouse would have been renovated without the NEA, but 

what happened was the NEA put in $100,000 toward their renovation of this firehouse. The Educational Foundation of America came 

in with $300,000. Another $5 million was raised privately and locally based largely on the imprimatur of the NEA, on the validation of a federal agency that came in and said this is something 

worth doing. This is something the Federal Government stands behind. And that 100,000 became $5.4 million very quickly. And that 

is the value of the NEA seal, and it can have a tremendous 

leveraging effect. 

CREATIVE PLACEMAKING

The other part of the leverage is exactly what you just addressed, 

Congresswoman, that we need to find additional funding through 

our sister agencies where the limited resources we have can be leveraged when there is a coincidence of purpose. The Department 

of Transportation, for instance, is no longer just about engineering 

and road-building. It is also about quality of life. So if we encounter 

a beltway, a greenway around Greensboro, North Carolina that is 

going to be created out of old railroad beds or roads and there can 

be an aesthetic aspect to that—and we made a grant for decorative 

aesthetic work for the overpasses that you encounter along the 

roadway. This suddenly becomes also about the arts. And the arts 

have a role to play. 

One of the things that we found is that when we are dealing with 

the more public of the arts, things like, you know, decorative aspects to an overpass or to a bridge or public art, public sculpture 

or architecture in general, all design aspects of the cities, these affect everybody. Whether they ever enter any kind of arts emporium 

or not, whether they never go to a play or to a museum, these are 

aspects of art that people encounter every day in their normal life. 

The aesthetics of a town, of a place, we call it creative place-making because it is all about the place. And places need to have an 

aesthetic, need to have an aesthetic aspect. It affects how people 

feel about where they live, no less than the aesthetics in the Mayo 

Clinic affect the outcome of patients there. If you are in a nicer 


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place, if you are in a place you enjoy encountering, the arts have 

a role. And we are connecting with the Department of Health and 

Human Services about this, too. We are finding the arts have a role 

to play clearly—I think everyone knows it—in childhood development, in mental health, in geriatrics, and where there is an intersection of the arts and the work of other agencies, we want to be 

a multiplier there. We want to help maximize those resources 

wherever we can. And I think it is a very healthy process. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Serrano. 

Mr. SERRANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me check something here a second. 

Mr. SIMPSON. You are just trying to show us you know how to 

use one of those things. 

IMPORTANCE OF ARTS IN AMERICA

Mr. SERRANO. ‘‘I am a poor, tattered wretch, like the back of this 

waistcoat. I ask for nothing. I am better than that. I was young 

once. I went to the university. I had dreams. I thought of myself 

as a man. But now, now I want nothing, nothing but peace. Peace.’’ 

I read that, Mr. Moran, when I was 12 years old. It is Chekov’s 

on the harm of tobacco. And I grew up in a program called the 

South Bronx Community Action Theater where they took all these 

kids together and they put us on stage and they helped us build 

scenery and put on makeup and so on. And with my talent, I did 

not pursue it because it conflicts with my desire to eat. It has been 

at the center of my existence at who I am. It trailed down to my 

son who then ran for the city council and made sure that he became chairman eventually of the Cultural Arts Committee of the 

city council. And now he is the ranking member, was chairman. We 

lost the majority there, too—of the New York State Senate Cultural 

Arts. And so it was not strange to hear you say about the Russian 

immigrants because it was a Greek American who taught me how 

to read Chekov. And I was trying to get rid of my Spanish and 

Bronx accent at the same time when I was doing this so it was 

quite an experience. 

All that to say that even during difficult budget times, we have 

to preserve and save and grow the arts because it was a great 

Puerto Rican composer, pop song composer, who said what probably everybody else has said. He said, ‘‘A people without the arts 

are a people without a soul.’’ And it is at the center of who I am. 

I know it is at the center of who we are as Americans, and we just 

have to be very, very careful that as we make very difficult decisions we do not destroy that which is so important to us. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. I did not anticipate encountering anyone today 

who was going to be referring to Chekov but since you did, Chekov 

said, ‘‘We must take the theater out of the hands of the greengrocer.’’ And what he meant by that was that the marketplace 

should not be the sole determinant of what art is allowed to flourish. And one of the important aspects of the NEA is that it supports art that we as a society consider valuable and worth supporting even if the marketplace does not support it. 

Mr. SERRANO. Right. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. The San Francisco Mime Troupe is a theater organization that has made a tremendous contribution to the art that 


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I am very proud of, probably would not be supported just in the 

marketplace that needs subsidy from both private and public 

sources. And the NEA I think is there to do that. 

CONTINUATION OF THE NATIONAL HERITAGE FELLOWSHIPS

Mr. SERRANO. Let me, before I ask you my only question, tell you 

that I am not as courageous as you think. I only read that part on 

the harmfulness of tobacco when he speaks about himself and not 

the gist of his whole presentation, which is what a miserable marriage he is involved in. And he ends with his wife waiting in the 

wings, you know, waving to come over. It is really a wonderful— 

yeah, I know. That is too much information. 

Mr. Chairman, it is my understanding that the National Heritage Fellowship will be discontinued. As I understand it, a new fellowship that targets mid-career artists will be established. Several 

community organizations from my district as well as surrounding 

districts have reached out to me with their concerns that, in lieu 

of this reorganization, traditional cultural artists will be neglected. 

The National Heritage Fellowship has represented the NEA’s commitment to underrepresented communities. I think that this commitment is an important one. 

What was the reasoning behind the discontinuing of the National 

Heritage Fellowship? Is there any chance of offering a similar program or fellowship that recognizes and supports underrepresented 

communities and traditional cultural artists, even as we deal with 

the dollar issue? 

Mr. LANDESMAN. I recently met with the main players in the National Heritage field. We had a meeting at the NEA. They came in; 

they made a very articulate and passionate case to me. All I will 

say at this moment is I heard them and we are taking what they 

said under real consideration. The National Heritage awards are 

very important to us. They are part of the DNA of our Agency, part 

of our identity. I think they are extremely valuable and that is 

probably all I should say at this moment. 

Mr. SERRANO. Okay. And as my colleague said, when we sit at 

these things, we do not make any judgments. So we are not making 

any judgments here, but keep in mind that there is one Member 

of Congress at least who is concerned that—— 

Mr. LANDESMAN. Let me just say to answer the other part of 

your question to address how this process started. Again, we are 

facing significant budgetary cuts. At the same time, we want to 

widen the arena for these awards a little bit so we can include 

other arts, the visual arts, the art that I am, of course, most familiar, the theater, the performing arts, to be able to give awards to 

people who have made significant contributions all through a lot of 

the arts. And under the budgetary constraints, this was one solution that we broached. And by the way, the other arts, some of 

which we are eliminating as stand-alone entities, will also be included in these what we are calling Artist of the Year awards at 

the NEA. 

GRANTS TO UNITED STATES TERRITORIES

Mr. SERRANO. Yeah. Let me just end by saying something that 

I say at just about every hearing of any kind and something which 


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has caught on in the last few years. In fact, Speaker Boehner, 

when he was minority leader, was very good on this issue and that 

is remembering that we have not only 50 states but we have territories where American citizens live who participate in every aspect. 

And as you know, in our federal budget, the territories are always 

sort of an afterthought or an addendum—— 

Mr. LANDESMAN. We fund in those areas. 

Mr. SERRANO [continuing]. Or a rider. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. We fund there. 

Mr. SERRANO. Okay. Thank you so much. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. Thank you. 

ARTS AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you. You know, it was in your conversations 

that you were just having with Representative McCollum, what you 

are trying to do in Our Town, we have done some things using a 

program that is now defunct because it was unfunded last year, 

Save America’s Treasures. We have done some things in restoring 

theaters and those types of things throughout Idaho, some of which 

we took some criticism for, but it is really the seed money that 

starts that and it is local effort—fundraising and work done by 

local people to restore some of these great old theaters that are 

then used as community theaters and other things in a lot of the 

rural communities around the country. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. The Egyptian Theater was not funded by the 

NEA I do not believe. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yeah. No, it was not. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. It is a great example, though, of connecting to 

neighborhood and urban, you know, to a town’s revitalization as a 

centerpiece for that. And in some cases it is done privately. Some 

cases, as in Shreveport, it can be jumpstarted with an NEA grant 

and then there is a tremendous multiplier effect. 

Mr. SIMPSON. There was a theater in Rupert, Idaho, town of 

about 3,500, the old Wilson Theater that had just been run down. 

If you looked at pictures of it, you wonder why they did not knock 

it down. We started with a couple hundred-thousand-dollar grant 

as seed money to help them, and they raised incredible amounts 

of money and have gone in and restored it and it is beautiful. Once 

they did that, the other owners of the buildings around it said gee, 

maybe we ought to do something with our—and now the whole center around their center park is gorgeous with the restoration. 

And I will tell you just a quick story before I ask this question. 

I was with some of the old folks who were taking me through it 

during the renovation and they were telling me some stories, you 

know, like I met my wife up there, you know, and all that kind of 

stuff. But this guy said, you know, years ago there were three kids 

that snuck into the theater during some scary movie. They were up 

on the balcony, and one kid had a chicken under his coat, a live 

chicken, and in the middle of one of the scary parts, he took that 

out and threw it out in front of the projector so it is flapping on 

the screen and down on everybody. And we are all laughing. He 

says you know who that kid was? And I said who was that? Lou 

Dobbs. So I had LaTourette mention it to him when he was on his 


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program one day and he just sat there in stunned amazement that 

anybody knew about that. 

ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS

Anyway, couple other questions. This comes not just for your 

Agency but what I am hearing about a lot of agencies that we are 

looking at budget reductions, that is the NEA’s budget justification 

list five priorities for fiscal year 2012. Your first priority on page 

four is for the NEA to maintain its staff and to interact with the 

arts community and the public. Overall, your budget request returns funding levels to just about 2008 levels but does not reduce 

the number of staff to administer fewer funds. In fiscal year 2008, 

the NEA had 155 FDAs. Today, it has 169 FTEs. And this is the 

question that I am receiving from a whole bunch of different organizations, whether it is within Fish and Wildlife Service or anybody 

else is that we are reducing budgets, staffs are staying the same, 

and we are reducing programs that actually go out and do the work 

on the ground. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. Someone coming from the private sector as I 

have—this would be my first take on it, too, you know, what do you 

need all of this staff for? 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yeah. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. I believe our request shows only a one percent 

increase from the 2011 to the 2012 administrative budget. It is 

very small. We are in a particular, I think, unique situation in that 

our funding was cut, as you know, in the mid-’90s almost in half. 

The staffing was cut commensurate to that, to reflect that. Since 

then, the number of grants we have been making in our funding 

has been increasing but our staff has not been. So our staff has 

been increasingly under pressure and duress to get out more and 

more grants with the same number of people. And believe me, I 

have some perspective on this coming from the private sector, but 

I think we are grossly understaffed. We are unable to make field 

visits—which the NEA used to routinely do—into the field to actually check out in person the grants. We really need more staff, I 

think, to do the work that needs to be done in the right way. We 

are making do with the staff we have. We think we are doing a tremendous amount with very, very little, and I think we are very, 

very efficient in how we operate and, you know, very lean. And if 

anything, we need more help, not less. 

GRANTS TO INDIAN COUNTRY

Mr. SIMPSON. Another question following up on what Mr. 

Serrano mentioned, and that is art in underserved areas. One of 

the areas that is of a great deal of concern to me—in fact, there 

is a whole lot of art out there that needs to be supported in Indian 

Country. What are we doing in Indian Country? 

Mr. LANDESMAN. Well, I think we need to be there. 

Mr. SIMPSON. There at all now? 

Mr. LANDESMAN. We are and we can provide you with the examples of that. We are. And one of the things, I think this has been 

a continuing theme at the NEA, not just with me but one of my 

immediate predecessors is to get our reach more and more out to 

the whole country and to rural areas and small towns and to make 


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sure that the NEA is everywhere. And I have tried very hard personally to go out and around and show the flag everywhere we can. 

When we make a grant in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in front of the 

big steelworks there, I want to make sure that I am there to commemorate that. And we try hard. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Well, we have got a unique and great culture in 

this country in Indian Country. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. Yes. 

Mr. SIMPSON. And, in fact, it is different from tribe to tribe to 

tribe. And it is something we do not want to lose. And to the extent 

the NEA can help in making sure we preserve that and the great 

art, whether it is basket weaving or some of the silverworks done 

by the Navajos or other things, they are things that we need to 

make sure that we help them preserve. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. Well, and we have a whole department of folk 

and traditional arts beyond the honorifics that we have just been 

talking about, and that division makes significant grants in that 

area. We are very proud of them. We can get you a list of what 

they are. But we feel we are very engaged with those. 

Another example of work that would not be necessarily supported in the marketplace that needs some kind of protection or 

subsidy and the NEA is an important part of that. 

ARTS IN SCHOOLS

Mr. SIMPSON. The NEA promotes arts in schools. Thousands of 

school-aged children have benefitted over the years from the toolkits and jazz in the schools, toolkits that the NEA has distributed 

free to thousands of teachers nationwide. How many of these toolkits were distributed last year to how many teachers and schools, 

and what are your plans to continue the distribution and use of 

this popular resource? 

Mr. LANDESMAN. We are continuing that program. That will be 

free and I can give you the exact number. I do not know it offhand. 

Mr. SIMPSON. If you would submit that for the record, we would 

appreciate it. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. Yes. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Moran. 

Mr. MORAN. No, I am fine. I think, you know, I have heard 

enough and I do not really have any questions that have not already been answered. So I thank Mr. Simpson, the chairman. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Flake. 

GRANTS TO UNIVERSITIES

Mr. FLAKE. Yes. Let me get back to the universities. You mentioned that the one to Yale was on behalf of the Repertory Theater 

and it is listed as such. On the others, for example, Boston University to support the publication and promotion of the literary journal 

AGNI or Agni? I am not sure what that is. I am not literary, I 

guess, in that regard. But these grants are listed as going directly 

to the university, these universities with very large endowments. 

Another one, NTU with $2.43 billion endowment, support the publication and promotion of 10th anniversary edition of the Bellevue 

Literary Review. When you see grants going—when taxpayers everywhere see grants going to universities like this that are doing 


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quite well, I can tell you it feeds the cynicism out there about everything we do here. And I just want your response to that. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. We support the small presses. The small presses are a very important part of—particularly in the poetry world, 

but in scholarship certainly, the small presses, you know, their survival is always in doubt. They are usually not part of the university 

per se, even if though they may have some university support—— 

Mr. FLAKE. But these grants—— 

Mr. LANDESMAN [continuing]. Generally these small presses are 

located at a university but they are, again, semiautonomous organizations that get support wherever they can, from foundations, from 

private donors, in some cases from the Federal Government. We 

feel that the world of the small press is a very, very important one 

in literature and scholarship. 

Mr. FLAKE. But the recipient listed is the university itself so the 

grant actually goes to the university. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. Yeah, I am sure that is a re-grant. I am sure 

that flows ultimately to the small press in question. 

Mr. FLAKE. Okay. 

Mr. MORAN. Would the gentleman yield to the chairman? Do we 

have any idea how much money we are talking about on these 

grants? 

Mr. FLAKE. Some of these are $25,000, $10,000, these are small 

grants, they are. It just begs the question of why, with these universities that are doing quite well relative to where we are here. 

It strikes me as not the best use of money, particularly if you are 

getting decreases in funding and some of the rural communities 

and the other places that it could be argued are in more need of 

these kinds of grants, to have grants to continue to flow to large 

universities with large endowments when the grant actually goes 

to the university, it just seems not right. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. The small presses, we feel, are a very, very important part of the arts and scholarship ecosystem. They always 

struggle for support. Usually, their budgets are very, very small. 

Our grants number is small. We feel committed to their importance 

and to their support and hope we can continue it. 

Mr. MORAN. If the chairman would yield further for just a moment. I guess the real issue is the peer-review process. I mean it 

is really not so much—— 

Mr. LANDESMAN. Yeah. 

Mr. MORAN [continuing]. Mr. Landesman and his staff make 

these decisions. I think it was us, the Congress, that said this 

should all be done on a peer-reviewed basis and they make those 

actual decisions. 

Mr. FLAKE. Just back to the Accordion Festival—— 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Mr. Chair, on your other point, because I think 

we might be missing a key function here on the other point and 

that is if the University of Minnesota has a press and there is a 

gift given to the University of Minnesota press, the university bylaws might say that it has to go through them because of the university’s name to make sure of all their accounting and everything 

at the end for the money. Maybe what we should do is find out how 

the rules work for the money going through. That may or may not 

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versity, but the university press cannot apply for it, then there is 

a nice endowment but they are excluded from it. Maybe that is 

something they should go back and see if they could change the endowment. 

But if the check has to be—and I am thinking like for the Rail 

Corridor, the Metropolitan Council is the fiscal agent, so they are 

in charge of doing some of the programming, they are in charge of 

making some of the decisions, but they are not in charge of everything. I am kind of wondering if it is not. But if that is it, then 

I think we are having a discussion that just goes around in a circle 

without really addressing your question. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. The Accordion Festival, what town is that? 

Mr. FLAKE. In San Antonio. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. In San Antonio? 

Mr. FLAKE. I was just going to make the point that whatever 

kills off the accordion, whether it is the market or somebody— 

should get our applause and not our derision, so there are some 

things that just need to go extinct. I am sorry. 

Mr. SIMPSON. That is my 11-foot pole rule because I will not 

touch that with a 10-foot pole. 

Mr. SERRANO. You are going to hear from Argentinean tango 

lovers, from Polish Americans, from Mexican musicians. I mean I 

could go on and on and on. 

Mr. SIMPSON. He is going to go after the bagpipes next. 

Mr. FLAKE. I will stop there. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Ms. McCollum. 

ARTS AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Ms. MCCOLLUM. I was going to go back to the accordion, but you 

brought it up. I do not know what that exactly was about, but 

there are lots of different types of styles with accordion music and 

a lot of that goes to folk music and a lot of that goes to heritage 

which goes back to the whole preservation issue that we were talking about. 

But I just wanted to point out the International World Choral 

Symposium was held in the Twin Cities several years ago and 

what that did for our country, having all the individuals who came 

in and participated—this was shortly after 9/11—what it did to our 

economy, to even our university system with people looking to be 

international students after that, was just incredible. You talk 

about the multiplier effect with buildings. But what we have seen 

with the arts is that the multiplier effect in communities, both 

rural and urban, has been significant and businesses wanting to locate where there is creativity. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. This is at the heart of what we are talking 

about the NEA. In Cincinnati, which is a city I know pretty well 

because my best friend grew up there, there is a section called 

Over-the-Rhine that used to be mainly drug addicts, prostitutes, 

mostly police actions, and a theater went in there and then an art 

gallery and then some artist housing. And the neighborhood was so 

completely transformed as to now be unrecognizable. And people 

bring their dates and walk around on the street there at night and 

that had been a place that nobody ever went. And we have a thousand examples like this in towns and cities across the country. 


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Providence, Rhode Island is an example where the arts can 

jumpstart a complete redevelopment of a neighborhood. So the 

downtowns are not hollowed out but have a cultural life, an anchor. 

The Egyptian Theater as the center of town, and not just the theater itself, it is the activity that goes around it. It is the foot traffic; 

it is the cafes that open up nearby. And the arts are transformative 

in these places. This is all about changing the place and rehabilitating neighborhoods. And, you know, there is no question that this 

happens. 

And one of the interesting things—and you just referred to it— 

is we know that it is not that people follow businesses. Businesses 

follow people. They want to go where there is an educated, committed workforce. And the arts attract these people. The Knight 

Foundation in conjunction with Gallup just did a poll about why 

people choose to live where they live or what they like about where 

they live. And they did not say jobs interestingly enough. They said 

social offerings, openness, and aesthetics. And the arts have a role, 

a big role in making people like and appreciate where they are and 

where they will stay. 

When we look at small towns, one of the big issues in small 

towns all across the country is getting people to stay there, to commit to being there and not going off to the coasts or to a city. Arts, 

the aesthetics have a huge role to play in that. It is transformative 

of these communities. And it starts with the people and people are 

attracted to the arts. I like to subvert the expression from ‘‘Field 

of Dreams.’’ You know, I am now going around saying if you come, 

they will build it. If you have the right people, the businesses will 

follow. And the people are attracted to arts clusters and to arts activities and the arts have a tremendous role to play everywhere. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Serrano. 

Mr. SERRANO. I have nothing further nor am I reading anything 

else. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Jeff, did you have something? 

GRANTS TO UNIVERSITIES

Mr. FLAKE. Just one thing. Universities, even if they are passed 

through grants, typically, when they get a grant, they take a portion off the top for administration. Can you assure us that that is 

not happening in the case with a $20,000 grant, $25,000 to Columbia University to support composer portrait series? 

Mr. LANDESMAN. We will check into that. My guess is that it is 

nil or very small. But we will get you that information. 

Mr. FLAKE. Well, that would seem completely inappropriate if 

they have used a thing that hey, this is on its own but then they 

take a cut off the top. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. It is not our intention to further enhance the 

endowment of Harvard University. 

Mr. FLAKE. Thank you. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Landesman, for the work you do 

and thanks for being here today. We look forward to working with 

you on this coming year’s budget, which will be difficult like it will 

for everybody. And thanks for the work you do. 

Mr. LANDESMAN. Thanks for having me. 


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WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 2011. 

NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES, FISCAL 

YEAR 2012 BUDGET HEARING 

WITNESS 

JIM LEACH, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL ENDOWMENT OF THE HUMANITIES 

OPENING REMARKS OF MR. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Committee will come to order. Chairman Leach, it 

is great to see you again. Those of us on this side of the table miss 

you in Congress but appreciate your continued service at the National Endowment for the Humanities. We are well aware of the 

environment in which today’s budget hearing is taking place. By 

the end of this week, the subcommittee, as I mentioned earlier, will 

have conducted two dozen oversight hearings to weigh the merits 

of many of the agency’s budgets under this jurisdiction. 

As I said to the NEA Chairman Landesman earlier this morning, 

each of the endowments finds their budgets under intense pressure 

this year because of the fiscal challenges we are facing. Like the 

NEA’s budget request, the NEH request, which is just slightly 

above the fiscal year 2008 funding level, reflects this reality. The 

success of the NEH in recent years has been a result of the endowment making a concerted effort to provide a selection of quality 

educational programs reaching a diverse cross-section of Americans 

without making overarching political statements. 

The work of the NEH has enjoyed strong bipartisan support in 

Congress in recent years and my hope is that that will continue. 

My home State of Idaho has benefitted from a close working relationship with the NEH for many years. I am an enthusiastic supporter of the Idaho Humanities Council, which has a long history 

of awarding grants to organizations throughout our state to develop 

humanities projects and programs on the local level. I am grateful 

for this ongoing successful collaboration. 

Our colleagues and I do have a number of questions to raise with 

you this morning and before receiving your testimony. I am happy 

to yield to Mr. Moran for any opening statement that he may have. 

OPENING REMARKS OF MR. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Chairman Simpson. Jim, I repeat Mike’s 

welcome to you. It is great to have you with us and of course in 

the position you are in. As you know, I have been providing quotes 

relevant to our hearings. In terms of NEH the noted author and 

historian David McCullough was asked how he could attribute the 

success of his writing career to, and he said, ‘‘I just thank my father and my mother, my lucky stars that I had the advantage of 

an education in the humanities. It is what made all the difference.’’ 


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He hits upon an important point. In what is becoming an increasingly technologically dependent world, where it seems that apps 

are being developed for every purpose imaginable, we still need the 

wisdom and the enlightenment that the humanities can offer, that 

cannot be replicated by machines or any form of technology. It can 

be repeated, but it cannot be created. 

In our schools, we place a great emphasis on math and science, 

but we place far less on the humanities. And in its own way, the 

National Endowment for the Humanities tries to correct this imbalance with support for programs that engage young people in the 

importance of history and of culture. Even in what are considered 

to be difficult fiscal times where we are engaged in two wars, our 

military leadership recognizes that it is not enough to just win on 

the battlefield. We also have to win the hearts and minds of the 

citizens in foreign lands—even with those that which we find ourselves in conflict. 

And that is why training and exposure to the history of culture 

of the society can play such an important role. NEH provides a national leadership role in advancing education and understanding 

the humanities. For this fiscal year the NEH like its sister agency 

the National Endowment for the Arts will face the prospect of 

doing more with less. And while there are some who would say 

these programs are expendable, I think when you look more closely 

at them, each of them has incredible reasons for being funded and 

are important in their own ways. 

The humanities have been described as the nourishment for the 

roots of our culture. We know what happens to a plant when it is 

starved of nourishment. It shrivels and dies, and we cannot afford 

to let that happen to the cultural life for our society. So thanks to 

our former colleague, Mr. Leach, I appreciate the fact that you are 

chairing the National Endowment for the Humanities. Thanks Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman. 

STATEMENT OF NEH CHAIRMAN JIM LEACH

Mr. LEACH. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Moran, Ms. McCollum, Mr. Flake, first I would like to request unanimous consent to 

put my full statement in the record. It is my intention to read from 

parts of it and expand somewhat on one of its central themes. Secondly, I would like to express my great honor in working with our 

Chairman of our sister institution the NEA, Rocco Landesman, and 

I concur with everything he said this morning. 

It is an honor to appear before this subcommittee once again to 

appear on behalf of the NEH and our budget request for this coming fiscal year. The justification we submitted to Congress in February describes in detail our current activities and plans. I would 

like to take a moment of the committee’s time simply to discuss 

some of the key features of our fiscal 2012 request and explain why 

I believe the humanities are critically important to the health and 

well-being of American society. 

First, let me emphasize the NEH recognizes its obligation to embrace budgetary restraint. The funding the administration has requested for fiscal year 2012 represents a 13 percent reduction from 

last year’s appropriation. To do more with less is always a chalVerDate Mar 15 2010 04:44 Jun 29, 2011 Jkt 066897 PO 00000 Frm 00610 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A897P2.XXX A897P2

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lenge, but we are appreciative of the fact that in the humanities 

even modest support can make a marked difference in sustaining 

America’s cultural resources. 

Indeed we believe that few governmental institutions have had 

more impact at less cost than NEH. The Endowment’s grants provide a margin of possibility that enables individuals, organizations, 

and institutions to undertake important work in the humanities. 

With annual spending that last year approximated 1/21,000th of 

the Federal Budget, barely more per capita than the cost of a postage stamp, NEH has made significant contributions to the democratization of ideas; stimulating research and the dissemination of 

knowledge through books, prize winning films and radio documentaries, and civic education programs ranging from those designed 

to help wounded veterans cope with physical and mental trauma 

to symposiums on the Islamic world. 

NEH is in the business of providing the perspective of studies in 

the humanities to the challenges facing American citizens in our 

country in these change-intensive times. We are convinced that the 

Endowment’s investments in the realm of ideas pay dividends. Our 

grandparents understood the importance of support for the arts 

and the humanities during the country’s most traumatic economic 

moment—the Great Depression—a vastly greater percentage of the 

Federal Budget was devoted to the arts and the humanities than 

today. 

Depression era public programs sustained such writers as John 

Steinbeck, Zora Neale Hurston, and Saul Bellow, and such artists 

as Grant Wood, Jacob Lawrence, and Louise Nevelson. In a similar 

tradition, the NEH since its inception in 1965 has supported research and scholarship that had resulted in over 7,000 books of 

which 18 have been awarded Pulitzer and 20 Bancroft Prizes and 

the editing of literary landmarks, such as the current best-selling 

autobiography of Mark Twain. The endowment has supported comprehensive, authoritative editions of papers of our nation’s founders: presidents from George Washington to Dwight Eisenhower; 

military leaders like George C. Marshall; literary giants such as 

William Faulkner; scientists like Albert Einstein; social figures like 

Jane Addams; and civil rights pioneers such as Martin Luther 

King, Jr. 

During a time of rapid global change and persistent uncertainty 

about the future, the vitality of our 21st century democracy depends on a commitment to understanding the historical and cultural forces that have shaped and continue to shape our world. 

NEH’s new agency-wide theme ‘‘Bridging Cultures’’ is designed to 

renew and reinforce the bridges between the different cultures and 

viewpoints that are part of the fabric of American life. 

These bridges of mutual respect have deep roots in the American 

tradition of civility dating back to the Founders’ concerns about the 

destructive powers of what George Washington used to label ‘‘factions’’ in our democracy. Bridging cultures is also designed to 

strengthen bridges across international lines to enhance citizen understanding of the contemporary global context for economic, political, and cultural interactions among peoples. 

While bridging cultures will be a special emphasis of our activities in fiscal year 2012, the Endowment will continue to provide 


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support for high quality projects in the full range of humanities 

programming from basic research to support for instruction at the 

high school level. Nevertheless, the endowment’s $146.255 million 

budget request reflects a recalibration of the agency’s programming 

mix. 

Notably the agency’s We the People Initiative will be discontinued as an agency theme, although several of its most successful 

programs will be maintained. The National Digital Newspapers 

Program and Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshops for teachers, for example, have now been fully integrated into 

the regular operation of the Endowment’s Programs divisions and 

will continue to be funded in fiscal year 2012. 

And a third We the People project—Picturing America—enjoys 

the ongoing partnership support of the Verizon Foundation through 

its funding of the NEH’s ‘‘EDSITEment’’ Website portal. As a further indication of this project’s broad impact, we are pleased to 

note that the Picturing America materials have been translated 

into four languages—Arabic, French, Portuguese, and Spanish—for 

use by U.S. Embassies abroad. 

We are a small agency with a big mission. Our job is to help 

build an infrastructure of ideas and lead in their democratization, 

by providing as many citizens as possible access to new as well as 

old knowledge, and creative thought. We do this by funding basic 

research that leads to books and scholarly articles, documentaries, 

preservation of historic landmarks and languages, and even archeological finds. 

We complement knowledge and perspective development with 

programmatic outreach to colleges and universities, libraries and 

museums with interpretive exhibitions, ad-hoc teacher institutes, 

peer reviewed model course programs, and with State Council programming. Indeed in 2010, the State Humanities Councils conducted programs in 5,700 communities nationwide including 17,700 

reading and discussion programs, 5,700 literacy programs, 5,800 

speakers bureau presentations, 5,800 conferences, 2,300 Chautauquas, 7,120 media programs, 7,600 technology, preservation, and 

local history events, and 4,600 exhibitions on a wide variety of 

themes. 

The State Humanities Council programs reach millions each 

year, and tens of millions of Americans annually watch NEH supported documentary films on television and in classrooms, or listen 

to radio programs that make the humanities accessible and uplifting. Many of these productions have won the nation’s most prestigious awards for context and artistic quality and have become invaluable historical and cultural resources for continual use over the 

years in classrooms. 

For example, recent programs, broadcast on PBS have included 

acclaimed documentaries on 20th Century U.S. Presidents, the Life 

of Robert E. Lee, and The Rape of Europa, a film about the theft, 

destruction, survival, and recovery of Europe’s art treasuries during the Third Reich. Next week on May 16, PBS stations nationwide will broadcast the NEH supported documentary Freedom 

Writers, the story of the hundreds of civil rights activists, two of 

whom, by the way, are now members of Congress, who challenged 


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segregation in interstate transportation in the American South 

during the spring and summer of 1961. 

The Freedom Riders project also includes an interactive website 

at which the documentary will be made available in streaming 

video; a series of panel discussions and screening events hosted by 

universities, museums, and State Humanities Councils around the 

country; and a traveling panel exhibition for libraries created in association with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in 

New York. Even prior to its pubic unrolling, the Freedom Riders 

documentary has already won awards including that of the Best 

Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival. 

And, not incidentally, the NEH has earned a reputation in the 

United States and abroad for its leadership in one of the youngest 

fields of scholarship, the Digital Humanities. Its digital work, as 

that of our initiative with the Verizon Foundation in support of 

model lesson plans at the K through 12 level, has become a model 

for the private sector and for emerging activities in a number of 

other nations. 

These are but a sampling of the projects and programs we offer 

as evidence of NEH’s broad and constructive impact. Simply stated, 

NEH programming adds to the storehouse of knowledge enabling 

Americans to better understand and succeed in today’s complex 

and interdependent world. 

Americans are understandably concerned about the high unemployment rate. We would submit that one of the myths of our times 

is that the Liberal Arts are impractical, unrelated to subsequent 

work environment. Actually, they are not only practical, but central 

to long term American competitiveness. 

It is true that many jobs such as building trades are skill centered, but job creation itself requires perspective and understanding of community and the world. Change and its acceleration 

characterize the time. With each passing year, jobs evolve, becoming more sophisticated. Training for one skill set may be of little 

assistance for another. On the other hand, studies that stimulate 

the imagination and nourish capacities to analyze and think outside the box suit well the challenges of change. They make coping 

with the unprecedented a manageable endeavor. 

What is needed in a world in flux is a new understanding and 

emphasis on the basics in education. Traditionally, the basics we 

have thought about is the three R’s. They are critical. Nonetheless, 

they are insufficient. What are also needed are the studies that 

provide perspective in our times and allow citizens to understand 

their own communities, other cultures, and the creative process. 

To understand and compete in the world, we need a fourth R, 

which for lack of a precise moniker might be described as ‘‘reality,’’ 

which includes not only relevant knowledge in the world near and 

far, but the imaginative capacity to put oneself in the shoes of others and creatively apply knowledge to discrete endeavors. 

Rote thinking is the hallmark of the status quo. Stimulating the 

imagination is the key to the future. To compete, the basics matter. 

And what better way is there to apply perspective to our times 

than to study history of prior times? What better way is there to 

learn to write well than to read great literature? What better way 

is there to think critically and to understand American traditions 


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than to ponder Locke and Montesquieu and their influence on our 

constitutional system? 

How can we compete in our markets if we do not understand our 

own culture and its enormous variety of subcultures, or abroad if 

we do not understand foreign languages, histories, and traditions? 

How can we understand our own era and the place of our own values if we do not study the faith systems of others? And does not 

art making and art appreciation instill a sense for the creative 

process? 

The insights provided by the humanities and the arts disciplines 

and the capacity to analyze, correlate, and express developed in humanities studies are not dismissible options for society. They are 

essential to revitalizing the American productive engine. 

I would also note that jobs in our economy come in many varieties. Those in the education industry are workers just as those 

who are carpenters and machinists. It is our conviction that there 

are few more important roles that Government can play than to 

provide for an educated citizenry. Just as we need an infrastructure of roads and bridges to transport goods and people, we need 

an infrastructure of ideas to strengthen our social fabric, fortify our 

economy, and transmit the values of citizenship. 

As NEH’s founding legislation affirms, ‘‘Democracy demands wisdom and vision in its citizens.’’ To pass on the American dream to 

future generations and lead the world on our own depends in no 

small measure on our ability to lead in the realm of ideas and of 

the spirit. In this endeavor, the NEH plays a modest but nonetheless central role. Thank you. 

[The statement of James A. Leach follows:] 


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CIVILITY TOUR

Mr. SIMPSON. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. You took on a task few of 

us would take on the civility tour. You went to, I think, 50 States. 

Have you been to every State? 

Mr. LEACH. I have been to 49 and the 50th will be accomplished 

this weekend. 

Mr. SIMPSON. All right. How has that gone? What have you 

learned from it? 

Mr. LEACH. Well, I like your reference of what I have learned because when you visit other places it is astonishing what perspective 

you get back. I will tell you that one of the clear things to me is 

that there is a sense in America that something has broken down 

and some of it we are all responsible for. I think the best and the 

brightest have let the country down a bit in business and in Government over the last couple of decades. 

Having said that, I also think the country wants to pull together, 

not apart. And everywhere I go I hear people expressing things in 

very profound ways about their own communities, about their own 

lives. And it is my own personal perspective that whether we are 

talking about a business, any kind of institution including governance that it is important to have great diversity and it is also important to pull together. And to the degree we cannot pull together, 

we are going to have difficulty leading our own society and leading 

the world. 

Now, pulling together does imply having lots of different views 

expressed and it also implies the capacity to make decisions and 

it is the decision-making aspect that is a little bit in doubt today. 

Mr. SIMPSON. It is an interesting dilemma that I think all of us 

in politics kind of wonder about. Everybody talks about, you know 

they have never seen Congress as an example. I do not know if 

that is true or not. Congress is one of those places where you expect, just as you said, diversity of opinion and active and passionate debate. We represent the diverse points of views of those 

we represent across this country. We have our differences of opinion and still respect other people’s opinions. 

But as I sit and watch some of the—to tell you the truth I sit 

and watch some of the news media on some of the cable shows and 

stuff like that. I wonder how, if you watch that long enough, how 

you do not become uncivil. And I mean that bothers me as well as 

some other things. And I sense this just from reading emails and 

letters that we get now versus what we got 10 years ago or 13 

years ago when I first came to Congress. The tone of them is substantially different, and yet I have always considered one of our 

greatest strengths as a country is our diversity. But it is also the 

biggest challenge that we face. 

As I said, you have taken on a task that I am not sure many people would in trying to help address this problem, but it is—we all 

have to be part of that solution. 

Mr. LEACH. Well, you have expressed it very well and you have 

concluded very wisely. 


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‘‘WE THE PEOPLE’’ INITIATIVE

Mr. SIMPSON. Let me ask you about—you mentioned in your testimony that you were discontinuing the We the People program, 

which has been very popular with bipartisan support. You are discontinuing it as a theme, but you are maintaining aspects of it. 

What are we doing with We the People? 

Mr. LEACH. Well, it has always been more a theme than a program. That is, initiatives that might fit the theme that NEH normally would do would be brought into it and then several of the 

new parts were put back into the programs. And we are trying to 

keep the major ones and in particular the National Digital Newspapers Program which is a highly important project. There is the 

oft-stated assertion that I think is very thoughtful that newspapers 

are the first rough draft of history. They also in a very unique way 

cover the country and the world, but most of all the community. 

And so to have preservation of these documents is very important. 

This is going to be a long-term initiative. We are now dealing with 

about half the States and, to date, have digitized three and-a-half 

million pages. We are of course working with the Library of Congress. It is a joint initiative. The three and-a-half million pages 

that have been digitized involve working through the years. And so 

in the next 10 to 15 years we will have all 50 States represented 

with most of the years covered. But it is going to be a long-term 

project. 

We are also keeping the Landmarks of American History Workshops involving teacher training. And then the Picturing America 

project has been enveloped within our ‘‘EDSITEment’’ website. It 

has been highly successful and is being used in new ways, one of 

which is translation into four other languages. But also, there are 

some experimentations in using Picturing America in a language 

learning way for foreigners to learn English for instance, which is 

something that was not envisioned with the initiation of the program but has some hope of being followed through with. Frankly, 

it is one of those uncertainties, but it could occur. 

When the ‘‘We the People’’ initiative began, the initial proposal 

was that it would be a $100 million initiative over a period of 

years. We have now dedicated approximately $100 million to it. As 

a thematic, the question is can you have too many thematics. The 

issue is how do you freshen perspective. And so, we are going to 

keep the best and move on. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I would hope that, I mean one of the aspects of it 

as I understand it, was to help students in the study of American 

History and the U.S. Constitution and those types of things. And 

I would hope that we would preserve that aspect of it, because 

when you look throughout, and surveys have shown, you know 

when they ask young people what we consider very simple questions about the Constitution and about our history, it is amazing 

the number of people that—especially young people—that do not 

know anything about that. 

Mr. LEACH. Well, art is a good way to illustrate history and to 

give a sense for change. And we may have some new initiatives of 

a comparable dimension that we may be unrolling in the next year. 

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ticular program involves—at least the Picturing America dimension 

of it—involves art appreciation, history relevance, and now possibly 

language relevance. That is a very interesting set of combinations. 

DOCUMENTING ENDANGERED LANGUAGES

Mr. SIMPSON. One of your co-programs relates to preserving and 

increasing access to culture and intellectual resources including 

books, periodicals, and other historically significant items as you 

have mentioned. An interesting piece of work relates to the recording, documentation and archiving of an estimated 3,000 of the 

world’s endangered languages, including hundreds of American Indian languages. Does the NEH collaborate with the Smithsonian or 

other organizations on common cultural goals like preserving the 

world’s languages? 

Mr. LEACH. Yes, we do. We also coordinate with the National 

Science Foundation and some of our programs are NSF and NEH 

funded together. We also coordinate in one sense internationally 

with UNESCO and partly with United States leadership, UNESCO 

has now become very concerned with languages that are considered 

vulnerable to extinction. 

In our country of course, we are particularly interested in Native 

American languages. Our concern relates less to the precept of 

‘‘maintaining the language as a dominant language’’ than to trying 

to maintain the wisdom that the languages reflect. This becomes 

important particularly for those people that come from a tradition 

of speaking the language but also for others. And so, we do have 

a number of Native American programs of a variety of kinds. One 

of which relates to language. 

I might mention in the language area, we made recently what I 

considered the only courageous grant I know to an individual—not 

courageous from the NEH’s perspective but from the individual’s. 

We had a really exceptional proposal from a young American scholar living in Afghanistan who wants to study and create a dictionary for an Afghan language, a very narrowly spoken language. 

For the first time I insisted that the letter of NEH-approval for this 

proposal include a paragraph of a nature never done before. We 

said that finishing the project was not the key thing because he is 

living in an environment that is exceptionally dangerous. He might 

be an idealist, but idealism may be challenged by people there or 

he might not be viewed as an idealist. So we have instructed him 

that he does not have to finish his research and if he does finish, 

he might want to finish it in another environment; in this case, in 

Rep. Jeff Flake’s State, Arizona, where the grantee is tied to the 

University of Arizona. For someone to take on a language preservation effort in that environment to me is pretty gutsy. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Trying to do a life preservation there. 

Mr. LEACH. Exactly. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Moran. 

TEACHING AND SCHOLARSHIP

Mr. MORAN. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Leach, we talked 

about the increasing emphasis upon the science, technology, and 

engineering, and mathematics, which of course is terribly important for the globalization of our economy, but the corresponding 


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diminution of emphasis on the humanities. Are you involved at all 

in supporting teaching positions at secondary or postsecondary institutions in the humanities? 

Mr. LEACH. We support scholars and scholarship. We sometimes 

have applications that include support for positions and some of 

these are preservation positions at a museum, library, or archive 

for example. But as a basic function, teaching positions are the responsibility of universities, for instance. But supporting someone’s 

scholarship can have an effect on a position. 

I will give a small example that is of symbolic significance. We 

have an annual Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, which is our 

major lecture of the year. This year’s lecturer was the President of 

Harvard University, Drew Faust. She indicated as a young scholar 

she got an NEH grant to do research in a very narrow field that 

was not in the mainstream of American History, nor in vogue at 

the time, studying women in the Civil War. 

This study resulted in a book, which in her judgment was a key 

to her receiving tenure at the University of Pennsylvania. In other 

words, this small step started her in a career that has ended up 

making her president of one of our emblematic universities. While 

we support scholarship, it is not our role to support an individual’s 

position at a university. 

Mr. MORAN. And that is understandable. I did not really expect 

that you would be doing that. The only concern is that it seems as 

though we need some advocacy for humanities staying within even 

elementary, but certainly secondary and post-secondary institutions. In terms of their curricula, State Humanities Councils I 

guess might do that. I was wondering if there are ways you at least 

indirectly support humanities at the elementary and secondary 

school level? 

‘‘EDSITEMENT’’ PROGRAM

Mr. LEACH. State Councils do good work there but I want to 

point out a very unnoted aspect of NEH’s work that is truly significant to literally millions of Americans is our ‘‘EDSITEment’’ Program where with the Verizon Corporation—we doing the work and 

they doing much of the funding—we peer review model lessons for 

high schools. We get over 300,000 hits a month on these model lessons and it is absolutely an invaluable thing. We get emails all the 

time from teachers telling us that the greatest thing that ever happened to their teaching capacity is to be able to look at these model 

lessons and choose and pick any number of sources on a large number of themes. 

Mr. MORAN. NEH has consistently gotten pleased. 

Mr. SIMPSON. How do teachers know to access this information? 

Mr. LEACH. Well, I personally think most of it is word of mouth, 

but this particular program has won all sorts of national teaching 

awards, and so it is highly publicized within teaching journals and 

noted at many conventions that teachers go to. It is one of these 

real riches that is making a phenomenal difference. It is also, by 

the way, very much appreciated by people that home school. You 

can visualize if one is a father or a mother that is teaching their 

own kids at home how do they get lessons? This is really terrific 

rich stuff, and it is wonderful. 


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Mr. SIMPSON. Well, the reason I ask the question is we do some 

great things whether it is the NIH, whether it is the Smithsonian 

or other things that can reach out to communities, particularly to 

the areas that do not have access. And I have often wondered how 

do we tell these people that this is available? How do we get that 

information out? So I appreciate that. 

Mr. LEACH. That is a great question and that is one of the miracles of the Internet. I mean we do try to inform through the Internet in many kinds of ways. We obviously do not or have not to date 

done advertisements on TV or radio or whatever, but the Internet 

is great for getting the word out as well as great for having access 

come back. All I can tell you is the response level at the agency 

is just exciting. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Do you work with the Department of Education to 

get their stuff out? 

Mr. LEACH. We do, but not to a grand extent. On the whole DOE 

(and I do not want to categorize because it would be unfair) is a 

little bit more into teaching methodologies and we are a little bit 

more into content. That does not mean they are not big into content, too, but we are exclusively about content. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you. 

Mr. MORAN. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Those are very relevant questions to what I was getting at that you are exclusively 

about content and the content that you have produced has been extraordinarily good over the years. The problem is if we do not have 

courses in humanities related subjects in secondary schools there 

is no real audience. I mean there is an audience but it is a very 

limited audience. If there is a course in it where students need to 

access that kind of material then you certainly have it available 

and all the letters that have been accumulated over the years with 

regard to some of the great leaders of our nation and internationally. But you know it is just a concern that the humanities is becoming marginalized within our educational system. 

SUPPORT FOR HUMANITIES RESEARCH VS. THE SCIENCES

Mr. LEACH. I agree with you. Can I just make one comment and 

go further than that. It has also been marginalized in our research 

system. The humanities research supported at the federal level is 

less than one-tenth of one percent of support provided the sciences 

and technology. There is real reason to support the sciences and 

technology and we are at the NEH strongly supportive of it. But 

we worry that there is a humanities aspect to every advance in 

science. We are very concerned that exclusive emphasis in science 

or science and technology is awkward. 

If you take the Federal Budget in the last let’s say couple of decades, science funding at the federal level has gone up three or four 

fold and humanities funding has gone down. That is a very significant relative circumstance. 

Mr. MORAN. Well, I do not want to see humanities funding compete with science R&D Funding. 

Mr. LEACH. Of course not. 

Mr. MORAN. And I know you agree that investment should even 

be increased. But I do not want to see humanities fall by the side 

of the road. There needs to be some balance. The only other area 


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of entry and is somewhat related is what you are doing to promote 

grants to underserved populations. 

Mr. LEACH. Well, we have a surprisingly great emphasis on that 

and one aspect relates to special programs for historically black colleges and universities and other special emphases on tribal colleges 

and institutions with high Hispanic enrollment. And then we have 

a way of distributing information to the State Humanities Councils. 

But I would stress and it is a surprise to many people, that if you 

think of the academic humanities as contrasted with the public humanities, the academic humanities also get distributed widely. Unlike in strategic policy studies where you have a number of nonprofit organizations centered in Washington, D.C., all our academic 

communities are distributed outward. 

And if you take support for a university, for example, the universities might have a teacher’s workshop bringing people in from all 

over the country. If you take technology as an example, one of the 

California State Universities is the center of technology for 

digitization of historical newspapers. That technology gets distributed to all the other States. So what often first goes to one State 

is soon distributed to other States. 

We are putting in virtually everything we do in efforts to try to 

establish distributive digital access. Now one might say in the first 

instance, the people who have the greatest access to digital technology will have the first grab. But one of the wonderful things 

about our society is how technologies are getting distributed. If one 

thinks of a television, the television is in poor and well-to-do 

houses. Now, increasingly, computers are being distributed in new 

ways. Kids in inner city schools are finally, a little bit later than 

higher income school districts, getting this technology. So some access is not because of any direct program that says we are going 

to target X place in some part of the country. It is that X place is 

going to have access to it without exactly being targeted. 

Mr. MORAN. Very good. I agree with Chairman Simpson that our 

Native American population is a very good place to continue the 

emphasis on helping to maintain their culture and languages. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Ms. McCollum. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you. My training is in Social Studies. I 

never got a full time class. I was a long term sub and I think being 

a substitute teacher at times has prepared me for Congress with 

the whole civility issue as you had pointed out. 

I know a lot of people who teach and Tim Walz had an opportunity to have his own full time classroom for many years and the 

word is out especially in the Social Studies community that this is 

out there as a tool. But the challenge that I see happening is Social 

Studies is the class and the one opportunity that if taught right, 

you bring in every aspect. You bring in science. You bring in geography. You bring in language. You bring in everything into the 

classroom because who we are is affected by everything that surrounds us and that is what shapes our history. 

So when you have Leave No Child Behind teaching to the test, 

two things happen. One, Social Studies is getting crowded out because it becomes where you get the information on prom and everything else, so there is less, less, and less and less history, Social 


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Studies, Civics, humanities being taught in our K through 12 system. 

The second thing that happens when you start focusing on teaching to the test is, how many dates can you memorize? You could 

memorize every single big battle of the Civil War and not understand the Civil War. And if we do not understand the Civil War, 

we do not understand this bittersweet tension that still is much of 

an underpinning for some of the things that are going on in the 

country. If you do not understand the Depression, and people are 

talking about the Great Recession and we could have had a depression, you cannot make an informed decision whether or not that is 

true or not true if you have never studied the Depression. And part 

of studying the Depression is studying the music and the art and 

everything else with it. 

As you can tell, I am very passionate about the humanities. And 

one of the reasons why I am as passionate about the arts is the 

arts play a huge role in the humanities and the preservation of it. 

The word is definitely out there. If I was a teacher and I had a limited amount of time and I wanted to say okay, what is the best 

place to get first person histories of the Civil War, sermon or diary 

letters or something like that, one stop shopping there. You know 

you could do the Library of Congress. They would have the references but they would not have it packaged so that you could just 

kind of pick up and go with it. 

And especially now with teaching to the test from talking to instructors, when you have those precious opportunities that might 

arise, you might have to develop a lesson on the fly; not because 

you are not a good teacher, just because all of a sudden you realize 

I am going to have 15—I am going to have 20 minutes to where 

I could really enhance this. These are the questions my students 

have been asking. How can I best pique their interest? So you now 

keep it up. The homeschoolers, too, I have a fair number of them 

in Minnesota and I know people are doing that as well. 

The thing about curriculum that all of you in the humanities 

have to stay away from is if you get too much into curriculum, then 

you are going to have the criticism from the other side that they 

are doing national curriculum. You kind of have to do a lesson plan 

where you are picking and choosing and it does not look like, a national curriculum although Texas gets to write all of our textbooks. 

So talk about having a curriculum. 

I wanted to just make an observation and then ask a question 

and I know we are going to get close to doing the markup. I have 

to say one other thing I like about Appropriations is we actually 

kind of discuss things amongst ourselves and this is my first full 

time year with being chair and I am—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. There is no money. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM [continuing]. Yeah, I know there is no money. So 

that is—so I am not plugging for anything because I know there 

is no money. But thank you so much for the way in which your 

leadership and Jim’s leadership and working together has made 

this a committee such a treasure to serve on. 

You know we will talk about cutting humanities. We will talk 

about cutting NEA, but there are hidden things that we support 

through our tax code: NASCAR, golf, professional sports, I could go 


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on. But because they are hidden, we are not having a major discussion about whether or not they should be part of the sacrifices, we 

are making with these tough decisions. That is an editorial comment and I know we are not on Ways and Means. 

Rocco talked a little bit about this, too. Could you kind of talk 

about the gold standard for the attracting of money and the grant 

process because a lot of that goes into having staff. Lots of times 

people say well you have all those staff. But the staff is really there 

to do the due diligence on the grants. And then when you have the 

grants and major foundations, they still go through their grant 

process to see if it meets their goals. 

But if you have kind of been out there, it is kind of like you take 

a look. And I am sure you do the same thing vice versa with some 

of the major foundation work. Just talk about the importance of 

staff with that because without staff how do you review grants? 

NEH STAFFING

Mr. LEACH. First let me talk about staff. And I want to take this 

from kind of a Republican perspective, Mike. I have heard many 

times friends tell me they have gone into a Federal agency noting 

how lousily organized it was and implying that they set it straight. 

But the fact of the matter is I walked into an agency where everyone knows more about the work than I do. The NEH has really terrific people. I am very proud of the staff, which numerically by the 

way is about where we were in 2008. 

The staff is really critical to NEH. Most of our staff are quite 

professional, many with PhDs. Many have written scholarly books. 

Many have written novels. We just have a really diverse staff. 

NEW APPROACHES TO STUDY OF HISTORY

Now one of the things you said, I do want to slightly pick up on, 

because I think it is extremely wise of you to refer to the Civil War 

and the emphasis on knowing the battles. Earlier, I noted how 

Drew Faust had researched a book about women in the Civil War. 

Well, no one had ever looked deeply at women. One of President 

Faust’s conclusions, and she perhaps overdrew it, was that women 

played a critical role in bringing the war to an end. Everyone 

talked about the battles. Everyone had talked about why the war 

started. 

One of the things we are grappling with now as a country is we 

are finding it is just as hard to figure out how and when to end 

a war is how and why to start one. And Faust came to the conclusion that women played a critical role in expressing exhaustion and 

bringing to families the perspective of ‘‘let’s bring this terrible toll 

of death to an end.’’ And no one had really thought about that. 

They had overlooked the diaries and papers of women. When Faust 

first uttered this precept, people thought it was exaggerated. But 

more and more people now give it weight. That does not mean that 

women were the decisive decision makers, but they nevertheless 

played a decisive role. The study of women during war is of significance because it gives some feeling for what was happening off the 

battlefield. 

We have done various programs and studies in the Civil War. 

For example, we supported the study of a small town in Virginia 


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and a northern town I believe in Pennsylvania about how the 

towns and their people evolved during the war. 

Scholars are moving away from the study of leaders to the study 

of people and their role in life. The reason I mention this is that 

you can take studies in the humanities and say they do not change. 

That is wrong. The word history, of course, may stay the same, but 

it is amazing how much change is occurring in the study of history. 

You refer to Social Studies which are taught at the high school and 

junior high school levels. At the university level social studies is 

the equivalent of what Oxford and Cambridge call politics, philosophy, and economics, which is a major that many people take at 

these two venerated institutions. It is basically a combination of 

disciplines. 

It is very important to give people a sense of perspective on our 

times, looking back at other times, especially reviewing the values 

that motivated people in other periods of time. Americans do not 

know very well the dates of battles, even wars. Studies show how 

many people cannot place when the Civil War occurred. This is a 

particular problem in the north. Southerners are a little deeper in 

Civil War history. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. It is the way it is taught. 

Mr. LEACH. It is the way it is taught and in Texas we know one 

of the great victories in American History was the Alamo. Victories 

is kind of in quotes, but it does tell you something about how people were thinking about the great expanse of the west and then all 

sorts of aspects of the southwest. But we as a country need to have 

these barometers. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. I am just going to make a comment about the 

Civil War and women. When history was being recorded in Ireland, 

it was the women. It was the women in Ireland. The Protestant 

and Catholic women who did not necessarily have to like each 

other, but they did not want their kids dying anymore. It was the 

women who forced the Good Friday Accords, it was the women who 

kept everybody to the table, and we are seeing that in a lot of the 

conflicts in Africa. 

Mr. LEACH. They were rewarded with a Nobel Prize. That is fabulous. 

Mr. SIMPSON. The reason the Civil War—I agree with you, but 

the reason the Civil War is taught differently in the south is because it is still going on. I was coming back on a plane with Charlie 

Norwood from South America—a good friend all of us knew. And 

it was like the week before the President’s Day recess. And in 

Idaho I have like 12 Lincoln Day dinners and lunches to go to and 

everything. And I was lamenting you know jeez, I get so tired because I have all these banquets and lunches and everything. I 

looked at Charlie and said how many Lincoln Days do you have to 

go to? Not really thinking—he was from Georgia. You know, he 

said, looked at me and said, we do not celebrate Lincoln’s birthday 

in Georgia. And me in my bright wisdom picked up on it right 

away. I said, why not? And then it hit me and I said, jeez Charlie. 

That was 135 years ago. When are you guys going to get over it? 

He just looked at me just as serious as could be and said it is not 

over yet. 


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Mr. LEACH. Well, Mr. Chairman, you might explain to the 

gentlelady from Minnesota what the great Civil War in your district is that is still going on. This is a Civil War in Spain with the 

Basques. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yes, it is. I could tell you some stories there. Our 

State legislature—my first year here—passed a resolution for the 

separatists—to support the effort to break away from Spain. And 

of course, our Secretary of State and a lot of other people supported 

it because we have a huge Basque community within Southeast 

Idaho. So I am here, the next thing I know the Secretary of State, 

and the Spanish Ambassador are coming up to see me wondering 

what is going on in Idaho. I do not know. Anyway—— 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. We have French in our State. That does not say 

anything about how we feel about speaking two languages in Montreal. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Let me—I appreciate your comments about your 

employees. I have seen the same thing you have. I can remember 

when I was in the State legislature and somebody would stand up 

on the floor and say you know I went over to the Department of 

Health and Welfare and by golly there were two employees standing around the water cooler talking, as if that was a discredit to 

the employees or something or they were not doing their job. That 

never happens if you go out to Micron Technologies or any private 

sector job I guess. I think we have great employees. I really do. 

And the question though, that is being asked—that I ask Rocco, 

and I am hearing it from all—from different interest groups that 

receive funding or use funding to do fish and wildlife grants or 

other types of things. That when we see the reductions that are 

going to be coming down, that we are going to see reductions in the 

programs while the employees, number of employees, stays the 

same. And if the number of employees stays the same, that your 

programs are necessarily going to shrink. 

They are concerned about that. They are also concerned, a number of these different groups and the State Councils, are concerned 

that reductions will be foisted off on them, that they will not be 

able to receive as much of the grant, that it is not going to affect 

the NEH in Washington, D.C., if you will. 

Mr. LEACH. Well, first we do try to keep balance. All I will express to you is that when I came into the agency I did not bring 

an army of new people and we have been very careful on not raising employment. In fact, we are now in a very marginal way seeing 

some natural reductions with retirements and that probably will 

continue. The other thing is, oddly, the workload has increased as 

we see a 25 percent increase in applications. We are going to do 

our best to share the burdens and keep the quality. And we know 

we are going to be doing more, possibly with fewer people and almost certainly with less resources. But as we approach decisions 

ahead we will try to keep in close contact with the committee. It 

is our hope to be able to maintain as much quality as we conceivably can. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Well, I appreciate that and we want to make sure 

that we maintain those relationships with the State Humanities 

Councils because they do some incredible work out there. I—— 

Mr. LEACH. They certainly do. 


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Mr. SIMPSON [continuing]. Have been associated with the Idaho 

Humanities Council or worked with people on the council for many 

years, ever since I was in the State legislature, and they do a fantastic job. And we want to keep it coming. That is where oftentimes 

the rubber hits the road, where people see the results of their investments in the humanities. 

Mr. LEACH. They do but please realize the work here in Washington also gets out—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. I understand that. I understand that. 

Mr. LEACH [continuing]. To the States as well. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Any other questions? 

Mr. MORAN. I am all set. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you for being here, Chairman Leach. 

Mr. LEACH. Thank you. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I appreciate it very much. 

Mr. LEACH. Thank you. 


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THURSDAY, MAY 12, 2011. 

HEARING ON SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, FISCAL YEAR 

2012 BUDGET 

WITNESS 

WAYNE CLOUGH, SECRETARY, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Committee will come to order. Good morning, Dr. 

Clough. We appreciate you joining us this morning to share your 

vision of the future of the Smithsonian and to discuss your budget 

request for next year. Everyone around the table has a great deal 

of respect for you and the work you are doing to maintain the 

Smithsonian as the world’s premiere education and research organization. 

Our challenge this year is to determine how to address the most 

urgent priorities of the Smithsonian, many of them contained in 

your 5-year strategic plan, while also recognizing that our funding 

allocation will be significantly lower than in recent years. In fact, 

those allocations just came out yesterday, and we are about $2 billion down in the total Interior budget from the year before. 

As you know, this is out of necessity. Federal spending has accelerated at an unsustainable pace, and efforts to reduce spending is 

a sacrifice that must be shared across many agencies under this 

subcommittee’s jurisdiction. 

Addressing the Smithsonian’s budget in this fiscal climate is 

going to be particularly challenging. Beyond meeting the needs and 

priorities of maintaining and preserving existing facilities and programs, your budget request contains a large increase of $100 million from the fiscal year 2011 enacted level for the construction of 

the next museum on the National Mall. This is an issue that I look 

forward to discussing with you in some detail today. 

As Congress works to tackle historic deficits and economic challenges, I believe it is time for an honest conversation about national priorities. Every agency across government needs to make a 

distinction between the need-to-do priorities and the nice-to-do priorities. Today this subcommittee is looking to you to help us make 

this critical distinction within the many important programs and 

priorities under the Smithsonian’s jurisdiction. I look forward to 

hearing your testimony as we work together. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I would now yield to the gentleman from Virginia, 

but he is not here. So when he comes, we will let him make an 

opening statement if he would like to. The floor is yours. 


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TESTIMONY OF SECRETARY WAYNE CLOUGH

Mr. CLOUGH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We also appreciate 

Dave LesStrang’s help, and he has really assisted us in many ways 

in the past. 

We thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, for 

this opportunity for me to testify about an institution that is very 

close to the heart of the American people, the Smithsonian. Before 

me you see two of our historic treasures that we keep in trust for 

the American people; Abraham Lincoln’s watch and John Glenn’s 

1962 space camera. Each represents an important milestone in our 

history, and we fortunately have distinguished colleagues with me 

who will explain what I mean by that. 

Harry Rubenstein of the American History Museum and Jennifer 

Levasseur of our Air and Space Museum are here to tell the fascinating stories about these objects, and when I complete my testimony, they will do that. 

We have 137 million artifacts and specimens in our collections 

that span art, history, culture, and science, including the Star 

Spangled Banner, the Wright Flyer, the desk on which Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, our national meteorite collection which we are charged by Congress to maintain, and 

2,300 amazing live animals at the National Zoo. 

COLLECTIONS

We are steadily improving the care of these treasures so future 

generations will benefit from them just as we have. We are 

digitizing our collections and placing them on the web where they 

can be studied and used by anyone in their home or classroom. 

VISITORS AND EXHIBITIONS

Yet nothing compares to seeing the real thing, and last year we 

had more than 30 million visitors that came to be inspired by the 

exhibitions that we have, our best year since 9/11. Our talented curators and scholars create 100 new exhibitions a year, which is 

stunning, and make sure visitors are provided with new and engaging experiences each time they come. 

Yet we know that many Americans cannot afford to make a pilgrimage to the Nation’s capitol. I am a good example. When I grew 

up in rural Georgia, I never visited the Smithsonian until I was in 

my late teens. I think there is no excuse for that today. 

Mr. LEWIS. Excuse me. Our former historian speaker did not 

take you to the Smithsonian sometime—— 

Mr. CLOUGH. No. Did not know about it. There is no excuse for 

that today, because we are determined to reach all Americans, 

wherever they may live with all we offer. We have created a new 

office of Smithsonian Education and Access and are developing a 

comprehensive approach to reach K through 12 teachers and students around the Nation. So far we have 650 web-based lesson 

plans available for free, ranging from science to art, and more are 

coming. 


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EDUCATION

Science and math education faces, as we know, a particular challenge in our country. Fifteen year olds in the U.S. rank 25th among 

peers from 34 countries on the last Program for International Student Assessment Test in 2009, and scored only in the middle in 

science and reading. We believe the Smithsonian can help with 

this. 

For 26 years the National Science Resources Center has leveraged the research of the Smithsonian and the National Academies 

of Science and Engineering to develop science programs for students and teachers. The center was recently awarded a $25 million 

grant in the competitive process by the Department of Education, 

and then they were required to and did raise $8 million in private 

funds to supplement the federal funds. We are helping three states 

particularly with rural areas and urban areas transform their approach to teaching science and math. 

Using technology our Smithsonian American Art Museum 

through a contract with the Department of Defense is delivering 

arts education to K through 12 schools around the world that are 

operated by the military for dependents and those who serve our 

military. 

ON-LINE EDUCATION AND SOCIAL MEDIA

We are using donor-sponsored online education conferences to deliver programs centered on our collections and our experts. More 

than 38,000 people from all 50 states last year participated in our 

programs. Millions of people are now accessing our work on 

Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and I am pleased to announce 

that we just won the 2011 People’s Voice Webby Award for the best 

cultural institution website in the country. 

Mr. LEWIS. Webby Award? 

Mr. CLOUGH. Webby Award. We are very proud of that one. 

OUTREACH

Millions more watched the Smithsonian Network’s Emmy Awardwinning HD channel, and it is slated to double the number of 

homes that we will reach this year. The Smithsonian Magazine, of 

course, reaches up to two million subscribers in every state and 

was recently named the most interesting magazine in the Nation 

ahead of all other magazines in the country. You can think of your 

own comparable magazines, but they were all there. Do not miss 

the April issue which is all about the 150th anniversary of the Civil 

War. 

We also have 166 affiliate museums in 39 states and we provide 

them with loans from our collections as well as expert advice when 

they need it, and our traveling exhibition service also offers programs that reach roughly another five million people around the 

country for those exhibitions. 

STRATEGIC PLAN

We believe this is a new era at the Smithsonian, one that builds 

on its traditions but uses new approaches to take its service to the 

American people to a new level. All of this is possible because of 


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the work of our 6,000 employees and 6,500 volunteers, who work 

on contract incidentally, who are very passionate about what they 

do. I could not be more proud of them, and last year we were 

named for the first time as one of the best places to work in the 

Federal Government, the fourth best among all large agencies. 

We are guided, Mr. Chairman, as you noted, by our new strategic 

plan. This provides focus, encourages cross-disciplinary initiatives, 

collaborative partnerships so we do not duplicate, and calls for 

broadening access to our collections and expertise and excellence in 

mission operation. We have undertaken something we call Smithsonian Redesign to improve efficiency at the Smithsonian to use 

every dime we get better so our employees can focus their activity, 

their energy on important activities. Over 275 people have engaged 

in a team to help overhaul the way we do business. 

PRIVATE FUNDRAISING

As a federal trust, of course, we are working hard to leverage our 

federal dollars with privately raised funds. Last year we raised 

$158 million in private philanthropy. One of these I will cite, the 

$30 million gift from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which 

is an endowment specifically to help us reach youth audiences and 

audiences in rural areas and other areas that we do not traditionally reach. 

FY12 REQUEST

The Smithsonian’s fiscal year 2012 request totals $861.5 million. 

That is a lot of money in these days, and we appreciate that and 

the difficult times that you face. We give you our commitment that 

these funds, whatever comes to us, will go to the highest and best 

use. The Smithsonian has a crucial role to play in our civic, educational, scientific, and artistic life. 

At the American History Museum not long ago, historian David 

McCullough, who serves on one of our advisory boards said, ‘‘never 

has an understanding of our story as a people, of who we are and 

how we came to be the way we are, and what we stand for, been 

of such importance as right now.’’ We think these words hold true 

now more than ever, and we are determined to tell those stories. 

So thank you very much for the opportunity to testify, and now 

I will ask my colleagues to take a moment to explain the objects 

that I referenced. 

[The statement of Wayne Clough follows:] 


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Mr. SIMPSON. Harry Rubenstein. Go ahead and grab the microphone if you would, sir, one of them. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S POCKET WATCH

Mr. RUBENSTEIN. My name is Harry Rubenstein. I am a curator 

at the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian 

Institution. Thank you so much for inviting us to this and an opportunity to show one of our great treasures. 

This happens to be Abraham Lincoln’s pocket watch. It was a 

watch he acquired we think in the late 1850s when he was a successful attorney in Springfield. My guess is after closing a successful railroad case he went out and bought the finest pocket watch 

he could in Springfield. 

But there is a second story behind this watch, and that is the 

story that takes place in Washington. As President he comes here, 

and his watch needs to be cleaned, and he sends it up to Galt Jewelry Store, which used to, I do not know if many of you remember 

the store, but it was a downtown institution, to have it cleaned. 

While it was being worked on, Mr. Galt rushes up into the workroom and says, the war has begun. At that moment the watchmaker who was working on the watch took off the hands of the 

watch and the faceplate and left a message, and it said basically, 

on this day Fort Sumter had been attacked, thank God we have a 

government. And then he closes the watch and returns it to Lincoln. 

We heard about this story through a relative. When we received 

the watch from the Lincoln family, the story never came with the 

watch, but we heard this story from a gentleman who said, my 

great-great grandfather used to work in Washington and was, in 

fact, the story true. 

So we opened up the watch, and lo and behold, there was that 

message on the watch. There also happened to be some other 

engravings in the watch as well. At a later date another watchmaker saw the earlier engraving, added his name to the watch, 

and then someone, I am assuming an unsigned someone, wrote the 

name, Jeff Davis, across the bar. 

Lincoln never knew about the messages in his pocket, but it is 

sort of both a statement of the support that he received from one 

enthusiastic member as well as a little bit of graffiti inside. 

We hold a large number of objects in our collection, and they all 

tell stories, not necessarily as good as this one, but I think what 

this watch does for me and what we try to do for the public is bring 

that moment in history alive, take the mythic and make it a little 

bit more tangible and real, and I think if you let yourself look at 

this watch, you can cast yourself back in that exciting moment of 

the Civil War and of Lincoln and of the Nation. 

Afterwards, as I understand it, if you have time to stay around, 

I will be more than glad to pass around the watch and give you 

a closer look. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SIMPSON. The Library of Congress had a display a couple 

years ago, I want to say, that had the objects that were in Lincoln’s 

pocket the day he was shot. How did those come to be with the Library of Congress rather than Smithsonian versus other things? 


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You know, I mean, some of this stuff is kind of spread around. Ford 

Museum has the derringer, and Walter Reed has the bullet, I 

guess. How did they get spread around? 

Mr. RUBENSTEIN. I think basically they got spread around because they were spread around in their historical existence. I am 

not exactly sure. I know the story of the pocket, but almost all of 

our material comes directly from family members or friends associated with Abraham Lincoln so that a large part of our collections 

were held by the family and passed down through their grandchildren from Robert Todd Lincoln to his children, and that material came to the Smithsonian. The papers at the Library of Congress come largely through the secretaries that worked with Lincoln. The material at Ford’s Theatre also came in different ways. 

I think there is value in having these collections around different 

institutions. It makes it just a lot easier to manage them. It makes 

it easier for their programs to have material that support them, 

and our material to support us. 

We work hard to coordinate our activities with these large institutions that hold these collections and cooperate with them in sharing information about each others’, but there is an advantage I 

think for all of us to have our own rich collections. 

Mr. CLOUGH. I have been working with Jim Billington and with 

David Ferriero and Rusty Powell on places where we can work together and share our collections. So we loan things to them, they 

loan things to us as we do the different types of exhibitions, and 

in some cases we are trying to find these places where we all intersect, and we would be able to do something in common. 

JOHN GLENN’S CAMERA

Ms. LEVASSEUR. My name is Jennifer Levasseur. I am a museum 

specialist at the National Air and Space Museum, and I am here 

to speak about the John Glenn camera, and I want to thank everyone for giving me the opportunity to talk about the camera today. 

This year we are also celebrating the 50th anniversary of human 

spaceflight. Of course, we just passed the anniversaries of Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepard’s flights, and in February we will celebrate 

the 50th anniversary of the first American to orbit, and that is 

John Glenn. 

Senator Glenn tells a really wonderful story about this camera, 

and I want to relate a little bit of that to you today. In his preparations for flight then-Lieutenant Colonel Glenn was considering all 

of the different things he would be doing in space. He was, of 

course, only going to be up there for a short time, but he was very 

interested in giving people back on Earth an idea of what it was 

like to be in space, and of course, he felt the best way to do that 

was with a camera. 

So the suggestion was made that he carry a camera, and NASA 

did not really go along with that in part because the mission would 

be short, and there were lots of other things to still learn about 

spaceflight at that time. And so as he tells the story he was out 

getting a haircut in Cocoa Beach and decided to stop in at a drugstore to get a few things and noticed a display of cameras. Now, 

one of the problems that was faced when selecting a camera for 

spaceflight was finding something that was easy to use. They did 


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not want to have to change the stops on a camera or make a lot 

of adjustments, and this particular camera that Glenn had found, 

which is an Ansco Autoset camera, had automatic settings on it, 

and he felt this would be an ideal candidate. 

He purchased the camera for $45, and he brought it back to 

NASA, and engineers at NASA and the machine shop actually 

modified the camera for use with his spacesuit. Of course, he has 

got a heavy inflated pressurized spacesuit, and they knew it would 

be difficult for him to operate the camera. So they added the pistol 

grip and added a shutter release and an advanced mechanism 

which you will see here, which was all machined out at NASA. It 

was all attached, and they laid out all of the different cameras that 

he could choose from, and he tried it out with the spacesuit glove 

on, and he picked his own camera, not surprisingly, for use in 

space. 

Over the years the story of this camera has gotten a bit confused 

because he actually carried two cameras in space. The famous Life 

photographer, Ralph Morris, had suggested a Leica camera, which 

was a very high-quality camera at the time. He carried that camera and this Ansco into space. This camera happened to also be 

modified for astronomical observations, making it the first scientific 

experiment, at least astronomical experiment performed in space. 

The front of it was modified with a special prism so that he could 

take photographs of Orion, a constellation commonly targeted by 

astronomers. The camera was very easy to use, he felt very natural 

using it in space, just letting it go and float around. He returned 

with the camera, and the camera’s one roll of film was processed. 

There were six exposures of about 15 seconds each. 

The interesting thing about this particular experiment, even 

though it was the first, it actually did not seem to go anywhere. 

There was never any big scientific paper to come from it, but he 

did, perform the task, and the Smithsonian then received this camera as part of the transfer of Friendship 7 and all of the accompanying items in 1963. 

And I would say that this camera for our museum, especially in 

this anniversary year, really reminds us of that moment in the 

early 60s when there was an incredible excitement for space exploration and for innovation and ingenuity. I think this camera above 

anything shows the ingenuity of a place like NASA which would go 

through an incredible amount of creativity in coming up with a 

way for him to bring home images of space. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SIMPSON. What happened to the photographs that were 

taken? 

Ms. LEVASSEUR. That is a very good question. 

Mr. SIMPSON. That is why I asked it. 

Ms. LEVASSEUR. And I have been asking that question. In my research the only evidence I have seen of anything that came from 

it is that the films were processed, they were processed very early 

in one format. They were sent to Eastman Kodak for ultraviolet 

processing, and things seemed to disappear at that point. There 

was no scientific paper that was ever produced. There is no reproduction of those images. 


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So it is a little disappointing to find out it did not seem to go 

anywhere. The Leica camera, on the other hand, he used that quite 

a bit and took some color and black and white photographs which 

are widely reproduced in newspapers and publications. 

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Chairman, if you would yield. 

Jennifer, do you spell your name with one N or two N’s? 

Ms. LEVASSEUR. Two N’s. 

Mr. LEWIS. Okay. Well, that is unfortunate but—my ‘‘nifer’’ 

would have said that he forgot to put the film in the camera. 

Mr. SIMPSON. If it would have been me, I would have forgotten 

to put the film in the camera. 

Mr. LEWIS. Sorry. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Well, thank you. That is very interesting. It is fascinating. 

Do you have an opening statement you would like to make, Jim, 

or—— 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Well, I could make one, but I do not want to interrupt the—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. You are not interrupting. They just got done testifying. 

Mr. LEWIS. You have 30 seconds. 

Mr. SIMPSON. They just got done testifying, and we were going 

to go into questions. 

VOICE. Do you have a quote from Teddy Roosevelt today? 

Mr. SIMPSON. He had a quote I know. 

Mr. MORAN. Well, I do have a quote since you brought it up. I 

have a quote, and this is going to be a good one, and it is from a 

great American. 

Noted actress Audrey Hepburn. Okay. Did you not have a crush 

on her at Breakfast at Tiffany’s? 

Mr. SIMPSON. Everybody had a crush on her. Spencer Tracey did. 

Mr. MORAN. She never ate, but she was a wonderful actress. 

‘‘Life is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up 

in a book, and remembering because you cannot take it in all at 

once.’’ So while Audrey Hepburn was providing an analogy of life, 

she encapsulated a very important aspect of the Smithsonian as an 

institution of learning and enlightenment. 

Each year millions of our constituents and visitors from around 

the world visit the Smithsonian to see its exhibits and partake in 

its program. Ms. Hepburn was right about a quality museum. You 

cannot take it in all at once, but if the Smithsonian is successful 

in its presentation, what visitors take away is a quest to learn 

more about the subjects that they see. It is not by chance that the 

Smithsonian internet domain, its name ends in edu. It is an institution of learning, and it does it so right, and we as a society and 

a Nation benefit from the advancement of knowledge it provides its 

visitors and the public in general. 

So I know we are all struck by the scope of activities undertaken 

by the Smithsonian; science, history, art, culture, in addition to its 

work as stewards of significant aspects of America’s heritage, and 

I understand that you are sharing some of that this morning. We 


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will need to carefully review the budget with an eye towards any 

savings of perhaps initiatives that are not absolutely essential 

right now or that will require more federal money in the future. I 

think we have got to be careful of implied commitments, and we 

will get into that in a few minutes. 

But we have to make sure that the resources are there for the 

Smithsonian to carry out its most basic mission. The fiscal year 

2012 budget request for the Smithsonian is basically flat. We are 

anxious to understand how you are going to be able to maintain 

that core mission with the quality that we have come to take for 

granted as Americans. 

So with that, there is my statement, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for 

giving me an opportunity. No thanks to you, Jerry, because you 

clearly knew it was going to take more than 30 seconds, but thank 

you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you. I have to drive across that same 

bridge, and I was going to come in early this morning. It took me 

an hour and 15 minutes. 

Mr. MORAN. That is what it took me. 

Mr. SIMPSON. It normally takes about 20 minutes. 

Mr. MORAN. I had to do something in the district, and you know, 

what I normally can do in 10 to 15 minutes took an hour and 15 

minutes. I do want everyone to know, though, that the construction 

delay on the bridge was not the result of one of my earmarks. It 

was a change in traffic pattern. My earmark was for the Humpback Bridge. 

Mr. SIMPSON. This is the bridge to somewhere. 

Mr. LEWIS. Is your district that close by? 

Mr. MORAN. That is it. Everything on the other side of the river 

and with the new redistricting as far as you can see north and 

south. It is all my district, Jerry, and I love it, you know that. 

Anyway, maybe we should get back on track, and thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

JOHN GLENN’S CAMERA

Mr. SIMPSON. I will just keep us off track just a little bit, but 

thank you for coming today, and thanks for bringing these artifacts 

that are very, very interesting. When I look at this camera that 

John Glenn used, what year was that? 

Mr. CLOUGH. 1962. 

Mr. SIMPSON. 1962. It is one of those things that, I mean, people 

can generally remember where they were when that happened, or 

when man landed on the moon and that type of thing. You know, 

I had to give a speech, this is 20 years ago probably, when I was 

the Speaker of the Idaho House, and I had a bunch of people that 

were scientists that were presenting papers on, you know, black 

box theory of whatever, you know, and they wanted me to give a 

speech at one of their dinners, and I am sitting there, what do you 

tell these people? 

And so I tried to tell them the other side of technology, not just 

the advancement of it, and I used my grandfather as the example. 

He was born in 1900. He knew people that fought in the Civil War, 

and he died in 1988, so he lived 88 years. He moved to Southeast 

Idaho when he was a child. When he first got there, the male stuVerDate Mar 15 2010 04:44 Jun 29, 2011 Jkt 066897 PO 00000 Frm 00658 Fmt 6602 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A897P2.XXX A897P2

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dents would have to get up—they got assigned a week—and they 

would ride to the one-room schoolhouse to put logs on the wood 

burning stove to heat the one-room schoolhouse. Later on he saw 

the first automobiles come into the Cache Valley. Later on he saw 

the first airplane fly overhead. Later on he saw a guy take off, land 

on the moon, and come back to Earth. 

That was in the space of one lifetime, and I look back at this, 

and I say, boy, that is ancient technology, and you know what a 

child that is born now is going to see during the span of his lifetime 

is almost unbelievable, and it puts incredible pressures on all of 

our institutions—governmental, social, religious, everything—because we are animals that kind of like things to be the same tomorrow as they are today. I like to know the sun is going to come up 

over there, instead of over there. 

And, I mean, what was it in the Declaration when Jefferson 

wrote that men are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves and correct them, and I mean, that 

is kind of the way we are. What it is going to do to our educational 

institutions is going to be incredible. 

So, anyway, I appreciate you bringing these artifacts for us to 

take a look at. They make you think a little. 

RESEARCH

Mr. CLOUGH. Not to plug my monograph on scientific literacy, 

mainly to point out the challenges we face but particularly that the 

growth of knowledge right now is so intense, and it is going to get 

more intense because there are so many people in the world doing 

research today that were not in the past, and so knowledge will 

continue to grow, and it will get even more complicated. 

And so how do we help our teachers keep up with that? I think 

it is a major challenge for our country. 

Mr. SIMPSON. You know, 30 years ago without the computers we 

have today, you would not have been able to do human genome, 

and what took them a year to do or longer can now be done in 

hours. 

Mr. CLOUGH. High school students can do it now. 

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE

Mr. SIMPSON. Yes. It is amazing. 

Anyway, as you know, the dollars are tight as we have men- tioned here today. Your budget request includes a total of $225 million for the Facilities Capital Programs for fiscal year 2012. The 

Smithsonian is requesting $125 million for construction of the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, as well as 

$100 million for repairs and revitalization of other Smithsonian assets and for planning future projects. 

Given the subcommittee is anticipating a very lean allocation, 

and as we have seen it is about $2 billion below what we had last 

year, are there any planned projects contained in the Facilities 

Capital Account, not including the new African-American Museum, 

that can be deferred or delayed? And with the African-American 

Museum, what is the total appropriation going to be, and what will 

be the impact of doing it multi-year if we cannot find all the money 

for it right as it is. 


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Mr. CLOUGH. Well, let me first just mention the National Museum of African-American History and Culture. Of course, Congress asked us to take on this, and we willingly accepted the challenge, and the task was set forth for the design and construction 

of that facility would be $500 million, that Congress and the Executive Branch would provide $250 million of federal funding, we 

would raise $250 million. 

And so a big part of my job is being on the road trying to raise 

that money from corporations, foundations, and individuals. We 

have made great success in the private fundraising, and the credit 

really goes to Lonnie Bunch, who is an absolutely outstanding director for that museum. He was absolutely the right person to pick 

for that, because he not only has to go through the process of designing and ultimately construction of the museum, but he has to 

build up collections. 

Now, we had collections to begin with, but he has significantly 

increased the number of collections that he will need to open the 

museum. The intent was to open the museum in 2015. That would 

be a historic date, because it is the 150th anniversary of the ending 

of the Civil War. The intent is to have a museum that speaks to 

the African-American contributions to us as a people, not for this 

to be a museum just for African-American individuals who are 

American citizens but for all of us to speak to that larger history. 

And I have seen the collections that he is building. It starts with 

a powder horn from a free Black who fought in the Revolutionary 

War who inscribes his own personal history on that powder horn, 

and there were 5,000 free Blacks who fought in the Revolutionary 

War, and so you can see how you expand and tell the story as you 

work your way from that to the present. 

So we are well on our way in terms of raising the money. I have 

worked with Lonnie and Richard Kurin, who is here as the Undersecretary of History, Art, and Culture, on the pipeline, if you will. 

Do we have the donors out there who can get us from $100 million 

to $250 million, and we think definitely. We have had tremendous 

success, a positive reception of this project from the corporate side, 

the foundation side, and from individuals. 

So we are confident we will raise the private money. I hope we 

will raise more because as we know, it is going to be tough to operate museums in the future, and we want to build an endowment 

for it. So I want to go blast right past that and try to raise the endowment. 

So the federal side of it is the commitment that was made for the 

other $250 million, and so far $45 million has been committed to 

the project, and so that is underway. The project is designed, the 

site is almost prepared at 14th and Constitution. We have to be 

careful not to damage the view line for visitors for the Washington 

Monument. That is almost complete, and it is one of those things 

that we have had to go through with some very careful deliberations on it. And it is going to be a beautiful project, very subtly 

placed, very subtly designed, and it will be a magnificent experience for the American people. 

So we have now reached the point where if we are going to do 

this in 2015, it is time for the bigger increments to be applied to 

the project for actual construction. That is where the $125 million 


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comes in. OMB realized that there are actually $205 million yet to 

be applied, there is $45 million that we have gotten so far, and so 

they plan in fiscal year 2013, to ask for the next $85 million, which 

would complete the project, and we would be able to finish it in 

2015. That is our intent. 

Mr. SIMPSON. If we do not do the 125 this year, we would essentially be setting off the 2015 date? 

Mr. CLOUGH. You start delaying the project, and to go back to 

my other life, I am a civil engineer. Any time you delay a project 

of that size, even though the economy may be down today, we are 

getting great bids right now, that by 2016, the economy may heat 

up and you would end up with inflation really taking a chunk out 

of the project. 

So it is important that we try to keep it on track. 

ARTS AND INDUSTRIES BUILDING

Mr. SIMPSON. Where are we with the Arts and Science Building? 

Mr. CLOUGH. The Arts and Industries Building? 

Mr. SIMPSON. Arts and Industries Building. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Arts and Industries Building. We are going through 

what we call phase one of that building. Actually, there was a first 

small phase. Thank goodness that we got $5 million out of the Recovery Act which we, in fact, used and applied to that project well. 

We got $25 million all total, and we did obligate all those. I think 

we are ahead of any federal agency in obligating our federal funds. 

But thanks to the Legacy Fund the Senate and the House both 

helped create for us there was a $30 million Legacy Fund that was 

created that we had to develop a match for, and we worked hard 

to get that match. We had a marvelous gift by Bob Kogod and Arlene Kogod, of $10 million that completed the match. We actually 

had $40 million in private money for program and building. 

So also good news. When we did the project we probably gained 

about $8 million on it because now is the time to build, and so it 

is underway, about a $55 million project to stabilize that building. 

I was very concerned as a civil engineer, I was here when the snow 

loads were the heaviest and went through that building, and it was 

kind of creaking and groaning at that point, a lot of corrosion on 

the wrought iron structure, and so we needed to fix that. 

So fortunately we have the money now to take the entire roof off, 

which needs to be done, and to replace the wrought iron with structural steel and to replace the windows which are not historic windows, and that will be what we call phase one. 

Phase two will be where you actually start programming. We 

need to move the mechanical plant underground. It should not be 

in the building. The building is a very small building actually and 

we would probably turn it into what we think would be a very exciting place for learning to allow what we were just talking about, 

students come in and learn about science, current events where 

most of our museum activities are about past events, but really 

about current events. 

And so we are well on our way. The project will take 2 years to 

complete this so-called phase one. 


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SMITHSONIAN STAFF

Mr. SIMPSON. One other question before I turn it over to Jim. We 

may, you know, congratulate our staff here and thank them for all 

their great work, but I also want to thank your staff for the great 

work that they have done in helping us as we have tried to make 

a budget that makes sense, that you can live with, and your staff 

has been great to work with. So we appreciate that very much. 

You mentioned in your opening testimony that the Smithsonian 

ranked fourth in best places to work, best places, I guess, within 

the Federal Government, best agency or whatever. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Large agencies. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Talk about that just a minute, because I think that 

is very important. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Well, when I came to the Smithsonian, I think 

there was a morale problem. I think people had felt beaten down 

a little bit over some of the activities that occurred in the last Administration. We think about budget cuts today, but because of 

what was called base erosion, the budget had been going up slightly over the years, but because of inflation and mandated salary increases, we are actually losing ground. 

And so over a period of 10 years we lost 600 people at the Smithsonian, by retirements, resignations, and no replacements. And so 

there was sort of a feeling that, you know, how do you get out of 

this cycle, and we created a strategic plan by getting over 1,000 

people engaged in it, so this was not a top-down deal. This was a 

joint consensus vision. We got people from outside the Smithsonian, people from the Hill actually participated in helping us put 

this together, and it was a shared vision, and I think that has 

worked. 

It was also based on what I call scenario-based planning. That 

is, we considered a scenario where the budget might be better than 

that day, that was two years ago, or steady or worse. Now it turns 

out that that third is where we are, and so we have actually 

planned for this kind of environment that we can keep our progress 

and momentum going, and we also agreed to do everything we 

could to increase the private funding of the Smithsonian, but we 

had to have great ideas if we were going to do that. 

PRIVATE FUNDRAISING

We have had success in philanthropy and private fundraising. 

We are very proud of that. We are looking at having a national 

campaign, which would be an even more organized way to do that. 

So people are working on really productive things, and I think the 

folks at the Smithsonian came together in a way they had not come 

together before, using what we call interdisciplinary approaches. 

We were able to raise funding, the Gates Foundation is a good example there, that allows us to do things we had not done before 

by combining our assets. 

And our goal is to be more inclusive about telling America’s story 

and not to try to do it in just one museum but to think of all of 

our museums, telling a comprehensive story. And so we are working hard on trying to do that, and people are getting together and 

talking to each other. I was at an education meeting that we had 


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called STEAM, where we add arts to STEM. So using arts to help 

people learn science is a very exciting way to do it, and we had 80 

people there, and I asked how many of them had met someone they 

never met before at the Smithsonian. They have all worked at the 

Smithsonian many years. They all raised their hands. They are 

now meeting each other, and they are really excited. 

And this is a joint effort. It is something that I think is joyful. 

The Smithsonian folks are passionate about what they do. They 

need to be respected for what they do, and they have been in essence under-funded for a long time, and so we are finding ways to 

take care of these big problems. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Appreciate that. 

Mr. Moran. 

NEW MUSEUMS ON THE NATIONAL MALL

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The line of questioning I am going to bring up I know is going 

to be mischaracterized, and my motivations are going to be questioned, and it is probably going to bring me into conflict with some 

of my best friends in this body, but I think we need to pursue it. 

You talked about the inclusivity of our Nation, the fact that we 

are such a strong society of such a strong fabric really because it 

is a whole host of different fabrics interwoven together. E pluribus 

unum. 

But I am concerned about the direction we are taking on the 

Smithsonian. The Administration just released a report on the National Museum of the American Latino. It recommends that this 

new museum be a part of the Smithsonian and occupy a spot on 

the National Mall. 

Two concerns. One, of course, is that the Mall is becoming a very 

private place, monuments, memorials, museums, there are 160 

monuments and memorials in the Mall. I mean, basically we have 

gone from two in the beginning to where we have 13 museums 

today. We are losing open space, and of course, future generations 

are going to have virtually no space to honor their heroes, their 

iconic figures. 

The Congress back about 8 or 9 years ago said that the Mall is 

a substantially completed work of civic art and imposed a moratorium on any further construction there. I do not think that is going 

to be sustained. 

The second issue is, you know, perhaps less pragmatic but I 

think nevertheless a serious one. I voted for the National Museum 

of African-American History and Culture. Obviously I support it. I 

think it is a wonderful thing that we would tell the full story, but 

I am concerned that we are breaking up the American story into 

separate narratives based upon specific ethnicities. 

And virtually every indigenous or immigrant community, particularly those who were brought here enslaved, has a story to tell, 

and it should be told, and it should be part of our history. The 

problem is that as much as we would like to think that all Americans are going to go to the African-American Museum, that all 

Americans will go to the museum of American History, that all will 

go to the Latino Museum, I am afraid that is not going to happen, 

that the Museum of American History is where the white folks are 


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going to go, and the American Indian Museum is where Indians are 

going to feel at home, even though I think it is a disappointment. 

Up until now it has been largely a glorified arts and crafts fair, 

very disappointing. 

And African-Americans are going to go to their own museum, 

and Latinos are going to go to their own museum, and that is not 

what America is all about, and I am bringing this up because I 

greatly respect not just your management ability but, you know, 

your understanding of the concept of what the Smithsonian is all 

about. 

And I would like you to address this concern. It is a matter of 

the overcrowding of the Mall, it is a matter of future financial commitments, which are very substantial and are going to crowd out 

the quality I fear of the museums that we have, but it also a matter of how we depict the American story and where do we stop. The 

next one is going to be Asian Americans, and then God help us it 

will probably be Irish Americans or, you know, who knows. 

Do not forget who? 

VOICE. The Norwegians. 

Mr. MORAN. The Norwegians. Gosh, no, but I think it is a legitimate concern. I know it is a serious concern of mine, and one I 

would like you to address if you would not mind, Mr. Secretary. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Sure. Well, there were two questions or comments. 

I think one about the Mall itself, and I think we all share concerns. 

This is America’s front yard. It is the place where democracy happens. You need to have green space, people need to be able to enjoy 

that, they need to be able to gather. That is all part of the process, 

and so I think we all share concerns about that. I am not sure 

what we can do about some of these things other than, of course, 

there is a master plan to expand the Mall, and that would take it 

down towards Southwest. Since I live in Southwest, I would kind 

of welcome a little bit of new development over there. 

So I think that is one possible solution. I think you raised a serious question, and it needs to be asked to the Park Service and others and the planners who really think this thing through, but it is 

a very serious challenge for us with all the monuments as you describe and so forth. For the Smithsonian, of course, our property 

ends at the curb, and so the Mall itself is actually part of the Park 

Service. 

On the question then of the ethnic approach to museums, that 

is an interesting philosophical question. I think the Smithsonian 

frankly did not do what it should have done in the ’60s, ’70s, and 

’80s, to really broaden its reach to tell the more inclusive story, 

honestly, in a more inclusive way, and I think it is important for 

everyone to realize when we say we have 19 museums and galleries 

overall, that throughout those museums you should be able to tell 

anybody’s story. Through the Smithsonian American Art Museum 

there is art for everybody, art that tells all American stories. In the 

National Portrait Gallery they have worked hard to be more inclusive at what they are doing. In the American History Museum they 

have worked hard to be more inclusive, but we were not there at 

a timely point where people, I think, felt themselves left out. 

And I have talked to a lot of different groups that feel they are 

not seen, and so our new strategic plan really calls for us to take 


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this more inclusive approach to things, and when we say we have 

100 exhibitions a year, to think about how those represent the fabric of this country as opposed to just a singular vision from one museum and one set of collections. 

So we are going to work on that. You will certainly see the way 

we present ourselves on the web and the way we present materials 

out in the K through 12 in a much more inclusive way in approaching the American story in that way. 

And when we say, for example, we want to reach new audiences, 

that is an audience we are not reaching. For example, we are not 

reaching the Hispanic, Latino audience, and we need to, and I 

spoke to the Latino Commission myself and indicated that we were 

going to be very aggressive about that in the future. 

And I think the Smithsonian some time in the past maybe 

missed this boat. Now, we are where we are with the present set 

of circumstances, and I think that Lonnie Bunch’s approach in the 

African-American museum, I think we will all be positively surprised. Lonnie has studied other museums to understand how this 

one can be more inclusive in its story, and I think you will find 

that he has really worked hard at that. 

Mr. MORAN. I think he is terrific. He won me over, and I fear 

that the creator of the Latino Museum is going to win me over, and 

you know, they know what they want to do. I think it is very valuable, but we need to see it in context as well. 

A member of this subcommittee, Maurice Hinchey, has introduced a bill for the National Museum of the American People to 

tell the story of, you know, how each wave of immigrants became 

Americans. I dismissed it at first as just one more idea, but he 

wants to put it over in the Banneker plot. I talked to Eleanor 

Holmes Norton, she thought that was a great idea because that extends the Mall, gets it out into Southwest, other places. You know, 

maybe something like that works. I do not know. I suspect that, 

you know, we are too far down the line to, you know, to really 

change direction. 

But with the Latino Museum, and this will be my last question, 

do they have to raise the money and then we match what they 

raise so that we do not start construction and as you suggested 

wind up in a situation where we cannot complete it unless the Congress pays all? I mean, that is what we did with the Capitol Visitors’ Center, you know. We were told it was not going to cost anything, you know, $670 million later, and I still cannot find my way 

around the darn thing, but, you know, is it going to be controlled 

by the level of contributions that initially are made by the private 

sector and then we match those dollars after they are raised, or is 

it a matter we start and then the taxpayer has to complete it? 

Mr. CLOUGH. No. I think that the Smithsonian has always lived 

up to its commitments in these types of partnerships, and we have 

had many of them where, for example, the Legacy Fund was a 

great one. We actually raised more money than was needed for the 

match. For African-American History I am confident we are going 

to raise more private funding than is necessary for the match. 

So what needs to be done with the Latino Museum if Congress 

decides to go ahead with it would be to develop this concept of a 

partnership and a commitment in both parties to get it done and 


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hold everybody to their commitments, and we will live up to our 

commitments. 

Now, having said that, there is no way, I believe, that you could 

successfully build a museum, whatever the name would be, without 

a substantive base of federal funding. I do not think you can make 

it work. You do not want to embarrass either Congress or the constituents you are trying to represent in this museum. That would 

not be fair to anybody. 

And to build collections, to raise money costs money. You have 

to go out and start developing that. I think there is a strong base 

of people who would support the programmatic initiative, maybe 

even a museum in the Latino community. But you need money to 

do that, and so it is not a good way to proceed to assume somehow 

that you could do all this with private funding. You simply cannot 

do it. 

Mr. MORAN. Do you have any thoughts on the preferred location 

which is basically on the Capitol grounds, an extension on the Senate side there? 

Mr. CLOUGH. Well, I think they did a great deal of work to look 

at alternative sites, and as you suggest, the problem is there are 

not many alternatives, and so I think they chose a site where they 

felt they could build a new museum where the architecture would 

be reflective of their culture and their history, as opposed to trying 

to adapt an older building, which fundamentally could never be a 

good museum to begin with, like Arts and Industries, and one that 

could serve their purposes. 

I do believe in the future we will all ask the question and should 

ask the question, how big a building do you really need physically 

when you can do so much digitally. In other words, you can reach 

a far larger audience, we will reach 300 million people digitally, 

and that experience is going to get better and better. 

Now, that will never replace the personal visit, but it is a question of designing those things together in today’s era. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you for your very responsive answers, and it 

is an ongoing issue, but I appreciate you addressing it. Thank you, 

Mr. Secretary. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Lewis. 

Mr. LEWIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Director, Secretary Clough, for your presentation and your colleagues’ 

presentation. You reminded me of something a chairman did as 

well when we looked at the John Glenn camera. I remember shaving in the morning listening to television down the hall, walking 

into the family room, and my children who were then, you know, 

much younger than David LesStrang when we first met him, and 

they were talking about the apogee and the epogee of that flight 

like it was yesterday’s cornflakes and just kind of sparked one’s 

imagination about this explosive future that the chairman talks 

about. 

OVERCROWDING OF THE MALL

Crowding out the Mall with museums is a very legitimate question, and I thank Mr. Moran for raising the question the way he 

did. We had a gathering adjacent to the Appropriations Committee 


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Chairman’s office on the balcony last evening, and you can look 

down the Mall. It is a fabulous view. I mean, really incredible view 

looking to the west. 

And I must say that I do not know who actually signed off on 

the design on that very sizable and impressive Indian Museum, but 

some way it does not fit in my head to that Mall that we have all 

grown to love, and not speaking to the final design but I do know 

in my own territory where there are like 14 Indian tribes, just one 

of them from the gaming reserves, each member of the tribe takes 

home tax free over $100,000 a year. I mean, that is an incredible 

reflection of one of the designs of our history, and I hope that museum reflects the best in mix and otherwise, and so far there is 

some doubt in the minds. I have many a person who has visited, 

including some friends. 

Mr. LEWIS. It might very well pay for the overhead, indeed, but 

that is separate from the question. I have done some controversial 

things in my life. I mentioned David LesStrang being a right wing 

kook when I first met him, and we do change our view as we go 

forward, and the liberal Democrats in our life do have those influences as his wife has him. 

My mother has had a significant influence on me, and she, as I 

was a youngster, talked a lot about the Depression Era, indeed, the 

New Deal Era, and she would be very proud of the fact that I 

served on that commission that eventually led to the FDR Museum. 

Now, within the more conservative sides of my broader family, 

that was not necessarily the most popular thing to do. There is 

room without any question to recognize our history in many a way, 

but I think we should be very cautious as we take those steps, and 

Jim raises very much the point. We do not want groups in our 

country to visit our history by way of singular kinds of channels 

of review, and I am very concerned about that. 

Now, just one more mention, if you will be patient. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Sure. 

Mr. LEWIS. That mother that I mentioned, my great great grandfather, Jasper O’Farrell, laid out the streets of San Francisco according to my Irish mother. She also told me she was born on 

March 17, and we found that she was actually born on the 22nd. 

In the meantime, we ought to consider an Irish museum because 

what they did for the development of the East Coast, especially 

around Boston, is, you know, it is incredible. So one of those museums, too, ought to be in somebody’s mind’s eye. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Can I respond quickly? 

Mr. SIMPSON. Surely. 

Mr. CLOUGH. My wife is a Burke on her mother’s side, and they 

came here in the late 1800s. We got married on St. Patrick’s Day, 

so I can never forget my anniversary, but my mother and father 

are like your mother and father. They went through the Depression. Their whole goal in life was to see their kids go to college because they did not get to go to college. So that was the generation 

that was a great, great generation for all of us. 

And I do get letters frequently from the Irish American folks saying, where is our museum, but, again, one quick thing, coming back 


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to both of the comments that you have made, in our new strategic 

plan we talk about coming up with big ideas that capture the 

American experience, and one of these big ideas, certainly Congressman Moran referred to that, is immigration and migration. 

And so we are going to focus a big part of our effort on telling 

the story of migrants and immigrants, and that is coming from this 

new idea of how do we use all these museums together to tell a 

bigger story? And you will see a big push placed because some people migrated here and others immigrated here. 

And that captures the people who came to this new world 18,000 

years ago and have created a culture before the Europeans got 

here. So that shows you a different kind of approach, I think, that 

we hope will begin to address some of these concerns. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Dicks. 

SOCIAL MEDIA

Mr. DICKS. Well, we want to welcome you back, Mr. Secretary, 

and in reading through your biography I am just amazed at all the 

different things that you have done and done very well, and we are 

very glad you are here. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Checkered career. 

Mr. DICKS. The highlight was being the provost at the University 

of Washington, I am sure, but we are glad to have you here at the 

Smithsonian. You came into a very difficult situation. I think you 

stabilized the organization and are leading it in a very good way. 

You mentioned in your statement that we have more than 400 

web and social media accounts, and that number is growing every 

day. On our main Facebook account we have more than 85,000 

fans. On our main Twitter account we have 320,000 fans, and our 

YouTube offerings have been viewed nearly a million times. And 

our refreshed website has a more modern look, and it is easier to 

use, to navigate. It just won the 2011 People’s Voice Webby Award 

for best cultural institution website. 

Well, tell us about this. Tell us what your kind of vision is of how 

you want this to interrelate with the American people. 

Mr. CLOUGH. We were just discussing that, the way young people 

think today is different than the way we think, different in the way 

we communicate, and different in the way we learn, and we have 

to adapt as an institution to help communicate and capture the 

imagination and inspire those young people. You know, no one is 

required to go to the Smithsonian or go to our website, and so we 

have to engage them and make them want to actually be part of 

the Smithsonian, to learn from us. 

We have worked on these new processes to try to engage people, 

and we have Twitter sites. For example, when this watch was 

opened, we Tweeted about it, and all of a sudden millions of people 

around the country knew that we are going to do that, and they 

would not have known it otherwise. 

YouTube: what we are trying to do there is to show how people 

like Harry and Jennifer do this marvelous work, because otherwise 

it is hidden, but one of the wonderful stories about the zoo was the 

chef at the zoo prepares 2,300 meals a day for different appetites, 

widely different appetites, and we did a YouTube Video on the chef, 


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and he became enormously popular. He appeared on food shows all 

over the place, but, you know, the point was—— 

VOICE. What do the tigers like? 

Mr. CLOUGH. You and me. But it got people thinking about what 

goes on behind the scenes, you know, the work that goes on to sustain these great creatures and the science behind it. That is really 

the purpose of these things, and to some extent it is just an enabling thing that we have done, and that is to say it is okay for the 

different museums to have their own Twitter sites as they have 

events and they want to engage people in their next activity. 

A simple other approach was the Smithsonian American Art Museum next year will host an exhibition on the idea of computer 

games as art. I mean, some of them are very artful, some of them 

are a little dangerous for young people, but they offered up 240 of 

them for a vote. Six million people voted. 

VOICE. That is amazing. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Now they will all want to come and see what is in 

the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and so it is a means to 

engage and to connect and to deepen people’s understanding. I 

think the quote that Congressman Moran was using by Audrey 

Hepburn, what we want to do is we want to help people before they 

get there to understand what they are going to see and then after 

they leave we want them to be able to do their deep dive through 

the web materials that we have. 

So we call it a journey, not just a visit, and today, for example, 

you can, if you have your iPhone, you can download a number of 

Smithsonian apps, and one that I love that just came out, it is 

called LeafSnap, and if you have an iPhone it is free. This was 

done with funding from the National Science Foundation, Columbia 

University, and the Smithsonian, and if you would like to seem intelligent when you are in the woods and you want to identify a 

tree, LeafSnap will identify any tree for you based on the leaf 

shape that it sees. 

You have to have a little white background for it, but you can 

do that. And in June we will issue our first Smithsonian-wide app, 

which will be free for visitors, and so visitors can plan their visits 

on their own iPhone or their Android, whatever they have got, and 

when they get here after they are getting a little worn out, they 

can say, where is the restaurant or where is the restroom or whatever, and it will all be on the app. 

So it is a way of connecting the people, deepening their experience, and then making them hopefully want to access the next level 

of our educational materials. 

Mr. DICKS. Good. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DICKS. I yield to Mr. Lewis. 

SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE

Mr. LEWIS. You raised the Smithsonian Magazine. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Yes. 

Mr. LEWIS. And the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Yes. 


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Mr. LEWIS. That magazine is available by way of subscription I 

am assuming? 

Mr. CLOUGH. Yes, it is. 

Mr. LEWIS. It occurred to me when you were providing this testimony that what a fabulous Christmas gift for children and others. 

I mean, it really truly is an interesting—— 

Mr. CLOUGH. We encourage that. 

Mr. LEWIS. Yes. Thank you. 

Mr. CLOUGH. That does provide revenues for the Smithsonian, 

but the thing I really enjoy about this group is that they are very 

mission focused, so you will not find extraneous articles in here. 

The articles will be very much in and around the Smithsonian mission, so they have really bought into our strategic plan, and for 

those people who read every last page, there is a Secretary’s column in there. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Ms. McCollum. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I own a copy of Breakfast 

at Tiffany’s. I bet you guys do not. But I did not have a crush on 

her. 

And, you know, I hear what Mr. Moran is saying, but at the 

same time I sit here and, you know, everybody was kind of talking 

about their mother or their grandmother, and of course, I have 

mothers and grandmothers and a great aunt who is still alive who 

did not have the right to vote when she born, and now she has her 

greatest niece serving in Congress. 

So there are so many stories to tell. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Yes. Very rich. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. And everybody wants to share their story that 

at some point we need to be mindful of the fact that everybody’s 

story is important, and so I wish you luck, and I still hope that you 

are trying to make sure as we go through these major important 

museums that everybody’s story continues to be told on a journey. 

And Mr. Lewis, I want you to think of me the next time you look 

at the Native American Museum. It is Minnesota sandstone, and 

it is now your favorite rock. That is what that is made from out 

there, and when you go, I think part of the reason—— 

Mr. LEWIS. Minnesota sandstone? 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Minnesota sandstone and there is Minnesota 

pipestone, which was traded by a lot of the tribes, but, you know, 

I know that the architecture is kind of shell, but that was to reflect 

all Native Americans, not one tribe, one nation over another, and 

I have spoken with tribal members outside, and some will say I see 

an igloo in here, and other people say I see this in here. And so 

it does not have anything that is a gotcha moment, and I think the 

architects probably had a struggle with that a lot, and that would 

probably be very interesting reading, I think, for people going in, 

how the design and the shape came to be. 

ADMISSIONS

When you make a decision on what to cut or what to do, and I 

have been here when the bills, and I am sure we are going to have 

amendments on the Floor to charge admission to the Smithsonian, 

because they are going to pop up. 


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If you could maybe, you know, know of refresh the committee 

your understanding of that, and then, you know, you do not charge 

admission and then just keep all the money. You charge admission, 

you have got a contractor taking a cut, you have got maintenance 

doing things, and so it is not like the Smithsonian would get a dollar for every dollar that got charged. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Absolutely not. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. You know, because people say, well, if everybody 

just does a dollar, I mean, you have got accounting, you have got 

to start worrying about internal theft. I mean, there is all kinds of 

things that go on with that. So that is probably going to come up 

on the Floor, and so talk to us a little bit about that. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Okay. First, let me just back up a second and one 

of the other things about social media that helps us a great deal 

in terms, as you said, everybody has a story to tell. We can now 

let them tell those stories and share those stories with other people, and so many of our exhibitions now encourage people to tell 

us what they think and to tell what they saw of themselves and 

their family story in that exhibition. 

And we are gathering that information. We are going to use that 

information to enrich what we are doing. We just did something on 

freedom riders, and we were able to go all over the country with 

it to have the freedom riders who were still, John Lewis does a 

great story, but to have kids and young people participate in that 

and then to blog about it and then to talk amongst themselves 

about it. Sharing is a big thing, and we are trying to encourage 

that. 

Just a little bit on the American Indian Museum. Kevin Gover 

is the director there. He is a fabulous man. He has got great experience. He has been a university faculty member. He is a member 

of I think the Pawnee Tribe. He is a real intellect. He is trying to 

really get that museum to do what it was expected to do and that 

was to tell the story of all the cultures that existed here before Europeans came here, and so that takes you back to 18,000 years ago 

possibly and to speak to that entire development. And then the impact of the cultures that came together and then what is the next 

part of that story. 

One of the exhibitions they will do, for example, in 2012, is about 

the Inca Road, which is an engineering marvel, 26,000 kilometers, 

that was built. It was an amazing technological development, still 

is used today. It is an amazing thing. 

Kevin is really working hard to put more exhibitions in, we could 

lose a little money but take one of the stores out so we can have 

more exhibition space to tell a broader and a richer story about 

that. 

There is an app also called the Infinity of Nations. I would encourage you to get it. It is free. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. I have a flip phone, so this app stuff is like disappointing to me. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Okay, but it is a marvelous exhibition. Out of the 

George Gustav Heye Center, which is part of the American Indian, 

that tells that richer story. It is an amazing app, and it is free for 

all folks. 


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Now, coming to the question of charging admissions. You are exactly right. 

Mr. SERRANO. Could you yield? Could I make a suggestion? That 

you send a note to Members of Congress when the apps are available? 

Mr. CLOUGH. Sure. I will be glad to. 

Mr. SERRANO. Because I do not know. I cannot keep up. 

Mr. CLOUGH. We will definitely do that. 

But coming to the question of charging admissions, you are exactly right. It is not a free lunch by a long stretch. To even break 

even you would have to charge $3 or $4 because you are going to 

have to pay for all the infrastructure to collect it, plus we get 30 

million visits a year to our museums, and you see huge lines of 

people trying to get through, paying admissions, using credit cards, 

slowing things down enormously. So there would be a real price to 

pay. 

I love it. I live close by. I walk up on the Mall every weekend, 

and I love seeing the families up there and seeing the families go 

from one museum to the other. A lot of them have saved for years 

to get here. They want to have a rich experience, and if you 

charged admission, it would diminish that experience. I think we 

should not charge admission. The people have already paid for 

these museums. They paid through their tax dollars. They paid for 

the collections and the collections’ care through their tax dollars. 

And so just on that philosophical basis I do not think we should 

charge admission. A lot of people will say, well, okay. You get 30 

million visits a year. Well, that is actually not 30 million visitors, 

because that may be one person who went to the Natural History 

on one day and went to American History on the second day. They 

get counted. And so the numbers quickly diminish as non-workable 

as a way actually to make much revenue, and it is not the good 

way to do it, I do not think, because folks have already paid for 

this museum through their tax dollars. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Mr. Chair, I happen to agree, but I am mindful 

of the fact that I would be surprised if it did not come up on the 

Floor, and I think it is always good to be able to say that the committee recently asked, and so thank you for that. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I have to agree with you. I think one of the great 

things about it is that it is free. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Right. Absolutely. 

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Chairman, I do not remember when there was 

an amendment proposing that we charge. I guess we have seen 

them in the past. I just do not remember one, but I think you 

would get very broadly-based, almost non-partisan support opposing that idea. 

Mr. CLOUGH. There are many other ways for us to try to raise 

money before you ever get to that point. 

LATINO MUSEUM

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Serrano. 

Mr. SERRANO. Thank you so much, and thank you for your testimony and for the work that you do. You are one of my favorite institutions, federal agencies, if you will. 


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Let me just touch a little bit on some of the comments made by 

my brother, Mr. Moran, and some other folks. In a perfect world 

Latinos I can tell you for sure and I dare speak for some AfricanAmericans would rather be part of rather than separated and apart 

in exhibitions. 

But that is not our fault. That is trying to make up for 400 years 

of not being included, and so what you see today is trying to remedy that, and it upsets some people, and some carry it either in jocular fashion or in a serious fashion about the Irish and the Italians 

and others. Well, to ethnic minorities those were the folks in 

charge, and it seems that everything was about their story and 

none about ours. It did not get specific perhaps at times, but I 

knew, for instance, in school I was taught that the subway system 

was built by the Irish in New York City, and I was never told that 

the trains out west were built by the Chinese. I was always told 

that the police department was set up by the Irish, and the sanitation department was set up by the Italian or for the Italian Americans, and that was a fact. I knew that. I saw it. 

No one told me about Puerto Ricans in 1899, coming to New 

York and joining up with Cubans on the Spanish American War 

and that the Puerto Rican flag was designed in New York City, not 

in Puerto Rico by the Cuban Revolutionary party against Spain. 

We are left out of that story. 

So in a perfect world we do not want, I personally do not want 

the Latin Grammies, but there was never any recognition of another music that was making a lot of people, non-Latinos, rich in 

this country by recording it and selling it and so on. 

And so I repeat, in a perfect world we want to walk into a museum and see the history of our country, but for 400 years people 

were not included, and even at times the story we tell may not be 

related to what we are talking about, and I look at Mr. Lewis, because he has been very strong, and Mr. Lewis has done some 

things of dealing with my monture of included territories, and he 

even did it on an area that satisfied his need but satisfied mine, 

which was if you are not going to try people from Guantanamo 

somewhere else, do not try them in the territories either, and a lot 

of people were saying, well, we can always try them in the territories since we are not bringing them to the states. 

But I will give you a related incident that speaks to the need to 

have these kinds of situations, be they at the university level or the 

Smithsonian. A prominent member of the New York State legislature came to my father’s funeral some years ago, in the 1980s, and 

asked me, Joe, why is the American flag on your father’s coffin? 

And I said, because he was a member of the Armed Services, in the 

Army, and he always wanted the flag, and we wanted the American flag to be there. About half an hour later this prominent, and 

I will not mention names because you know him, came to me and 

said, you know, I learned something tonight. I never knew that the 

Puerto Rican Army uses the American flag. 

A prominent member of Congress about 15 years ago asked me 

if I would get him currency from Puerto Rico for his collection, so 

I took a dollar out of my pocket, and I think he is still embarrassed. 

Mr. SIMPSON. He ought to be. 


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Mr. SERRANO. But that is part of what we are dealing with here. 

Yes, there is a concern about another museum and another museum and another museum, but it is because this generation has 

been called on to remedy a lot of stuff that happened in the past, 

and in that we should not get upset about what is happening but 

feel proud of the fact that we have come up and stepped up to the 

plate and said, you know something? That happened, and we have 

to take care of it. 

So that is my take on it. Do I want a Latino Museum? Yeah, because for 400 years I did not know inclusion. Which brings me to 

my first question, my only question really, and my comment, and 

that is that I have always pushed for the territories to be included, 

and I hope that the Smithsonian continues to be aggressive in seeing the territories as Americans that need their artifacts and their 

things included. 

What happens in Puerto Rico on a daily basis, what has happened in Puerto Rico since 1898, is part of American history. It is 

part of American history. What happens in the Northern Mariana 

Islands and in Guam and American Samoa is part of American history, and we forget that at times. 

But I tell you how frustrating it gets. Do you remember Bobby 

Bonilla, the baseball player? Okay. Baseball listed him, major 

league baseball as American born, and it listed Roberto Clemente 

as foreign born. It lists Jose Cheo Cruz from the Houston Astros 

as foreign born, and it lists his son, who was born in Houston as 

American born. And a few years ago National Journal listed foreign-born members of Congress, Tom Lantos, Nydia Vela ́zquez, 

Jose ́ Serrano. Hello! That is the problem, and that is why the 

Latino museum and the African-American museum are both things 

that are necessary until we reach that point where it is not necessary any longer. But until then it has to be because there is a 

lot of story that has not been told. 

We are now in my community documenting the history of the 

65th regiment, which was an old Puerto Rican regiment that 

fought in World War II, much to the amazement of that member 

of the New York State Legislature; they were not fighting their 

own war. They were fighting the American War, you know, against 

the Nazis and the Japanese and so on. 

So to my colleagues, I know it presents a space problem, and I 

am not being sarcastic, and I know from the goodness of your heart 

you would rather that we have one America, but that is not the reality of our history, and so let’s keep working, and in closing, again, 

what I said before, rather than feel bad about it, let’s be proud of 

the fact that we are the first generation to tackle it and to do the 

right thing. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Well, your comments are heartfelt and very important. I have been to Puerto Rico quite a few times because I was 

President of Georgia Tech, and we had a great stream of wonderful 

students who came to Georgia Tech, and the families there are so 

loyal, once a family member comes, you get more family members, 

and it was a fantastic experience, and the brightness of the young 

people from there were remarkable. 

We do have a Latino Center, I want to mention that, at the 

Smithsonian. We have an Asian American Center. These are both 


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working hard with us to help develop this inclusivity approach. As 

I said, frankly, I do not know if you heard my first remarks, we 

missed the boat. The Smithsonian was not there when it should 

have been there to reach out, and so, yes, we have a lot of work 

to do to rectify this thing. 

We have a lot of stories to tell right there in front of us. Two of 

the most prominent statues for our Art Museum and our American 

History Museum were designed by a Latino artist—Vaquero and 

the beautiful Infinity sculpture. We need to tell those stories. 

Our traveling exhibition service is working with American History to put on an exhibition called Bittersweet Harvest, so speaking 

of a story that has not been told, and this is about the Bracero Program, where guest workers were invited to this country because 

there was not enough manpower during World War II to mount the 

war effort, and people came to this country and did remarkable 

things. They were in all states but four. They helped this country 

mount the war effort, and that was a great story to tell. 

Hilda Solis, who is Secretary of Labor, had tears in her eyes. She 

said, my father was a bracero, and people realized how important 

that was, and to tell you how, again, the untold story, to be able 

to see it. The traveling exhibition means it travels, and so we were 

going to travel I think originally to about 15 cities, and we had one 

version of it. It turned out to be enormously impactful, and so as 

a result now we have multiple versions of it, and it is going to 100 

cities because people see themselves in this, and they see their 

story. 

Mr. SERRANO. Very briefly, Mr. Chairman, in closing, also if for 

400 years for African-Americans and 100 years for Puerto Ricans 

in my case, you are told basically by the society, by the media, by 

TV stations you are not part of us, there reaches a point where you 

say, okay. I have a chance to be part of you, but first as I become 

part of you let me tell you what happened during that period of 

time when you were not including us, let me tell you what you 

missed out on, what we did, what we accomplished, everything 

from African-Americans inventing the traffic light to whatever happened. You know, those are little things that people may not pay 

attention to. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Constructing the Capitol. 

Mr. SERRANO. Constructing the Capitol. Absolutely. 

VOICE. The traffic light? 

Mr. SERRANO. The traffic light. Not very popular thing. Maybe I 

should not have mentioned that on behalf of the community. But, 

you know, what happens is it is almost like a catch up, catching 

up to tell that story first and then moving on, but it does not in 

any way, shape, or form make us feel less Americans. On the contrary. When our story is told, then we become even deeper into 

this, you know. We are who we are, and we are a country of people. 

It is wonderful, all of the color and cultures, and so somehow we 

all come together on July 4 and every other day of the year as 

Americans, and no one should fear it. It is diversity, but it is not 

division. 

Mr. CLOUGH. I have one quick comment, and then I will close on 

this issue, but Richard Kurin is here, and he helped create our 

Folkways Division, and Folkways has a marvelous collection of 


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music and spoken words, and a lot of that is Latino music, and it 

has won more Emmys for us than any other source of music. And 

so it is a very rich and diverse source of history and culture. 

Mr. SERRANO. Thank you, Mr. Clough. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you. I appreciate your comments, Mr. 

Serrano. I said in our testimony one the Humanities, Mr. Leach, 

that our diversity in this country is actually our greatest strength. 

Mr. SERRANO. Of course. 

Mr. SIMPSON. It also presents our greatest challenges, but it is 

something that, as you said, we ought to celebrate. 

Mr. SERRANO. Yes. There are those who fear it but I celebrate 

it. I mean—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yes. 

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Chairman, if you would just give me a moment—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. Sure. 

Mr. LEWIS [continuing]. To respond to some of this. I could not 

feel more strongly and positively about this line of discussion. I am 

flying out this weekend to celebrate my oldest brother’s 85th birthday. The first time I remember seeing him as a youngster in uniform, he was in the Marine Corps uniform, spent most of his time 

in the Pacific, I was chatting with him about the 85th birthday and 

his experience and that which his generation contributed to our 

ability to enjoy what we enjoy. And talked with him out loud about 

the problems, the challenges of the Japanese right now with this 

horrendous earthquake and the tsunami, et cetera, and to hear him 

almost with tears say that, Jerry, I never really thought I would 

have the day when I felt sorry for the Japanese. 

I was the chairman of the Defense Subcommittee of Appropriations for only 2 weeks when I went to the swearing in of a new 

chief of the U.S. Army, and the fellow being sworn in I learned 

when he was born was a foreign alien born in Hawaii, Eric 

Shinseki, all these years later becomes the chief of the U.S. Army, 

now the Director, the Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs. 

It is an incredible story and lest we forget we are all a part of 

it. 

THE NATIONAL MALL

Mr. SIMPSON. Just a final question, for me anyway, is that while 

we talk about the people that come out here, the visitors from 

Idaho and around the country that love the Smithsonian, their biggest disappointment that they talk to me about is the Mall and the 

shape of the Mall, and we have been trying to restore the Mall 

with the National Park Service and so forth and so on. Folk Life 

Festival has been an issue with that, and you have been working 

with the Park Service to try to remedy that because it is kind of 

like some of our national parks. You know, we love them to death. 

And somehow we have got to find a way so that we do not destroy 

the Mall just because of all the people that want to see it. 

What have you been doing, and how is that working with the 

Park Service now? 

Mr. CLOUGH. We have met a number of times with the head of 

the Park Service, and particularly Eva Pell, who is here in the audience who is our Undersecretary for Science, is working closely 


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with the head of their science program, because it really is a 

science issue. It is a question of how to maintain access to the Mall 

by so many people who love it to death as you say, and at the same 

time have a robust infrastructure so it continues to restore itself. 

One of the things we want to do is to green the Smithsonian, and 

one of the ways we do that is we have a lot of flat roofs out there 

on the Mall, and so we are building cisterns to collect water, big 

cisterns to collect water off of our roofs. The Park Service has no 

irrigation equipment out there, and we have offered to provide the 

water to the Mall as they experiment with different kinds of 

grasses, some of them are more successful than others. It is not a 

terribly rich soil because it is basically the sediment basin for 

Washington, DC, the old Tiber River was there. 

FOLKLIFE FESTIVAL

And so we are working with them, and as far as the Folk Life 

Festival itself is concerned, it is designed specifically to have minimal impact based on their recommendations for us. So we have 

worked closely with them. We provided them with comments on 

their report. We are meeting with their chief scientists and doing 

everything we can to offer assistance and to form a partnership to 

do this. 

NATIONAL ZOO

Mr. SIMPSON. Appreciate that. I enjoyed our trip with the staff 

out to National Zoo. Do we have anybody here from the National 

Zoo? If not, just pass on they have invited me, being a former dentist, to watch several dentistry programs on animals. I was always 

kind of interested in that, and several other things. So far I have 

not been able to fit it in my schedule, but I appreciate the invitation and have them keep asking me because I will do it eventually. 

Mr. CLOUGH. I did see a root canal performed on a tiger. That 

is quite an interesting process. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yes. I would not want to do that. 

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yes. 

Mr. DICKS. One quick question here. We are looking at your 

staffing chart, and you have come down from about 4,400 to 3,701 

in ’10. 

STAFFING

Mr. DICKS. How has that affected the Smithsonian? 

Mr. CLOUGH. It has had a dramatic impact on the Smithsonian. 

Now, those are our federal employees, not our trust employees but 

our federal employees, and it affects us in those basic kind of 

things that we must do, collections care, the exhibitions that we 

put on, the scholarship and research that has to be done behind the 

scenes, the maintenance of the buildings, those kind of basic functions that I believe the Federal Government is responsible for funding for the Smithsonian. We can only do so much with private 

funding. These are the kind of things that you cannot do with private funding. No one is going to give us funding just for collections 


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care. It is fundamentally crucial to us because we have these wonderful collections that we try to maintain. 

SMITHSONIAN REDESIGN

So we are trying to develop a strategy to best use our resources. 

For example, you may not have been here when I mentioned that 

we are doing something called Smithsonian Redesign, and that is 

to try to better use the people we have, because we know we are 

not going to get a lot more in the future, to use technology wherever we can to improve. 

And I will give you one example of that. If we can digitize our 

collections, number one, it allows us if we have good web systems 

to let people see the thing that we own and tell the stories that we 

tell behind them. But it also cuts down on handling of the objects 

because if someone wants to see them, most likely we can show 

them the digital image. If it is a high-quality three dimensional 

image, that may be enough. So you do not have to go get it and 

bring it out and show it to someone and handle it and then maybe 

not get it back to the right place where it went in the first place. 

And so we will try to use technology where we can, but ultimately it comes down to the expertise and the skills of our curators, and that is where we are hurting. We have collections that, 

I hear this over and over again, our curators will say there used 

to be five people in here. Now we are down to two. What happens 

when we are down to one or zero? 

And so you see a little stabilization going on. Congress helped us. 

We recognized the problem, we asked for help, you helped us in the 

past few years, and so we stabilized that thing, but my concern 

now is we are going into a period where we may go into another 

downturn, and that is a hard place to be. 

So thanks for recognizing it. It is a big problem for us. Six hundred people gone at the Smithsonian in the last 10 years. 

VOICE. Do you have stuff that the Baseball Hall of Fame has or 

vice versa? 

Mr. CLOUGH. Well, we do have a few things, but nowadays everyone—— 

VOICE. Who has got Babe Ruth’s bat? 

Mr. CLOUGH. I do not think we have his bat. I know we have five 

of his baseballs because I lust after one of those for my office, but 

they will not let me have it. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Put it in a vault. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Well, they told me my office lights are not the right 

lights, and you will lose—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. It will hurt the ball. 

Mr. CLOUGH. It will hurt the signature and so—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. Change the lights. 

If there are no further questions—— 

RECOVERY ACT FUNDING

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Chairman, if you would bear with me, as we 

talked about the Stimulus Package which added a trillion dollars 

to the mix here and then we have gone forward from there with 

some pretty significant levels of funding from the appropriations 

process for non-defense discretionary monies, one of our early conVerDate Mar 15 2010 04:44 Jun 29, 2011 Jkt 066897 PO 00000 Frm 00678 Fmt 6602 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A897P2.XXX A897P2

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cerns was that many an agency would find the pipeline so clogged 

with money that it would hardly know what to do with it, and 

some, indeed, have had some stumbling in connection with that. 

Did the Smithsonian receive significant flows? I think the answer 

to that is yes, but the question is did the Smithsonian try to go 

about getting prepared for the cliff. You answered almost yes to 

that. Eventually if the Stimulus money runs out, then there is a 

cliff if you expanded your funding flows. 

The personnel question that you are raising is a really, really important one. 

Mr. CLOUGH. On the facility side the answer is, no, we did not get a lot of Stimulus money. We only got $25 million for various 

reasons. We used it well in some of our most critical projects. If you go by industry standards we should be getting about $100 million a year in maintenance and about $150 million a year in facility revitalization. And as was pointed out, $125 million for African-American History and Culture and only $100 million for the 

other facilities at the Smithsonian, which is not enough to do it. 

We have I think one of the very best track records, I am proud 

of our people, in the Federal Government of obligating our facilities 

funding. We are always around 90 percent in obligating our facilities’ money, and we—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. We better keep that because they are going to be 

looking around for change. 

Mr. LEWIS. Yes, they are. 

Mr. CLOUGH. So we will stay on top of that. Thank you for reminding us. 

Mr. LEWIS. Yeah. Thanks for bringing that up. 

Mr. CLOUGH. So the answer is, no, we do not have a cliff. We 

would like to have a cliff to look at. We do not have that right now. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Other questions? Thank you for being here today, 

and thank you for bringing the items and stuff. We appreciate it. 

The hearing is adjourned. 


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I N D E X 

Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies 

2012 Volume 7—Hearing Indices 

Major Management Challenges at the US Forest Service 

March 10, 2:00 PM 

Page 

Aerial Firefighting Resources.................................................................................. 73, 88 

Albuquerque Service Center.................................................................................... 34, 50 

Biography: Anu K. Mittal ....................................................................................... 19 

Biography: Phyllis K. Fong ..................................................................................... 33 

Border Patrol ............................................................................................................ 37 

Climate Change ....................................................................................................... 46 

Cohesive Strategy for Fuels and Wildfire .............................................................. 54, 79 

Deferred Maintenance Backlog ............................................................................... 57, 81 

Duplicative Inspections for Contracted Fire Crews .............................................. 75, 94 

Fire Program Analysis Tool .................................................................................... 45 

Fire Suppression ...................................................................................................... 36 

History of Management Challenges at USFS........................................................ 48, 77 

Implementation of OIG Recommendations ............................................................ 34 

Integrated Resource Restoration Program ............................................................ 35 

Invasive Species ....................................................................................................... 46 

Inventory of Resources ............................................................................................ 38 

Land Exchanges ....................................................................................................... 38 

Law Enforcement on Federal Lands....................................................................... 55, 80 

Law Enforcement Technology ................................................................................. 40 

Management & Performance Issues....................................................................... 58, 82 

Opening Remarks: Chairman Simpson .................................................................. 1 

Opening Remarks: Mr. Moran ................................................................................ 1 

Performance Measurement...................................................................................... 51, 77 

Personnel Turnover ................................................................................................. 41 

Questions for GAO from Chairman Simpson ........................................................ 48 

Questions for GAO from Mr. Flake ........................................................................ 75 

Questions for GAO from Mr. Moran ...................................................................... 58 

Questions for the Record: GAO .............................................................................. 48 

Questions for the Record: USDA IG ....................................................................... 77 

Questions for USDA IG from Chairman Simpson ................................................ 77 

Questions for USDA IG from Mr. Flake ................................................................ 94 

Questions for USDA IG from Mr. Moran ............................................................... 82 

Recovery Act—ARRA......................................................................................... 90, 39, 44 

Risk Management .................................................................................................... 81 

Special Use Permits ................................................................................................. 36, 91 

Stewardship Contracting Program ......................................................................... 36 


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Testimony of GAO Director Anu K. Mittal ............................................................ 2 

Testimony of USDA Inspector General Phyllis K. Fong ...................................... 20 

Wildland Fire Management Issues................................................................... 64, 84, 89 

Work on Forest Legacy ............................................................................................ 92 

US Forest Service FY12 Budget Oversight Hearing 

March 11, 9:30 AM 

Additional Integrated Resource Restoration (IRR) Questions ............................. 157 

Air Tankers .............................................................................................................. 145 

Albuquerque Centralized Business Center ............................................................ 156 

Alternative Energy .................................................................................................. 138 

America’s Great Outdoors ....................................................................................... 150 

American Reinvestment and Recovery Act ............................................................ 156 

Bark Beetles ............................................................................................................. 147 

Biography: Kathleen Atkinson ............................................................................... 111 

Biography: Tom Tidwell .......................................................................................... 110 

Climate Change............................................................................................ 104, 137, 155 

Cohesive Strategy .................................................................................................... 145 

Community Forest and Open Space Program ....................................................... 153 

Continuing Resolution Impacts .............................................................................. 115 

Continuing Resolutions and Management Difficulties ......................................... 150 

Cost Recovery ........................................................................................................... 114 

Cost Recovery Fees .................................................................................................. 140 

El Yunque ................................................................................................................. 128 

Employee Retention ................................................................................................. 119 

Fire Fighting Contract Crews ................................................................................. 162 

Forest Conservation ................................................................................................. 149 

Forest Restoration Projects ..................................................................................... 141 

Forest Service Planning Rule ................................................................................. 155 

Fuel Reduction Funds ............................................................................................. 159 

Gas Drilling—Hydro Fracking ................................................................................ 124 

Government Accountability Office & Inspector General ...................................... 144 

Grazing Allotments .................................................................................................. 112 

Hazardous Fuels................................................................................................... 118, 154 

HR1—House Passed—Forest Service Transportation Planning Stoppage ......... 150 

Idaho Grazing Permits ............................................................................................ 140 

Integrated Resource Restoration ................................................................ 129, 142, 152 

Interagency Cooperation on the Border ................................................................. 162 

International Forestry ......................................................................................... 121, 152 

Land Acquisition ...................................................................................................... 117 

Land Exchanges ....................................................................................................... 160 

Law Enforcement—Interagency Cooperation ........................................................ 120 

Legacy Road and Trail Remediation ...................................................................... 152 

Litigation .................................................................................................................. 144 

Opening Remarks: Chairman Simpson .................................................................. 97 

Opening Remarks: Mr. Moran ................................................................................ 98 

Questions for the Record ......................................................................................... 140 

Questions from Chairman Simpson ....................................................................... 140 

Questions from Mr. Calvert .................................................................................... 159 

Questions from Mr. Flake ....................................................................................... 162 

Questions from Mr. Lummis ................................................................................... 163 

Questions from Mr. Moran ...................................................................................... 150 

Recreation—Forest Management Plans ................................................................. 126 

Recreation, Visitation and Economic Impact ........................................................ 156 


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Reducing Deferred Maintenance Backlog .............................................................. 157 

Secure Rural Schools ................................................................................... 132, 141, 151 

Testimony of Chief Tidwell ..................................................................................... 100 

Travel Management ............................................................................................. 116, 135 

U.S. Border Security ................................................................................................ 160 

Urban and Community Forestry......................................................................... 127, 153 

USFS Staffing .......................................................................................................... 159 

Wildfire Suppression ............................................................................................... 113 

Wildland Fire Management ................................................................................ 109, 147 

Wildland Fire Suppression and FLAME Fund ..................................................... 153 

Fish and Wildlife Service FY12 Budget Oversight Hearing 

March 16, 1:00 PM 

Adaptive Science .................................................................................................. 174, 202 

Adaptive Science and Refuge Inventory and Monitoring ..................................... 239 

Administrative Cost Savings .................................................................................. 249 

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) .............................................. 250 

America’s Great Outdoors ....................................................................................... 229 

Arizona Wildlife Conservation Organizations as Stakeholders ........................... 270 

Asian Carp and Lacey Act ...................................................................................... 193 

Asian Carp: Status of Bighead Species Under Lacey Act .................................... 194 

Asian Carp: Use of Funding ................................................................................... 194 

Bay Delta Conservation Plan ................................................................................. 263 

Biography of Christine L. Nolin ............................................................................. 181 

Biography of Daniel M. Ashe .................................................................................. 179 

Biography of Rowan Gould ..................................................................................... 178 

BP Transocean Deepwater Horizon Oil Disaster in Gulf of Mexico .................... 237 

Chesapeake Bay ....................................................................................................... 186 

Chesapeake Bay Efforts .......................................................................................... 233 

Climate Change ....................................................................................................... 230 

Climate Change Impacts ......................................................................................... 185 

Coastal Impact Assistance Program ...................................................................... 176 

Continuing Resolution Impacts .............................................................................. 184 

Cooperative Landscape Conservation................................................................. 174, 210 

Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge ........................................................................ 218 

Delta Smelt .............................................................................................................. 263 

Endangered Species ................................................................................................. 175 

Endangered Species Act ...................................................................................... 195, 247 

Endangered Species Act Consultations .................................................................. 271 

Endangered Species Lawsuits ................................................................................ 197 

Endangered Species Listing and Recovery ............................................................ 201 

Endangered Species Petitions Cap ......................................................................... 196 

Environmental Contaminants—Ecological Services ............................................. 234 

Everglades ................................................................................................................ 192 

Fisheries and Aquatic Resource Conservation ...................................................... 176 

Fisheries Program ................................................................................................... 192 

Gray Wolf ................................................................................................................. 198 

Grizzly Bears ............................................................................................................ 217 

HR1—House Passed Full Year Continuing Resolution ........................................ 229 

Idaho Bull Trout Decision ....................................................................................... 215 

International Affairs ................................................................................................ 176 

Ivory Billed Woodpecker ......................................................................................... 257 

Lake Lowell .............................................................................................................. 208 

Land Acquisition .................................................................................................. 206, 213 


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Landscape Conservation Cooperatives ................................................................... 200 

Law Enforcement ..................................................................................................... 175 

Law Enforcement and International Trade in Wildlife and Endangered Species ......................................................................................................................... 243 

Lawsuits Rather Than Science ............................................................................... 271 

Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery Population ............................................................... 270 

Migratory Birds ....................................................................................................... 176 

Mississippi River .................................................................................................. 188, 267 

Mitigation Hatcheries .............................................................................................. 182 

Multinational Species Conservation Fund ............................................................. 256 

National Fish Hatchery Operations—Decrease for Mitigation ............................ 249 

National Wildlife Refuge Fund ................................................................... 206, 214, 241 

National Wildlife Refuge System ........................................................................... 174 

North American Wetlands Conservation Fund ..................................................... 244 

Opening Remarks of Congressman Simpson ......................................................... 165 

Opening Statement of Rowan Gould ...................................................................... 171 

Overnight Accommodations at Marinas ................................................................. 259 

Questions for the Record from Chairman Simpson .............................................. 210 

Questions for the Record from Committee Chairman Hal Rogers ...................... 259 

Questions for the Record from Congressman Calvert .......................................... 260 

Questions for the Record from Congressman Flake ............................................. 270 

Questions for the Record from Congresswoman McCollum ................................. 267 

Questions for the Record from Ranking Member Moran ..................................... 229 

Santa Ana Sucker ................................................................................................ 186, 261 

Spotted Owl Recovery Plan ..................................................................................... 219 

State and Tribal Wildlife Grants ............................................................................ 246 

State and Tribal Wildlife Grants (Competitive) ................................................ 191, 203 

Tribal Programs ....................................................................................................... 189 

Western Riverside County MSHCP.................................................................... 260, 266 

White Nose Syndrome in Bats ................................................................................ 252 

US Geological Survey FY12 Budget Oversight Hearing 

March 17, 9:30 AM 

Administrative Cost Savings .................................................................................. 325 

Asian Carp ............................................................................................................... 327 

Biography for Carla M. Burzyk .............................................................................. 283 

Biography for Marcia K. McNutt ........................................................................... 281 

Biography for Suzette Kimball ............................................................................... 282 

BP Transocean Deepwater Horizon Disaster ........................................................ 318 

Budget Summary by Budget Activity .................................................................... 279 

Climate Change.................................................................................................... 288, 321 

Climate Science ........................................................................................................ 299 

Endocrine Disruptors and Contaminants in Streams .......................................... 310 

Facilities Maintenance Reduction .......................................................................... 326 

Great Lakes Restoration and Ecosystem Restoration .......................................... 326 

Hazards Program ......................................................................................... 285, 301, 306 

International Role of the USGS ............................................................................. 292 

Land Remote Sensing and New Rocket Costs ....................................................... 314 

Landsat ..................................................................................................................... 287 

Landsat Taking Up Future Budgets ...................................................................... 304 

Major Changes ......................................................................................................... 278 

Mineral Resources Program ................................................................................ 293, 297 

National Biological Information Infrastructure .................................................... 317 

National Land Imaging (LandSat) ......................................................................... 297 


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National Minerals Information Center .................................................................. 328 

Opening Remarks of Chairman Simpson .............................................................. 272 

Opening Remarks of Congressman Moran ............................................................ 273 

Opening Remarks of Marcia K. McNutt, Director ................................................ 274 

Outyear Costs of Landsat ....................................................................................... 284 

Program Quality and Performance ........................................................................ 284 

Questions for the Record from Congressman Simpson ......................................... 295 

Questions for the Record from Congresswoman McCollum ................................. 331 

Questions for the Record from Ranking Member Moran ..................................... 304 

Reductions to Core Science at USGS ..................................................................... 304 

Streamgages ............................................................................................................. 289 

Water Resources Cuts ............................................................................................. 295 

Water Resources Program ................................................................................... 286, 290 

Water Shortages ...................................................................................................... 291 

WaterSMART Initiative and Reductions to key Water Science Programs ......... 308 

Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) 

and Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR) FY12 Budget Oversight Hearing 

March 17, 1:00 PM 

Alaska Oil Drilling .................................................................................................. 406 

Arctic Drilling .......................................................................................................... 388 

Arctic Offshore Drilling ........................................................................................... 437 

Auditing and Compliance ........................................................................................ 377 

Biography of Deborah Gibbs Tschudy .................................................................... 370 

Biography of Gregory Gould ................................................................................... 369 

Biography of Michael R. Bromwich ........................................................................ 357 

Chukchi Sea ............................................................................................................. 439 

Civil Penalties .......................................................................................................... 380 

Deep Water Royalty Relief ...................................................................................... 375 

Division of BOEMRE to BOEM & BSEE .............................................................. 395 

Encouraging Lease Development ........................................................................... 382 

Expand State and Tribal Audit Program .............................................................. 435 

FY 12 BOEMRE Budget Request ........................................................................... 391 

Gas Prices and Demand .......................................................................................... 405 

General Accountability Office: High Risk Report.............................................. 374, 412 

Geothermal Revenue Sharing with Counties ........................................................ 436 

Goals for Domestic Energy Production .................................................................. 400 

Human Capital Deficiencies in Oil and Gas Management .................................. 426 

Inspection Fee to Offset Cost of Industrial Review .............................................. 431 

Investigations and Review Unit ............................................................................. 385 

Leases with Viable Resources ............................................................................. 387, 390 

Legislative Proposal on Non-Producing Oil and Gas Leases ............................... 433 

Marine Minerals Reduction .................................................................................... 430 

New Fees .................................................................................................................. 402 

Non-Producing Lease Fee ....................................................................................... 379 

OCS Permits ............................................................................................................ 442 

Office of Natural Resources Revenue ..................................................................... 407 

Oil and Gas Production ........................................................................................... 404 

Oil and Gas Royalty Collection ............................................................................... 408 

Opening Remarks of Chairman Simpson .............................................................. 333 

Opening Remarks of Congressman Maurice Hinchey .......................................... 381 

Opening Remarks of Congresswoman Cynthia Lummis ...................................... 378 

Opening Remarks of Director Gregory Gould ....................................................... 359 


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Opening Remarks of Director Michael Bromwich ................................................. 336 

Opening Remarks of Ranking Member Moran ...................................................... 334 

Permitting............................................................................................................. 378, 384

Permitting Delays .................................................................................................... 448 

Production Measurement/Inspection at ONRR ..................................................... 434 

Questions for the Record from Chairman Simpson .............................................. 391 

Questions for the Record from Congressman Calvert .......................................... 442 

Questions for the Record from Congressman Flake ............................................. 447 

Questions for the Record from Ranking Member Moran ..................................... 412 

Reform of Offshore Oil and Gas Regulation .......................................................... 419 

Renewable Energy and Strengthening Resource Protection ................................ 433 

Reorganization ......................................................................................................... 373 

Retaining Personnel ................................................................................................ 371 

Royalty Collection .................................................................................................... 371 

Royalty in Kind Program Transition ..................................................................... 410 

State Audit Program ............................................................................................... 386 

Stopping the Use of Categorical Exclusions .......................................................... 447 

Transitional Programs ............................................................................................ 411 

Tribal Royalties ........................................................................................................ 387 

Well Containment .................................................................................................... 378 

Bureau of Indian Affairs FY12 Budget Oversight Hearing 

March 30, 1:00 PM 

Advancing Indian Nations ...................................................................................... 453 

Alaska Lands ........................................................................................................... 479 

Appraisals ................................................................................................................. 478

BIA Construction Program ..................................................................................... 506 

BIA Website ............................................................................................................. 475 

Biography of Keith Moore ....................................................................................... 465 

Biography of Larry Echo Hawk .............................................................................. 463 

Biography of Michael S. Black ................................................................................ 464 

Carcieri ..................................................................................................................... 472 

Carcieri Decision ...................................................................................................... 479 

Catawba Tribe .......................................................................................................... 480 

Coal-Fired Power Plants ......................................................................................... 472 

Cobell Settlement .................................................................................................... 478 

Consultation with Indian Tribes ............................................................................ 506 

Contract Support.................................................................................................. 467, 491 

Detention Operations .............................................................................................. 468 

Detention Operations and Staffing ........................................................................ 469 

Detention/Corrections .............................................................................................. 493 

Domestic Violence and Substance Abuse ............................................................... 501 

Education .................................................................................................................. 486

Education Annual Criteria ...................................................................................... 482 

Education Assistance ............................................................................................... 476 

Education Construction ............................................................................... 477, 481, 497 

Education Construction Backlog ............................................................................ 477 

Education Facility Maintenance ............................................................................. 482 

Education Funding .................................................................................................. 487 

Elimination of BIA ................................................................................................... 475 

ESEA Reauthorization ............................................................................................ 483 

Facilities Negotiated Rulemaking .......................................................................... 477 

Facility Space ........................................................................................................... 476 

Federal Agencies Shared Responsibilities ............................................................. 475 


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Federal Summit ....................................................................................................... 474 

Fort Hall ................................................................................................................... 470 

FY 2012 Budget ....................................................................................................... 453 

H.R. 1 ........................................................................................................................ 453 

Head Start ................................................................................................................ 487 

Improving Trust Land Management ...................................................................... 454 

Indian Affairs ........................................................................................................... 453 

Indian Education ..................................................................................................... 454 

Indian Guaranteed Loan Program...................................................................... 470, 480 

Indian School Construction and Safety ................................................................. 503 

Interagency Law Enforcement ................................................................................ 473 

Juvenile Detention/Educational Services Cut ....................................................... 503 

Land and Water Claims Settlements ..................................................................... 507 

Land Into Trust ....................................................................................................... 478 

Land Into Trust Database ....................................................................................... 502 

Law Enforcement ..................................................................................................... 507 

Lease Compliance .................................................................................................... 471 

Legal and Moral Obligations .................................................................................. 452 

NAGPRA ................................................................................................................... 485 

Nation-to-Nation Relationships .............................................................................. 508 

Native American Artifacts Issues ........................................................................... 502 

New Mexico School .................................................................................................. 481 

OMB .......................................................................................................................... 467 

Opening Remarks of Chairman Simpson .............................................................. 451 

Opening Remarks of Mr. Moran ............................................................................. 452 

Performance Measurement ..................................................................................... 495 

Program Reductions ................................................................................................ 470 

Protecting Indian Country ...................................................................................... 454 

Public Safety and Justice Construction ................................................................. 495 

Questions for the Record from Chairman Simpson .............................................. 490 

Questions for the Record from Mr. Cole ................................................................ 509 

Questions for the Record from Ranking Member Moran ..................................... 506 

Regional Detention Centers .................................................................................... 494 

Residential Placement ............................................................................................. 471 

Rights Protection ..................................................................................................... 501 

School Contributions ............................................................................................... 476 

Small and Needy Tribes .......................................................................................... 454 

Sullivan County ....................................................................................................... 480 

Testimony of Mr. Echo Hawk ................................................................................. 453 

Tribal Conflicts ........................................................................................................ 473 

Tribal Courts ............................................................................................................ 496 

Tribal Distribution ................................................................................................... 454 

Tribal Input .............................................................................................................. 488 

Tribal Interior Budget Council ............................................................................... 467 

Tribal Law and Order Act ................................................................................... 468, 491 

Tribal/Interior Budget Council (ITBC) ................................................................... 490 

Tribal-State Law Enforcement Agreements .......................................................... 484 

Trust Asset and Accounting Management System ............................................... 506 

Violent Crime ........................................................................................................... 483 

Indian Health Service FY12 Budget Oversight Hearing 

March 31, 9:30 AM 

Aberdeen, SD Regional Office ............................................................................. 552, 561 

Biography: Dr. Yvette Roubideaux ......................................................................... 521 


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Biography: Randy Grinnell ..................................................................................... 522 

Childhood Obesity .................................................................................................... 537 

Contract Health Services..................................................................................... 533, 548 

Contract Support.................................................................................................. 547, 560 

Coordination with HUD and DOI .......................................................................... 553 

Dental Services..................................................................................................... 523, 543 

Diabetes .................................................................................................................... 536 

Domestic Violence ................................................................................................ 526, 549 

Early Childhood Carries Initiative ......................................................................... 524 

Electronic Dental Records ....................................................................................... 524 

Equal Employment Opportunity ............................................................................ 539 

Head Start ................................................................................................................ 534 

Health Care Costs .................................................................................................... 560 

Health Professional Vacancies ................................................................................ 546 

HIV/AIDS ................................................................................................................. 550 

IHCIA—Facilities Provision .................................................................................... 536 

Improving Patient Care Initiative .......................................................................... 532 

Indian Health Care Improvement Act................................................................ 547, 559 

Indian Health Care Reauthorization Act ............................................................... 525 

Inventory Accountability ......................................................................................... 557 

Joint Ventures...................................................................................................... 528, 557 

Loan Repayment ...................................................................................................... 546 

Opening Remarks: Acting Chairman Cole ............................................................. 511 

Opening Remarks: Mr. Moran ................................................................................ 511 

Per Capita Health Care .......................................................................................... 547 

Questions for the Record ......................................................................................... 543 

Questions from Acting Chairman Cole .................................................................. 543 

Questions from Mr. Moran ...................................................................................... 559 

Recovery of Costs ..................................................................................................... 560 

Sanitation ............................................................................................................. 526, 552

Small Grant Program .......................................................................................... 533, 558 

Testimony of Dr. Roubideaux ................................................................................. 512 

Tribal Consultation .................................................................................................. 559 

Urban Program ........................................................................................................ 529 

Youth Suicide ........................................................................................................... 549 

National Endowment for the Arts FY12 Budget Oversight Hearing 

May 11, 9:30 AM 

Administrative Costs ............................................................................................... 590 

Applicants vs. Awards ............................................................................................. 607 

Arts and Community Development ............................................................ 585, 589, 593 

Arts in Rural America ............................................................................................. 580 

Arts in Schools ......................................................................................................... 591 

Big Read ................................................................................................................... 578

Biography: Rocco Landesman ................................................................................. 577 

Blue Star Museums ................................................................................................. 572 

Challenge America ................................................................................................... 578 

Clarifying State Matching Requirements .............................................................. 571 

Collaborations with Other Agencies ....................................................................... 572 

Conflict of Interest ................................................................................................... 605 

Continuation of the National Heritage Fellowship ............................................... 588 

Creative Placemaking .............................................................................................. 586 

Grant Selection Process ........................................................................................... 584 

Grants for Individual Artists .................................................................................. 601 


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Grants to Indian Country ....................................................................................... 590 

Grants to Organizations and Universities ............................................................. 582 

Grants to United States Territories ....................................................................... 588 

Grants to Universities ......................................................................... 583, 591, 594, 604 

Honoring Artists of All Disciplines ........................................................................ 571 

Importance of Arts in America ............................................................................... 587 

Leveraging Effect of Arts Funding ......................................................................... 586 

NEA Partnerships ................................................................................................... 596 

NEA Promoting the Arts in the Schools ................................................................ 603 

NEA Reauthorization .............................................................................................. 602 

NEA Staffing Levels ................................................................................................ 601 

Opening Remarks: Chairman Simpson .................................................................. 567 

Opening Remarks: Mr. Moran ................................................................................ 568 

Our Town...................................................................................................... 569, 579, 595 

Proposed Reductions ................................................................................................ 570 

Quality of Art Programs .......................................................................................... 581 

Questions for the Record ......................................................................................... 595 

Questions from Chairman Simpson ....................................................................... 595 

Questions from Mr. Flake ....................................................................................... 604 

Reductions to Underserved Communities .............................................................. 582 

Repeat Grant Recipients...................................................................................... 584, 604 

Role of the National Council on the Arts ............................................................... 580 

Salaries and Expenses ............................................................................................. 602 

Shakespeare in America .......................................................................................... 578 

Testimony of Chairman Landesman ...................................................................... 569 

National Endowment for the Humanities FY12 Budget Oversight Hearing 

May 11, 11:00 AM 

Opening Remarks: Chairman Simpson .................................................................. 609 

Opening Remarks: Mr. Moran ................................................................................ 609 

Testimony of Chairman Leach ................................................................................ 610 

Biography: Jim Leach .............................................................................................. 622 

Civility Tour ............................................................................................................. 623 

‘‘We the People’’ Initiative ....................................................................................... 624 

Documenting Endangered Languages .................................................................... 625 

Teaching and Scholarship ....................................................................................... 625 

‘‘EDSITEment’’ Program ......................................................................................... 626 

Support for Humanities Research vs. The Sciences ............................................. 627 

NEH Staffing ........................................................................................................... 630 

History, New Approaches to the Study of .............................................................. 630 

Smithsonian Institution FY12 Budget Oversight Hearing 

May 12, 9:30 AM 

Opening Remarks: Chairman Simpson .................................................................. 635 

Opening Remarks: Mr. Moran ................................................................................ 657 

Testimony of Secretary Clough ............................................................................... 636 

Biography: Wayne Clough ....................................................................................... 650 

Collections ................................................................................................................ 636

Visitors and Exhibitions .......................................................................................... 636 

Education .................................................................................................................. 637

On-line Education and Social Media ...................................................................... 637 

Outreach ................................................................................................................... 637

Strategic Plan .......................................................................................................... 637 


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Private Fundraising ................................................................................................. 638 

FY12 Request ........................................................................................................... 638 

Abraham Lincoln’s Pocket Watch ........................................................................... 654 

John Glenn’s Camera........................................................................................... 655, 658 

Research ................................................................................................................... 659

National Museum of African American History and Culture .............................. 659 

Arts and Industries Building .................................................................................. 661 

Smithsonian Staff .................................................................................................... 662 

Private Fundraising ................................................................................................. 662 

New Museums on the National Mall ..................................................................... 663 

Overcrowding of the Mall ........................................................................................ 666 

Social Media ............................................................................................................. 668 

Smithsonian Magazine ............................................................................................ 669 

Admissions ............................................................................................................... 670 

Latino Museum ........................................................................................................ 672 

The National Mall ................................................................................................... 676 

Folklife Festival ....................................................................................................... 677 

National Zoo ............................................................................................................. 677 

Staffing ..................................................................................................................... 677 

Smithsonian Redesign ............................................................................................. 678 

Recovery Act Funding ............................................................................................. 678 

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