INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED 

AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2011 

HEARINGS 

BEFORE A 

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE 

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND 

RELATED AGENCIES 

JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia, Chairman 

NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington 

ALAN B. MOLLOHAN, West Virginia 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York 

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota 

JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts 

ED PASTOR, Arizona 

MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho 

KEN CALVERT, California 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

TOM COLE, Oklahoma 

NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Obey, as Chairman of the Full Committee, and Mr. Lewis, as Ranking 

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

DELIA SCOTT, CHRISTOPHER TOPIK, JULIE FALKNER, 

JASON GRAY, and BRENDAN LILLY

Staff Assistants 

PART 6 

Page 

Bureau of Indian Affairs and Office of the Special 

Trustee .................................................................................... 1 

Bureau of Land Management ............................................... 55 

National Park Service ............................................................ 157 

Fish and Wildlife Service ....................................................... 263 

Department of the Interior ................................................... 339 

Smithsonian Institution ......................................................... 459 

National Gallery of Art ........................................................... 498 

Kennedy Center ....................................................................... 514 

Woodrow Wilson Center ......................................................... 544 

Presidio Trust ........................................................................... 581 

Indian Health Service ............................................................ 603 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations 


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PART 6 

DOI 

FWS 

NPS 

BLM 

OST 

BIA 

Smithsonian 

NGA 

Presidio 

Wilson Ctr. 

Ken. Ctr. 

IHS 


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INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2011 


hsrobinson on DSK69SOYB1PROD with HEARING

hsrobinson on DSK69SOYB1PROD with HEARING
INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED 

AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2011 

HEARINGS 

BEFORE A 

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE 

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND 

RELATED AGENCIES 

JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia, Chairman 

NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington 

ALAN B. MOLLOHAN, West Virginia 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York 

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota 

JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts 

ED PASTOR, Arizona 

MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho 

KEN CALVERT, California 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

TOM COLE, Oklahoma 

NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Obey, as Chairman of the Full Committee, and Mr. Lewis, as Ranking 

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

DELIA SCOTT, CHRISTOPHER TOPIK, JULIE FALKNER, 

JASON GRAY, and BRENDAN LILLY

Staff Assistants 

PART 6 

Page 

Bureau of Indian Affairs and Office of the Special 

Trustee .................................................................................... 1 

Bureau of Land Management ............................................... 55 

National Park Service ............................................................ 157 

Fish and Wildlife Service ....................................................... 263 

Department of the Interior ................................................... 339 

Smithsonian Institution ......................................................... 459 

National Gallery of Art ........................................................... 498 

Kennedy Center ....................................................................... 514 

Woodrow Wilson Center ......................................................... 544 

Presidio Trust ........................................................................... 581 

Indian Health Service ............................................................ 603 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations 

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

57–302 WASHINGTON : 2010 


hsrobinson on DSK69SOYB1PROD with HEARING
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS 

DAVID R. OBEY, Wisconsin, Chairman 

NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington 

ALAN B. MOLLOHAN, West Virginia 

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 

CHET EDWARDS, Texas 

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island 

MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York 

LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California 

SAM FARR, California 

JESSE L. JACKSON, JR., Illinois 

CAROLYN C. KILPATRICK, Michigan 

ALLEN BOYD, Florida 

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania 

STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey 

SANFORD D. BISHOP, JR., Georgia 

MARION BERRY, Arkansas 

BARBARA LEE, California 

ADAM SCHIFF, California 

MICHAEL HONDA, California 

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota 

STEVE ISRAEL, New York 

TIM RYAN, Ohio 

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida 

CIRO RODRIGUEZ, Texas 

LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee 

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado 

PATRICK J. MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

JERRY LEWIS, California 

C. W. BILL YOUNG, Florida 

HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky 

FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia 

JACK KINGSTON, Georgia 

RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New 

Jersey 

TODD TIAHRT, Kansas 

ZACH WAMP, Tennessee 

TOM LATHAM, Iowa 

ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama 

JO ANN EMERSON, Missouri 

KAY GRANGER, Texas 

MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho 

JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas 

MARK STEVEN KIRK, Illinois 

ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida 

DENNIS R. REHBERG, Montana 

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas 

RODNEY ALEXANDER, Louisiana 

KEN CALVERT, California 

JO BONNER, Alabama 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

TOM COLE, Oklahoma 

BEVERLY PHETO, Clerk and Staff Director 

(II)


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DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2011 

THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2010. 

DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR 2011 BUDGET FOR TRUST 

RESOURCES AND THE BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS 

AT THE DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR; STRENGTHENING NATIVE AMERICAN COMMUNITIES 

WITNESSES 

LARRY ECHO HAWK, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR INDIAN AFFAIRS 

DONNA M. ERWIN, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY SPECIAL TRUSTEE 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Let me first make it clear that Chairman Norm 

Dicks has done just a wonderful job with the Interior Committee. 

It is a tough act to follow. Mr. Dicks will be chairing the Defense 

Committee. 

We want to welcome Larry Echo Hawk, the Assistant Secretary 

for Indian Affairs, and I believe this is the first time you have testified before this Subcommittee, but you do have a lot of fans I understand in terms of the members of this Subcommittee, which is 

always a good thing, a lot of credibility. So we do appreciate you 

coming to testify on this fiscal year 2011 budget request. 

Last year the Indian Affairs budget received an historic 10 percent increase over the 2009 level, and the monies that were made 

available enhanced tribal government, strengthened trust resources, improved education, addressed the still intolerably high 

unemployment and crime level in Indian country. But I think we 

are all proud of this Subcommittee’s work and its recognition of the 

government’s trust responsibilities to Native Americans. 

This year, and I know you have seen the same promises that we 

have, we are going to have to deal with a domestic discretionary 

freeze and far more constrained budget climate. But this budget reflects that reality, and excluding a one-time increase in 2010 to forward fund the tribal colleges and universities, the proposed budget 

is essentially flat coming in at the same $2.6 billion. 

Now, despite these constraints, the budget includes maintenance or increased funding in some key areas, almost $20 million for contract support costs, $20 million for public safety and justice, and 

a $28 million total increase for tribal priority allocations. At the 

same time, increased funding over the last several years for construction of education and detention facilities was eliminated, and 


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I think the Subcommittee is going to want to question why that determination was made. You are also absorbing almost $20 million 

in fixed costs. That is a lot of money. I know you will want to explain why that decision was made, and if it was not made within 

the agency, maybe you could make it clear where it was made and 

how you feel about it. We have some concern that it will impact 

critical staffing needs in an agency that has consistently been 

understaffed. 

In addition, the Inspector General has been critical of BIA management and its leadership. Over 30 percent of the Inspector General’s investigations involve issues in Indian country, including 

criminal misconduct by employees, contractors and tribal officials. 

So we want to know how you are addressing these issues to ensure 

that the funding that is appropriated by this committee goes to the 

critical needs of Native Americans. 

We want to use the remainder of this hearing to discuss the Administration’s request and how it continues to advance the needs 

in Indian country. I understand that you are recused from the 

Cobell litigation and ask that we hold those questions until we 

hear from our next witness, the Acting Special Trustee. It is understandable why he chose that. We agree with that decision to abstain from discussions of that issue, but it is a very important one. 

Mr. MORAN. So with that, perhaps Mr. Dicks might like to make 

a statement, and then I would like to hear from Mr. Simpson. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Well, I will just say this. I am very pleased that Jim 

Moran has assumed the chairmanship. I know he will do an outstanding job. He has already been fully engaged for many years on 

this Subcommittee, and I look forward to working with him and I 

congratulate him on making this. It took me 30 years. How long 

did it take you? 

Mr. MORAN. It actually took you 31. I was counting. 

Mr. DICKS. You were? 

Mr. MORAN. It took me 21. 

Mr. DICKS. Twenty-one? So he and I were both Senate staffers 

together. Things happen a lot faster over there. 

Mr. MORAN. I am not sure how relevant this is to the record, but 

I actually used to work for Stormin’ Norman. 

Mr. DICKS. I hired wisely. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that 

one of the joys of being the Chairman for the last few years was 

working with Mike Simpson and Kenny and Steve and Tom Cole. 

These guys attend the meetings, as you know, because you are here 

often, too. And I think it has really been a very bipartisan—— 

Mr. MORAN. Sometimes better than our—— 

Mr. DICKS. Yeah, well, we have a lot of cardinals over here. But 

I look forward to working with you. And one of our concerns of this 

committee has always been, going back to Sid Yates, has been to 

try to do justice to tribal Americans and the leaders of the tribes 

and to try to help keep our trust responsibility. 

Mr. MORAN. And you have, and as I say, with Mr. Dicks’ impact 

upon the Native Americans of this country, they may not all be 

aware of it, but it is very substantial and it came from the heart, 

a genuine commitment. 


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Now we could hear from the very distinguished member from 

Idaho, the Ranking Member of the committee. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me echo what 

you said earlier. As I said at the last hearing, truly, it has been 

a pleasure to work with Norm. He has been a great Chairman, and 

I am glad to see that he is staying on the committee, and I look 

forward to working with you, Chairman Moran, and addressing the 

issues in the Interior budget that we face. I know both of you, as 

you said, have tough shoes to follow, and we on this side of the 

aisle would like to help you. We can do that by winning the majority more often. 

Mr. MORAN. You were going so well, you know. It was just going 

so well. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I just thought I would throw that out there. 

Mr. DICKS. Quite ambitious. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I have not been here 31 years, so you know, I got 

a few years to wait, I guess. 

But good afternoon, Director Gidner, Acting Director Stevens, 

and thank you for joining us today. It is a pleasure to see you 

again, Assistant Secretary Echo Hawk. I always appreciated your 

thoughtfulness and integrity when we served together in the Idaho 

legislature and worked on state issues, and I look forward to working with you in this new capacity as we look to address the challenges facing Indian country. 

SHOSHONE-BANNOCK TRIBAL JUSTICE CENTER

As you will recall from our last conversation, I told you that Mr. 

Cole and I had talked about and hoped to visit some of the tribes 

outside of our respective states this year, and we certainly hope 

that your schedule will allow you to join us. It was a privilege to 

join you in celebrating the grand opening of the Shoshone-Bannock 

Tribal Justice Center at Fort Hall a few weeks ago. As you know, 

the law enforcement needs across Indian country are great. In 

many cases, tribes lack both the authority and resources to make 

their communities safer and more prosperous. Faced with inadequate support from the Federal Government, the Shoshone-Bannock tribe had to take the initiative to address the needs of their 

community and find their own funding to complete construction of 

their Justice Center. The long-term success of this endeavor will require a true partnership between the tribes and the BIA. I appreciate the willingness of your office and the BIA staff to work with 

them to find the funding for operation and maintenance of this 

beautiful facility. 

I know you recognize that it is long-past time for us to find creative solutions to the law enforcement challenges facing our Native 

American communities. The opening of the Shoshone-Bannock 

Tribal Justice Center provides us with the means for implementing 

one of those solutions. Neither the BIA nor Indian country seems 

able to meet the detention needs of each tribe individually, and creating a system of regional justice centers will ensure that each 


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tribe has a place to send young people who need guidance to steer 

them away from a life of crime. 

I look forward to discussing this possibility with you further and 

seeing what role the Shoshone-Bannock Tribal Justice Center can 

play. Perhaps nowhere else in the Interior and Environment spending bill is it more apparent that this bill is about people. On Indian 

reservations, poverty is still commonplace. Unemployment and violence are higher than the national average, and incidents of infant 

mortality, alcoholism, substance abuse and suicide are far in excess 

of the rest of America. These disparities are real. They are not new, 

and they are sobering reminders that no matter what is happening 

abroad, there are people back home that need help. 

LEADERSHIP AND BUDGET

Last year, Acting Inspector General Mary Kendall, testified before this Subcommittee that DoI Indian programs are sorely understaffed, underfunded and poorly managed and that the greatest obstacle to reform is the leadership vacuum that has existed for nearly a decade as assistant secretaries in the past have served unusually short tenures. 

I am hopeful that those days are now behind us and that together we can get down to solving the myriad problems before us. 

The fiscal year 2011 budget for Indian Affairs is 8 percent above 

the fiscal year 2009 budget, but it is 2 percent below last year’s 

level. Additionally, the BIA received $500 million through the stimulus bill. This Subcommittee has increased our emphasis on public 

safety, justice, education, construction, rights protections and contract support. The fiscal year 2010 budget continues several of 

these investments in contract support, public safety and education. 

These increases come mostly at the expense of facilities construction, and I look forward today to our discussion about that. I am 

also interested in talking about the energy development on tribal 

lands and whether we are doing everything we can to help those 

tribes compete on a level playing field. 

Finally, I hope we can spend some time today talking about the 

condition of our schools, whether we are creating safe environments for children to learn and grow as I believe that education is 

the key to improving lives no matter who we are or where we live. 

More than anything, though, I hope we can spend some time today 

evaluating whether the investments we are making in Indian country are having an effect on the disparities and violence, health and 

poverty that I mentioned earlier. 

I look forward to your testimony and our discussion today as I 

always am committed to working with you to solve some of these 

problems. Thank you for being here today. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Simpson. I am going to 

get into the questions, and then we will give an opportunity to Mr. 

Calvert and Mr. Cole to make a statement precedent to their questions as well. 

I mentioned in the opening statement that the Inspector General—— 

Mr. DICKS. Are you going to let him make his statement? 

Mr. MORAN. Oh, yeah. Sure. That is a good idea. 

Mr. DICKS. Good idea. 


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Mr. MORAN. Yeah. 

Mr. DICKS. Novel concept. 

Mr. MORAN. When you address this, I hope in your statement 

that you will address this issue of the concerns of the Inspector 

General, and I trust you will, and how you are going about correcting some of the situations that the Inspector General alluded 

to in terms of the management of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. We look forward to your testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY LARRY ECHO HAWK

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Well, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I appreciate this opportunity to appear before your committee to discuss the budget of the President for Indian Affairs, 

and may I just first congratulate you for your chairmanship, and 

I guess that is to both Congressman Moran and Congressman 

Dicks for new assignments. And I am very pleased to be with you 

today. I testified last week in the Senate, and it seems like a different atmosphere in here. This feels much better just to sit with 

you at a table. 

Mr. DICKS. We know how you feel. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. But as the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, I particularly appreciate the comments that were made about 

doing justice and fulfilling the trust responsibilities of the United 

States. I feel the responsibility on my shoulders as well to do that. 

I did not seek appointment as the Assistant Secretary, and it was 

not lost upon me that in the last 8 years there have been six different people either in a confirmed or acting capacity to hold the 

position that I hold. And when I was called to serve here, I struggled with that a bit but decided to leave the comfortable confines 

of being a law professor and coming and doing what I can to serve 

and serve effectively. 

I think many of you know my background, but I just wanted to 

highlight a few points. I am a lawyer, and from the very beginning 

of my graduation from law school, I wanted to be a tribal lawyer. 

And my dream came true in 1977 when I was selected to be the 

Chief General Legal Counsel for Idaho’s largest tribe located near 

Congressman Simpson’s hometown, Blackfoot. I was able to serve 

in that position for 9 years, but since I left there in 1986, I have 

not had full-time employment in the area of Indian law. I went into 

elective office in the legislature as a county attorney, as attorney 

general, and for the last 14 years I have served as a law professor. 

I have taught Federal Indian Law, but I have never worked for the 

Federal Government and I feel like I have been somewhat disconnected from Indian affairs on a full-time basis in that time span. 

But I am back, and I can tell you I feel like I have got the most 

difficult job in America. I feel like I have been facing a pretty steep 

learning curve to figure out things that are plaguing the federal 

bureaucracy in Indian Affairs. It has been good for me to learn that 

there are many dedicated and hardworking people in the Office of 

the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs and then the Bureau of 

Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Indian Education. But certainly 

the Inspector General reports get my attention. And when we receive a report like that, you know, it is our responsibility to react 

and react in an effective way. 


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Many of the reports that I am sure are going to be referenced 

in the hearing occurred prior to my coming on board 9 months ago. 

But nevertheless, I feel responsibility to be aware of those reports 

and to do what I can to follow up. 

I have with me today the Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Jerry Gidner, and the Acting Director of the Bureau of Indian 

Education, Bart Stevens. And before I go any further, I just want 

to say something about the visits that were mentioned by Congressman Simpson and Congressman Cole. I would want to extend 

an invitation to all of the committee members at any time. If you 

have time available to travel in Indian country, I would like to accompany you to visit some of the Indian communities and facilities 

and see some of the issues and problems that we have out there 

in various regions of the country. But in particular, as the new 

Chairman, Congressman Moran, I would like to have the opportunity to travel with you and to visit Indian country. 

The budget I think has been outlined by the Chairman, and I 

will not make any further comments on that. But I do want you 

to know that I think it has the imprint to a large extent of Indian 

tribal leaders because the Tribal Budget Advisory Council is something that I have learned about in the last 9 months, and it is our 

official mechanism to get input on budget priorities from tribal 

leaders. All 12 regions are represented by representatives from 

tribal government that give us their input. We are already in the 

process of working on the 2012 budget with this committee. So 

these are not priorities that are picked out of the air, but tribal 

leaders are giving us some guidance. 

In addition to that, I have tried my best to travel throughout Indian country and meet directly with tribal leaders to hear their 

concerns. I have been to pretty much every region of the country 

already and heard what they have to say. 

This has been a tough year for the budget with the fiscal realities that exist, and we have had to make some tough choices. Given 

the guidance that is given to us by tribal leaders, we have tried to 

emphasize the priority areas that they would like us to give attention to, but we have also had to make some tough decisions. With 

regard to our internal administrative operations, the cut in our cost 

will be uncomfortable for us and challenging, but that has been 

done in order to meet tribal priorities for the programs that make 

a difference. I know that we have management issues within our 

federal ranks, but I think the tribes even have greater challenges 

that face them. 

And so I look forward to having some discussion with you about 

some of those tough choices that we have made. Thank you very 

much. 

[The statement of Larry Echo Hawk follows:] 


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INSPECTOR GENERAL REPORTS

Mr. MORAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Assistant Secretary. The 

concern about what was cited in the Inspector General’s report I 

suspect is shared by all the Subcommittee members. Some of it is 

simply a lack of continuity in terms of management of the Bureau. 

It is very difficult to get a handle on what is going on when you 

are only there for 6 to 18 months at a time. So we trust you have 

a commitment to stay there for some period of time to really make 

a transformative difference. 

But the incidents of criminal misconduct by tribal officials, contractors, employees, the theft from Indian tribal organizations, the 

illegal disposal of petroleum products, many of these hurt the Native American people the most. So I hope we are going to get a handle on that. Of course, when that is going on at the top level, it 

makes it even more difficult to address the problems of crime at 

the individual and family level. 

CRIME IN INDIAN COUNTRY

The Department of Justice shows that many areas of Indian 

country have the very highest crime rates throughout the country, 

and this committee had the hearing last year and it has been a 

continuing concern. The rate of violent crime in Indian country is 

twice what it is throughout the country. Maybe it does start at the 

top. But I would like to know what you are doing about that and 

if you could also expand a bit on an issue of particular concern that 

was addressed in the report last year dealing with the BIA appropriation. More than 1/3 of Native American women will be sexually 

assaulted in their lifetime, and almost 40 percent will suffer from 

domestic violence. That is an intolerable situation. And the Subcommittee provided a substantial increase in funding to address 

that. 

So that would be the one area I would like for you to address before hearing from other members of the Subcommittee. If you 

would address that, Mr. Echo Hawk? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. A few 

comments on the remarks that you just made. With regard to Inspector General reports, I think I have already mentioned that I 

will take those very seriously and follow up to do what we need to 

do to take corrective action. But I consider it to be even more important that we practice prevention to make sure that we do not 

have Inspector General reports coming down. And I think this may 

be one of the challenging things that I have because I think a lot 

of people believe that we have had some history of that kind of mismanagement occurring. I think we have got a lot of good people, 

but I think there is room for improvement. And I am not able to 

micromanage an organization that has over 9,000 employees. I 

think my responsibility is to set a good example and select people 

that know, that are quality managers and let them do their jobs 

but hold them accountable for the responsibilities that they have. 

With regard to the crime occurring in Indian country, I think 

this is perhaps an area where I have an opportunity to make the 

greatest contribution. It is clearly a priority of the President and 

Secretary Salazar, and I got a feeling maybe that is why I was seVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:10 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 057302 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A302P2.XXX A302P2

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lected to serve in this position because as a law professor, I teach 

criminal law, criminal procedure, criminal trial practice, evidence, 

Federal Indian Law, but I am a former prosecuting attorney for 

Idaho’s fourth-largest county and attorney general. In Idaho, the 

attorney general is the chief law enforcement officer for the State. 

So in virtually any kind of crime activity that is occurring I have 

had hands-on experience. When you mention the violent crimes 

perpetrated against women and children, as a county prosecutor 

and as an attorney general, we had to work in the state system to 

address those kinds of problems. They are more aggravated within 

Indian country, and I will give that special attention. In fact, I 

think I am scheduled—I get a lot of invitations to address groups, 

and there is a meeting coming up where I am flying out to Albuquerque to address Federal law enforcement officers on that subject. And I think staff might tell me that is not worth doing because I have got a lot of other things, but when I said yes, I think 

that is an example of the kind of priority that I placed on that particular area. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Assistant Secretary. Mr. Dicks. 

Okay. Mike. Mr. Simpson. 

REGIONAL DETENTION CENTERS

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Last year’s conference 

report, as I said in my opening statement, included language encouraging the BIA to consider establishing regional detention centers at new or existing facilities. Can you describe some of the pros 

and cons of this and what you are doing to address this issue and 

what is the BIA working on in that regard? It just seems to me like 

it makes sense that we could create some regional detention facilities that would be good ones rather than the, as you know, having 

visited Fort Hall Reservation, the old detention centers and stuff. 

I said during the meeting out there that the conditions in it were 

really deplorable. Does it make sense to have regional detention facilities? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Thank you. Congressman Simpson, I appreciated having that opportunity to be with you at Fort Hall because 

it is a nice thing to see an Indian community step forward and do 

what it takes to get a detention center and justice center in place 

using their own resources. That is actually, I think, given the history of the trust responsibility, something the United States could 

have stepped up to do, but the tribe did not wait for that to occur 

because of the demands that are there in the community. 

But with limited resources, I think that we have to be smart 

about how we use whatever construction dollars are available and 

the regional detention strategy to me makes the most sense with 

those limited dollars that we have to be strategic about where we 

are placing those facilities so that a number of tribes will be able 

to benefit from detention services. 

DETENTION CENTER CONSTRUCTION

Mr. SIMPSON. Your budget proposes along the same lines as safety and justice, a reduction of $41.5 million for public safety and justice construction because the funding overlapped with the Department of Justice. However, the Justice budget says very little about 


hsrobinson on DSK69SOYB1PROD with HEARING
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its plans for tribal construction in fiscal year 2011, let alone any 

5-year construction plan as is required by this committee. 

I think the committee has expressed some concerns about the 

commitment of the Department of Justice in some of these areas. 

Are we just kind of turning things over and hoping that the Department of Justice will fill in the hole here? And do we have any 

assurance that they are going to do that? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Congressman Simpson, when I took over this 

job, one of the first things I learned about is the division of responsibilities. I think before taking this job I could not have told you 

who actually had responsibility for detention construction. But that 

has been mainly a responsibility, although not totally, within the 

Department of Justice. And it became very clear to me that what 

we need is coordination between and collaboration with the Department of Justice. And we have tried to do that, and it has not just 

been at my level but it has been very good to see the Secretary of 

the Interior and Deputy Secretary of the Interior engage with their 

counterparts in the Department of Justice in talking about that 

kind of collaboration. And we will continue to make that effort to 

come up with sensible ways of identifying where facilities for detention and correction should be located and how they should be financed and where the operation and maintenance is going to come 

from. 

There have been some sore examples in Indian country that I 

have learned about where facilities have been built by the Justice 

Department with no forethought being given as to how they were 

going to be operated and maintained. And thus, what you end up 

with are facilities sitting out there that are unoccupied, and I think 

that is unacceptable absolutely. And we have got to do better in the 

future to make sure that we are properly coordinated. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Do you think it would be helpful? And I ask this 

of both the Chairman and you, some of us have talked about having a joint hearing with the BIA and Justice to talk about this. My 

concern is that we take your approach on this and we expect Justice to put this $41 million in for construction, and 4 or 5 years 

down the road we are back into stove-piping and so forth and we 

do not have the cross-coordination and we do it somehow. The 

longer I have sat on this committee, the more I have learned how 

complicated it is between these departments that have certain responsibilities. I have wondered if it would not be helpful to have 

a joint committee hearing at some point in time with the members 

of the—— 

Mr. MORAN. Perhaps we could discuss that with Mr. Mollohan. 

FBI STAFFING IN INDIAN COUNTRY

Mr. SIMPSON. Yeah, I think it would be good because these two 

are intimately intertwined in what we do. As an example, this 

budget proposes an increase of $19 million for 81 FBI employees 

dedicated to investigating crime on reservations, something that is 

sorely needed. Right now as I understand, there are 105 FBI 

agents currently working in Indian country as collateral duty. We 

approve this and hire the 81 FBI employees. They will be dedicated 

to working just on the reservations, and what happens to the 105? 

Will that be an adjunct to them or does the Justice Department figVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:10 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 057302 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A302P2.XXX A302P2

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ure that if you are going to add 81, then they can take the 105 and 

use them for other purposes and they no longer spend that time on 

the reservation? 

And that is the kind of thing I would like to work out with them 

before we do this so that we know what we are doing is actually 

enhancing the criminal investigations activities of the FBI and so 

forth. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Congressman Simpson, our intent, strong intent, is to make sure we are supplementing federal law enforcement activity within Indian country, and whatever resources are 

there presently, we want to add to that. And having that money 

coming through Interior at least puts us in a position to make sure 

that that is where the money is going, to enhance federal law enforcement. 

We have a good start. We are working well with the Department 

of Justice right now, and I have confidence that we are going to be 

able to assure that that is how things are being done. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I am glad to hear that you and the Department of 

Justice are working together, but we in Congress need to make 

sure also that we, between our subcommittees, are working together so that we do not just appropriate some money and hope 

that same amount is being done by the Commerce, Justice, Science 

Committee and then find out that it is not being done. So I think 

we all need to work together. 

Mr. MORAN. Perhaps, Mr. Simpson, we could have our staff discuss it with the staff of the Commerce, Justice, Science Subcommittee and see if we can get a recommendation of how we 

might coordinate that. It is a very good suggestion. Thank you, Mr. 

Simpson. Mr. Dicks. 

POLITICAL LEADERSHIP STAFFING

Mr. DICKS. Let me ask just a couple quick questions. One, have 

you been able to get your people in place, the various spots in your 

department? There has been a certain amount of slowness in getting people in place in this Administration. I just wondered if that 

has affected you. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Congressman Dicks, we have been very fortunate to be able to clear the political leadership. I have four people 

that I work with that are political leadership, and I think that 

went fairly rapidly. I actually thought I was going to come on a little sooner. It took me 121 days to be confirmed, and I thought that 

was a long time and they told me that was record speed. So I felt 

lucky after I heard that. But the other people did not have to be 

confirmed, and that was a lot of help when those political leadership people came on board and they have been working very effectively. 

CRIME IN INDIAN COUNTRY

Mr. DICKS. One of the things when we retook the majority that 

we reinstituted, which I hope we will always do no matter who is 

in the majority, is having the tribal leaders come in and testify before the committee. One of the things that came up was this anomaly I think in the law that says if somebody comes onto an Indian 

reservation and assaults a woman, that the maximum penalty is 


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1 year. Now, is that being addressed in this interagency operation 

with the Justice Department or should Congress try to change the 

law up here? With your background, do you know much about this? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Well, the 1-year maximum penalty would be 

the rule that applies to a tribal government, meaning that a tribal 

government—— 

Mr. DICKS. Oh, the tribal government can only do one year? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. One year. The Federal Government—— 

Mr. DICKS. I see. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK [continuing]. Has jurisdiction under the Indian 

Major Crimes Act and the Indian Country Crimes Act, and those 

penalties, of course, can be very stringent, and that would apply to 

both Indian and non-Indian offenders that commit crimes against 

Indian people. So, federal law is strong. I think the concern of native leaders has been, is it being enforced? Is the United States investigating and prosecuting those crimes? 

FBI STAFFING IN INDIAN COUNTRY

Mr. DICKS. I thought the number was 50 FBI agents are going 

to be hired by the BIA, is that correct? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Under the budget proposal, the $19 million, 

that is 81 FTE. 

Mr. DICKS. Eighty-one? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Eighty-one FTE. So they are not all FBI agents 

because they need support staff. 

Mr. DICKS. Okay. Well, that is good. And the reason we are paying for this in the Interior budget is you do not want to have to 

argue this out with Justice. You want to make sure that these people will be under your authority, is that correct? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. That is correct, Congressman. 

Mr. DICKS. So what are you going to do with these? What is your 

game plan for these people? Is it to go out and try to get into some 

of these cases that have not been prosecuted before? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Congressman Dicks, I think the complaint of 

tribal leaders is that there is not swift, effective investigation and 

prosecution, and the response that I think that they get from Federal officials is we do not have the resources. So this is meant to 

add additional resources for Federal law enforcement. Having said 

that, I cannot resist but say the answer is not only in upgrading 

Federal law enforcement because that is felony class offense that 

we are talking about there. One of my major concerns would be 

making sure that tribal law enforcement, that is, dealing with the 

lower echelon of crimes, basically misdemeanor offenses, are also in 

a position to do effective investigation and policing because that is 

not something that the Federal Government is normally doing. 

They can prosecute some lower level crimes, but that is not usually 

what they do. So the tribal systems have to be strong and healthy 

as well, not just federal systems. 

Mr. DICKS. So we need to continue to work on tribal law enforcement which we have supported on this committee. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Along the same line, one of the problems that we 

learned about when we had the women coming and talking about 

the domestic violence against women on reservations was that oftentimes when a case should be prosecuted by the Federal GovernVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:10 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 057302 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A302P2.XXX A302P2

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ment, the first responders to a crime are going to be local individuals. And when it comes time to actually take a case to court, the 

FBI comes to investigate and the first responders have not been 

trained well enough to take the evidence and protect the evidence 

at the crime scene. So as you said, we need to do a much better 

job with those tribal law enforcement officers that are there and 

training them also on how to respond to crime scenes so the evidence is preserved so that if the FBI takes it over, they have a case 

they can prosecute. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. That is right, Congressman. I think you said 

that very well. 

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman. 

JONES ACADEMY

Mr. DICKS. Last year we asked you to do a report on the Jones 

Academy. You and I had a conversation about it. Are you ready yet 

or are you going to need a little more time or have you made a decision on what we are going to do? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Congressman Dicks, I am not exactly sure what 

the timeframe is. I think we are very close to doing that. I think 

we are ready to—there may be somebody in the room that knows 

exactly what the timeframe is. 

Mr. MORAN. There is a gentleman that apparently does. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. The report is due at the end of March. We are 

on it. 

Mr. DICKS. And again, we are hopeful we can work out some accommodation here. Thank you. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Cole. 

REMARKS OF MR. COLE

Mr. COLE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and welcome in 

your new capacity. Actually, the first time I met you, Mr. Secretary, you seemed like such a nice guy. I loved the bio. You were 

in Oklahoma visiting Indian country, and then you told me you 

were going to slip down the next day, and watch Brigham-Young 

play the University of Oklahoma. You apologized for how bad it 

was going to be for Brigham-Young. As I recall, we got upset and 

our quarterback was put out for the next four games. That is not 

unusual on this committee. Mr. Simpson has done that to me with 

the Boise State Bullies, and Mr. Calvert routed us in the 2005 national championship game. So I am getting tired of being the junior 

member on this committee, I got to tell you. 

Mr. MORAN. Just rubbing it in. 

Mr. COLE. Yeah, I was going to say. I thought a little more respect to the committee would be appropriate. 

Mr. MORAN. Beyond the Boise State Bullies treatment, BrighamYoung, when the Assistant Secretary played, he led the Western 

Athletic Conference, and in one year he had six interceptions? That 

is amazing. Nice job. That is not particularly relevant to the—— 

Mr. COLE. Just in defense of my alma mater and our program, 

I want to point out Chairman Dicks was actually trained by a graduate by the University of Oklahoma, his football coach, in the Bud 

Wilkinson era. So we are going to be back guys. 


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Mr. MORAN. Are there any other questions? 

Mr. COLE. I actually have a series of questions. I am sorry. I 

could not resist. 

I have several things in many areas. Number one, I appreciate 

what the Administration did last year, I really do. I thought it was 

dramatic. I appreciate the work that you did, Mr. Dicks, as our 

Chairman and we made a lot of progress. And I understand the 

budgetary realities that call for the situation we are in now. 

TRIBAL GRANT SUPPORT

Right now we are doing about 94 percent of the contract support 

costs for the obligations tribes have for non-school programs. I am 

hearing from a variety of tribes across the country, tribes in my 

own state, and tribes in other states, that they are going to operate 

their own schools, which I think is a very good thing and something that we ought to be encouraging. It is sort of like healthcare. 

When the tribes operate it, frankly, they tend to do a better job 

than the Indian Health Service on its own. However, we are only 

doing a very modest increase in the money. We are only doing 

about 66 percent of the cost of contract services for schools that are 

actually operated by tribes. 

So I would like to know why the discrepancy and is this an area 

where you are going to try to shrink that differential a little bit? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Congressman Cole, good point, and I think there is $3 million in this budget proposal for tribal grant schools 

for their contract support. And I think the answer is that we are 

responding to the priorities of tribal leaders, and that is why we 

have—in the budget it seems like we are favoring contract support 

for tribal government and we did not boost the tribal grant schools 

as much. But again, the TBAC Organization will be presenting 

their priorities to us very soon. We are interested in increasing the 

tribal grant school support, contract support. So yes, we are focused 

on that, and I think you will see, probably, tribes moving in that 

same direction with their recommendations. 

Mr. COLE. Please do. Those governments will look after themselves first. I really do think the schools will be much, much better 

when they are operated tribally and actually people are very then 

accountable to their constituency. 

JOHNSON-O’MALLEY

The second question, sort of related, and again this is, please, not 

aimed at you or the Administration because this a sin that goes 

back for a long time, but Johnson-O’Malley money is another place 

where we once again, there were cuts. We have not really increased 

this since 1995, so we have a succession of administrations who 

have decided this is not a priority, and yet we have got an awful 

lot of native kids in the public school system in various parts of the 

country without really much appreciation for their needs, their culture, or their history in many cases. 

So could you tell us sort of your view of where you think we are 

headed down the road with the Johnson-O’Malley program which 

has been shoved off and forgotten in recent years? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Congressman Cole, of course we have responsibility for the second-largest federal school system, and that may 


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seem to be our priority in making sure the 183 schools that we 

have responsibility for are properly funded. But we also understand 

that most Native American students by a great margin attend public schools, and the Johnson-O’Malley funds have been important 

because they meet unique needs of native students that are attending public schools. I am just starting to learn more about this, but 

at a recent meeting in Idaho, an Indian educator came up to me 

and talked to me about the fact that in some years, JohnsonO’Malley had just been cut out of the budget. It is good news that 

it is back in the budget, but the bad news is they are operating on 

student counts I understand that were formed in the mid- or 

early—— 

Mr. COLE. 1995, actually. It has been frozen, the account, since 

then. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. And that does not make much sense, does it, 

to operate on numbers that are old? We ought to update the student counts, and if it is worth keeping, I would advocate for funding that at an appropriate level. 

MINERAL RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT

Mr. COLE. I would very much appreciate if you would look at 

that. And just one more question if I may, Mr. Chairman. I do not 

want to monopolize time. I have got a whole list. When we had a 

previous hearing with the Bureau of Land Management, I asked 

them a question that may be more appropriately addressed to you 

about the management of Native American mineral resources. We 

know the pace of development on federal lands tends to be a lot 

slower honestly than it does in adjacent areas that are in the private sector. I do not know if that is the case in terms of trust lands. 

So I would like to know, number one, what is the state of tribal 

mineral development? We have a lot of tribes that hold very considerable resources but I think many have a hard time developing 

them, marketing them, and a lot of them are in pretty distant locations where that is probably the best economic asset that they 

have. So I would like your view of whether or not we are doing 

what we need to do and whether or not the development there 

takes longer than it would in comparably privately held land that 

is adjacent to trust land? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Congressman Cole, I will make a comment and 

perhaps Director of Bureau of Indian Affairs might want to supplement what I say, but there are 55 million acres of trust lands, and 

the United States has a vital role to play under Federal law in 

making sure that if there is going to be development on those 

lands, we have to give approvals for various things. So that means 

we have to have the Federal employees on staff to be able to carry 

out the function of granting permits for surveys or drilling permits 

or leases, a number of things that occur. There are also other Federal agencies that have responsibilities. 

I think there are a lot of potential mineral development opportunities within Indian country, and recently there was a discovery of 

oil and gas in Montana that kind of spotlighted some of the problems that we have because when the oil fields were discovered, the 

tribes were not able to get into the production quick enough so that 

actually surrounding landowners around the Indian country were 


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drilling and taking the resource, and we were lagging behind because the federal permitting was slow. And of course, we reacted. 

It was before I came, but Interior Department reacted by pouring 

in additional resources to make sure that it would speed up that 

process. That is what we should do. We are the trustee. But it kind 

of spotlighted the problems that we are experiencing. That is part 

of our budget this year to make sure that we have sustained activities so that native people are treated fairly in being able to extract 

those resources that will create revenue and jobs for their communities. 

Mr. COLE. Well, thank you for your focus on that. If there is anything that we can do legislatively to help you in terms of facilitating that process, please let us know or come forward with recommendations because it really is very important, as you know, to 

a lot of tribal people. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MORAN. I think you speak for the entire Subcommittee on 

that. That is just inherently unfair, and I am glad you brought it 

up, Mr. Cole, and it is an excellent response, Mr. Echo Hawk. Mr. 

Olver. 

HOUSING ON RESERVATIONS

Mr. OLVER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and congratulations on 

your assumption of the gavel, to take nothing away from the 

former Chairman, but he assumed a new gavel, too, in that process. Congratulations to you on that. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you. Thank you. 

Mr. OLVER. I have many questions as I often do in these sorts 

of situations, but most of my questions—when someone else asks 

questions, I want to have additional clarification. First of all, let 

me just say, Mr. Chairman, I chair the Subcommittee on Housing 

and Transportation. It turns out it is my Subcommittee that deals 

with housing on reservations and with the building of roads on the 

reservations at least. So I would like to be included in any discussions that you might have with the Commerce—— 

Mr. MORAN. Consider it done. 

Mr. OLVER [continuing]. Current Ranking Member and my Ranking Member, of course, as well, certainly not to leave him out in 

this so that we might look at the quality of life on the reservations 

and Indian country in a comprehensive kind of way. 

Mr. MORAN. Excellent suggestion. 

FBI STAFFING IN INDIAN COUNTRY

Mr. OLVER. So that said, I would like to go back to the detention 

center business. The 81 FTEs, how many of those are going to be 

actual FBI agents? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Congressman, my understanding is approximately 45 of those FTEs would be agents, FBI agents. 

Mr. OLVER. So 45 are FBI. And would it be fair to expect that 

the FBI agents themselves would be the highest paid of those FTEs 

that are involved in that grouping or would that not be a fair assumption? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Congressman, I do not have any specific knowledge on this. I would have to guess probably like most people in 


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the room that the agents would probably be, upper tier employees, 

but they would also have drug intelligence analysts, as an example, 

and there may be people that are not classified as an FBI agent 

that would still be fairly significant. But other staff would be lower 

level. 

Mr. DICKS. Could you yield just for a quick point? 

Mr. OLVER. Sure. 

Mr. DICKS. Who would manage this? Who is going to be responsible for this entity or agency, whatever it is? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Congressman Dicks, it will be the Justice Department. This is their—— 

Mr. DICKS. It is going to be Justice? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK [continuing]. Personnel. We will have—— 

Mr. DICKS. Are they going to manage it or you guys are going 

to manage it? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. They will. These are their employees, and it is 

their responsibility so they will be doing the work. But we will 

have some leverage when we send the money over. There is going 

to be some kind of agreement I anticipate about how that money 

is going to be distributed, what it is going to go for, and where it 

is going to be. 

Mr. OLVER. But it is paid out of your budget? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Yes, it is coming through our budget. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you. 

Mr. OLVER. Well, the reason I ask that is that $19 million provides about $235,000 per FTE, and I guess I would love to see what 

the breakdown is of how that plays out. I do not know what the 

salaries are of people and what other things go into that budget of 

$19 million. 

How many FBI agents are there in Indian country? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Congressman, I have seen the figure of 105 

presented. 

Mr. OLVER. One hundred five? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. One hundred five. 

Mr. OLVER. And so the 45 will be a significant addition. Can you 

tell me how many of them are tribal members, how many of these 

are members of the tribes? 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Congressman, I do not have a figure on that. 

I have met Native Americans that are federal agents, but I have 

no idea how many there are. I would say not many, but there are 

some. 

Mr. OLVER. Would it be wise or is it unwise that the FBI agents 

be Native Americans—after all, people on reservations need jobs, 

too. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Congressman, I think with unemployment running on some reservations as high as 85 percent, any job that you 

can get is something very valuable to the community. 

Mr. OLVER. These sound like higher paying jobs than virtually 

anything that otherwise would be on the reservation. So it seems 

to me they ought to be valuable. I am very curious, how many of 

the 105 are held by Native Americans, and what plan is there for 

training FBI agents deliberately for the work that has to be done 

on Indian reservations. 


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Mr. ECHO HAWK. Congressman, I am prompted to also say that 

from my past experience I used to actually do criminal defense for 

native people charged with major crimes in Federal Court. And I 

worked with a lot of FBI agents, and one of the challenges that 

they have traditionally had is that as they try to do their law enforcement jobs, there has been some distance and distrust among 

the native community to outside Federal officers coming in. And 

that I think has made it difficult for them to be effective in their 

jobs. So the more native people you could get to fill these positions, 

that is even better because you would naturally expect that they 

would be able to be accepted better in those communities. 

Mr. OLVER. That strikes me, sir, as somewhat of an understatement, but a very carefully worded statement in any case. 

What are the major reasons for detention? Can you give me a 

sense of how many people in Indian country and on the reservations are in detention and what are the major reasons for that? 

Maybe this is too much. I should not be throwing this at you in 

this kind of a way. Take time, answer please on paper or something. Give us a—— 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. Congressman, we would be happy to—— 

Mr. OLVER [continuing]. Sense of what that is. 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. We would be happy to look into this and maybe 

respond in writing and give you some more specific information, 

but my memory banks at my age are not strong enough to help me 

remember specific figures that I have read, but in general, I think 

there is a very high proportion of native people that are incarcerated. And I think that is very unfortunate but it is just you know, 

a result of the problems that we are experiencing in law enforcement is that when you have high crime, you have high incarceration rates as well. 

ARRA FUNDING

Mr. OLVER. And if you have high joblessness, you have high 

crime and so on it goes. I wanted to explore with you the ARRA 

funding. My understanding is you got $300 million of money under 

ARRA for educational facilities and detention centers and such? 

What is the proportion that went to education and what to detention centers? 

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Stevens may want to—— 

Mr. ECHO HAWK. I think the figure that is in my mind, Congressman, is we have $285 million for detention and education, and I 

think staff is going to have to tell me what the breakdown was between education and detention. 

[The information follows:] 

DETENTION POPULATION

According to the Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistic’s Bulletin 

Jails in Indian Country, 2008, published in December 2009, federal, state, and tribal authorities held 921 per 100,00 American Indians and Alaska Natives, which is 

about 21% higher than the overall national incarceration rate if 759 per 100,000 

persons other than American Indians or Alaska Natives. 

Ms. MARY JANE MILLER. $7 million went to detention centers, 

and the balance went to education and construction. 


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Mr. OLVER. Okay, there must be also some administrative monies in that if 285 went for the construction accounts. I think $300 

million in total was appropriated for that. Okay. That is a small 

difference among friends. 

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Olver, they started a vote, and perhaps we 

could—it started at 2:58, so it just started. But I wanted to give 

Mr. Calvert an opportunity to ask questions, and then maybe we 

could let these gentlemen go before we get to the next, which is the 

Special Trustee. Did you have one last one? 

Mr. OLVER. Well, now that I am into the ARRA funding, I was 

going for a while. 

Mr. MORAN. Well, I sensed that. 

Mr. OLVER. I just got started on that. 

Mr. MORAN. I sensed that. 

Mr. OLVER. I will let you go Mr. Calvert. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Olver. Mr. Calvert. 

REVENUE GENERATING AT SCHOOLS

Mr. CALVERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I, too, want to 

thank Chairman Dicks for the great job he did and I look forward 

to serving with him on other committees and look forward to serving with him on this committee in the future. 

As has been pointed out, we have a bunch of challenges especially at BIE schools. I have an Indian school in my district, Sherman Indian High School. It has been a tradition in my region for 

some time. I was visiting there not too long ago, and, as with all 

the schools, they are having difficulty meeting their maintenance 

budgets, operation and maintenance costs because of the budget 

challenges that we are having. And so my questions are going toward maybe some out-of-the-box thinking about how we can get 

some additional revenue to the schools so they can get caught up 

on some of their maintenance backlog. Part of that is public/private 

partnerships. Some of these schools may have resources at the 

school that they can share in the community, renting their facilities 

when they are not being used for instruction for additional revenue. Possibly the land itself can be leased for additional revenue 

if it does not interfere with the ongoing school operations, and 

hopefully those dollars are not fungible in the sense that they are 

taken away from their normal operating budget. They can stay at 

the school, per se, not be put back into the treasury, and these 

schools can go ahead and use these additional dollars to fix the 

school classrooms for instance or buy computers or to do the normal day-to-day operational maintenance on those facilities. 

Also, charitable giving. You know, there are many public and private schools in America, where the staff are actually encouraged to 

go out and get charitable contributions to assist with putting together scholarship funds for instance or other types of endeavors, 

that brings additional revenue to the table which, quite frankly, 

right now under these challenges, we are just not going to be able 

to do. And so I just wanted your comment, Mr. Secretary, on 

whether or not we need rule changes or regulatory change or possibly legislation if in fact you are not able to do that administratively. So would you like to answer that? 


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Mr. ECHO HAWK. Thank you, Congressman. You know, I will give 

a response, and with the Chairman’s permission, I will have the 

Acting BIE Director give additional information. But first thing I 

would like to say is with regard to all of your questions, I would 

be happy to sit down with you with my staff and work through 

these things to see what we can do to be helpful to that particular 

institution, and that may generate some ideas and it would apply 

to other schools as well. But I would like to do that, but I want 

to make sure I am staying within the parameters of law. I know 

that we have partnerships that are operating in BIE schools right 

now, so there must be some specific ways that we can do that. I 

am not sure about the—I think we can receive charitable gifts, but 

we have got to do it the right way. And so let me just defer to Mr. 

Stevens. 

Mr. STEVENS. Sure. Thank you for your question, and I remember recently we met at Sherman Indian High School and discussed 

just this very issue, and it revolved around a tribe in California 

that has since confirmed a donation of a large sum of money over 

time. And the research that we have done allows something like 

that to happen, and it will be happening very soon, the part about 

the charitable donation. As far as the use of the grounds, the use 

of the facilities to lease out, that was something that we are still 

looking into. We also are looking into using land base for billboard 

advertisement, things like that, to raise funds to help the school 

and to ensure that those funds stay at the school, and that we are 

still exploring. I know there were some challenges when we were 

getting a legal opinion from the Solicitor’s Office on how exactly 

that could happen. The good news in this whole story is that the 

money that the tribe is giving is coming forward, and it will be 

used specifically at Sherman Indian High School to develop a pathways program that involves not just instructional delivery techniques or improvements in those instructional delivery but identifying pathways for a specific student in what we call science, math, 

engineering and technology programs. And so we are moving forward with that, and we are really excited about doing just that. 

Mr. CALVERT. And I appreciate that, and I remember meeting 

with the gentlemen at the campus. The reason I bring that up, it 

could be a significant amount of money to help and I suspect there 

are other schools around the country that are in a similar plight, 

though maybe not have the same regional advantage that this particular school has to bring in significant revenue. But it is an opportunity there, and I think it could bring significant revenue to 

the school. It could assist that school in becoming a premiere school 

that the students are proud to attend and make it a win-win situation for the students and for the community. So I think we ought 

to look into that, Mr. Chairman, and maybe work together to come 

up with a common solution. And I will be happy to meet with you 

at any time to do that, both on the charitable contributions and 

using these facilities for public/private partnerships that obviously 

has to benefit the school. If it does not benefit the school, then do 

not enter into the agreement. Thank you. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Calvert. I think at this point, and 

if the members of the Subcommittee have no objection, the vote is 

taking place, so we could recess until about 3:30 at which time we 


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would take up the Office of Special Trustee, and we want to 

thank—Mr. Olver, did you have a quick question you wanted to get 

in to Mr. Echo Hawk before we conclude? 

DETENTION FACILITY FUNDING

Mr. OLVER. Well, I will try to do this in summary. I am looking at this. I first solicited that there was only a little under $18 million that went to detention facilities, but I see that in the new 

budget, looking at the budget year by year, there was in the ’09 

budget, $32 million for replacement and new construction and for 

improvement and repair. The one which is new facilities and the 

improvement and repair is sort of state of good repair. In the 2010 

budget, the appropriation was a total of $52 million for those two 

categories, and suddenly the whole program for facilities replacement and new construction has been requested as zero for the new 

one with only $4 million, a drop of $50-some million in the detention facility account. 

Now, my guess is a good portion of those detention facilities from 

what I have heard at other times and what I think you have suggested is that some of those ought to be leveled and started again. 

And I am very worried that this budget is going so low on detention facilities, though personally I would rather create jobs than detention facilities. If those are needed, if the detention facilities are 

absolutely needed, then this is not a direction that we ought to be 

headed in, it seems to me. 

Mr. MORAN. Is it a matter of unobligated balances that would be 

able to be spent, available to spend in fiscal year 2011, or was it 

just a policy matter? 

Mr. GIDNER. My understanding is the decrease in detention center financing is because the Department of Justice received a large 

amount of recovery money to build detention centers, and a number of those will be coming on line. And we worked with them in 

the grant processes to identify where those facilities are going to 

go. 

Mr. OLVER. But I was told that there was only $7 million, $7 to 

$8 million was in detention centers out of the ARRA $300 million. 

Mr. GIDNER. That is in Indian Affairs, but Department of Justice 

had $225 million for detention facilities in the Recovery Act. 

Mr. OLVER. On the Indian reservations the Department of Justice had another $225 million. 

Mr. GIDNER. That is—— 

Mr. OLVER. Well, that is a help. Yes, that is a help in understanding how this flows. 

Mr. MORAN. I am very glad you asked that question, Mr. Olver. 

Mr. OLVER. You have no idea how closely that meets toward the 

real need because I suspect those detention facilities are in terrible 

shape. 

Mr. MORAN. It does underscore the need to have this coordinated 

meeting of the three subcommittees, and perhaps the staff can be 

prepared to explain that because clearly, if the Department of Justice has that substantial investment coming on line in terms of detention facilities on Native American lands, it would naturally have 

an effect upon how much needs to be included in this budget. So 

I am glad you pursued that. Thank you, Mr. Olver. 


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Since there is a vote taking place now, we will recess and we will 

be back at approximately—— 

Mr. DICKS. What time is it? 

Mr. MORAN. Well, we have got about 4 minutes. Did you have a 

question—— 

Mr. DICKS. Well, Mr. Calvert, did you want to—— 

Mr. MORAN. Well, Mr. Calvert did ask questions. 

Mr. DICKS. I am sorry. 

Mr. CALVERT. I said nice things about you. 

Mr. MORAN. So at 3:30 we will hear from the Office of Special 

Trustee, and we thank the witnesses. Very good testimony. Thank 

you very much. 

[Recess.] 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN MORAN

Mr. MORAN. We want to welcome the Principal Deputy Special 

Trustee, Ms. Donna Erwin. We all appreciate the fact that you are 

here today to discuss the budget request for the Office of the Special Trustee. 

Before we begin questions, we would like to put the recent events 

in trust reform into context. The Department of the Interior has responsibility for the largest land trust in the world. The Indian 

Trust includes 55 million acres, surface acres, and 57 million subsurface acres of mineral estates. On behalf of individual Indians 

and tribes, the Department of the Interior manages over 100,000 

leases for farming, grazing and oil and gas production. To address 

these trust assets, the Office of the Special Trustee was established 

by the American Indian Trust Fund Management Reform Act of 

1994. OST provides department-wide oversight for the reform of 

the Indian Trust management and implementation of new fiduciary 

and accounting systems. In 1996, this country’s largest class-action 

lawsuit was filed against the Department of Interior and then-Secretary Babbitt. Today we know this lawsuit as Cobell v. Salazar. 

I am sure the Secretary would prefer a different name, but that is 

what he is stuck with. The lawsuit includes over 300,000 plaintiffs 

and involves the breach of fiduciary duty to individual Indian trust 

account holders. For the past 14 years, this has been a highly contentious lawsuit. Pressure from this lawsuit has resulted in some 

necessary changes throughout the Department. From ’96 through 

2010, the Department has invested almost $5 billion in the management, reform and improvement of Indian trust programs. 

So with that context in mind, Ms. Erwin, this is a particularly 

interesting time for the Office of Special Trustee. Just last December, the Department announced a $3.4 billion proposed settlement 

in this litigation. We will have some questions for you regarding 

the settlement, the $25 million reduction to your proposed budget, 

and the remaining tribal trust claims. But before we get to your 

testimony, perhaps Mr. Simpson may have a statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you Principal Deputy Special Trustee Erwin. That is a heck of a title. 

Thank you for being with us today to testify. 


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Anyone who knows the executive branch will tell you that taking 

on an acting role is no small task because it usually means that 

you are carrying more than one load. No doubt you are supported 

by a team of highly qualified staff. But nevertheless, you have my 

deepest respects and sympathy. 

Without question, the big news for the Office of the Special 

Trustee is the Cobell settlement. This has been a contentious and 

acrimonious case that has negatively impacted the government’s 

relations with Indian country for more than a decade. I do not 

want to jinx the outcome because we still have a few more hurdles 

to jump, but I look forward to the day when settlement is finalized 

and we can close that chapter in American history. I will have a 

few questions about the settlement and the fiscal year 2011 budget 

in general, and I look forward to your testimony and our discussion 

today. Thank you for being here. 

Mr. MORAN. Thanks, Mr. Simpson. Mr. Cole has been very much 

interested in this issue as well. Did you have anything you wanted 

to add? 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. COLE

Mr. COLE. I thought you were going to ask Mr. Simpson. I do, 

actually, but you might want to correct that to a century instead 

of a decade. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yeah, that is true. That is true. 

Mr. COLE. First of all, thank you for the Cobell settlement. I really want to commend the Administration on this. We have had successive administrations, the Clinton Administration, the Bush Administration, that did not sit down and bring this to a settlement. 

The Obama Administration did, and they are to be commended for 

that. And I suspect you are going to live through a lot of secondguessing of the details and legal fees and all that. But I think it 

is a fantastic achievement, and I told that to Elouise Cobell when 

I had that privilege of meeting her. It is remarkable, and for the 

role you played, again, thank you. It is very significant in Indian 

country. 

Having said that, let me ask you a couple questions about that 

and then one other question. 

Mr. MORAN. You know, we have not heard testimony from Ms. 

Erwin—— 

Mr. COLE. Oh, I am sorry. 

Mr. MORAN. I do the same thing so—— 

Mr. COLE. Once again, I just prove I just follow the lead. 

Mr. MORAN. So Mr. Cole is clearly brimming with some questions 

but maybe you want to try to answer some of them in the testimony, Ms. Erwin. Ms. Erwin, thanks again for being here, and 

please proceed. 

TESTIMONY OF PRINCIPAL DEPUTY SPECIAL TRUSTEE DONNA ERWIN

Ms. ERWIN. Thank you, Chairman, and members of the committee. I appreciate being invited here to testify on our 2011 budget. I think you mentioned pretty much the things that are involved 

in that. Our request is for $160.2 million, and that reflects a $25.8 

million reduction below the 2010 enacted. And part of that reason 


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is that we have a $25 million reduction in the individual Indian accounting area in the Office of Historical Trust Accounting. They 

will continue to perform and do litigation support. We still have 95 

tribal cases, and that involves about 116 tribes. 

So the other decreases that we have, there is about $1.5 million 

as a result of us insourcing some records indexing and completion 

of the historical record indexing project. That is where we had a 

lot of records throughout the country that we brought in to one central location and did the indexing and storage. So that reduction 

is due to that. 

We have about $1 million as a result of some of our data quality 

and integrity, as we have gone through and continue to make sure 

that the data is correct. That is starting to reduce, so as we see 

the results coming out, we will be reducing that budget. 

We have about $110,000 that we are reducing just through efficiencies, operation efficiencies, and then we have about $332,000 

that we are reducing due to the SAVE program and that is across 

the Department and how we are going to be doing those things. 

And that is another efficiency of operations. So that is the same 

thing. 

As you are aware, we were initially tasked and directed to have 

oversight, Office of the Special Trustee. Since that time, and that 

was in the ’94 Act, in ’96 we then received some operational duties. 

We are doing the receiving, the accounting, the investing, disbursing, all of that. Then in 2003, the Office of Appraisal Services 

was moved to the Office of the Special Trustee. Then in 2007, the 

Office of Historical Trust Accounting now reports to the Special 

Trustee. 

One of the things I want to thank the committee for is the continued support for Indian trust reform. Without that, we would not 

be where we are today. It is a significant progress, and I think 

without that, we would not have been able to move forward with 

the settlement. So I think it is very important that we give you our 

appreciation for that. 

Several things that we hear particularly from the beneficiaries is 

what have we done to improve and what makes a difference. 

Welcome and congratulations, Congressman Dicks. I am sure 

this is sad and exciting for you. 

We now issue quarterly statements to the IIM individuals and 

we issue monthly to the tribes, and that information is so much 

more than they have ever received. It actually tells you that you 

have received this money and where you received it from, what 

piece of land did this come from. They also are able to see on their 

statements, what they own. We actually get information from the 

title plan. When an individual or a tribe receives their statement, 

they know what they own immediately. That is a huge enhancement. 

We also, as we have discussed with your staff, use a centralized 

lock box, and that is sometimes confusing. That means that all 

checks, instead of going to 100 different locations, are now processed through a post office box. We send them to one post office 

box, they take those by armored car and they are deposited every 

day. They are not scattered across the country for people to handle. 


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It is one place, and that has really sped up people being able to 

get their funds, both tribes and individuals, much more quickly. 

We balance with Treasury on a daily basis. We reconcile with 

Treasury electronically. We now have centralized systems in place. 

We also have two more things, which are the trust officers and 

a toll-free number. We receive approximately 150,000 calls at a 

toll-free call center, something that the beneficiaries—— 

Mr. MORAN. What period of time? 150,000—— 

Ms. ERWIN. Annually. 

Mr. MORAN. Annually? 

Ms. ERWIN. Right. And that call center has live people, and they 

are able to answer about 90 percent of the inquiries right there and 

do not have to go back out to the field to ask questions. We have 

also placed about 50 trust officers across the country with fiduciary 

expertise, so that they can save the beneficiaries from having to 

run from one place to the other. They can go to one place and get 

one answer on their fiduciary trust. So we feel those have been 

very important. 

The last two items I want to mention are that we now store 

records. We have heard a lot through the years about the records. 

We now store over 195,000 boxes of records that are indexed and 

we have a partnership with the archives, NARA, to be able to store 

those. That has been a huge improvement. 

And then training. We have heard a lot about training through 

the years, and we have worked with a private sector trust firm to 

come up with certifications for the trust staff, all the government 

or the tribes that are doing fiduciary trust. We now have a certification program, and we have about 125 federal trust people that 

are certified, and that has been a big thing. We have heard, you 

do not have any people with trust experience, and now we have 125 

people that are certified in trust and we have trained over 4,300 

both tribal and Federal employees in trust, all the aspects of trust, 

both processes and systems. 

You have my formal statement that has been submitted, and I 

would be happy to answer any questions that you might have. 

[The statement of Donna Erwin follows:] 


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COBELL SETTLEMENT

Mr. MORAN. Thank you very much, Ms. Erwin. This is a complicated issue, a very important one, and it needs to be settled but 

it is also a very expensive one. 

I cannot get my mind around how you are going to manage the 

distribution of this. It just seems like a gargantuan task. I cannot 

imagine that BIA really has the resources, the capability to do this. 

I do not know any agency does, even Treasury Department. Are 

you going to contract it out? Is there any kind of experience around 

that you can tap? What is your plan to make sure that this is done 

in a professional way? 

Ms. ERWIN. One of the agreements during the negotiations and 

during the settlement is that there will be a claims administrator, 

and as you can imagine, there are a lot of class-action lawsuits that 

have happened across the country, some very large ones. There is 

that expertise across the country, and people that do only that. 

There will be a contractor in place that will handle not only the 

distribution but also they will handle being able to get the information out to all of the individuals so they know what they can or 

cannot do, what they can opt out of or how do they ask questions. 

Mr. MORAN. So you have some reservoir of understanding, expertise on this. I see. You are going to have to go through the District 

Court for the—District of Columbia, I understand, and will have to 

take several steps before the settlement can be approved. Is that 

a lengthy process? 

Ms. ERWIN. It appears to be somewhat lengthy, but it really is 

not. What we first need to be able to move forward on is the legislative approval. After that the court would approve the initial settlement, and then from there, the individuals are going to have the 

opportunity to get the information, look at the information, ask 

questions about the information, and then there will be a fairness 

hearing, and that hearing will be in front of the court to say, if you 

feel you have questions or you do not understand this, you are able 

to come forward during that hearing. 

Mr. MORAN. It is invariable. I guess it is just human nature that 

when there is a big class-action lawsuit like this, there are always 

people who come forward after the fact saying, hey, I was supposed 

to be part of this. How are you going to handle that? 

Ms. ERWIN. The same claims administrator has a process that 

you will be able to go through and the beneficiary may appeal or 

say ‘‘I think I should be included.’’ There is a fund set aside for 

anyone that feels that maybe they were not included. 

Mr. MORAN. Assuming they—— 

Ms. ERWIN. They show—— 

Mr. MORAN [continuing]. Show legitimacy. Well, thank you. Mr. 

Simpson. 

HISTORICAL ACCOUNTING

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The fiscal year 2011 

budget proposes to eliminate $25 million from the historical trust 

accounting of individual Indian monies accounts as a result of the 

Cobell settlement as you said in your testimony. Roughly $27.5 million would remain in the budget for the historical accounting of 


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tribal trust fund accounts which are the subject of, as you said, 95 

current lawsuits filed on behalf of approximately 116 tribes. Please explain why some of the $25 million should not be redirected to assist with the tribal trust fund work load, and would increasing the budget for the tribal trust fund accounting help to resolve some of these lawsuits more quickly? 

Ms. ERWIN. As you know, some of these lawsuits are not active 

and some are very active. What will be happening is that the Department, Solicitors, and Justice are working on those, and they 

will be looking at those as we go through them to determine what 

kind of resources we will need and what is the priority for settling. 

Mr. SIMPSON. The question is, could they be settled more quickly if some of the money that is being dropped out of the budget, $25 

million, instead of dropping it out of the budget, was redirected toward addressing these issues? 

Ms. ERWIN. And I think that probably is a better question for the 

legal counsel, which would be the solicitors and the Justice Department. But I am not sure that there would be any—it would speed 

things up. It would be something that we would have to address 

to them. 

Mr. SIMPSON. It is my understanding that the residual balances 

in special deposit accounts amount to roughly $1.5 million and that 

we are planning on spending $4 million in the fiscal year 2011 to 

locate the rightful owners and distribute the money owed to them, 

this $1.5 million. 

Please explain the situation and the difficulties associated with 

closing these accounts, and is there an end-game or is this plan to 

continue on this track until every last penny of the $1.5 million is 

returned to its rightful owner? 

Ms. ERWIN. I am not sure that every last penny will be identified. As you pointed out, it gets more difficult. You know, you have 

the low-hanging fruit, the things that were easily identifiable, and 

the special deposit is an old system of suspense accounts prior to 

2003 and going back quite a way. It is getting more difficult, it is 

getting more expensive to do that. We will at some point be addressing Congress saying, you know, we have some very small accounts. Is it worth doing this? We have to find cost-effectiveness in 

that project. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. 

Ms. ERWIN. It is excluded from the settlement, so right now we 

still have to address those. 

COBELL SETTLEMENT

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. In December, the Secretary signed an order 

to establish a five-member secretarial commission on Indian trust 

administration and reform. The commission created for an initial 

2-year term will make recommendations including addressing the 

issues regarding a performance audit of trust systems and controls. 

The commission’s budget does not seem to appear in the fiscal year 

2011 proposal. How is the commission going to be funded? 

Ms. ERWIN. You are correct. It appears in the settlement agreement, and there is a portion of the settlement, of the $2 billion, 

that will be going to a scholarship fund, a portion that will be used 

for Indian land consolidation, and there is also a portion for adminVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:10 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 057302 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A302P2.XXX A302P2

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istration and implementation of that. In there, that is where the 

funding is for the commission. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. And one last question, Mr. Chairman, the Cobell settlement includes a $2 billion land consolidation fund 

which supposedly will be administered by Interior using existing 

programs already dedicated to land consolidation. The fiscal year 

2011 budget does not appear to account for the increased workload. 

For example, appraisal service is essentially level funded. Please 

explain how this fund will be administered in fiscal year 2011, how 

the increased workload will be funded, and how many estimated 

additional FTEs will be required. 

Ms. ERWIN. I am not sure that we know how many FTE at this 

point. That is a BIA program in the past, and that program will 

have to be ramped up. It is a large amount of money, but the funding for that is in the same line item as the commission. It is in the 

$2 billion, and there is a percentage in there that you can use for 

administrative and implementation. And so that is a huge, huge 

amount of money that needs to be looked at, use the expertise, lessons learned from the smaller Indian land consolidation program, 

and then at that point we will be addressing how many FTE will 

be required. 

Mr. SIMPSON. But that will come out of the settlement agreement 

also? 

Ms. ERWIN. It comes out of the settlement fund, the $2 billion. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Chairman Dicks. 

Mr. DICKS. Let me ask you, and maybe this was asked, but there 

were 95 other lawsuits brought on this subject. How does the Administration intend to handle those? 

Ms. ERWIN. As I mentioned earlier, it is something the Justice 

Department and the Solicitor and the Deputy Secretary are working with, and so how they plan on handling those will be better addressed to them. 

Mr. DICKS. Now as I understand it, the terms of this settlement 

have been extended so that we have a little more time here to work 

on it. Can you tell us about that? 

Ms. ERWIN. Yes. There were two things in the extension, one was 

that it was extended to April the 16th, and the other item in there 

is that they extended the time for people that wanted to do claims, 

extended from 60 days to 90 days. So that gave some additional 

time for that process also. 

Mr. DICKS. Is the Administration going to ask for this to be funded as an emergency? 

Ms. ERWIN. I am a little unclear how we are asking for that to 

be funded. Is that the question? 

Mr. DICKS. In a situation like this, normally this would be—Pam 

can help you. 

Ms. ERWIN. I was just going to say, here comes Pam. 

Ms. HAZE. So the last we heard, we were waiting for an answer 

from the White House about getting a letter to you all that would 

designate emergency funding for Cobell. 

Mr. DICKS. Okay, so it is under consideration? 

Ms. HAZE. Correct. 

Mr. SIMPSON. What was the total cost of that again? 


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Ms. HAZE. It was $3.4 billion. 

Mr. DICKS. Okay. And this is much less than was talked about 

originally, right? I mean, we did a lot of assessments on this thing, 

and it was always my opinion that something in this range was 

more realistic. So I hope we can resolve this. I think this is a very 

important issue and I know what a problem this has been for the 

Department of Interior. So hopefully we can get this resolved. Who 

else is left? Mr. Cole. 

Mr. COLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I said, I am very glad 

you came to settlement. Let me just ask a couple of basic questions 

about that, and then I have one or two other things. Why so long 

in your view? We went through successive administrations, which 

took a long time. The Department’s position over the years has varied pretty dramatically in terms of amount, whether there was a 

problem, or not. Why do you think it took us this long to come to 

this settlement and what finally brought us here? 

Ms. ERWIN. Well, I think this Administration was pretty dedicated to making sure we received a settlement, and also I think as 

we have done more of the historical trust accounting, we have been 

able to show some actual statistics as to what has been found. So 

I think that combination obviously moves that forward. 

Mr. COLE. I remember previous secretaries, though, showing us 

accounting that said that there was essentially nothing lost. Is that 

inaccurate or disingenuous? 

Ms. ERWIN. Now that was a loaded question, was it not? 

Mr. COLE. One or the other. 

Ms. ERWIN. I think as we moved along, there were certain 

things—it is sort of like we just talked about, the special deposit 

accounts. You get to a point where it is not cost-effective to find 

certain documents any longer for less than a dollar or a few cents. 

So I think there is a point in time that you come to that you just 

cannot keep looking for those cents. 

Mr. COLE. Well, is it not true though. I am not asking you to 

undo what you have done, although I would argue that the amount 

is considerably less than ought to have been rendered, there is the 

issue. You can have perfectly accurate documents. If somebody is 

leasing out land or mineral rights and they undervalue them and 

literally say, ‘‘what is worth $100 an acre is worth 10’’ and they 

charge you 10 and you pay 10, the records look perfectly accurate, 

but there was massive theft that went on. Any account for that 

type of activity in the settlement considerations? 

Ms. ERWIN. For things we have seen thus far, we are not finding 

those massive amounts of thefts, but we are looking at the accountings and some of the transactions. So that is something that probably I could not address. 

SETTLEMENT LEGAL FEES

Mr. COLE. I will assure you you will be seeing lawsuits about 

this in the not-too-distant future. I mean I can just guarantee it, 

and I do not think it would be that hard to document. But anyway, 

not to belabor that, but there is a lot of concern about this, and I 

just want to use this opportunity maybe to address some of that. 

What is the structure of the legal fees involved here? 


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Ms. ERWIN. The structure of the legal fees we have not received 

the exact amount on the legal fees. Again, I think the Solicitor or 

Justice would be better able to answer that question. But it has not 

been filed yet to show exactly what the legal fees would be. 

Mr. COLE. This may or may not be accurate. It is my understanding that it is pretty low. I have heard 3 to 7 percent. So as 

these things go, that is a remarkably reasonable set of legal fees. 

If we come in that range, I would be very pleased. 

TRIBAL TRUST LAWSUITS

We right now have about 100 different Indian tribes, with breach 

of trust suits against the United States. How many of those deal 

specifically with Cobell or the issues raised in Cobell? Do they all 

deal with other issues? I know there are 18 from my state alone 

that are involved in various forms of litigation. 

Ms. ERWIN. Some of these, and I do not know the exact number. 

I would have to get that for you, but some of these are asking for 

accountings, similar to what was asked for in the Cobell litigation, 

and then some of these are everything from investments to asking 

about land. 

TRIBAL TRUST CASES

There are currently 95 cases that involve 114 tribes. Of these cases, 44 are in 

Federal District Courts, and these generally represent accounting cases. The remaining 51 cases are in the Court of Federal Claims, and these generally represent 

mismanagement cases. However, there is often some accounting-related work that 

is associated with the cases in the CFC, so all of the 95 tribal cases could potentially 

involve some sort of accounting work. 

Mr. COLE. So you are going to be very busy for a long time? 

Ms. ERWIN. We will be busy for a while. 

HISTORICAL TRUST ACCOUNTING

Mr. COLE. Okay. Let me just end with this concern. I would really like your comments. One of the things that really frustrated me 

at multiple administrations over the process of Cobell was this act 

of, investigation of the records, computations. It went on an awfully 

long time. Again, I will be the first to admit, as an old historian, 

the state of the records were terrible. The state of recordkeeping 

was terrible. The problems that people had in trying to come to a 

fair settlement were real. But I know in Indian country, there is 

also a strong opinion that a lot of this was simply delay tactics to 

sort of push it off to another administration or wear out the plaintiffs, and I guess I would want your comment on that. I would also 

just urge you going forward, sometimes the pursuit of this precision 

that probably can never be found, it is just better to settle. I had 

this discussion, before I was in Congress with people in the Bush 

Administration back in 2000, immediately after the election of 

2001, to just settle the case. I said, ‘‘You have a remarkable opportunity here given what happened before, you can sit down, even 

though it is going to be rough.’’ Well, they did not do it. This Administration, to its credit, did, and I just think you can get way too 

caught up in these details. It is people’s lives and assets, and the 

question is how many generations do you want people to wait for 


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something that really should have been theirs a long time ago? So 

what are we doing to make sure that that does not happen again? 

Ms. ERWIN. Well, I think I mentioned earlier, and my background is private-sector trust. I was in banking for 35-plus years. 

So as a result, I have friends who are at Bank of America and different banks in the large trust departments, and they just say we 

absolutely swamp the size of any trust department. And I think as 

the Chairman mentioned, it is the largest land trust in the United 

States, and very much close to the world. And so it is quite complicated when you talk about gathering all those records and bringing them to one place. That is what the American Indian Records 

Repository did, and we worked in partnership with NARA, to accomplish that. And those records now, I invite all of you to please 

think about coming out, not only to see the Albuquerque facility 

where we are doing accounting but to see the records because I 

think it is very important that you see that those records are now 

in a controlled climate, seven stories underground, and we worked 

with NARA and they are indexed and we are able to find them. 

So finding the records, moving them in and actually getting them 

indexed was a large undertaking. 

Mr. COLE. I commend you for doing it. I certainly will take you 

up on your offer—I literally would love to see this and understand 

it a little bit better. Again, last point, a lot of tribes have the ability 

to be much more litigious than they have been, and a lot of law 

firms are much more interested in representing them probably 

than was historically the case. I think you are going to see a number of these suits, and I think well-grounded suits. I have seen 

briefs from a number of tribes on a whole variety of issues as they 

think through what they are going to do. What I do not want to 

see is the parties caught in litigation that is literally generations 

long. So speeding them up and coming to a settlement is good. 

Again, thank you for your work. I just want to tell the Chairman, 

when that time comes that we are working on this, I look forward 

to working with him and my colleagues on the other side of the 

aisle to make sure that we get this historical obligation of the 

United States taken care of. 

Mr. MORAN. Good. Thank you, Mr. Cole. I am stunned that they 

are only talking about 3.5 to 7 percent. If it was one of these fancy 

dancy tort firms, they would be looking for 20 to 30 percent at 

least. John Edwards would probably be looking for 50 percent, no 

offense to John Edwards and his firm. And if this is a non-profit 

legal defense fund of Native American lawyers, then it seems to me 

that is a particularly low fee, and I hope that there is not a whole 

lot of pushback against that because that is very small compensation for as long as this has been going on. But I agree with Mr. 

Cole that we do not want to prompt a rash of litigiousness. But this 

is the fundamental one, and this needed to be settled. Mr. Olver. 

Thank you, Mr. Cole. 

AMERICAN INDIAN RECORDS REPOSITORY

Mr. OLVER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, I have served 

on the Interior Committee for a number of years now, and I have 

always looked at this settlement issue as one which would never 

be resolved. So I have not paid that close attention to it, and to 


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hear that we are moving rather expeditiously toward a fair settlement of some of these claims is very gratifying. 

I have not given much thought to it exactly. I do not know how 

to respond to that actually. But let me say, in your testimony you, 

toward the end, indicated that your most important goal is better 

services for beneficiaries, and one of these, the last one, is the creation of the American Indian Records Repository, AIRR, is that 

ingathering of records pretty well complete? I supposed the 

ingathering of records goes on, as long as anybody finds a record. 

So to what degree do you think that is complete now? 

Ms. ERWIN. And I think you made a very good point here, Congressman, because it is, as you are creating records every day—— 

Mr. OLVER. This is in Albuquerque? 

Ms. ERWIN. No, it is in Lenexa, Kansas. It is very close to Haskell, and we take some of the students from Haskell and they actually intern at that facility and we do training programs. 

Mr. OLVER. What is Haskell? 

Ms. ERWIN. Haskell is one of the Indian universities. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. 

Ms. ERWIN. And it is just outside of Kansas City. It is about 

seven stories underground in a lime mine, and we work with 

NARA, which is the National Archives, in partnership and they 

store those records—— 

Mr. OLVER. Did you say a lime—— 

Ms. ERWIN. Lime. It is an old lime mine. 

Mr. OLVER. Lime mine. 

Ms. ERWIN. It was originally a lime mine. And so as a result, the 

conditions are perfect for storing these records. So we have worked 

with them. So these records come in and we have gathered the 

records, historical records, throughout the years, and that is what 

that project that we have been doing on the records is about indexing them and storing them. Now what we have done is said we do 

not need the contractors any longer, we are going to use our federal 

workers, and we have hired a small staff of federal workers that 

do the indexing. So every day as we create records that we all are 

holding in our hands, every day you are doing accounting. You are 

going to create more records. So those records we are now timely 

sending over to be stored so the—— 

Mr. OLVER. How many employees do you have doing that job at 

the center? 

Ms. ERWIN. At the center we have about 40 people, but doing just 

the indexing, we have approximately 20 people. And those 20 people, every one in the field now are trained. They have been trained 

on how to handle records, what is a trust record, when do you send 

it in, how do you send it in, how do you index it. So they send 

boxes in, and then this group indexes and stores the records on an 

ongoing basis. 

Mr. OLVER. Then the rest of the comment on that point is, you 

speak of the partnership with NARA, and I cannot find it anywhere else in here. My Chairman, I am sure, you and the Ranking 

Member know exactly what NARA is, but I do not. What is NARA? 

Ms. ERWIN. NARA is the National Archives and Records Administration. 


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Mr. OLVER. Oh, so this center is part of the archives, the National Archives? 

Ms. ERWIN.Yes, it is part. We work with NARA. 

Mr. OLVER. Those that my predecessor created in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, one of those regional archive centers where people can 

come. 

Ms. ERWIN. We have a very unique partnership with them because normally you send your records over to the archives. They 

become the property of the archives. We have worked with them 

so that they store our records but they still belong to Interior. So 

we are able to retrieve them. 

Mr. OLVER. That is open for individual tribal members from all 

over the country to come in and use, or researchers—— 

Ms. ERWIN. They can research as long as it is not something that 

is going to invade anyone’s privacy. We cannot give out the privacy 

information. 

Mr. OLVER. And then lastly, the last comment, the full comment 

here is partnership with NARA and also training at the National 

Indian Training Center, what is the rest of that? What is the National Indian Training Center? 

Ms. ERWIN. It is the National Indian Programs Training Center 

in Albuquerque. It is adjacent to the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ regional office there, and we have a training program and the funding for that is provided by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of 

Indian Education, and OST. And we train tribal members, we train 

all of our staff from across the country. We also have the ability 

to do distance learning out of that facility so we do not have to 

bring—— 

Mr. OLVER. You mean training in the archives area or what 

training? Training of all sorts? What is this? 

Ms. ERWIN. Any type of training on fiduciary trust. We train on 

resource management, we train on records, we train on investments, and we train on auditing. We train on all kinds of things 

that have to do with fiduciary trust. 

Mr. OLVER. For members of the various recognized tribes? 

Ms. ERWIN. If the tribe has a self-governance or self-determination contract and all of the government employees that are involved 

in fiduciary trust. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Olver. It seems like kind 

of an obvious question, Ms. Erwin. Have you thought about computerizing those records instead of having this mammoth cave that 

you will keep all these records? 

Ms. ERWIN. There is a combination of the two. We have a large 

imaging undertaking, the historical trust accounting has imaged a 

lot of the records, that we are able to utilize without having to pull 

back down the hard copy records. As we move forward, when you 

see some of the efficiencies, we are able to do a lot more things 

electronically so that we do not have to store the hard copy records. 

Mr. MORAN. Okay, well, I do not know how expensive that would 

be, but it does seem to me that that is the direction in which we 

want to go. 

Ms. ERWIN. Moving forward. 

Mr. MORAN. Yes. 


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Ms. ERWIN. We agree. 

Mr. MORAN. I think it would make a lot of sense. There is something about the quaintness of where they are being stored but you 

know, it is not cold case. It is time to look into computerization. 

I suspect we would be amenable to your doing that. 

It is good testimony, and we appreciate your responsiveness. 

Mr. Simpson, did you have anything further? 

Mr. SIMPSON. No. 

Mr. MORAN. Okay. Mr. Olver. Let’s conclude this, and again, I 

am sure things are going to start happening quickly. You have 

probably a budgetary nature, and we will work closely together and 

we appreciate your taking the time and the time of all of your staff. 

Thank you, Ms. Erwin. Meeting is adjourned. 

[Questions for the Record for Bureau of Indian Affairs can be 

found on page 639 of this volume.] 


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(55) 

TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 2010. 

NATIONAL SYSTEM OF PUBLIC LANDS; BUREAU OF 

LAND MANAGEMENT FISCAL YEAR 2011 BUDGET REQUEST 

WITNESSES 

ROBERT ABBEY, DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT 

MIKE POOL, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, OPERATIONS 

KAREN MOURITSEN, BUDGET OFFICER 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN MORAN

Mr. MORAN. This is the first budget hearing for our new director, 

Bob Abbey. Mr. Abbey is a well-respected career individual who 

came out of retirement to take this job. 

Chairman Dicks, nice to have you on board. 

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Moran, nice to be with you. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you. 

We do respect your expertise and your experience, Mr. Abbey, 

and we thank you for taking on this very challenging job. 

The Bureau of Land Management manages more land than any 

other Federal agency, 253 million surface acres. It is more than 10 

percent of the entire United States of America. BLM also manages 

over 700 million acres of onshore subsurface minerals estate. Why 

do we call it estate? That is just a term of art, I guess. But the 

BLM is also a major contributor to our Nation’s energy and manages eight of America’s ten largest coal mines and tens of thousands of oil and gas wells. It is a multiple-use agency. In the past 

it has often been considered to be overly friendly to industry, and 

sometimes during the last 8 years there have been charges that it 

was not careful enough about the long-term sustainability of the 

lands that it was responsible for. Managing these lands is a big 

challenge as there are often competing demands from many important constituencies. 

BLM also manages the National Landscape Conservation System 

which totals over 27 million acres of special areas, mostly in the 

West. It includes 37 national monuments, conservation areas, 16 

national historic and scenic trails of over 6,000 miles, 223 wilderness areas, 545 wilderness study areas, 60 on wild and scenic rivers and so on. So we are preaching to the choir here, that you know 

what you manage, but it is important to get this on the record, how 

massive is the responsibility of the BLM. 

This does not mean that the other 225 million acres that BLM 

manages, of course, are any less important as critical watersheds, 

as wildlife habitat. 

As the rest of the subcommittee members are arriving, let me 

share with the committee and those in the audience this quote 


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from John Muir, because it is quite applicable to the Bureau of 

Land Management. 

‘‘It is far safer to wander in God’s woods than to travel on black 

highways or to stay home. As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but nature’s sources never fail. Like 

a generous host, she offers her brimming cups in endless variety, 

served in a grand hall, the sky its ceiling, the mountains its walls, 

decorated with glorious paintings and enlivened with bands of 

music ever playing. Fears vanish as soon as one is free in the wilderness.’’ 

That is beautifully poetic, but it really is why we give the Bureau 

of Land Management such responsibility for preserving God’s gifts 

to America in terms of our lands that need to be conserved. 

So let me now just make a few brief comments on the budget request itself and get beyond the poetry into the mundane details. 

This is a tight budget for BLM. Although the overall BLM request has a slight increase, the operations accounts are reduced by 

$41 million while an additional $16 million in fixed costs have not 

been provided. So they are going to have to be absorbed. 

The budget maintains the same operations funding level for oil, 

gas, and coal management programs. There is a plus-up of $3 million, for a total of $19 million for renewable energy coordination. 

That is part of Secretary Salazar’s new Energy Frontier Initiative. 

There is a $12 million increase for operations dealing with the Wild 

Horse and Burro Management program as well as a purchase of 

land for horse refuge somewhere in the central eastern United 

States. It does eliminate the challenge cost-share program that provides Department matching funds for habitat improvement and 

recreation access. 

So with that, Mr. Simpson, we would like to hear your observations. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is a beautiful 

quote by John Muir. Apparently he had never been standing in 

front of a stampeding herd of wild horses. 

Mr. MORAN. I think he just composed it. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I was just kidding. I am sorry, I apologize. 

Director Abbey, thank you for being with us today to discuss the 

important work of the BLM. As the largest land manager within 

the Department of the Interior, the BLM has the difficult, often 

imspossible job of managing our public lands for multiple use. 

It used to be that the only thing certain in life were death and 

taxes. Now the only thing certain in life are death, taxes, and that 

the BLM will be sued on every decision that they make. We all 

know that many legitimate goals of the BLM are undermined by 

litigation filed by a variety of organizations, regardless of merit. 

Some are justified, some are not. In fact, I would suggest some organizations exist today primarily to file lawsuits and prevent worthy projects from moving forward. Domestic energy projection, 

grazing, and other legitimate efforts on our public lands have been 

stymied as a result. If we could replace the desire to litigate with 

the desire to collaborate, there is no limit to the challenges we 


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could overcome and the problems that we could address. Energy 

production is a case in point. 

Last year, our public lands generated 15 percent of our country’s 

natural gas and 6 percent of domestic oil. At those levels, we 

haven’t even come close to realizing the full energy potential of our 

public lands. Somehow we must find a way to overcome the legal 

and regulatory roadblocks that are consistently thrown up in the 

path leading to our domestic energy independence. 

I applaud the administration’s emphasis on renewable energy 

sources and recognize the role that solar, wind, and geothermal energy will play long term. Today, however, with unemployment at 

nearly 10 percent and imported oil at nearly $81 a barrel, we need 

to do more to unleash the potential available supplies of domestic 

oil and gas. 

I question the wisdom of the administration proposing additional 

fees on onshore and offshore oil producers. If our country is ever 

going to stop its reliance on foreign oil, we must do everything possible to encourage energy from every possible source, including our 

public lands. 

Energy is not the only issue on my mind today, though. There 

is the matter of a leaked internal planning document on potential 

monument designations that has caused a great deal of concern 

among my western colleagues, and we couldn’t possibly see each 

other again without having a conversation about the backlog on 

grazing permits. And, of course, there is the small matter of the 

sage-grouse that I would like to discuss a little bit. 

In closing, I want you to know how much I value the fine work 

of Idaho Director, Tom Dyer, who retired at the end of last year. 

He was like many people in public service today: dedicated and 

faithful to his work, but too often discouraged by frivolous, timeconsuming litigation that prevents land managers from doing their 

work. Tom served the public trust and the people of Idaho well, 

and he will be greatly missed. 

Thank you again for being here today. I look forward to working 

with you and I look forward to your testimony. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. 

Chairman Dicks, would you like to make any comments? 

Mr. DICKS. I look forward to Mr. Abbey’s testimony. 

Mr. MORAN. Very good. Mr. Abbey, you may proceed. Thank you. 

TESTIMONY OF DIRECTOR ROBERT ABBEY

Mr. ABBEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the subcommittee. And Congressman Simpson, I echo your statements 

about Tom Dyer. Just an excellent public servant, someone that I 

was fortunate to work with a number of years, and he will be 

missed in that role as State director in Idaho. 

Mr. Chairman, with me this afternoon is Karen Mouritsen, who 

is our budget director for the Bureau of Land Management. And 

also behind me is Mike Pool, who is our deputy director for the Bureau of Land Management. 

And I thank each of you for the opportunity to discuss the Bureau of Land Management’s request for fiscal year 2011. I will 

briefly summarize my prepared testimony and ask that the complete statement be part of the record. 


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BLM is responsible for protecting the resources and managing 

the uses of our Nation’s public lands which are located primarily 

in the 12 Western States, including Alaska. These public lands include some of America’s most spectacular landscapes and important natural resources, and serve as an engine of prosperity for our 

Nation. Energy generated from public lands power America’s 

homes and businesses. Minerals and timber resources are the 

building blocks for the products that we consume. Grazing helps 

supply food for our families. And the scenery, recreational opportunities, and shared history that draws Americans to their public 

lands also support jobs and businesses and communities throughout this country. 

The BLM is doing its part to power America’s economic recovery 

and to create jobs here at home. In 2008, BLM managed lands and 

resources contributed over 500,000 total jobs and over $60 billion 

in direct sales, with an estimated total impact of over $127 billion 

on the American economy. 

The BLM’s management of public lands and natural resources 

also delivers value on a daily basis to the American public. In 2011, 

the public lands will generate an estimated $4.5 billion in revenues, mostly from energy development. 

The BLM’s budget request for 2011 is $1.1 billion for current appropriations, a net increase of $8 million from the 2010 enacted 

level. 

I will briefly outline some of our priorities, which include our 

New Energy Frontier, Climate Change Adaptation, Treasured 

Landscapes, and Youth and Natural Resources. I will also briefly 

touch on the Department’s Wild Horse and Burro strategy. 

NEW ENERGY FRONTIER

The BLM is focused on developing renewable energy in an expeditious manner that also protects the signature landscapes, the 

wildlife habitats, and cultural resources. 

The budget requests a $3 million increase, which we will plan to 

use to complete environmental studies of potential wind and solar 

energy zones. The budget also has several provisions to improve oil 

and gas management, including a $10 million oil and gas inspection and enforcement fee and a $2 million increase to improve the 

BLM’s air quality monitoring. To encourage diligent development of 

new oil and gas leases, the BLM also is proposing a per-acre fee 

on nonproducing leases. 

CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION

In order to develop strategies that will help native plant and animals as well as public land users and local communities adapt to 

climate change, the BLM is working to understand the conditions 

of BLM-managed landscapes on a broader level. The budget proposal requests a $2.5 million increase that the BLM will use to initiate up to four landscape scales assessments in 2011 and to develop and implement management strategies for the 10 eco-regions 

that we have completed assessments by next year. 


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TREASURED LANDSCAPES

BLM managed conservation lands are a vibrant array of national 

monuments, national conservation areas, wilderness areas, and 

wild and scenic rivers. The budget request includes $37.8 million 

to fund 20 high-priority line item acquisition projects that will give 

Federal protection to more than 25,000 acres of land with key natural and cultural resources, and $1.3 million for management of 

new wilderness areas designated by the Omnibus Public Land 

Management Act of 2009. 

YOUTH IN NATURAL RESOURCES

In 2011, the BLM will continue to support youth programs in 

partnerships through its association with National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. BLM will direct $1 million of the requested $3 million in pass-through funding to the Foundation’s youth program. 

WILD HORSE AND BURRO STRATEGY

Placing the Wild Horse and Burro program on a sustainable 

track remains one of our highest priorities. BLM’s management 

strategy of removing excess animals, offering them for adoption, 

and managing unadopted horses in holding facilities, resulted in 

our spending more than one-half of the 2009 program budget on 

the holding of wild horses. Our new strategy aims to slow the wild 

horse and burro population growth rate to bring it into alignment 

with public adoption demand and calls for the creation of wild 

horse preserves, possibly on the grasslands of the Midwest and 

Eastern United States. 

The budget requests $75 million for the Wild Horse and Burro program. A separate request of $42.5 million in the BLM land acquisition account is for the purchase of land for a wild horse preserve. 

Finally, Mr. Chairman, our budget request represents a decrease of $41 million from the 2010 enacted level. A portion of this reduction is offset by $10 million in collections from the proposed new 

onshore oil and gas inspection fee. 

Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the 

opportunity to testify today. And I will be pleased to answer any 

questions that you might have. 

Mr. MORAN. Very good. Thank you very much, Mr. Abbey. 

[The information follows:] 


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NATIONAL MONUMENT MEMO LEAK

Mr. MORAN. Let me start out with a couple of questions here. It 

was cited in Mr. Simpson’s opening remarks that there was an internal Interior document that was leaked. It listed 14 areas managed by the BLM that could be considered in the future as potential national monuments. 

Would you address how serious this memo was, where it fits into 

your budget and planning process? And perhaps address some of 

the anxiety that it caused among Members of Congress? 

Mr. ABBEY. I would be happy to. Thank you for the opportunity 

to respond to that question, because it has raised anxiety among 

many of the public land constituency groups and stakeholders that 

we serve every day. 

Let me assure the members of this subcommittee and to everyone else that is listening that any major public land designation 

will be done through an open and public process that engages the 

public and Members of Congress. That is a commitment that Secretary Ken Salazar has made to Members of Congress and that is 

a commitment that I am making today. 

The information that was conveyed to members of the public and 

to the media was the product of several brainstorming sessions 

that we had internally within the Bureau of Land Management 

looking at areas that we manage that could possibly deserve special 

management attention sometime during the future. The use of an 

Antiquities Act to designate any of those parcels of land as national 

monuments is a tool that certainly is available to the administration, as it has been to many of other administrations, but it is not 

one that we have recommended. 

Included as part of that document that was leaked to the media 

was a statement, right up front, that said: Prior to anyone moving 

forward with recommending any of these areas for national monuments, that there should be further assessment to determine public 

support as well as congressional support. 

So the commitment that I am making to the members of this 

subcommittee today is right in line with the statement that was 

also included in that earlier document. 

Again, I have worked 25 years with the Bureau of Land Management in many, many roles. I know how difficult it is to build public 

relations and trusting relationships with public land stakeholders. 

I also know how easy it is for those relationships to be adversely 

affected. I apologize for the anxiety that has been caused by the information that has been leaked. I don’t apologize for the fact that 

the Bureau of Land Management has looked at areas that we manage that some of us believe may deserve someday to be considered 

for special management. But, again, at that point in time and when 

it is right for further discussion, we will be sitting here at the table 

with Members of Congress to determine the best approach for moving forward. 

Mr. MORAN. So it would be extremely premature for anyone to 

act on the basis of this speculative document that is not rooted in 

any kind of budget or short-term, even long-term, planning process? 


hsrobinson on DSK69SOYB1PROD with HEARING
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Mr. ABBEY. That is absolutely true, Mr. Chairman. The information that was leaked to the media and to other members of the 

public, again, was the product of several brainstorming sessions. It 

does not represent the official position of the Bureau of Land Management, and it certainly doesn’t represent an official position of 

the Department of Interior. 

TREASURED LANDSCAPES

Mr. DICKS. Would you yield, briefly? There has been a lot of talk 

by Secretary Salazar about his Treasured Landscapes Initiative. I 

have been hopeful that we would learn more about what this 

means. 

Could you tell us anything about the Treasured Landscapes Initiative? It sounds like a wonderful idea, but I am just curious about 

what it is about. 

Mr. ABBEY. Well, again, as was stated by Mr. Chairman in some 

of his opening remarks, those of us who work for the Bureau of 

Land Management, who have the privilege of managing the 

public’s assets every day, understand just how significant these 

parcels of land are to public land stakeholders and to this great 

country of the United States. 

As far as the Secretary’s Treasured Landscape Initiative, it is a 

recognition that we do manage some tremendous assets on behalf 

of the American public, and that the actions that we take each and 

every day are to make sure that we understand the significance of 

these resources and that the actions that we implement are intended to provide the necessary protection for those lands. 

As far as treasured landscapes, as you look at the Bureau of 

Land Management—and let me just allude to the public lands 

managed by BLM—We have 27 million acres that are already managed under the National Landscape and Conservation system. 

Those lands are including national monuments, they include national conservation areas, they include designated wilderness as 

well as wilderness study areas, and wild and scenic rivers as well 

as national trails. 

But over and beyond the 27 million acres that are a part of the 

National Landscape Conservation System, we also manage some 

other tremendous resources. We manage some of the best wildlife 

habitat corridors anywhere in the Western United States. We manage some of the most significant cultural and archeological resources found on any lands managed by any bureau of the Department of Interior. We also manage areas of critical environmental 

concern. All those lands are, at least in my opinion, are part of the 

Secretary’s Treasured Landscapes Initiative. It is a reflection on 

the true assets, the true values, that are associated with each of 

those parcels, and an understanding and appreciation that every 

day we need to devote the necessary attention to protect those significant resources. 

Mr. DICKS. So in a sense, it is a reappreciation of things that we 

have had out there, but we really think of them in a different way, 

possibly? 

Mr. ABBEY. That is true. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MORAN. Thanks for the clarification, Mr. Chairman. 


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WILD HORSE AND BURRO STRATEGY

Mr. Abbey, there continues to be problems with both the 

conditionings of wild horses on the range and in fact the watershed 

condition of the range itself. You are requesting $43 million to purchase land outside the range of the horses, where animals can be 

held instead of in contract holding facilities. 

I wonder if you would explain to us why you feel this is warranted, what your long-term vision for care of wild horses and public lands might be, and how we are doing with the idea of controlling the population through birth control rather than through 

slaughter or other means. Could you share with us your thoughts? 

Mr. ABBEY. I would be happy to. 

Under the Secretary’s Wild Horse and Burro strategy and what 

we have included in our budgetary request, it is a reflection that 

the status quo is unacceptable. That has been recognized by the 

Government Accountability Office. It has certainly been recognized 

by the Bureau of Land Management, and it is certainly recognized 

by Secretary Ken Salazar. 

As we move forward to look at the many challenges that we face 

in managing wild horses and burros to make sure there are viable 

numbers of wild horses and healthy wild horses that remain on 

these public lands, there is still the challenge of what do we do 

with excess numbers of wild horses that exist on these public 

lands. 

When I came into the role of Bureau of Land Management Director in August of 2009, one of the first programs that I was briefed 

on was the Wild Horse and Burro program, and rightly so, because 

there are a lot of emotions attached to this program. You know, of 

all the programs that the Bureau of Land Management manages 

and the significance of each and every one of those programs, I 

don’t think there is any program that we manage that gets the 

public attention, or certainly the scrutiny and certainly the controversy associated with the Wild Horse and Burro program. 

When I came on board, we were faced with an estimated population of 37,000 wild horses living on public lands within herd management areas. That is approximately 10,000 above what we have 

determined to be appropriate management levels. At the same 

time, we had at the time 34,000 horses in holding facilities, both 

short-term and long-term. 

When I said that status quo is unacceptable, I meant that; because we cannot continue down the path that we have been managing these wild horses for a number of years; and that is to continue to round up wild horses, the excess numbers, bring them in, 

put them into holding facilities, and then provide the health and 

care to each of those horses that are going to be provided in these 

holding facilities for the rest of their lives. That is irresponsible to 

the horses and is certainly irresponsible to the American taxpayer. 

So we immediately set off on a course of coming up with something else that would allow us to refocus our attention within the 

Wild Horse and Burro program, understanding that the primary 

tool that is going to be available to us, that is already available to 

us, to try to control the increases in populations for wild horses, is 

fertility control. 


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We are committed as part of our strategy to move forward very 

aggressively to apply fertility control on the wild horse herds that 

remain on public lands. 

Now, that does not mean that we are not going to be moving forward with some additional gathers and removals of wild horses in 

some of these herd management areas, especially where we are exceeding appropriate management levels by two or three or four 

times the numbers that we have determined that the resource can 

sustain. We are committed to ensuring the health—that healthy 

horses remain on public lands in sustainable numbers. We again, 

using our very public planning process, have determined that those 

numbers reflect about a 26,600 figure. 

We will continue down the path of removing horses in excess 

numbers and bringing them in and putting them in holding facilities until we can work with Members of Congress to provide what 

we are calling ‘‘horse preserves,’’ where we can provide a natural 

environment to place these horses, where there is sufficient forage 

and water to accommodate them for the rest of their life. It is an 

investment that we believe is worthy of consideration by the Congress, because by investing this amount of money at this point in 

time, it will allow us to create savings that we would not achieve 

if we maintained status quo. 

Those savings would be seen as early as 2019. And I know many 

people will think that is too far into the distance, but unfortunately 

that is the way this program is managed, and that is the way that 

we are going to have to manage it in order to achieve the goals of 

the Wild Horse and Burro Act, at the same time being responsible 

in making sure that the strategy that we are implementing is good 

for the horse, is good for the range, and is good for the American 

taxpayer. 

Mr. MORAN. Thanks very much, Mr. Abbey. 

Ranking Member Simpson. 

ANTIQUITIES ACT

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me make a statement before we start. The problem with the Antiquities Act—and 

I appreciate your statement saying that you will seek local input 

and government input on this. But the problem that most Westerners have is that this can be done by executive order overnight, 

and sometimes is done. The first time you hear about it is when 

the executive order is put out. And that is not a good way to do 

it. In fact, I would suggest that in a lot of these areas that you suggest may qualify for national monument designation it would be 

good, if you know this in advance, to start working with Members 

of Congress and do it legislatively, if possible. 

And in fact, when Secretary Babbitt expanded Craters of the 

Moon by 275,000 acres in my district, he did call me. I credit him 

for this. He called me and worked with me and said what they 

wanted to do. And I asked him at the time, I said, ‘‘You know, if 

this is what you want to do, let me introduce a bill and we will 

do it legislatively, the way it should be done.’’ And it was toward 

the end of the Clinton administration. They didn’t feel that they 

had time to do that. 


hsrobinson on DSK69SOYB1PROD with HEARING
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But if you are looking forward, that is really the appropriate way 

to do it and the way to build support for it. As you know, I am 

working on a wilderness bill now. It has taken me 8 years to build 

the public support among Idahoans to support this. But when it 

gets done, I know that the public will back it up. And the only way 

any of these things are sustainable is if the public supports them 

in the long run. 

So if you read the history of the Antiquities Act, when it was debated in Congress originally, it was thought that it would—in fact, 

the gentleman that introduced it said that it will never be a national monument of more than 5,000 acres. That was the most. He 

couldn’t imagine one being 5,000 acres. But they were to protect 

the Southwest tribes’—what do you call them—the pots and things 

that they had found down there that were being salvaged by people 

and stuff. And nobody anticipated the Antiquities Act would be 

used the way it is today. 

And while I don’t support repeal of the Antiquities Act, because 

there are appropriate times it ought to be used, we ought to also 

understand that it shouldn’t be used as a hammer. And I appreciate your statement on that, having said that. 

GRAZING PERMIT BACKLOG

On to another question, grazing. As you are well aware, the grazing program has experienced increased costs due to the very significant increase of cost and litigation. As a result of this litigation 

and the more robust environmental reviews being conducted by the 

Department, the BLM now has an extensive backlog of renewing 

grazing permits. Last year’s Interior bill directed an additional $1 million to begin 

addressing the grazing backlog this year, and I have heard from a 

variety of sources that BLM had requested $11 million in its fiscal 

year 2011 budget to address that backlog, but OMB apparently rejected that request. 

Can you provide me a record of the backlog, whether it exists? 

And what I would really like to know, because we look at the President’s request as a suggestion—ultimately, we have to write the 

appropriation bill. And there will be many areas where we agree 

with him, some we don’t. If this committee decides that grazing 

backlog is an issue that needs to be addressed, what I would like 

to know is what would it take over, say, a 5-year period of increased appropriations, to address the backlog that currently exists 

in the grazing permits? 

If we had that, then the committee would at least have some target that we could look at that we thought was a priority. I am not 

suggesting to undermine the budget that is being proposed by the 

administration, but what we need to know from the BLM is if we 

decide to shift things around based on our priorities, what it will 

take over, say, a 5-year period to address that. But could you address the backlog? 

And while you are addressing that, what is the sage-grouse decision going to do in terms of increasing that backlog on grazing permits? Will it increase the backlog because of the increased consultation on sage-grouse? Or will there be increased consultation? 

Or how are you going to address that issue? 


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Mr. ABBEY. Well, let me address the sage-grouse question first. 

We have been incorporating sage-grouse stipulations as part of our 

review of grazing permits for the last 10 years. 

There has been a lot going on on public lands in preparation for 

trying to demonstrate progress toward improving the overall sagegrouse habitat, and therefore we have taken our role very seriously 

since the Bureau of Land Management is the primary manager of 

sage-grouse habitat. We know that the future of the sage-grouse 

itself, whether it ends up being listed as an endangered species, 

will in many respects be based upon the actions that we take from 

this point forward. 

We have a lot of partnerships in place. We can demonstrate that 

we have had some successes in improving sage-grouse habitat in 

some parts of the Western United States. We continue to apply 

best management practices across the board so that we can be able 

to demonstrate to those that are going to be monitoring our actions 

that we are seeing improvements. And hopefully at the end of the 

day, or whenever the Fish and Wildlife Service reconsiders whether 

or not the sage-grouse should be listed, they will be able to see that 

progress has been made and that there will not be a good reason 

to go forward with listing the sage-grouse as an endangered species. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Is grazing one of the issues in destruction of sagegrouse habitat? 

Mr. ABBEY. Poor grazing practices can impact sage-grouse habitat, especially in some of the core areas. But there are a lot of factors that affect sage-grouse habitat. You know, wildland fire, and 

the numbers of wildfires that we have had in the Great Basin over 

the past several years and the vastness of those fires. 

Mr. SIMPSON. As I understand it, normal grazing practices that 

are done appropriately are not destructive of—— 

Mr. ABBEY. They are not a major factor in impacting the sagegrouse habitat. And like I said, Congressman, we have been incorporating sage-grouse stipulations into our grazing permits the last 

several years. So I don’t see business changing for many of the livestock operators. If we have poor performance, then we will deal 

with poor performance so that, again, we can meet our goals of 

demonstrating improvement. 

So moving to your first question. As we move forward with the 

proposed budget from 2011, if we get what we are requesting, in 

2011 we anticipate having a backlog of around 5,200 grazing permits. We are averaging around 2,200–2,300 permit renewals each 

year. So even with the increase—and I want to thank the members 

of this subcommittee for supporting an increase in our range program this year. If we continue down the path of the amount of 

money that we are requesting for 2011, we will continue to have 

a backlog. We are continuing to make inroads into that backlog, 

but we also are challenged by the continuing litigation that we 

must address, and make sure that any action that we take on these 

permit renewals can withstand the scrutiny that is sure to come. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I appreciate that. And I do want to work with you 

trying to address this, because I know it is an issue both for the 

BLM and for the grazers out there that want to do their work and 


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graze their cattle and have some certainty in it. So we want to 

work with you as a committee. 

Mr. ABBEY. Thank you. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Chairman Dicks. 

SAGE-GROUSE

Mr. DICKS. Are there good examples of habitat restoration efforts 

for the sage-grouse? 

Mr. ABBEY. We have several examples, and I would be happy to 

share specific ones with you, you know, after this hearing. Unless— 

Karen has a list in front of you. 

Mr. DICKS. Just tell me what you would do. Would you grow 

more sagebrush? 

Mr. ABBEY. We do. Again, we place a high priority on trying to 

protect existing sagebrush. As we go forward and rehabilitate or restore public lands, that we also include as part of the seeding sufficient sagebrush seeds so that we can continue to maintain a sagebrush step ecosystem that is so conducive to the health of the sagegrouse. 

As we look at the sage-grouse issue and the actions that we are 

taking, I have already mentioned that we have some excellent and 

outstanding partnerships in place throughout the areas. We have 

incorporated new actions in the State of Wyoming in partnership 

with the State of Wyoming. 

Mr. DICKS. I understand they are a leader. That is somewhat 

surprising to us, but they are really helping on this. 

Mr. ABBEY. That is about where—— 

Mr. MORAN. No offense to Wyoming. 

Mr. DICKS. There is nobody from Wyoming here. 

Mr. ABBEY. That is where half the sage-grouse population lives. 

And, therefore, they understand. 

Mr. DICKS. They have a big stake in this. 

Mr. ABBEY. Exactly. They have an outstanding stake in all this. 

And they have assumed a leadership role, and we are learning 

from their best management practices. 

As we go forward and we identify the sage-grouse core areas, one 

of the actions that we will take to the degree that we can is to 

avoid those core areas. Those areas where it is important for mating, where we have significant populations, we would avoid those 

core areas to the degree that we can. If we have a proposed action 

or we have an existing action within those core areas, then we will 

do our best to mitigate those. 

Mr. DICKS. Has anyone ever thought of using, under the Endangered Species Act, a habitat conservation plan which would work 

to try to protect critical habitat for these sage-grouse? 

Mr. ABBEY. We do. And we are moving forward aggressively 

throughout the Western United States in putting together such 

habitat conservation plans, again in partnership with many others. 

WILD HORSE AND BURRO STRATEGY

Mr. DICKS. Let me ask you again, going back on the wild burro 

issue. This is a vexing issue for our committee and for the Congress. Let me ask you this question. The BLM recently conducted 

a large gather. I assume that means a roundup? 


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Mr. ABBEY. Yes. 

Mr. DICKS. Of wild horses in Nevada, during which a number of 

animals perished. Please justify why you are still conducting these 

gathers. Is there a more humane way to deal with the horse populations? Is the BLM restricting the land available for wild horses 

so that horse herds are unable to find forage? 

Mr. ABBEY. Well, there are several questions there. Let me try 

my best to address each. 

Mr. DICKS. And if you forget one, I will remind you. 

Mr. ABBEY. I am sure you will. You know, this is not an easy program for the Bureau of Land Management. 

Mr. DICKS. No. You have to deal with this every day. I understand that. 

Mr. ABBEY. But the key, Congressman Dicks, is that as we move 

forward, we are working under our multiple-use mandate. We manage these public lands for many purposes, in addition to ensuring 

that we are going to have viable numbers and healthy herds of wild 

horses remaining in these herd management areas. 

The roundup that you referred to is what we call the ‘‘Calico 

roundup,’’ which is a roundup that included five herd management 

areas within northern Nevada. That particular herd was three to 

four times above what we had determined through our public planning process as appropriate management levels. So it was three or 

four times above what we believed the range could sustain. 

Mr. DICKS. So it was not sustainable. 

Mr. ABBEY. Not over the long term. As we went through and 

began gathering the horses and removing the horses to bring the 

numbers down to the 600 to 900 level, which has been determined 

to be the appropriate management levels, we ended up removing 

approximately 2,000 wild horses during that roundup. Those horses 

were loaded and transported to a holding facility in Fallon, Nevada, where we provided the health care to those horses that were 

removed from those public lands. Unfortunately, many—or, I say 

many—some of those horses were in such poor condition after 

being removed from the public lands, they died. We also had other 

horses that did not adapt to the change in food. 

Mr. DICKS. In transportation? During the transportation, or once 

they were there? 

Mr. ABBEY. In the facility. 

Mr. DICKS. In Nevada. 

Mr. ABBEY. In Nevada. We also have a veterinarian report that 

reported on the veterinarian’s assessment of why the horses died 

there. Usually, we have less than 1 percent of horses die from any 

of the roundups that we gathered. It is my understanding that this 

time around we had upwards of 50 or more horses of the 2,000 that 

did die in the holding facility once they were removed and transported to the holding facility. Again, a lot of those deaths are attributed to the poor body conditions that those horses were in when 

they were removed from the public lands and transported to the 

holding facilities. And then other horses actually miscarried which, 

again, brought a lot of criticism to the Bureau of Land Management for gathering horses so near foaling season. And my response 

to that is that we had planned to move forward with the roundup 

in early December, which was well before foaling season which ocVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:10 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 057302 PO 00000 Frm 00080 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A302P2.XXX A302P2

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curs in March and April, for the most part. We were stopped from 

moving forward with our gathering plans through a lawsuit that 

we had to address. We were provided the opportunity by the judge 

to continue with our plans to round up the horses there in the Calico complex, and we chose to do so. We do not gather our horses 

during foaling season. 

Mr. DICKS. Now, what about the preserves? You haven’t identified where they are going to be located, and I don’t think we know 

what the cost is of these new preserves. One is going to be in the 

East and one is going to be in the West? 

Mr. ABBEY. Well, we haven’t determined where they are actually 

going to be located. 

Mr. DICKS. So you are looking? 

Mr. ABBEY. We are looking. 

Mr. DICKS. Tell us what your strategy is. 

Mr. ABBEY. We would need congressional authorization for us to 

purchase lands, where we would then move horses to and hold 

them in a preserve-type concept. 

The attraction of a preserve is to get them out of a contracted 

holding facility onto lands that are either managed or owned by the 

United States citizens, or owned by partners, as we go forward and 

provide good homes and care for these horses over the long term, 

the horses that are going to be removed from public lands. Those 

preserves would also be open to the public for viewing. 

We believe that we could work with local communities on a type 

of tourism to bring people into and visit these icons, these American icons in a natural setting, again, as one idea. It is an opportunity for us to get out from under these long-term contracts, or 

these contracts that are costing us a small fortune to hold horses; 

moving from a contract-type facility to a facility that would be 

owned and managed by the Bureau of Land Management or by our 

partners. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

FEE ON NON-PRODUCING LEASES

Mr. Cole. 

Mr. COLE. Thank you. I want to focus on the subject of energy 

development on public lands, particularly this idea that, the administration is proposing an initiative to encourage—well, to actually 

charge a fee on ‘‘nonproducing oil and gas leases.’’ 

Could you tell me a little bit about that, and could you tell me 

in your answer is the aim to encourage production or discourage 

production? 

Mr. ABBEY. The aim is to encourage production. Congressman 

Cole, as you probably have seen from the statistics that we have 

shared with many others, right now it is my understanding that 

the Bureau of Land Management has leased about 45 million acres 

of public lands for oil and gas. Of that 45 million, we believe that 

there are around 13 million that are being produced today. So what 

we would like to do—and we continue to get requests to lease more 

and more of the public lands as far as the acres to increase the 

number of acres that are under lease by oil and gas companies— 

what we hope to accomplish, is encourage companies to be more 


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diligent in developing their leases by proposing this fee, with an incentive to move forward once they have their lease and once they 

have an application for permit to drill that has been issued by Bureau of Land Management, that they actually go out and drill and 

produce. 

Mr. COLE. Do you have any evidence that companies are deliberately sitting on leases? The purpose of oil and gas companies is 

to produce oil and gas. So do you have reason to believe that they 

are deliberately holding, tying up land, as opposed to producing on 

it? 

Mr. ABBEY. We have reason to believe that certainly the market 

drives the proposed actions on the part of the oil and gas industry. 

By that, I mean the number of applications for permit to drill. You 

would see that vary based upon the market conditions. If oil and 

gas is high in the market, then you would see a significant number 

of applications for permit to drill being submitted to the Bureau of 

Land Management. When the market is lower, you don’t see a significant number of applications for permit to drill. 

Mr. COLE. I would suggest that the companies are operating by 

economic incentives that the marketplace already produces. What 

worries me here is I think you are going to have a lot of companies—because they do operate on those economic incentives—say, 

‘‘Look, I am not going to automatically agree to produce in a certain time frame when I don’t know what the price is going to be.’’ 

And you may well have a lot of land that is currently leased and 

that you have leased income from, ceasing to be leased. 

In the private sector in our State it is certainly not uncommon 

for a lot more land to be leased than be explored. Just because land 

is leased, frankly, doesn’t mean it is economically viable or could 

be economically viable at one price but not at another. But from 

a producer’s standpoint, you are going to get a lot of people who 

say, ‘‘How in the world am I going to know this and operate this? 

What if oil prices collapse?’’ Which is not uncommon. I mean, they 

are high today, but they are barely half of what they were in the 

summer of 2008. 

So what would have been a productive lease in the summer of 

2008, worthy of investment, would not necessarily be one sitting 

here in the spring of 2010. 

Mr. ABBEY. I mean, that is true. I think as we move forward 

with our proposed budget request, we are asking for a $4 per acre 

fee that would be an incentive for oil companies to move forward 

aggressively, and certainly more timely, in applying for the necessary permits so that they could drill for that oil and gas resource. 

I think one of the dilemmas that we face, one of the challenges 

that we face, Congressman Cole, is, again, that we have over 45 

million acres already leased, and we continue to have more and 

more demands from many of the companies to continue to lease 

more and more of these public lands. And there are sound business 

reasons to do so. 

Mr. COLE. Again, I can just assure you that in the private sector 

there is probably—I don’t know this, but I would speculate it is 

probably a pretty comparable proportion of leased land that is not, 

‘‘in production.’’ That is not unusual. 


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Just because you do a lease doesn’t mean you are going to 

produce, let alone produce in an immediate time frame. I think you 

may be walking into a difficult situation. 

I already know of one major energy company (actually the second 

largest producer of natural gas in the United States) that will not 

lease on Federal lands because they think the conditions are so onerous. Now they will just go someplace else. You may end up with 

a significant natural resource that has income producing potential 

for the Federal Government and would move us toward energy 

independence, literally not going in the marketplace. 

If you can do it on private land more cheaply and more reasonably without these kind of constraints, why in the world would you 

come onto public land? And I think that is happening. I really do. 

I understand the intent here, but again I think part of the reasoning behind this kind of thinking, too, is the idea that somehow 

a lease is ‘‘nonproducing’’ if you are getting revenue off of it but 

they are not drilling, you are still making money. They are not 

leasing—they are writing a check to the Federal Government when 

they lose money. 

So I would just ask you to think long and hard about that, and 

sit down and talk to some of the producers that you want to attract 

into these kinds of lands, because I think you are really moving in 

a very dangerous direction here that is going to cost the Federal 

Government money and reduce the supplies of available oil and gas 

domestically in the United States. 

Mr. ABBEY. I appreciate those comments. 

INSPECTION FEES

Mr. COLE. Let me ask you one other question. I noticed there 

were inspection fees on the—new proposed inspection fees for onshore oil and gas. Could you explain what those are and what the 

purpose is? 

Mr. ABBEY. Well, it is to offset the $10 million reduction in our 

budgetary request for oil and gas. So it would be an offset. 

Mr. COLE. So essentially it is a tax on the energy industry. 

Mr. ABBEY. Call it what you may. We call it an offset. 

Mr. COLE. Well, it is a tax if you are paying it. 

Mr. ABBEY. But the key, again, is to continue the emphasis that 

we have. And certainly this is something that we receive a lot of 

support from the industry itself on the necessary inspections and 

enforcement of activities. 

Mr. COLE. It may well be. And I am not necessarily against it, 

but that fee will then be added into the price of gasoline and product. Basically that is going to be a pass-through to the consumers. 

So effectively here you are not taxing the oil companies, you are 

taxing the consumer. Fair enough? 

Mr. ABBEY. I will take those comments to heart. 

Mr. COLE. Well, you will see them at the pump, I can assure you. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I will yield back. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Cole. 

There may be another point of view that these natural resources 

are not going away, and it might be a good idea to preserve some 

of them for future generations. I understand that we want to reduce the cost of energy as much as we can and be as energy-indeVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:10 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 057302 PO 00000 Frm 00083 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A302P2.XXX A302P2

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pendent, but on the other hand, it is not something that we are 

going to lose if we don’t use it, and subsequent generations will be 

faced with a substantial squeeze on sources of energy themselves. 

So I just offer that there are other points of view in terms of the 

use of these natural resources. But Mr. Abbey is the—— 

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, if I may. 

Mr. MORAN. Sure. Go ahead. 

Mr. COLE. You are kind to let me, just as a quick response. If 

that is the purpose, fair enough. But that is not the stated purpose. 

The stated purpose is you are trying to encourage development. It 

has got to be one or the other, at least if we are going to be honest 

in our public debate and dialogue. Your point may well be a perfectly legitimate point: We are going to withhold resources from the 

market. And if you do that, you are going to affect price in the market again. 

Mr. MORAN. We won’t get into an argument now. I just offer to 

make—— 

Mr. COLE. Yes, sir. I never argue with the Chairman. 

AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Abbey, I am going to have to leave in a couple 

of minutes. Chairman Dicks is going to take over. But I did want 

to ask you about the $125 million in the Management of Lands and 

Resources appropriation that was included; actually that not only 

did you get the $125, but another $180, so we are talking $305 million total in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, socalled stimulus; $180 of that was in the Construction account. 

Could you tell us how you decided to allocate that money, and 

how much has been spent? And I know we have experienced a very 

slow rate of spending in some areas. I think much of that is to 

make sure that the money is spent in a way that is fully accountable, but you may want to address that. And how many jobs have 

been created or saved with that money? 

Mr. ABBEY. I would be happy to address some of your questions. 

And with your okay, I would also like to have Karen share some 

information that she may have. 

Of the $305 million that have been appropriated to the Bureau 

of Land Management, about $41.5 million is being used for construction projects. These are primarily to address our backlog in 

construction and maintenance. We also have $41 million that has 

been expended or will be expended to expedite environmental reviews for renewable energy development. That is a really great opportunity for us to expedite our increase in renewable energy as 

part of our Nation’s national energy portfolio. 

The money has really been welcomed by an agency like the Bureau of Land Management who has struggled for a number of years 

from not having sufficient funds to do many of the things that we 

have wanted to do for these years. 

I have to admit that the Bureau of Land Management, as have 

other agencies, struggled to take the actions necessary in order to 

get our projects up, get the contracts awarded, so that the moneys 

could be spent quickly. And by that, I mean putting people back 

to work. We are and have made some significant progress over the 

course of the last couple of months. I am pleased to report to the 


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members of this subcommittee that by March 31, we will have met 

all of our second quarter goals of obligating the funds from this 

particular funding source. So we have caught up to where we 

should be as far as our proposed expenditures of these funds. 

We are moving forward, addressing some of our highest priority 

needs as a result of this funding being made available, and we are 

committed to helping this Nation to put people back to work. 

I don’t have a specific number as far as the number of jobs. 

Karen, if you have anything else you would like to share. 

Ms. MOURITSEN. Well, it was about 348 jobs through the end of 

January, based on what the contractors have reported through the 

government database. We can’t verify that, and we actually think 

maybe they have created more jobs. But that was the number in 

there as to the end of January, and we are going to take care of 

about 16 percent of our deferred maintenance backlog. 

Mr. MORAN. I need to go on a mission for the Chairman here. So, 

Mr. Chairman, the gavel is yours. Wish me luck. 

Mr. DICKS [presiding]. I wish you luck. Don’t come back. That 

was a joke, of course. Mr. Simpson. 

Mr. SIMPSON. You are going to address 16 percent of your backlog maintenance with the ARRA funding? Is that why the construction request is down in the fiscal year 2011 budget? 

Ms. MOURITSEN. A little bit of that, yes. Balancing the needs of 

the budget in this 2011 budget, we are taking care of a big chunk 

of the deferred maintenance backlog with the Recovery funding. 

Mr. SIMPSON. So will the decrease in construction—we are decreasing it by 16 percent with the ARRA funding. We are reducing 

the construction budget in the future for next year. Is that backlog 

maintenance going to go back up now because we haven’t got sufficient funds in the construction budget, in the regular construction 

budget for 2011? 

Mr. ABBEY. We will continue to have a backlog, but they 

shouldn’t be going up. We will continue to seek additional funds as 

appropriate in the future to address our construction maintenance 

needs. 

As far as the construction funds for 2011, at least our request, 

I think we are asking for $5 million less in construction than what 

we had in this year. 

Mr. SIMPSON. You only had $8 million this year. 

Mr. ABBEY. Three million dollars of that is because we are making good progress in using the Recovery Act funds to do construction projects that would normally have come out of the construction 

budget. The other $2 million of that $5 million decrease is attributed to a one-time funding of the California Trails Center, which 

we completed. 

GENERAL BUDGET

Mr. SIMPSON. Let me ask another thing about looking at your 

budget justifications. I see that the management of lands and resources see a $36 million decrease; land acquisition sees a $54 million increase; and I suspect $42 million of that is the horse park. 

Mr. ABBEY. That is true. 


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Mr. SIMPSON. But still, we are seeing a 12—that aside, we are 

going to see a $12 million increase in land acquisition, while at the 

same time seeing a $36 million decrease in land management. 

Looking at the increased demand on BLM, things as we talked 

about: the sage-grouse, the backlog in grazing permits, et cetera, 

Is the $36 million in decrease in management appropriate? Is that 

the direction we want to head, while at the same time increasing 

the lands available that we have? 

Mr. ABBEY. I think the funding request that we have before you 

today will allow us to do those actions that need to be done. It will 

not allow us to do everything we would like to do. As you will hear 

from any member of any bureau, the entire Federal Government 

faces a difficult budget situation. We are trying to do our part to 

maintain our 2011 spending at the 2010-enacted levels. In order to 

accomplish that, the figures that you see before us are what we 

have proposed. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Well, I would think—and I guess the purpose of 

the question is that at a time when we are having a difficult budget, compared to last year when things went up substantially, is 

that the time to be purchasing more land at the time that we are 

reducing the management of the lands we currently have, reducing 

the money for the management of the—that is the question that 

comes to my mind. 

Mr. ABBEY. Well, I think it is an excellent question. I think what 

we do have is a window of opportunity to move forward at this 

point in time and acquire some land holdings within designated 

wilderness areas or national conservation areas that were recently 

designated through the Omnibus Act of 2009. We also had kind of 

a backlog of some of those acquisition proposals that would allow 

us to again consolidate land holdings within those designated 

areas, and so we are continuing to pursue that type of goal. And 

it is a trade off. 

EQUAL ACCESS TO JUSTICE ACT

Mr. SIMPSON. Let me ask about another subject, EAJA, the 

Equal Access to Justice Act. I need to understand that a little bit 

better. When someone sues the BLM and we end up paying the attorney’s fees for someone that sues, does that come out of your 

budget or does that come out of the Judgment fund at the Department of Justice? 

Mr. ABBEY. It can come out of either fund. And Karen, if I say 

something wrong, you correct me. 

It is part of the negotiations, it is part of the settlement discussion. But a lot of times it will come out of the Bureau of Land Management’s budget. That would be something that would be determined in discussions between the Department of Interior and Department of Justice. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Do you budget for that, or does it just come out of 

the programs that you currently have? 

Mr. ABBEY. We would absorb those costs. It would come out of 

the existing budget. We do not plan for litigation. We do not certainly plan to lose litigation. Unfortunately that has not necessarily 

been the case. And when we are sued and there are settlement disVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:10 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 057302 PO 00000 Frm 00086 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A302P2.XXX A302P2

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cussions or we lose in court, then the plaintiffs can go after their 

legal fees. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Who decides whether you are going to settle a case 

or not? Is that the Department of Justice or the BLM? 

Mr. ABBEY. The Department of Justice has the final say. 

Mr. SIMPSON. In whether to settle a case or not? 

Mr. ABBEY. In litigation. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Who reviews the appropriateness of the submitted 

claim for legal fees, the hourly rate, et cetera? 

Mr. ABBEY. It would be a combination of the Office of the Solicitor within the Department of the Interior and the Department of 

Justice. 

Mr. SIMPSON. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of transparency in 

this program in that the public doesn’t seem to have access to who 

is getting these fees, what they are charging, et cetera, whereas if 

you are submitting a grazing permit, the public gets notice, knows 

who is getting the grazing permit, what they are paying for the 

grazing permit and everything else, yet when these EAJA fees go 

out to law firms, it doesn’t seem like the public has access to knowing what they are. And I’m not suggesting they are inappropriate 

or anything else, but I just would like to know who they are. Is 

there a way to get for Congress to know who these fees are being 

paid to? 

Mr. ABBEY. You know, when I briefly read about that issue in 

anticipation of the question coming up, it is my understanding, 

Congressman Simpson, that there is a poor tracking process on the 

part of whether it is the Department of Agriculture, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Justice, that a lot of that 

information is not tracked, at least for a number, for a period of 

time. 

Again, if it is something that is important to Members of this 

Congress, I am sure that we could certainly implement a tracking 

process so that we can report back on those figures. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, that might be something that is appropriate within the appropriation bill when we do it, write some 

language in there. I just think it is something the public ought to 

have a right to know just like the public has a right to know who 

is grazing on public lands and what they are paying for it and so 

forth. 

LEASING REVIEW PROCESS

One other question I would like to ask. In mid-February, the 

Idaho delegation sent a letter to the Assistant Secretary for Land 

and Minerals Management, Wilma Lewis, expressing concern about 

a new DOI policy regarding energy and mineral development on 

BLM lands. Our specific concern relates to the environmental review process which, until recently, included involvement by BLM 

State offices but is now being centralized in Washington, DC. 

Until the end of the Clinton administration, this process was facilitated entirely at the State BLM level. My understanding is that 

this new change will result in a new approval process including 14 

reviews at separate offices under DOI and BLM. The procedural requirements of the environmental review process is already lengthy 


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and centralizing it in Washington will only delay approval of worthy, job producing projects. 

What are the benefits of centralizing this in Washington and 

what steps are being taken to make sure that the environmental 

reviews can be done in a timely manner? 

Mr. ABBEY. Well, first and foremost, we are not trying to centralize the decision making process in Washington, DC. 

What we have reported out on is our intentions to move forward 

with an oil and gas leasing reform package that includes some directions to our field offices that as they entertain proposals for 

leasing, that we will assure that we apply the necessary energy 

and focus on reviewing those proposals prior to leasing those parcels of land rather than going forward with a cursory review or cursory analysis of those proposed lease areas, and then put and apply 

our energies in dealing with the aftermath of leasing an area that 

probably should not have been leased in the first place. 

Mr. DICKS. Do you hope to avoid lawsuits by that? 

Mr. ABBEY. Let me cite one example: That is our hope. I am not 

naive enough to think that it is going to avoid all the lawsuits. In 

1998, we had 1 percent of all the leases that we had offered up 

were protested, and that is not too long ago, 1998, 1 percent. In 

2009 we had almost 50 percent of all the parcels that we offered 

for lease protested. What we are trying to do with our proposed 

leasing reforms is to ensure some certainty to industry. I know 

there are some in the industry and I know probably Members of 

Congress who believe that all we are doing is putting on additional 

burdens to the industry itself. 

I am here to point out that our commitment is to try to reduce 

our dependency on foreign oil and gas. And the best way that I can 

see doing that is to provide some certainty to the industry. So by 

moving forward with this new policy of trying to strengthen and 

provide a more thorough review of parcels that have been nominated both by industry or by the Bureau of Land Management is 

available for leasing, that the decisions that we made to move forward and lease those areas will withstand the scrutiny that is sure 

to come from members of the public who are sitting there wondering whether or not those areas should have been leased in the 

first place. 

If we, again, apply our energies up front rather than after the 

fact, then I think we can avoid some of the lawsuits, we can certainly avoid some of the protests, and if we have litigation, then 

we can win some of this litigation instead of always having to defend and losing. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I appreciate that, and I did just this last weekend 

I had people at a couple banquets I went to come up to me and 

complain about DOI’s new regulations, that they were trying to restrict the private users of land whether it is grazing or whether it 

is minerals or whatever. And I said I don’t think that is what they 

are trying to do. They are not trying to put more regulations on to 

restrict and make it more difficult. What they are trying to do is 

try to do a better job up front so that we can avoid some of the 

lawsuits that come along the way. Short of taking away the public’s 

right to sue, I don’t know of any other way to address it. Because 

I do think as we have talked about we spend far too much money 


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on lawsuits, money that could be better spent on managing the 

public lands and if there is a way to get around that I certainly 

would hope so. 

Mr. ABBEY. I certainly appreciate your comments and I also want 

to say too, that our policy is intended to also bring some balance 

back to public land management and in our multiple use mission. 

Not all of the lands that have been leased over the course of the 

last couple of years should have been leased. We certainly understand that, and we are trying to make sure that there is such a 

thorough review in place so that those lands that are appropriate 

for leasing will go forward and be leased and hopefully developed. 

Those lands that should not be leased, that we won’t make the mistake of leasing those and then having to deal with that and the 

aftermath of making those poor decisions. The work that we are 

proposing to take under this new leasing reform is to come up with 

better decisions. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you. 

GAO MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES

Mr. DICKS. Last year, the GAO identified a series of management 

challenges that have the potential for fraud, waste and abuse at 

the BLM and other Interior bureaus. A reoccurring theme was the 

need to strengthen resource protection, especially with respect to 

the operation of oil and gas operations on Federal lands. We note 

that the Department and the Bureau has begun substantial policy 

changes. Please highlight some of the main policy and management 

changes you are implementing to respond to the GAO recommendations. 

Mr. ABBEY. Well, let me just highlight a few. First and foremost 

we have already talked enough I think about the proposed oil and 

gas leasing reforms which I think will address some of those issues. 

We have also identified a need to provide appropriate funding, 

whether that is from a new proposed inspection enforcement fees 

or through the appropriations process to allow us to continue to do 

the necessary inspections and enforcement of the wells that have 

been developed on these public lands. 

And also you know we are working diligently with the Minerals 

Management Service to ensure that there is a good accountability 

for the production that is occurring on these public lands so that 

the American taxpayer is receiving its due from the leasing and development of their resources. So there is an awful lot that is in 

place. 

We continue to have a very positive and good working relationship with the oil and gas industry. Certainly some Members do not 

necessarily agree with the proposed actions or some of the actions 

that we take, but at the same time, we are working for the common 

good of this country. We do want to lessen the dependency on foreign oil and resources, our foreign oil and gas and other energy resources. As we move forward to make sure that the energy portfolio 

that we have in place includes the appropriate representation of renewable energy at the time of continuing to focus on conventional 

sources. 


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RENEWABLE ENERGY

Mr. DICKS. Tell us about your renewable energy initiative. I notice that the administration wants to do more on solar, wind and 

geothermal. Some of the outside environmental groups are worried 

that we have proper environmental oversight of this as well as our 

traditional sources of energy production. 

Mr. ABBEY. And rightly so. We want to be smart from the start. 

That is a term that we use. It is one that we take seriously as we 

go forward and entertain proposals. 

We have a lot of actions taking place right now in public lands 

as far as interest in some of these lands for the development of 

solar, wind, geothermal and biomass. We have a significant amount 

of geothermal resources underlying public lands that are managed 

by the Bureau of Land Management. The footprints associated with 

geothermal are much smaller than the footprints associated with 

solar or wind. 

As we go forward and continue to entertain the leasing of appropriate areas for geothermal development, we are also entertaining 

applications for rights-of-way that would, if approved, result in 

commercial scale solar projects being built on public lands, as well 

as wind projects. 

Currently, we have 34 fast track projects, and by fast track 

projects, I mean those projects that are in the process that have 

been proposed by proponents who have also filed for grants or 

loans from the stimulus package. So in order to qualify and receive 

those grants or loans from the stimulus, they would have to have 

their projects underway by December 2010. 

So as we have received these applications primarily for solar, 

geothermal, wind and transmission, we are moving rapidly to address those proposals, do the appropriate analysis and reach decisions that will result in some of those projects likely being approved, while some of the other projects for which we are currently 

doing the analysis will likely be denied, based upon the potential 

impacts to some key habitat, to some potential coastal resources or 

some other resources that are of a sensitive nature. 

Just because we are calling them fast track and because of the 

emphasis that we are placing on them and on renewable energy 

does not necessarily mean that every proposal before us will be approved for construction. 

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Cole. 

FEE ON NON-PRODUCING LEASES

Mr. COLE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Go back to this 

oil and gas thing just for a minute. I just wanted to make a point, 

because I, again, I accept what you are trying to do. I just think 

the method might not work very well. In the private sector if you 

want to encourage exploration and production you just control the 

length of the lease because it comes back up on the market. And 

in the private sector, usually a 3-year lease, is about what it is. 

Yours are longer. 

Sometimes what you want to do is limit the length of the lease. 

This thing will come up for bid again, you either are going to have 

to rebid it yourself or a competitor will come in. I think, ultimately, 


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you would find it works because it seems to work well in the private sector. 

OIL SHALE

Second let me ask you on a related issue, and I may be wrong 

about this. It is my understanding that in oil shale development, 

you are limiting now acreage to 640 acres. In the past it was 5,000 

or so that they can lease or would develop. Could you explain the 

thinking behind that to me if I am correct? 

Mr. ABBEY. Our focus right now, as far as oil shale, is to move 

forward and entertain proposals for research and demonstration, to 

have a better feel for what are the true consequences or impacts 

associated with oil shale development. Right now we really don’t 

know. We have certainly proposals, we have, right now under 

round two of the R&DD process, we have received three applications, two in Colorado, one in Utah I believe. 

As we go forward and look at the results of the research that is 

taking place on these leased areas, all of us will learn quite a bit 

as far as what are the true repercussions or ramifications to moving forward with an oil shale-type process or development process. 

We know that there are likely to be some impacts to the surface. 

We are not sure how significant the impacts might be to groundwater. By going forward and providing the emphasis on the R&DD 

leases that there is an awful lot of lessons that we can learn from 

the results of the efforts underway today. 

Mr. COLE. Are you comfortable that that is a sufficient size to actually encourage people to do it and for you to get a good reading? 

Because again, I respect the need and this is a relatively new technology and it is pretty important that we get it right. 

Mr. ABBEY. We really don’t know. Again, as we went forward 

with round two, we did limit the numbers of acres that we offered 

up under our proposal. We did not know what the reaction of the 

industry would be. We actually received four applications, but after 

doing the review three of them survived the review. There still 

seems to be some interest on the part of industry to go forward and 

do the research and help us all better understand what the possibilities are for developing this oil shale. 

Mr. COLE. I would just ask you to keep us posted. There is an 

big difference between traditional oil and gas and there are a lot 

of reasons why gas leasing is down. Frankly, we are finding abundant supply way off public land and that really affects what goes 

on in your domain. Oil is quite another matter. We probably are 

never going to have sufficient supplies inside the country, and this 

is potentially a great resource. 

LAWSUITS

Two quick other areas, one, just on the lawsuit, you really do 

have a lot of my sympathy. A lot of people suing you, frankly their 

aim is not to protect this or that particular parcel of land, it is just 

to stop all development on public lands. That is the only explanation, in my view, for the explosion of lawsuits that you have to 

deal with, and I commend you for trying to put yourself in as 

strong a position as you can be to deal with it, but I don’t think 

you are ever going to be able to get out of this boat, but good luck. 


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Mr. ABBEY. Thank you. I need all the luck I can get sometimes. 

ENERGY DEVELOPMENT ON TRIBAL LANDS

Mr. COLE. You have a tough job. Last area, and you may not be 

able to answer this off the top of your head but it is one again I 

would like to pursue with some appropriate person in the department. I am always concerned with development of resources on 

tribal lands. I think this is a history that is not a very happy one 

in this country where there has been a lot of abuses, so being careful is a good thing. But I think there is also a lot of foot dragging 

here, and sometimes where tribes are sitting on land that can and 

should be developed are denied the opportunity to do that when 

private development goes on all around them. They basically lose 

the ability to use an asset, that honestly given their location, quite 

a few of these tribes in their desperate situation really need to do. 

So can you tell me what we are doing to expedite the ability of 

tribes to lease and develop what is, in the end, a trust relationship, 

but is their own resource and how do you see that moving forward? 

Mr. ABBEY. I think you summarized it quite well. We do have a 

trust responsibility to provide the advice, counsel and expertise to 

the tribe that we may have that they may have a need for. 

The ultimate decision rests with the tribe on how they would like 

to use their resources. There are tribes who are very interested in 

moving forward and developing their natural resources, and some 

of them are sitting on an awful lot of natural resources that can 

be developed that would bring in much-needed revenue to the tribal members but again it is a decision that only they can make. 

Mr. COLE. I would just ask, and I will conclude with this, thank 

you, Mr. Chairman, if you could have somebody contact or we will 

contact you. I would like to sit down and explore this a little more 

and get a better understanding for myself about what the process 

is and what might be done to assist tribes to make appropriate decisions where their own resources are concerned. Thank you for 

your focus on that. 

CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION

Mr. DICKS. The budget request includes a $2.5 million increase 

for climate change adaptation. Please tell us exactly what you have 

done with the fiscal year 2010 climate change funds. 

Mr. ABBEY. Well, Mr. Chairman, we have moved forward this 

year and are conducting six ecoregion assessments, and by that, I 

mean we are compiling existing data and information that has relevance to baselining our knowledge of the resources as they exist 

today, and setting in motion the necessary monitoring to see what 

affects the climate change may have on those resources. We are 

also, through the ecoregional assessments, determining what are 

those resources that we really need to be focusing our attention on, 

those relative to land health. How do we, what actions can we take 

to increase resiliency to climate change, so that the native plants 

and the native species that exist, the animal species that exist in 

many of these ecoregions, will continue to be able to exist for years 

to come and won’t be adversely affected by climate change. 

The efforts that we have underway relative to ecoregional assessments are quite in line and supportive of what we are doing within 


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the Department of the Interior. All the bureaus are working much 

closer together than ever before to gain a better understanding of 

the effects, the true effects, of climate change on the resources and 

assets that we manage on behalf of the American public. The Bureau of Land Management and information that we are collecting 

in 2010 from our ecoregional assessments are being shared with 

the new proposed climate science centers that will be managed by 

the USGS in partnership with others. 

Mr. DICKS. Our committee created the Center on Wildlife Adaptation and Climate Change. 

Mr. ABBEY. I fully understand that, and I think it will pay huge 

dividends so you can take pride in that. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you. I am glad to hear you were working together. There was concern. Mr. Simpson, I know, had concern and 

all of us did. 

Mr. ABBEY. You should. 

Mr. DICKS. We are all of a sudden seeing money in every budget 

for climate change work and the question the committee had was 

will there be coordination? Are they going to get together, share information and use this money effectively? 

Mr. ABBEY. To Secretary Salazar’s credit, he pulled all the bureau directors together and made sure we understand how we are 

going to move forward and work together, not only with the climate 

science centers, but also with the landscape conservation, our conservation cooperatives, that are going to be developed across the 

United States. I forget exactly how many are being proposed, but 

that is under the leadership of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 

but at the same time the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau 

of Reclamation, the National Park Service as well as the USGS and 

the U.S. Forest Service are all going to have a role to play in supporting the actions from the landscape cooperatives. 

Mr. DICKS. We had a hearing about 2 years ago on the various 

Federal agencies. I can’t remember if we had the Bureau of Land 

Management or not, but we heard from them at that time that 

things like drought, bug infestation, fire season was longer, there 

are even some areas where you could see there is a rising sea, 

maybe in Florida, for example. Point Reyes, they had certain 

issues. So we share this concern, and I would even think for the 

people who are still skeptical, making sure that we do good science, 

and that the science is open to public review, should help even 

those who are critical, who are skeptical about the conclusions that 

we have reached. 

So what is your long-term strategy? And where does this fit in 

with the soil, water and air budget? 

Mr. ABBEY. Well, the Soil, Water and Air budget primarily, the 

increase that we are proposing in 2011 will allow us to do a better 

job of creating a model and monitoring for air quality issues. As we 

look in some of the more intensive oil and gas areas, the one vulnerability we have in many of the lawsuits that are raised is our 

lack of air quality data. 

We are requesting some additional moneys in 2011 that will 

allow us to continue to augment the monitoring stations that we 

have in place so that we can report back to all interested parties 

the effects of being derived from our actions and approvals of the 


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authorizations that we are getting for a variety of purposes on public lands. 

CARBON SEQUESTRATION

So far as the other aspect of Soil, Water and Air, I think we all 

understand, too, that the public lands that are managed by the Bureau of Land Management have a significant role in carbon sequestration. If we have healthy public lands, healthy resources on these 

public lands, then we can store more carbon through biological 

processes. We are also working very closely with the Department 

of Energy and USGS in doing some further testing regarding the 

potential that we have for geologic sequestration of carbon underneath the public lands that are managed by the Bureau of Land 

Management. We believe that there is going to be a significant role 

that the Bureau of Land Management can play as far as it relates 

to climate change. 

Mr. DICKS. Dr. Mark Myers, who I had a great deal of regard for, 

was formerly head of the USGS, one of the things he cautioned on 

this subject was we know a lot about sequestration using it in oil 

and gas fields, but that there hadn’t been much science done about 

doing it in other areas. What do you think of that? 

Mr. ABBEY. I think he is absolutely on the mark and that is why 

we are working with USGS and the Department of Energy so we 

can do that testing so we can have a better understanding of what 

the true impacts might be. 

Mr. DICKS. So we ought to do a few pilot projects throughout the 

country? 

Mr. ABBEY. I think we should. 

Mr. DICKS. Because I think carbon sequestration could be a huge 

positive, if we can make it work. 

Mr. ABBEY. I agree. 

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Simpson. Mr. Cole. 

Mr. COLE. Just one question, if I may, and I am going to take 

the liberty of reading this if I could. 

GENERAL MINING LAW

General mining law of 1872 is one of the major statutes directing 

Federal land management policy. The law grants, as I know you 

know, free access to individuals, corporations to prospect for minerals in open public domain lands and allows them upon making 

a discovery to stake or locate a claim or deposit. The claim gives 

the holder the right to develop the land. 

That law really hasn’t been changed much since 1872, so I am 

curious, are there efforts underway to drastically revise the hard 

rock mining law, do you foresee in the future either proposing 

something or seeing the administration propose something? Or are 

you comfortable with the law as the way, in the manner in which 

it currently operates? 

Mr. ABBEY. Well, again, I hesitate to speak for the Secretary of 

the Interior, and I will let him answer that himself, but I would 

say that I think it would certainly be beneficial for us to go back 

and revisit the 1872 law and modernize it to the degree that it is 

necessary. 


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We still have a need as a country to develop our natural resources. And many of the mineral resources that are developed, are 

located first and foremost and then developed, under the mining 

law. 

We need to be smart about it. We need to make sure there are 

appropriate environmental safeguards that are in place, and that 

those lands being staked and potentially developed for mineral resources are the appropriate ones. From my position, I do think that 

it is time, maybe not this year, but certainly in the very near future, that we should have conversations with Members of Congress 

to look at the possibilities of at least updating that law and bringing it into today’s—— 

Mr. COLE. If you proceeded in that fashion, I would really strongly recommend that this be done slowly and carefully, and I say this 

as a former member of the Resources Committee. I recall hearing 

testimony on a couple occasions, particularly where strategic minerals were concerned, where we have a real reliance on overseas 

sources that are in places could be easily disrupted. This testimony 

described that we had quote ‘‘sufficient quantities’’ in the country, 

but partly because of environmental regulation and lawsuits they 

moved overseas. They actually could be developed just as cheaply 

and reasonably here, and frankly, in an environmentally better 

way than they are apt to be in a Third World country without 

much regulation, but that lawsuits and things like that have made 

it extremely difficult and we are pushing some of our companies 

that do this elsewhere. 

So this is just an area that I think, I am really afraid we would 

overreact in, and it is someplace we need to move pretty carefully. 

If you have got some ideas, care to elaborate on here, in terms of 

the directions that you think modernization needs to occur, I would 

love to hear them. 

Mr. ABBEY. Well, we would welcome the opportunity to sit down 

with you and share some thoughts along those lines so maybe not 

today but in the future. 

Mr. COLE. We are going to be spending a lot of time together. 

Thank you. 

Mr. ABBEY. If I could. 

Mr. DICKS. Go ahead. 

LAWSUITS

Mr. ABBEY. Let me just say one thing too, because we have 

talked an awful lot about lawsuits. As I have shared with the Bureau of Land Management employees, for whom I have the highest 

regard as being some of the most dedicated public servants that 

you find in the Federal Government or in government in general, 

we should not be fearful of lawsuits. 

As we go forward and do the best job we can, we need to understand the appropriateness of our action, first and foremost, that we 

also include the best information that is available to us, and do the 

best analysis, and at the end of the analysis make the best decisions that we can, and then let the chips fall where they may. 

Mr. COLE. If I may, I want to add a qualifier because I don’t disagree with anything you are saying. Frankly, I appreciate that you 

are moving in a direction to put yourself in a defensible position 


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when you make a controversial decision, but, if you are really an 

environmentalist, you think globally. And if you push production 

outside the United States, and a lot of areas where again we have 

a good regulatory system, we have dedicated public services, we 

have a free press, we have scrutiny. If companies, because we make 

it impossible to do business here, go someplace else, this stuff usually happens someplace else and usually happens worse and the 

consequences for us quite often are becoming more dependent on 

foreign sources when we have abundant sources here. 

So there is a balance to be struck here. And I am not saying litigation is the only part of it. But if the production then goes someplace else, the environment hasn’t been improved in a global sense. 

That is how I understand climate change. The main focus, it is a 

global concern, it is not something we can regulate ourselves and 

we ought to think twice about exporting activities outside the 

United States where it will be less environmentally sound when 

conducted elsewhere. 

Mr. ABBEY. Thank you. 

WESTERN OREGON TIMBER

Mr. DICKS. Let me ask you this: What is going on with the western Oregon Timber and Management plan? 

Mr. ABBEY. Prior to my coming on board as the director of Bureau of Land Management, the Department looked at the lawsuit 

that had been filed against that planning process and the decision 

that came out of that lawsuit from a Federal judge that ruled that 

there was not appropriate consultation with the U.S. Fish and 

Wildlife Service prior to reaching those decisions that came out of 

that plan. As a result of that, Secretary Salazar withdrew the plan, 

as proposed, and asked me when I first came on board to work with 

then Sam Hamilton, the Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

Service to put together—— 

Mr. DICKS. Terrible loss. 

Mr. ABBEY. Terrible loss—a review team to go in and determine 

first and foremost what type of consultation took place, how we 

could do a better job, how we could continue to use the best available information that came out of that plan. There is some tremendous data that was generated as part of that 3 or 4–year effort to 

put together that plan. So Sam and I designated a team made up 

of employees from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of 

Land Management from the U.S. Forest Service, and I believe 

NOAA, to go forward, to review the situation in western Oregon 

and come back with some recommendations that if implemented, 

could create more of a collaborative process where we could hope 

to bring in the various stakeholders around the table so that we 

could discuss the alternatives that are, you know, available to us 

for consideration and then how best to proceed to allow for some 

timber harvest on those areas where the resources lend itself for 

harvesting of timber, at the same time acknowledging that there 

are other sensitive resources out that will need to be managed for. 

We have just completed the initial review from the team. We are 

commenting back on their draft report this week. Those comments 

are due actually Monday of next week. Our intentions are to complete that report that would contain recommendations on how to 


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proceed with future planning in western Oregon, adopt those recommendations that we can support, brief the members of the Oregon delegation, potentially Washington delegation, on what our 

next steps are, and then put together a strategy of that we can pursue and move forward as aggressively as we can to put in place a 

new plan that will guide future actions. 

BIOMASS

Mr. DICKS. Now you mentioned biomass as one possible alternative energy source. I happen to believe this could be a very substantial energy source and that this ought to be thoroughly considered. What is your view on that? 

Mr. ABBEY. I agree. I think biomass is one of the renewable energy sources that we don’t make the best use of. We have a lot of 

it. We need to work together with stewardship contracts and that 

means in partnerships with others. We need to make sure that 

there is a market that is reasonable as far as the cost of shipping 

the products to where the market is so that they can use biomass. 

Mr. DICKS. That seems to be one of the key factors: how far you 

can go away from a mill and the boiler where you are going to use 

this wood. 

Mr. ABBEY. If I could, Mr. Chairman, the other factor that comes 

into place is the sustainability of that biomass resource because 

people are willing to invest in those boilers and invest in the technology to put in place a use for that biomass but they would like 

to make sure that over time that biomass resource is going to continue to be made available to them. 

Mr. DICKS. And the Federal Government could help there, as you 

know. What is your backlog on thinning or treating the forests that 

you have under your control? The Forest Service is 80 million acres 

that need to be treated or thinned. Do you have any idea what your 

backlog is? 

Mr. ABBEY. I really don’t. 

Mr. DICKS. But I assume it is substantial. 

Mr. ABBEY. Well, certainly not as substantial as the Forest Service just given the volumes of timber that they manage. We do have 

a backlog. We have a definite need to go forward and start managing more proactively the forests that come under our jurisdiction. 

Again, we need to do so smartly. We need to make sure that those 

sensitive resources that exist, primarily wildlife, our fisheries, are 

protected through appropriate stipulations, but we do have a need 

and a desire to go forward and thin some of these forests that are 

quite frankly overgrown. 

Mr. DICKS. And sometimes people forget, if you do the thinning, 

first of all, you would have material for your biomass, sometimes 

if it is large enough it can be even merchantable or used for chips, 

but also if you have fires, where you have done the thinning, the 

fires are less intense and do less damage to the soil. So to me, it 

is wrong that we just let this thing get worse, and I would like you 

for the record to tell us what your backlog is. But I know what the 

Forest Service backlog is, 80 million acres. (tackling this problem) 

in my view, would create jobs. There is a whole litany of positive 

things that come from this work, but we have just neglected it. It 

is hard for us to take care of it all here, because the budget. With 


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a freeze, you have to cut it from somewhere else to put it into reducing the backlog. 

Mr. ABBEY. I agree wholeheartedly. Appropriate management of 

our forests will result in healthier forests and more resilient forests 

and we wouldn’t have the bug infestation that we are seeing in 

some of the areas. 

Mr. DICKS. The other thing is that as the forest is regenerating 

itself, it takes up more carbon dioxide. That is one thing that people forget. So the thinning leads to trees growing faster and bigger, 

it takes up more CO2. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Are you suggesting we cut old growth forests? 

Mr. DICKS. I am suggesting that when we have the new forests, 

they are going to take up more carbon dioxide. 

Mr. SIMPSON. You are absolutely right. 

Mr. DICKS. Any other questions? Okay, thank you, very good job. 

Mr. ABBEY. Appreciate it. Thank you. 


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TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 2010. 

HEARING ON PRESERVING AMERICA’S CULTURE AND 

NATIONAL TREASURES: THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE FY2011 BUDGET REQUEST 

WITNESSES 

JONATHAN JARVIS, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE 

BRUCE SHEAFFER, COMPTROLLER, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE 

DAN WENK, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN MORAN

Mr. MORAN. I give you credit for being here on time along with 

Mr. Cole. Thank you for, Mr. Cole, for being here on time. Mr. Jarvis. 

Mr. JARVIS. Chairman. 

Mr. MORAN. Nice to see you, and Bruce, it is nice to see you. 

Mr. SHEAFFER. Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MORAN. We certainly welcome you. This is Mr. Jarvis’s first 

hearing before the subcommittee, but it is not your first hearing, 

Mr. Sheaffer. 

Mr. SHEAFFER. It is not, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MORAN. You have had basically a lifetime of appearances before this subcommittee, but you have seen that this subcommittee 

has consistently supported the Park Service. I suspect we will continue in that consistent support so that not only today’s visitors but 

future visitors will have lifetime memories as a result. 

Mr. Simpson gets a big kick out of these quotes that I offer. 

‘‘Short-lived moment of Zen,’’ so I will do it again. 

Back in 1875, thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized 

people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is 

going home, that wildness is a necessity, and that mountain parks 

and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life. 

So what John Muir understood 135 years ago we are still witnessing today, thanks to the National Parks. Visitations are on the 

rise, and, you know, in a difficult economic recession this is one of 

the things that has continually been made available to people regardless of their economic condition. 

In 2016, a very short period of time to come, the Park Service 

will celebrate 100 years as the stewards of some of the most important lands and national icons in America; 392 park units, 23 national scenic and historic trails, and 58 wild and scenic rivers. So 

your responsibilities to these important lands and icons are enormous. In addition you are charged with preserving cultural and 

historic sites for future generations. Congress likes to help you 

with that. We will discuss that further, but I think we at this point 


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should quickly summarize the major components of the 2011, request for the National Park Service. A total of $2.7 billion, the request is almost $15 million less than 

what was provided last year. I know there is a little bit of discrepancy on the 2010 amount, but when funds are unobligated, you 

know, that money is appropriated to have been spent, so it is our 

number that is going to prevail here. The 2011 request is only half 

a percent reduction, but within that amount you are expected to 

absorb $32 million in fixed costs and realize $17.6 million in management efficiencies, which we know is going to be difficult. 

The Operations of the National Parks Accounts does have an in- crease of $35 million. That is part of the President’s initiative to 

fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund by 2014. You 

have requested a $30 million increase for land acquisitions, although you have not requested the personnel necessary to properly 

manage those acquisitions perhaps. But these increases do come at 

the expense of a number of programs and projects that are particularly important to this committee and the Congress as a whole. 

Your request eliminates both the Save America’s Treasures and 

Preserve America Grant Program. This cannot be because there 

was not sufficient interest on the Congress’s part. It cuts by 50 percent the Heritage Area Partnership Grants. It reduces by a third 

the funds for the Park Partnership Grants, and it reduces line item 

construction by $38 million, even though you have billions in construction backlogs. It also decreases 73 full-time equivalent positions from last year’s level. We assume that you will absorb the $32 million in fixed costs. 

It is going to make it extraordinarily difficult, though, as a result 

to fill over 400 vacancies. So I assume that that is how you are 

going to deal with absorbing those costs. But those vacancies that 

will not be available next year I am sure, and so there will be far 

fewer vacancies showing. 

Although there is much in your request we are pleased about, we 

clearly have concerns about some of the reductions. The subcommittee intends to look closely at all of the requests before us 

to identify, of course, areas of waste and abuse. The full committee 

Chairman is particularly interested in this as well. We will have 

some questions in that area, but we do know you are going to help 

us root out wasteful spending to the extent that it exists at the 

Park Service. Before I ask you to begin with your opening statement, Mr. Jarvis, I know we all want to hear from Ranking Member, Mr. Simpson. 

So, Mr. Simpson. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. I have to admit it is strange coming from a hearing 

on nuclear waste to one on our National Parks. The connection 

there just does not seem to fit. 

But, Director Jarvis, thank you for being with us today to discuss 

the important work of the National Park Service and your priorities for the coming year. Let me begin by thanking you and Bruce 

for your efforts in addressing a number of issues over the last 

years. It was about a year ago that we had our first discussions 

about the large carryover balances in the Rec Fee Program. WorkVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:10 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 057302 PO 00000 Frm 00158 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A302P2.XXX A302P2

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ing together in a collaborative fashion with the support of Chairman Dicks, we made tremendous progress in developing a workable 

strategy to better manage this program and reduce these balances 

to an acceptable level. 

I also want to express my thanks to both of you for your efforts 

to address the complex issue relating to the potential location of a 

critical transmission line near the Minidoka National Historic Site 

in Idaho. My understanding is that an alternative location has 

been identified that will minimize future impacts and will meet the 

long-term goals of the Park Service, the local power provider, and 

other affected parties. Again, collaboration has been the key to this 

effort, and I am hopeful that we can finalize an agreement through 

legislation this year. 

Your budget request for next year is relatively flat overall but 

makes some bold decisions about winners and losers. On the one 

hand, your request for land acquisition, if approved, would represent 144 percent increase over the ’09 level of $64 million. That 

is a big increase in just 2 years. 

On the other hand, your budget request cuts construction fund- ing by $45 million, it terminates the $25 million Save America’s 

Treasures Grant Program that was mentioned by the Chairman, 

and like other bureaus of the Department of Interior, you are being 

forced by OMB to absorb increase in fixed costs, as was also mentioned by the Chairman. That concerns me. 

I would like to delve into these and many other issues with you 

today and look forward to your testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

TESTIMONY OF DIRECTOR JARVIS

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Director of the Park Service, you may proceed 

with your statement. 

Mr. JARVIS. Okay. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. 

Mr. JARVIS. Thank you. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I appreciate this opportunity to appear before you today 

to present the National Park Service’s fiscal year 2011 budget, and 

if I may, I would submit the written testimony for the record, and 

I will just kind of cut to the chase and summarize my remarks. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you. 

Mr. JARVIS. As you already indicated, I am accompanied by 

Comptroller Bruce Sheaffer. How many of these have you done 

now, Bruce? 

Mr. SHEAFFER. A lot. 

Mr. JARVIS. A lot. And also Deputy Director, Dan Wenk, is with 

me as well. 

We really appreciate the support of Congress in achieving our 

goals as stewards of America’s treasures. The National Park Service is charged with preserving unimpaired lands and historic sites 

valued for their environmental resources, recreation, and scenic 

worth; cultural and historic significance; and their open space. 

I hope all of you have seen the Ken Burns film. If not, I can get 

you a copy. ‘‘The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.’’ I know 

many of you are fans of this great production. It reminded Americans of the courage and vision that created the National Park ServVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:10 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 057302 PO 00000 Frm 00159 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A302P2.XXX A302P2

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ice in this country. Mr. Burns highlighted individuals from Presidents, like Teddy Roosevelt to our first National Park Service Director, Stephen Mather, but also leaders in Congress and private 

individuals whose strength really was their conviction that these 

places that they loved would be preserved and protected for the enjoyment of present and future generations. 

The film also served testament to the National Park Service’s incomparable workforce, and this is one of my priorities as Director. 

The employees highlighted, like Mount Rushmore Superintendent 

Gerard Baker and Yosemite Ranger Sheldon Johnson, showed that 

for them, their work is far more than just a job. It is a mission to 

carry out and carry on the legacy of inspiring future stewards that 

began nearly 100 years ago. 

We are looking forward to our 100th anniversary in 2016, and we 

believe this budget will advance our goals for the preservation, interpretation, and restoration of these incredible resources. 

The 2011 budget request supports gains made in past years, and 

we really appreciate the support of this committee in investing in 

the National Park System. The budget request supports several of 

the Secretary’s goals, including preserving treasured landscapes, 

addressing the challenge of resource stewardship that can be and 

will be made more difficult by global climate change, and reaching 

out and engaging all Americans, especially the youth of our Nation, 

to create a personal connection with our National Parks. 

My personal priorities, I mentioned workforce, also include relevancy, education, and stewardship. They dovetail precisely with 

the goals of the Secretary, the Administration, and this budget. The budget proposal includes $2.7 billion for discretionary appro- priations and a total of $3.1 billion when all sources are added together. It is essentially unchanged from fiscal 2010, and it reflects, 

frankly, the difficult budget and economic environment that we 

find ourselves in this country today, and the National Park Service 

is doing its part in that regard. 

It does reflect strategic increases, combined with selected program reductions and eliminations made after long, arduous, careful 

and serious deliberations. 

The increases include $51 million for our treasured landscapes. 

The increases would build operational capacity, maintain NPS facilities, ensure our organizational capacity and professional development, and some of our critical stewardship programs, as well as 

security. 

For instance, there is an investment of $5.8 million that will augment our efforts to reach this country’s youth and instill in them 

an appreciation of the National Parks. These are strategic investments in parks that will be sustained over the long term to connect 

kids to parks. That is being matched with $6.4 million in recreational fee revenues, a total of $2 million over the 2010 level. 

This really does help us achieve both my and the Secretary’s goal 

of getting youth into nature, and ultimately it could lead to some 

of these young folks seeking careers in conservation, perhaps in the 

National Park Service. 

You mentioned the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The National Park Service works to assist both the state side and the federal side of LWCF, and the Administration is committed to full 


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funding of LWCF at $900 million by 2014. Towards this effort we 

are requesting an additional $30 million for federal land acquisition and state conservation grants for fiscal year 2011. 

Climate change is really one of our greatest challenges to the 

parks and is one that I have a deep passion for understanding and 

addressing, so I fully support the Department of Interior’s decision 

to reemphasize the role of science in the federal land management 

decision-making process. While there are no additional funds in the 

FY 2011 budget for climate change, we are sustaining the $10 million that was provided in fiscal year 2010, and we will be strategically applying that funding to the Departmental initiative to ensure there is no duplication. 

All of that is the good news. Now, the downside. Certainly everyone in this room is aware of the difficult economic challenges that 

are facing our country right now, so this budget reflects some hard 

choices. 

The $87 million in critical increases are offset by $91 million in 

reductions. The proposed budget requests no funding for Save 

America’s Treasures, Preserve America, the Challenge Cost Share, 

and the Competitive Sourcing Programs. It eliminates 2010 Congressional earmarks for Statutory Assistance and proposes reductions in the Construction and Heritage Area Programs. 

We are asking all of our partners to tighten their belts, but we 

are doing our part as well. We are looking to realize management 

savings through approximately $18 million in reductions in travel, 

information technology, centralized acquisition, and energy efficiencies. 

For instance, energy savings are expected to be achieved from 

the implementation of our American Recovery and Reinvestment 

Act of 2009. On top of that we will also be absorbing, as you indicated, $32 million in pay increases and fixed costs, primarily in operations. 

The budget underscores cost containment, program consolidation, 

and management efficiencies to meet these fiscal realities. 

The National Park Service has made investments in our future 

and put Americans to work using the $750 million in ARRA funds, 

plus $170 million in roadwork provided to the Department of 

Transportation. We want to thank you all for your support. This 

funding is going to be completely obligated by September 30, 2010, 

and it is anticipated it will reach about 1,000 capital investment 

and deferred maintenance projects in the park system, hitting facilities, roads, and a variety of other resources. Projects include restoration of roads, abandoned mine lands mitigation, renewable energy retrofits in parks as I have already mentioned, trail maintenance, and critical equipment replacement. The level of ARRA 

funding was actually a critical factor in determining our fiscal 2011 

construction request. 

Mr. Chairman, in closing, may I say how much we appreciate the 

support you and the members here have provided the National 

Park System in the past. We are excited to work with you to lay 

out the next century of stewardship. That concludes my remarks 

and I am open for questions. 

[The statement of Jonathan Jarvis follows:] 


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MANAGEMENT EFFICIENCIES AND FIXED COSTS

Mr. MORAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Jarvis. 

Within your budget it is assumed, as we mentioned, that the 

Park Service will absorb $32 million in fixed costs; cost of living, 

rent increases, and so on, and another $17.6 million in management efficiencies. I was a budget officer 40 years ago, and you 

know, I was either directly or marginally involved in these things, 

putting a line item for waste, fraud, and abuse or management efficiency. It is a bit of a fudge factor oftentimes. 

We would like to kind of pin you down on how you intend to realize those efficiencies and how you intend to absorb such a large 

amount of fixed costs. The concern obviously is what effect it will 

have on the Park Service programs and staff. So we start with that 

question. 

Mr. JARVIS. Thank you, Chairman. As you and most of the folks 

in here know, the National Park Service is an organization that 

has a very large workforce. We are very much a frontline workforce. Discretionary budgets are provided principally at the park 

level for seasonal operations. So this absorption of fixed costs will 

result in a reduction of frontline employees. We estimate somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 FTE across the system. 

Now, having said that, fiscal year 2010 was a pretty good budget 

year, and our fixed costs were covered for several years in the past. 

There has been some restoration of our frontline operations. 

The second piece is that over the last three or four years we have 

also been working with our park superintendents to build a larger 

discretionary component to their budget and a smaller fixed cost 

ratio so that they can build in some flexibility to make it through 

these periods in which there is a reduction in fixed costs. 

We are also emphasizing in this budget where there are opportunities for shared resources between parks at the network level, and 

I think that allows us in many cases to continue high-quality service to the public in these tight budgetary times. 

On the management efficiency side, we are still working on the 

details to be very blunt about it, exactly how this is going to be carried forward. Some of it is at the Departmental level. We have 

identified that there can be efficiencies wrung from some of our 

program areas like information technology, consolidations of servers, use of video technology rather than travel, and so those are the 

kind of things that we are currently focusing on. 

Mr. MORAN. That is going to produce $17.6 million? 

Mr. JARVIS. I actually have not seen the details on that plan yet. 

We are awaiting the Departmental guidance on this. 

SMITHSONIAN FOLKLIFE FESTIVAL

Mr. MORAN. Well, we will wait with bated breath to see the specifics as well. 

Mr. Director, we hear from the Smithsonian Institution that the 

Park Service has told them to move all of this year’s Folklife Festival activities out from under the trees, which give them shade. 

But the Park Service has told them to move all those activities, out 

from under the elm trees to the side, onto the gravel walkways 


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where we have thousands of people, of course, that walk that area 

every day and tens of thousands sometimes on the weekends. 

This is based on an anticipated implementation of a 50-year plan 

for the Mall. I have some concern that you are making these 

changes a bit prematurely. We might want to take a look at the 

ecological effect on the elm trees and so on. Have you considered 

allowing the Smithsonian to proceed with their planned use of the 

elm tree area for this year’s Folklife Festival while you work to develop an appropriate, cooperative, long-term solution with the 

Smithsonian for future Folklife Festivals? 

Mr. JARVIS. The simple answer to that question is, yes, sir. 

Mr. MORAN. That is the right answer. 

Mr. JARVIS. As you know, the Mall has had a lot of uses over the 

years and results in a Mall that really does not reflect its stature 

as America’s front lawn. The Mall was never constructed in such 

a manner to be used in that manner. The Mall is basically a very 

small layer of topsoil on the top, and these kinds of large events 

do have their impact. 

The Mall Plan that we are doing right now, was released in December for public comment. I have reached out to the Smithsonian 

to sit down and talk. We have a meeting scheduled very soon to 

talk about how we can adjust the Festival of American Folklife to 

minimize the impact in terms of length of time that it is there, the 

storage of equipment, how much is set on the ground during operations, and all of those things are in play right now. 

We have also suggested an independent evaluation of the actual 

effect on the trees so that we can have an independent review in 

terms of what is actually affecting these trees, which are a very important asset for everyone. 

NATIONAL MALL—REENGINEERING SOIL AND TURF

Mr. MORAN. Good. Well, the answer yes was a good one, and we 

appreciate that. It saves a lot of back and forth then. Thank you, 

Mr. Jarvis. 

You have requested $16 million this year and a total of $26 million to reengineer the soil and the irrigation system for the grass 

on the Mall. Now, some have suggested that $26 million is a high 

price to reseed the Mall. 

How would you intend to go about this, and of course, bearing 

in mind that you do not want to compromise the public’s right, 

really, to assemble on our Nation’s front lawns. 

Mr. JARVIS. We are looking to the technology that is used in 

sports fields, where essentially you dig down to a pretty deep layer 

and put in drainage and fabric and irrigation systems. You basically create a system that can resist and withstand active use and 

recover quickly. We are not spending millions of dollars on just 

grass seed. Basically, we need to reengineer the Mall. We need to 

put utilities underground so that for each event users can be able 

to just pull the utilities right up out of the ground and use them 

for their operations rather than running new materials each time. 

We need to think about the Mall and where the best places for 

these kinds of events to occur are as well as invest in the development of those places so that the Mall really can be resilient. That 

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ington, DC is, is made of fill. It was never designed for this heavy 

use and we are going to have to fix it, a piece at a time. 

Mr. MORAN. We recognize that this was a swamp that was infilled, but I think some of us have some concern that another decade or two after this we are going to be faced with the same kind 

of situation. So we will be anxious to see how you intend to make 

those major improvements sustainable. 

At this point let me turn to Mr. Simpson. 

YOUTH IN NATURE

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and following up on 

what the Chairman said, as I told you, most of my constituents 

that come out here, the one thing I hear the first time they have 

been here is their disappointment in the Mall, from the beautiful 

pictures they see to the reality of what is on the ground. So what 

I do not want to do is invest hundreds of millions of dollars, not 

only in appropriated dollars but in donated dollars, into something 

that as the Chairman said, in 20 years is going to look just like 

it does today. 

So if that means we have to adjust activities and those types of 

things to go on there and take a good look at how we use the Mall, 

I think we ought to do that, and I know that with the Smithsonian 

and other organizations, that is sometimes going to cause a little 

bit of a heartburn, but sometimes it is what has got to be done. 

So I encourage you to work with them and see what can be done, 

but in the long run make sure that we make the National Mall 

really the Nation’s front yard that it ought to be. 

You mentioned Ken Burns’ film. The other day, I had a conversation with someone who, like me, just loved the program and 

watched it a couple of times. I was surprised to hear him say he 

took his, I think it was his 12 or 13-year-old daughter and forced 

her to watch it also, and he said it was ‘‘forced’’ her to watch it. 

And then what he said to me is, this film was made for adults, and 

it really was. If I would have been, 14, 15 years old, I am not sure 

that is something that would have been that exciting to me. I did 

not think about it at the time because I loved watching it, and 

some people think I am an adult. 

But that got me to thinking about how do we get our youth involved, and I mean, they are going to be the ones that are engaged 

in making sure that our gems, our jewels, our National Parks are 

maintained in the future, and how do we get them involved. So I 

was interested in your comments about the $5.8 million and then 

the $6.4 million from the rec fee that is the Youth and Nature Program. 

What exactly are you going to do with that? And I will tell you, 

here is what some people have suggested to me is when, and I 

never realized this until I watched the film, that a lot of the advertising for our parks, a lot of promotion activity for our parks, came 

about when they were created by the railroads. They were the destination places for a lot of the railroads, so in their magazines, 

their pamphlets, promotional activity, it was always, come and see 

Yellowstone National Park on whatever railroad that was, you 

know, and on and on. 


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That does not happen anymore. Who is out there promoting our 

National Parks, and should we have a promotion program from the 

National Park Service that is maybe a portion of the user fees or 

the admission fees or whatever? Should there be something like 

that within the National Park Service, and how could that be coordinated with the Youth and Nature Program? 

Mr. JARVIS. That is a great question, and I agree with you 100 

percent about your concerns. As I indicated, one of my goals is relevancy. A key issue is how do we make our parks relevant to the 

next generation. If we do not, then, this extraordinary institution 

that was created by this country, is ultimately in jeopardy. 

Let me give you a very good example of how we are deploying 

this money. Recently I traveled up to Fort McHenry in Baltimore 

and spent the day up there with the park staff engaging young people, in this case almost all African-American teenagers from 

Francis Scott Key High School and a charter school called Coppin 

Academy. My Deputy Director, Mickey Fearn, and I and the superintendent sat with some of these kids for several hours. We engaged them with a dialogue about how we can make the story at 

Fort McHenry, the War of 1812, relevant to their lives today. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Uh-huh. 

Mr. JARVIS. I will give you a for instance. One of these just extraordinarily bright kids, a young woman, said, ‘‘You tell the story 

of the soldier, you told the story of the war. We were not around, 

so it does not matter. At some point you figured out that there 

were actually African-American soldiers here. So you got a little bit 

of relevancy there. Then at some point you began to tell the story 

of the women that were here during the War of 1812, but you are 

not telling the story of the teenagers. What were the teenagers 

doing in Baltimore in 1812?’’ 

It was, one of those blinding flashes of the obvious that in order 

to connect to that generation we need to be telling a story that they 

can personally relate to. 

Another thing that Fort McHenry is doing is they have got an 

internship program that is working with both of these schools and 

the school teachers and the counselors to connect the best of the 

best of those kids to the park. The park developed this program on 

their own and they currently have two interns. They have two 

teenagers working in uniform who act as emissaries for us back to 

their school. 

That is a program we are going to invest in. In fiscal year 2011, 

we are requesting $370,000 for Fort McHenry to develop and expand their internship program to reach out and build that sort of 

relationship. There are actually 19 of these parks, many of them 

urban, like Everglades, where we are going to do the same thing. 

We will give them sustainable money to build internship programs 

and to work with youth so that we can understand how we can be 

more relevant. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Are there programs that bring urban youth out to 

parks like Yellowstone or—— 

Mr. JARVIS. There are. I can give you an example. There is a program, a partner program that we work with called Nature Bridge; 

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tains. They are proposing one here in Prince William Forest Park 

just down the road here. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Where do these kids come from? 

Mr. JARVIS. Inner-city in many cases. Their focus is on fourth 

and fifth graders. Most of the students attend on scholarships 

through fundraising. Some of these kids have never seen stars. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yeah. 

Mr. JARVIS. They have never seen dark, they have never been 

anywhere there have not been street lights, some kids have never 

walked on anything but asphalt and concrete. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yeah. 

PARK PROMOTION

Mr. JARVIS. So it can be life changing for them. 

But your question about promotion, I want to get to that question. The National Park Hospitality Association, which is the representative trade group for about 83 of our concessionaires, generates about $1 billion gross a year in revenues. They have created 

a National Park Promotion Council, which I met with a week or 

so ago, to develop promotional materials to market the parks. We 

talked a lot about how you can do it more targeted than has been 

done in the past. 

We are also developing pod casts. We are totally revising our 

websites to make them more interesting and interactive with kids 

because technology is the universal language of youth.We have got 

to make it more interesting than it has been in the past. 

Mr. MORAN. We will go to Mr. Hinchey and then have a second 

round. 

NEW YORK STATE PARKS

Mr. HINCHEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you very 

much. 

I have got a little local issue that I want to mention to you. The 

economic circumstances around the country are having adverse affects on virtually every state, and in New York it is kind of an interesting one in a lot of ways. The State of New York has proposed 

closing 41 state parks and 14 historic sites. It has also proposed reducing services at 23 other parks. Well, the state faces a serious 

challenge, but, you know, this is remarkable because this is going 

to reduce funding for the state. 

So one of the main reasons I bring this up is because a majority 

of the sites that ought to be closed have received federal funds from 

the Land and Water Conservation Fund and are listed as national 

historic landmarks. Section VI of the Land and Water Conservation 

Fund Act contains strong provisions to protect federal investments 

and discourage casual discards of federally-supported park lands. 

In addition, the National Historic Preservation Act set forth 

standards that states are to follow with respect to federally-recognized historic sites. 

Given these statutes, I believe that there is clearly a role for the 

Federal Government when it comes to federally-supported parks. 

So I am wondering: was the National Park Service consulted by the 

State of New York before it proposed closing state parks that have 

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cant historic sites? And maybe even more importantly, is there 

anything that the National Park Service can do to stem these state 

park foreclosures? 

Mr. JARVIS. Thank you, Congressman. I do not know the specific 

answer regarding New York, but I am very familiar with our responsibilities under the state side of the Land and Water Conservation Fund and have been active in this issue. 

Prior to receiving my confirmation as Director of the National 

Park Service, I was the Regional Director for the National Park 

Service in the Pacific West. The State of California was going 

through this exact same process. The Governor announced the closure of about 100 State parks, and we looked at our database in 

the Pacific West and determined 60 of those parks were LWCF 

parks. They were parks in which there had been a Federal investment at some point in its creation, either we bought the land for 

the state or we developed it for public use. 

You are absolutely right. There is a perpetuity deed restriction 

on those properties held by the Federal Government and administered by the National Park Service that those places must remain 

open for the public. So we began working directly with the State 

of California and the bottom line is that the 60 parks that were 

LWCF, the state changed its mind about the closure of those. 

Mr. HINCHEY. What year was that? 

Mr. JARVIS. This was two years ago. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Two years ago. 

Mr. JARVIS. Yes, sir. We are engaged, and New York is not alone 

in this. There are states across the system. This is a very disturbing trend for us in the parks business. As you may know, the 

National Park Service was very active in actually creating the 

State Park System across the country and very active in the planning and design of these parks. Public recreation can never be totally provided by the National Park System or even the Federal 

Government for that matter; states have a role. 

As we rebuild the Land and Water Conservation Fund, we are 

reminding the states that in order to receive their apportionment 

they need to make a commitment that these facilities are provided 

for public use. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Are you or have you, I assume you have not yet, 

but are you willing or prepared to provide that information to—— 

Mr. JARVIS. Absolutely. 

Mr. HINCHEY [continuing]. The State of New York? 

Mr. JARVIS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Directly to the Governor? 

Mr. JARVIS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Is there anything else that you could do to sustain 

that situation? Is there any contribution that you could make, is 

there anything in the funding process that you could provide to 

keep them alive? 

Mr. SHEAFFER. We have no authority to do so right now, Mr. 

Hinchey. 

Mr. HINCHEY. No authority to do so. 

Mr. SHEAFFER. We also do not have the resources to do it right 

now. We have heard anecdotally, as the Director mentioned, that 

there are other states that are having similar issues, maybe not to 


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the extent of the states the size of California and New York and 

their park systems, but we do know, in fact, that there are others 

who have—— 

EVERGLADES

Mr. HINCHEY. Well, I would like to work with you on this, and 

I would deeply appreciate it if you could send me a copy of whatever communication that you provide to the Governor of the State 

of New York on this issue, because I am in touch with them also, 

and we are trying to persuade them that what they are doing is 

not a very good thing to do. So if we could work together on this, 

stay together on this, I would appreciate it very much. 

I wanted to ask you a question about the Everglades. Now, the 

Everglades is a project that this committee has been working on for 

a long time. I think that we have been working on this project ever 

since I became a member of this Appropriations Committee some 

years ago. And some progress was made, but then the situation 

seemed to slow down, and it seems now to be in a situation where 

it has slowed down significantly. 

Now, there is a major problem at U.S. Sugar, a major landholder 

there, and there were a number of articles in ‘‘The New York 

Times’’ recently that talked about this, and the state process has 

been very difficult. The land which the state has operated has been 

very, very difficult, and I think that that is just putting it mildly. 

And a final deal seems to be out of reach now between the state 

and their negotiations with U.S. Sugar and getting this system 

fully operated. 

Now, if this happens, this would be a deep tragedy. An awful lot 

of money has been spent here, an awful lot of things have been 

done, and this is something that is really significant. It really, really needs to be done. 

So I just wonder if, you may not be able to answer this right 

now, but in any case, can you update us on the status of the Everglades Restoration Project, and how important it is for the Everglades Restoration Project that the State of Florida buy out those 

private landholders? 

Mr. JARVIS. I can give you at least a partial update. I traveled 

down to the Everglades about a month ago and spent a great deal 

of time meeting with all of the players, the State, the Army Corps 

of Engineers, the National Park Service, and the U.S. Fish and 

Wildlife Service to deepen my understanding. I know this has been 

a priority of this committee for a long time. You have invested significant millions of dollars in the restoration of the Everglades. 

Let us set the U.S. Sugar lands aside for a moment. On the 

project side of the house I think we are making some progress. The 

raising of the Tamiami Trail to allow water flow back to the Glades 

is a significant project. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Yes. 

Mr. JARVIS. We are doing the one-mile bridge project. 

Mr. HINCHEY. It has been a significant project for many, many 

years. 

Mr. JARVIS. And we are actually doing it. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Oh, hallelujah. 


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Mr. JARVIS. I was down in the Everglades for the groundbreaking 

of another project the C–111 Spreader Canal project, which is basically a protection of the developed side of the Everglades on the 

eastern border. Once this water begins to flow it will not flood the 

developed side. 

These two projects are critical steps in really restoring the water 

flow. There is still a lot to be done. I am not saying that there is 

not. 

The U.S. Sugar lands acquisition is a potential game changer to 

the Everglades because it provides greater opportunity for storage 

and water-quality improvement before the water potentially comes 

down. I am not at this point knowledgeable enough of its current 

status to give you an update, but I would be glad to get back to 

you regarding the Sugar lands acquisition. 

[The information follows:] 


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Mr. HINCHEY. Thank you. I would deeply appreciate that, because it is something that is very important to me. It is something 

that we have been working on, as I said, for a lot of time, and it 

has been very frustrating over the course of the last several years, 

but this is something that really needs to be done. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Hinchey. 

Mr. Cole. 

SAVE AMERICA’S TREASURES

Mr. COLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I hate to begin by disagreeing with you, Director, but as Ken Burns should know, actually baseball and cold beer is America’s best idea. You guys are a 

very close second. 

I have got two areas that I wanted to ask you about, one general 

and one shamelessly parochial. 

On the general one, you did make some tough decisions here, and 

I am not critical of that. I think that is something you are required 

to do, but as an old historian the Save America’s Treasures Grant 

Program is a great program. We have been able to save some remarkable things. I think in my own state the old capital of the 

Cherokee Nation, a lot of things have been saved through that program. 

So if we are not going to do that through you, one, should we 

continue doing it? Does the program have merit? Was this mostly 

a budgetary decision, or are you concerned about how the program 

was operated? Second, if not you, who? In other words, where 

should this kind of program go, and where does the Administration, if you are privy to that, envision it moving to? 

Mr. JARVIS. Well, let me just say that the decision to reduce or 

eliminate the Save America’s Treasures Grant Program was purely 

a budgetary decision. The program does have great results on the 

ground. It is a bricks and mortar investment program in properties 

that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places and as 

you indicated, it has been very successful around the country. 

The program has a matching component as well, to leverage the 

investment. It is a program that the National Park Service supports, but it was just purely a budgetary decision. 

CHICKASAW VISITOR CENTER

Mr. COLE. Mr. Chairman, I think this is one of those issues that 

we ought to look carefully at because it does bring in extra money 

and because quite frankly, I think it builds a lot of support for the 

National Park System because parks obviously are not distributed 

evenly all across the country, and it really does a wonderful job of 

educating people about the superb services that you do provide. 

So let me be parochial here if I may for a second, and everybody 

will hear about this until I someday solve this problem, but in my 

district the Chickasaw National Recreation Area is one of our premier resources. I think it is actually the only park that was established with a donation from an Indian tribe. The core of that park 

was actually given by the Chickasaw Nation to the United States 

Government so it would be preserved at a pretty traumatic time 

when the Chickasaw Government was being liquidated essentially 

and its lands opened up for settlement. But they preserved this 


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particular area because it was culturally important, and it is 

scenically beautiful. 

A number of years ago we were going to get a new visitor’s center. That was online to happen. You were forced that year to not 

fund that legitimately because we had wildfire outbreak and so all 

construction projects were canceled. However, we had actually broken ground on this thing. We were assured that everything will be 

taken care of, and that we were at the top of the list the next time. 

That did not happen. Still has not happened. 

This committee did appropriate half a million dollars last year to 

try and begin the planning process. So, number one, I would like 

to know where we are at and where you envision this going, and 

number two, I do have some concern, again, I recognize you have 

got budget realities here, but the $44 million cut in construction is 

going to hurt a lot of these things, and obviously I have a particular point of view on this one in particular. 

Mr. JARVIS. Thank you. That is a great question. The $500,000 

is secure. 

Mr. COLE. Heard that one before. Not from you, though. Not 

from you. 

Mr. JARVIS. Not from me. 

Mr. COLE. Not from you and not from this Administration. 

Mr. JARVIS. Right. The park and the region are in conversations 

right now with an A&E firm to update the design. In this lag period there have been changes in building codes, and since one of 

my priorities for any new construction is sustainability so that 

meeting some of the green building LEED certifications are crucial 

to reducing our utility costs and lifecycle costs on these facilities. 

CHICKASAW PARK MANAGEMENT

Mr. COLE. I would appreciate if you would just keep me updated 

on that, because I will be asking regularly. 

The last question actually somewhat related, and this does not 

come from the point of view of being in favor or opposed, but I 

know there is some consideration at the tribal level of actually 

talking with the National Park Service about operating the park 

themselves, which they do in other areas. For instance, our tribe 

operates its own healthcare. We contract with the Federal Government, we deal with eight other tribes and actually put a lot of additional money and resources well beyond what the Federal Government can do. 

There is some beginning thought about this, I think, at the tribal 

level in Oklahoma, so I am curious, number one, have you heard 

about that, and number two, and I am not asking for any binding 

answer, I am just curious what the general attitude would be, is 

there any precedent for that sort of thing within the Park System? 

Mr. JARVIS. I have not heard about this specifically related to 

Chickasaw, but we have interest in other units and have been in 

very positive discussions with tribes who are developing expertise 

and are interested in either developing a park of their own or being 

more actively involved or perhaps even managing some of the units 

that represent their culture, history and ways of life. 

In my own personal and professional view I am very open to that 

kind of discussion. I lived in bush Alaska and I have worked with 


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tribes throughout the system. I think that we have some extraordinarily good relationships with tribes, for example, in Mr. Dicks’ 

district with the Lower Elwha and our Elwha project and others. 

Mr. COLE. I can tell you have very good people on the ground in 

Oklahoma. You have had a succession of very good people, and I 

would just love some time, again, to get briefed on this general approach, because it may be a way, certainly in this case, to bring 

additional resource to the table for the park. We are not talking 

about some sort of takeover here. We are talking about a cooperative arrangement and negotiated agreement, but it could result in 

extra funds being available to do a lot of things I know everybody 

would like to do, but we are all under constraints. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Cole—— 

Mr. COLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MORAN [continuing]. For the good comments, and I know the 

gentleman is aware it is the Legislative Branch’s responsibility to 

determine how the money should be spent and then the Executive 

Branch, of course, implements it professionally and efficiently. So 

we will continue to maintain some control over our priorities. I appreciate you mentioning Save America’s Treasures. 

Chairman Dicks. 

PROGRAMMATIC INCREASES

Mr. DICKS. Thank you, and Director Jarvis, it is good to have you 

here in this role, and Bruce, it is always good to see you. 

While your overall net budget request is slightly less than last 

year, the budget also includes a number of focused increases and 

advanced Department or Service goals. Please outline for us these 

programmatic increases and explain how they will enhance park 

operations. 

Mr. JARVIS. Okay. We talked a little bit earlier and I am not sure 

whether you were in the room for youth in natural resources. That 

is one of our primary initiatives which includes targeted base increases to connect young people to the Park Service. 

Mr. DICKS. Is this separate from the Youth Conservation Corps? 

A separate initiative? 

Mr. JARVIS. Separate initiative. 

Mr. DICKS. Okay. 

Mr. JARVIS. Right. This would be operational base increases for 

19 parks for a sustained interconnection for youth. 

We have several increases in the administrative functions area 

including human resources, our workforce management. We have 

been consolidating those functions into offices that provide all of 

the human resources, personnel functions, and it will be a far-more 

efficient service to our employees. We are requesting a $6 million 

increase. 

There is also the consolidation of our acquisition and contracting 

offices to provide a more professional, focused and capable workforce. 

We also have a funding request for employee development, investing in training and development for our employees. 

Land acquisition is up $30 million, and as I indicated, it is our 

goal and the Secretary’s goal to achieve $900 million funding for 

LWCF by 2014. 


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There are a few other smaller items as well. We want to maintain our investment from the ARRA projects, so we are bumping 

up cyclic maintenance about $3 million. There is a small request 

in here, an increase of $485,000 for Special Resource Studies. We 

have 43 studies underway, and we can complete roughly 15 a year, 

so there is a small request for that. 

Mr. DICKS. Well, that is a very comprehensive answer, and they 

all sound like very important projects. I just want to say how much 

I appreciate the Park Service’s commitment to the Elwha Dam 

Project out in the State of Washington. Our committee at one point 

went out there, and I think the members would be pleased because 

their position at the time was we ought to accelerate the project, 

and it took awhile to prepare ourselves for this, but we are ready 

to go. And as I understand it, this year we will put out the RFPs 

for the dam removal. 

Mr. SHEAFFER. That is correct. 

Mr. DICKS. Considering the fact we started this has thing back, 

what was it, 1992, or thereabouts, it is remarkable how far we 

have come, and the Water Treatment Projects, I know we are finishing, and those are going to be opened pretty quickly—— 

Mr. SHEAFFER. Yes. 

FIXED COSTS

Mr. DICKS [continuing]. In April. This has gone through three 

different Administrations to keep this thing on track. I think it is 

going to be one of the greatest restoration projects that we have 

done, and you know, taking these dams out which need to be taken 

out, they are old and need to be replaced. One is in the park. One 

is outside the park, and we are working with the Lower Elwha 

Tribe, and they have been pretty cooperative overall. But I just 

want to say how much I appreciate keeping this thing going. 

And the other thing is, you know, again, we want to just talk 

generally, did you get your fixed costs covered? I know you probably covered this, but I want to hear what you have to say. 

Mr. JARVIS. Our fixed costs are not covered. 

Mr. DICKS. Not covered. So how many people does that involve? 

Mr. JARVIS. We estimate an absorption of about $32 million, 

which is about 400 FTE. 

Mr. DICKS. Can you do that all with attrition or not? 

Mr. JARVIS. Well, we will do our best, but the bottom line is that 

that will probably affect, as you well know, the front line seasonal 

workforce. 

Mr. SHEAFFER. All of the $32 million will not come from staff. 

The estimate is that 400 staff will be affected. Many of them will 

likely be seasonal as has been the tradition. So it would be the 

summer hires. 

Mr. DICKS. But the seasonal workers are important. They come 

in and help you operate the parks during the summers when the 

people are there. So that is of concern. 

Why was that done? Why did the Administration decide to have 

their initiatives and so they make you absorb the fixed costs? 

Mr. SHEAFFER. This is not the first year that—— 

Mr. DICKS. Oh, I know it has been done before. 


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Mr. SHEAFFER. It has been done over 20 years. It has been done 

several times, and it is simply to hit the number and to encourage 

us to find more efficient ways to operate. 

Mr. DICKS. If we solve the problem, though, you would not object, 

would you, Bruce? 

Mr. SHEAFFER. Certainly not, Mr. Dicks. 

Mr. DICKS. That is all I have, Mr. Chairman. 

STATE HISTORIC PRESERVATION OFFICES

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

We have asked them why they chose to cut out some of the most 

favored Congressional priorities in order to fund other things in the 

budget, so we are hot on this, and—— 

Mr. DICKS. If you will yield to me for just one more second. 

Mr. MORAN. Sure. 

Mr. DICKS. One thing I did pick up from our state historic preservation officer is that with all these ARRA Projects, they are under 

tremendous pressure to do the work necessary to approve these 

things, and every department is having some difficulty obligating 

the funds and getting them spent. Have you thought about this in 

terms of having an initiative to try to help these state historic preservation officers so that they can help get these projects out on 

time? 

I really heard a big plea from our state on this. 

Mr. SHEAFFER. So did we. They actually came and talked to us 

representing not just the workload that we were putting on them 

but other Federal agencies as well. 

Mr. DICKS. Right. 

Mr. SHEAFFER. To their credit we had no mechanism for getting 

them money. It was not included as part of the ARRA funding 

though in retrospect, maybe it should have been. However even 

with all the additional workload they did step up and take care of 

the compliance work that needed to be done. 

Mr. DICKS. Yeah. 

Mr. SHEAFFER. As far as we are concerned, and I do not know 

how it has affected the other agencies, but I have not heard anything within Interior about it being a stumbling block. I am sure 

they had to set other things aside in order to do it—— 

Mr. DICKS. Yeah. 

Mr. SHEAFFER [continuing]. But it is clear that it was an additional workload on them. 

Mr. DICKS. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

FIREARMS IN PARKS

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Dicks. 

On February 22 a new federal law went into place that allows 

people to carry loaded firearms on National Park property unless 

it is a designated federal facility. It affects 370 units of the Park 

Service’s 392 units. On April 19 of this year there is planned a 

demonstration on Park Service property just to the north of National Airport. The staff has alerted me to the Web sites that have 

been promoting this. The first one says, ‘‘First, I am not going to 

ask permission from a foreign government what can and cannot be 

done on a friendly state’s land. I do not recognize U.S. government 


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possession of this land. I intend to attend. My rifle will be loaded 

and slung in front for ready use. I will have a combat load of 

ammo, chemical protective mask, and likely an armored vest.’’ 

And then the others say, ‘‘Pray. Our work will start at the rally. 

Being sporting we will give them the first volley. After that they 

get no quarter. I am thankful that the patriots in 1776, did not— 

to celebrate April 19, 1775. I am thankful they did not show up 

with unloaded weapons. Either stand up and make a statement 

that needs to be made or be willing to die in doing so or stay the 

hell home. We need real patriots ready to take real action.’’ There 

is another one that says, ‘‘We need to march on Washington. Unless they change their ways, we need to march on DC with loaded 

weapons and defined targets,’’ et cetera and so on and so forth. 

I mean, it goes on and on. There are hundreds of these things. 

This is the Western Rifle Shooters’ Association. They are all coming 

to Washington. 

I have an obvious concern, Gravelly Point, is used by hundreds 

of families. On every weekend day you have got hundreds of families that go there for picnics, they play soccer on the fields. It is 

a well-used area, and these do not seem to be friendly visitors. 

They have a clear purpose, and I do not want to overstate this, but 

we just had two what would have to be considered terrorist attacks. A guy flies a plane into an IRS building, another guy with 

similar anti-government attitudes has a gun fight with two Pentagon guards. 

So I guess what I want to hear from you is, are you monitoring 

this? How are you going to deal with this, and do you think there 

is any cause for concern given the attitudes of the people who intend to come to Gravelly Point and make a statement on Park 

Service property? 

Mr. JARVIS. Thank you, Chairman. This law was passed last year 

and then became effective on February 22. The National Park Service spent a great deal of time in the last 6 to 8 months preparing 

for the implementation of this rule, both in terms of outreach to 

citizens as well as preparing our own employees and to properly 

sign the National Park facilities. As of February 22nd, all citizens 

could possess firearms in compliance with the governing state law. 

The state laws vary and we believe it is incumbent on the individual citizen to understand that state law. If the state law allows 

concealed and not open carry, then they have to be in compliance 

with that. 

Mr. MORAN. Well, a number of states do, and in fact, Virginia 

does. 

Mr. JARVIS. Right. So, now, these websites have a lot of that kind 

of stuff on them. They also have said things like, ‘‘let’s go have a 

picnic and bring our guns, and who’s bringing the relish?’’ I mean, 

they have that going on, too. 

Mr. MORAN. I did not notice that e-mail. 

Mr. JARVIS. I will send you that one. This will be at least the 

fourth of these kinds of events that I am aware of. There was one 

in Valley Forge and there was one, I believe, in Gettysburg. There 

was one recently at a beach clean-up in San Francisco, where individual citizens came in compliance with state law, they were carVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:10 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 057302 PO 00000 Frm 00183 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A302P2.XXX A302P2

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rying weapons, unloaded because that is the State’s requirement. 

These events have all happened without incident. 

I am not concerned about this. We will have our staff ready, and 

contacts will be made for those that are violating the state law. If 

they are in compliance with the state law, it will be fine. 

SAVE AMERICA’S TREASURES AND PRESERVE AMERICA

Mr. MORAN. Okay. I hope you are right. You know, I just think 

there is just such anti-government fervor taking place. We do not 

have to worry about the mainstream Americans. It is just some 

folks that get carried away with the rhetoric and the temper of the 

times. 

Let me just ask one more question, and then I am going to conclude my questions, but we will hear from the rest of the subcommittee. I want you to explain why you felt it was necessary and 

appropriate to eliminate the Save America’s Treasures Program 

and the Preserve America Program. 

You have been blunt. Do you want to be so blunt as to suggest 

you thought Congress would restate it anyway, so we will get credit 

for cutting it? 

Mr. JARVIS. I will not be that blunt. 

Mr. MORAN. You will not be that blunt? 

Mr. JARVIS. It was purely a budgetary decision. The Park Service 

has very few programs that are grant programs. Most of our budget, the vast majority of our budget, is operational. Not to say that 

one is better than the other, but the operational budget has a direct affect on our ability to provide direct public service in our 392 

units and through our programs. This was a grant program, and 

I do not want to in any way project that we do not value historic 

preservation and this investment in America’s cultural resources. 

It was purely a budgetary decision. 

Mr. MORAN. So everything was a budgetary decision. I gather 

you do not feel as though you own this program like you do those 

that are more directly under your control, but let me turn to Mr. 

Simpson. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I agree with Mr. Cole and with the Chairman. It 

is a very valuable program, and you know, this Nation is still a 

young Nation, and we can save a lot of our history. Historic preservation is very important. Some of the work we have done out in 

Idaho and in fact, 2 weeks ago I did a video for a group that is 

going to go out and raise money to finish a restoration that we 

helped start with one of these grants. Overwhelmingly the majority 

of the money is going to be raised privately, donated time doing 

restoration, all that kind of stuff. 

It is kind of a little bit of seed money to get some of these things 

started. If it is not done here, it needs to be done somewhere, and 

you know, I do not know of a better place to put it than where it 

currently is, but I understand some of the decisions you had to 

make when you put your budget together, and oftentimes programs 

are eliminated that Congress very much supports. Why you do that 

I do not know. I suspect that everybody anticipates that we will 

fund this at some level, but historic preservation is very important 

in this country. Otherwise, we are going to wake up and find out 

that we do not have it anymore. 


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FIXED COSTS

A couple of questions. Four hundred staff are going to be affected 

by eating $32 million in fixed costs. Most of them seasonal or a significant portion of them seasonal. I assume you did not hire people 

that are seasonal or full time to drink coffee. What will not be done 

then? 

Mr. JARVIS. I think what happens in these cases where we reduce our seasonal workforce, we reduce our summer operations. 

Those are our front-line programs, so those are the walks and 

talks, evening programs, front-line visitor center operations, trail 

maintenance crews, and cyclic maintenance. The kinds of things 

that are done by seasonal workers. 

The Park Service has a very deep pride in providing quality service, so we come up with all kinds of ways to provide service, to be 

blunt about it. We will use volunteers, we will work with partners. 

In some cases we may have to have one less person doing something, or cut an evening program or have fewer walks in the Paradise Meadows or wherever, but it will have some absolute affect in 

the field. 

DEFERRED MAINTENANCE BACKLOG

Mr. SIMPSON. What is your current backlog of maintenance? 

Mr. JARVIS. The best figure we have at the moment is $9.5 billion. 

Mr. SIMPSON. What would it take annually to address that backlog maintenance, I mean, because it grows every year, and part of 

it, you know, is additional need every year. So over a 20-year period, do we know what it would take in the budget to address that 

backlog maintenance so we were actually reducing it over a 20-year 

period? 

Mr. JARVIS. We would need an additional $500 million a year on 

top of what we currently have. 

Mr. SIMPSON. So a $45 million reduction is not really going to get 

us there? Is that accurate? 

Mr. JARVIS. That is good math. Yes. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Well, that is a concern. I think most of us on this 

committee had taken very serious view of trying to address the 

backlog maintenance. I know that Chairman Dicks did when he 

was Chairman of the subcommittee, that we needed to start looking at trying to reduce that backlog maintenance. This seems to set 

us back a little bit. 

Mr. SHEAFFER. I think we need to mention the $500 million was 

a recent estimate that was made at the request of OMB in a study 

that would overtake the critical system deferred maintenance backlog decline by 2016. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Right. 

Mr. SHEAFFER [continuing]. Or addition—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. Plus—— 

Mr. SHEAFFER [continuing]. Either way. That portion of the backlog which we consider to be for critical systems, not the entire 

backlog but those systems, HVAC systems, and the like that are 

the most vital. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Uh-huh. 


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Mr. SHEAFFER. So that was a notion of eliminating it by that 

time. However, I think it is worth mentioning on the positive side 

that the Recovery Act Program has really advanced us significantly 

in taking care of some of the deferred maintenance. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Is that why we can cut out $45 million this year 

because they got—— 

Mr. SHEAFFER. It certainly eases—— 

Mr. SIMPSON [continuing]. Money in—— 

Mr. SHEAFFER [continuing]. It. Yes. In the short term we exhausted our ready projects. 

Mr. SIMPSON. In your 5-year plan do you see it going up after 

this year? 

Mr. SHEAFFER. I certainly think that will be a part of the discussion, Mr. Simpson. 

FORD’S THEATRE—PETERSEN HOUSE

Mr. SIMPSON. One last question. Recently I went on a tour of the 

renovation of Ford’s Theatre. Across the street is Petersen House, 

something that we need to restore before it is not there to restore. 

What are your plans to do that? What would be the total investment? Are there any monies available in ARRA funds that are left 

over or in this year’s budget to address that? 

Mr. SHEAFFER. The region has a plan to address the needs of the 

Petersen House. They have it incorporated into their multi-year 

plan. At this point there seems to be funding available. It was not 

incorporated in ARRA because they simply were not ready. They 

did not have the structures reports that they needed to advance the 

work. 

Mr. SIMPSON. All the ARRA funds have been spent? 

Mr. SHEAFFER. No, sir, but they have all been programmed and 

the projects reviewed by this committee. 

Mr. SIMPSON. So there is nothing left over? 

Mr. SHEAFFER. At this point it is not on the list, and I am not 

certain that they would have any of this work ready in time to be 

done. The ARRA money has to be exhausted by September 30, so 

I am not sure we would be in a position to do it. 

Mr. SIMPSON. What about this year’s budget? Is there any money 

in the FY ’11 budget? 

Mr. SHEAFFER. The fund source likely to be used for the Petersen 

House is the Repair and Rehabilitation Program, and the region 

has adequate funds, they tell me, and are giving the Petersen 

House the priority it needs in order to be funded. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I appreciate that. Do not screw up and lose this 

history. 

DEFERRED MAINTENANCE BACKLOG

Mr. MORAN. On the first subject you mentioned, Mr. Simpson, of 

the $9.5 billion, only half of it is funded by our committee. Half of 

it is from the Federal Highway Trust Fund. 

Mr. Dicks. 


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NATIONAL MALL

Mr. DICKS. I know that the Mall has been mentioned here, but 

could you kind of tell us what your overall strategy is on the Mall? 

I know this flood must have had a big impact at the Jefferson Memorial. I hear one of the parking areas was completely flooded. We 

took a look at this, and I realize this a very big number that we 

are talking about, and I know that there is a lot of dispute about 

how we raise money for this like we did for the Statue of Liberty 

and for the World War II Memorial. Some people think that this 

is more challenging. 

So what is your overall plan? I know that Secretary Salazar is 

very committed to working on this. So what is our overall strategy? 

Mr. JARVIS. Mr. Chairman, the challenge with the Mall is that 

on any given day you have thousands of people out there, so there 

is no way we can do all at once, plus we could not expend the 

money. We have to do the Mall in chunks. 

Mr. DICKS. Right. 

Mr. JARVIS. As I was saying earlier, the Mall needs to be reconstructed, basically disassembled and rebuilt. The soil areas of the 

Mall need a style that you would have for a sports field. If you are 

going to use the Mall like we tend to use it, which is intensely, 

then it needs to be designed so that it is a resilient system, and 

right now it is basically a thin layer of topsoil on fill with a little 

bit of grass on top. That can be fixed. 

Mr. DICKS. So you are you thinking about Astroturf? I mean—— 

Mr. JARVIS. No, not Astroturf. I am talking about an engineered 

soil system that would allow this kind of use. As you know, we are 

developing a Mall plan right now, and that has been out for public—— 

Mr. DICKS. Right. 

Mr. JARVIS [continuing]. Comment. I think we have got about 

30,000 comments so far. We will be coming up with a final plan, 

part of which is working with those activities that are on the Mall 

to have less impact. Part of the plan is to zone the Mall so that 

there are places where we can build the infrastructure such as underground utilities. 

The other piece is actually constructing the Mall so that it will 

be resilient and look good. This is the centerpiece for our country. 

We have millions of visitors from around the world. It should look 

its absolute best, and I know the Secretary and I, and I know this 

committee as well, are committed to this. We need to bring it to 

you in digestible chunks so that we can get this accomplished. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Chairman Dicks. 

Mr. DICKS. Yeah. I yield. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Would you yield for just a second? 

Mr. DICKS. Sure. 

JEFFERSON MEMORIAL SEAWALL

Mr. SIMPSON. He mentioned also the Jefferson Memorial, and we 

talked at the time when we traveled down there about the fact that 

the Army Corps of Engineers could help with that or should help 

with that or whatever. Have we talked to the Army Corps? Is there 


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anything in their budget that could help with the restoration of the 

Tidal Basin and stuff? 

Mr. JARVIS. We have a contract working right now on the Tidal 

Basin and Seawall. There is a contractor working as we speak. 

Mr. SHEAFFER. On the Jefferson Memorial. 

Mr. JARVIS. On the Jefferson Memorial. I do not know if we have 

talked to the Corps. You have to talk to the Corps if you are working in the water but whether or not they would help—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. We just mentioned that when we were down there 

at the time. I do not know if there was any practicality to it or not, 

but we were talking about it. 

Mr. SHEAFFER. Well, probably the largest single project that we 

will take on will be the Tidal Basin wall beyond the Jefferson Memorial. 

Mr. JARVIS. Right. 

Mr. SHEAFFER. This flooding occurs regularly and some of it is 

because the seawall is well below what it needs to be during high 

water. This project is a large ticket and then there is the ARRA 

reflecting pool project which will be a vast improvement, something 

that has been needed for years. 

Mr. DICKS. Well, I just think this is such an important project, 

and I hope that we can continue to work with the Administration 

to move this thing forward, and I know it is not going to be overnight, but I think we have to keep working on it and keep trying 

to inspire the private sector groups that are interested in this—— 

Mr. JARVIS. Yes. 

Mr. DICKS [continuing]. Who I think are generally out there trying to raise money for this would be a big help. 

Mr. JARVIS. I think they will. 

Mr. MORAN. It came very close to getting funded last year, and 

thank you for the reference. 

Mr. Cole. 

TRAIL OF TEARS NATIONAL HISTORIC TRAIL

Mr. COLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to ask you 

quickly, in the Omnibus Public Lands Act in 2009, we actually 

added several segments to the National Trail of Tears, national historic sites, spanned six states. We are a lot closer now to being accurate as to what the actual trails were. 

And so could you just sort of give me an update of where we are 

at, and are we on schedule, and where do you see us going with 

that particular project? 

Mr. JARVIS. We will have to get back with you. 

[The information follows:] 

TRAIL OF TEARS NATIONAL HISTORIC TRAIL

The National Park Service partners with Federal agencies, state and local governments, organizations, tribes, and private individuals to administer the Trail of Tears 

National Historic Trail (TRTE). The NPS certifies sites and segments that are not 

owned by the Federal government as official components of the TRTE. These sites 

and segments are the foundation of the national historic trail and it is through voluntary agreements that they are made available for public use and enjoyment. The 

Trail of Tears Association, a national organization dedicated to the preservation, 

public awareness, and appreciation of the Trail of Tears, is a major partner with 

the NPS. Other major partners include the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and the 

Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. 


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Currently there are 65 certified sites on the TRTE and an additional ten Federal 

components. The NPS is proactively certifying segments as willing landowners are 

identified. The NPS does not pursue land acquisition, nor does it provide personnel 

at certified sites. However, the NPS does provide interpretive media, preservation 

assistance, development assistance, and signage, based on site needs, partner needs, 

and capacity. 

NPS is currently engaging new partners on the new routes authorized under the 

Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009. The addition of the new routes will 

require an amendment to the current management plan. 

Mr. COLE. That would be great. I realize it was kind of a parochial question, but, again, I have an interest there, so if you could 

do that—— 

Mr. JARVIS. We will definitely circle back. 

Mr. COLE. Thank you. Yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. JARVIS. I do not think it is so parochial. It covers several 

states. 

Mr. MORAN. I am glad you asked. Thank you, Mr. Cole. 

Mr. Hinchey. 

NATIONAL HERITAGE AREAS AND SECOND CENTURY COMMISSION

Mr. HINCHEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and, again, 

thank you very much for everything you are doing in response to 

these questions. 

I just wanted to raise a question about the national heritage 

area. National Heritage Area are very important to this country. 

There are 49 National Heritage Areas all around the Nation. 

Unfortunately, the Administration’s budget would drastically cut 

funding for the National Heritage Areas and all of those that were 

established prior to 2001, would have the funding cut for them 

completely. Now, I cannot help but say that that would be a mistake, and it would be a big mistake in more than one way. 

One of the ways it would be a big mistake is that we know that 

on the basis of every dollar that the Federal Government invests, 

you get back about $5.50 from that $1 investment in this particular 

context for these National Heritage Areas. 

So I am hoping that this will be reconsidered, and this will not 

stop. There is a National Heritage Area in New York, the Hudson 

River Valley National Heritage Area, which is turning out to be 

one of the most significant in the Nation. So I am deeply concerned 

about it, and I want to see if we can change this and keep it going 

because it is in the best interest of the country historically but also 

economically. 

I understand that the Second Century Commission called for a 

strengthening of the National Heritage Area System. What is the 

National Park Service’s general position on the National Heritage 

Service position? 

Mr. JARVIS. Thank you, Congressman. 

I have been actively involved in the Heritage Area Program as 

well and served as staff to the National Park Service Advisory 

Board when they did their heritage area review a few years ago. 

I also traveled with the Second Century Commission to Essex, 

Massachusetts to look at the heritage areas; they have been very 

successful in instilling the local story and providing economic benefits. 


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Again, the decision to reduce the funding in the Heritage Areas 

Program, again, was a budgetary decision in terms of where we 

could find any cuts to meet the goals of the Administration. 

Having said that, there is one other aspect of the Heritage Areas 

Program that I do believe needs work. There needs to be some organic legislation that defines the process by which a heritage area 

is studied and ultimately determined and also that looks at its economic viability in terms of its contribution, because they were 

never intended to live completely on the Federal appropriation. 

There was always to be some non-Federal contribution for that. 

Heritage Areas, as yet, do not have that sort of organic piece of legislation that defines the study process and economic sustainability. 

That is also a recommendation of the Second Century Commission report; that there would be this legislative action, and if the 

Congress would do that, I think it would help our position in terms 

of ensuring there is long-term funding and sustainability. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Well, I would love to work with you on that, because I think what you are saying makes perfect sense, and it is 

something that could be done and probably should be done. 

In the meantime, we have a situation in New York and a number 

of other places where the National Park, where the state parks are 

being closed, and we are trying to save them, and then at the same 

time the Federal Government is closing the National Heritage Area 

in New York, where most of the state parks are located in that 

same region. 

So this is a situation that is being dealt with in the context of 

the economic conditions that we are dealing with, but I do not 

think it is being done wisely. I think it is being done under pressure and in the sense of things that have to be done, but these are 

little things that are going to have adverse consequences, negative 

consequences if they are allowed to continue. 

So this is another situation that I would love to work with you 

on and in the context of that legislation that you proposed I would 

like to see if we can do something on that as well, and I hope that 

we can. 

YELLOWSTONE BISON

Just one last question I wanted to talk about, and it is the Yellowstone bison. Yellowstone bison have been something that this 

committee, again, has been deeply concerned about, and there have 

been a number of discussions on this subject for years. 

And it has to do with the fact that the bison that we are dealing 

with are the last of America’s genetically pure, wild bison, and as 

we know, it was not too long ago, in the last century, when they 

were down to just a handful, and then somebody wised up and 

came in and started taking care of it, and it worked very successfully. That number expanded in a very positive way. 

But the killing of these natural bison now is posing a threat to 

their maintenance and continuation. So I am just wondering how 

has the interagency bison management plan impacted Yellowstone’s bison population? Yellowstone is where the vast majority of 

these bison are, and when they come out of the Yellowstone, struggling along, looking for food, they walk up into Montana, they get 

shot, and they get killed. And there is a lot of that activity going 


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on, and I am just wondering if there is anything that is going to 

be engaged in to stop this. I think that this Administration probably realizes that this is not a wise thing to do. 

Mr. JARVIS. The question is a great one. In the last 2 years, 2009 

and 2010, there were only 5 bison that were killed as a result of 

the implementation of the Interagency Bison Management Plan, 

which we believe is actually being quite successful. We are in the 

process of developing a draft Environmental Impact Statement for 

remote vaccination against brucellosis in the bison herd. We have 

been doing limited capture vaccination because the primary concern regarding bison coming out of Yellowstone National Park is 

the potential transmission of brucellosis. 

We are starting an EIS on remote vaccination. 

The second piece, which we are very interested in, and the Secretary is very interested in, is developing capacity within American 

Indian tribes, within reservations, to take bison and develop their 

own herds. We are engaged with the Office of Indian Affairs and 

with some of the tribes that have expressed an interest in developing that capacity. We recently shipped bison to Mexico to begin 

reestablishing their herd. Bison are also native in Mexico. We just 

shipped 26 down there, and they are doing great. 

Mr. HINCHEY. That is an important thing, and I very much appreciate it. 

Mr. JARVIS. Yeah. We really do want to get away from the requirement to slaughter, to kill bison, and so finding new places 

that bison herd can exist, ensuring that they are not contributing 

to the spread of brucellosis, is key. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Have there been any discussions with the Government of Montana about the way in which they are engaging these 

wild bison that flow out of Yellowstone? 

Mr. JARVIS. I do not know the details. If I could ask Dan Wenk 

to come up and answer. 

Mr. WENK. In January of 2009, the National Park Service expended $1.5 million to buy 30-year grazing rights in Paradise Valley. That is in combination with the State of Montana which is 

going to be paying $50,000 a year to the Royal Teton Ranch so that 

we can start to allow for the free range of bison under very limited 

controlled conditions in Paradise Valley and on the Royal Teton 

Ranch. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Okay. Well, this is something I think we have to 

keep an eye on. We do not want that species to be eliminated. 

Mr. JARVIS. No, sir. They are an iconic species. We are committed, and there is a great deal of constituency around this as 

well. We are seeking all kinds of solutions. 

Mr. WENK. There are about 3,200 animals now in the Yellowstone system. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Thanks very much. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Hinchey, and that is encouraging information. 

How do you ship them down? Do you put them in horse trailers? 

Mr. WENK. It is a natural migration. This year, at this point, 

there are no animals that have gone out the north end. There have 

been a few animals that have exited through west Yellowstone, but 


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that is an area where they are allowed to be. This year, right now, 

they are being contained within the park naturally. 

YELLOWSTONE WOLVES

Mr. SIMPSON. If I could just follow up on that. Just out of curiosity, how many bison have been killed by wolves that were introduced into Yellowstone? I understand there has been a significant 

number. 

Mr. WENK. Significant is as close as I can get, Mr. Simpson. I 

do not have the number. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you. 

Mr. MORAN. I think we will conclude this hearing at this point. 

Is it acceptable to you if we conclude the hearing? 

Mr. SIMPSON. Sure. I have several pages of questions that we will 

submit for the record. 

Mr. MORAN. Very good. I do think it is appropriate to mention 

that the committee has concerns with $30 million for land acquisition as part of a larger $106 million department-wide land acquisition program, particularly in the context of reducing personnel who 

would have to manage those additional lands. So that may be 

something we want to address in the markup, but we appreciate 

very much your testimony, Mr. Director. We appreciate Mr. 

Sheaffer’s budget acumen, and this hearing will stand adjourned. 

Thank you very much. 


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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17, 2010. 

HEARING ON FY 2011 BUDGET FOR THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE: SUSTAINABLE CONSERVATION; SPECIES, PARTNERSHIPS, AND SCIENCE 

WITNESSES 

TOM STRICKLAND, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR FISH AND WILDLIFE 

AND PARKS 

ROWAN GOULD, ACTING DIRECTOR, FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 

CHRIS NOLIN, BUDGET OFFICER 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN MORAN

Mr. MORAN. We want to welcome you, Mr. Assistant Secretary, 

and Rowan Gould, who is the Acting Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service. We appreciate you taking the time today, and Ms. 

Nolin, thank you. 

On behalf of this subcommittee we want to once again express 

our condolences to Mr. Hamilton’s family and colleagues, whose 

passing is a true loss to all of us because he represented the best 

of our civil servants. I understand that he got his start building 

fences on wildlife refuges during the summers and transformed his 

love of the outdoors into an outstanding career. 

As we consider the proposed fiscal year 2011 budget for the Fish 

and Wildlife Service, we are aware that it represents a transformation really, led largely by Mr. Hamilton, to look beyond a particular project, place, or species and consider how ecological systems work to sustain themselves. The Fish and Wildlife Service is 

steward to over 551 units in the National Wildlife Refuge System, 

consists of approximately 150 million acres, including 53 million 

acres for marine national monuments, 14 of those refuges are in 

the Commonwealth of Virginia. I am sure a lot more are in Idaho 

and Oklahoma, places like that, but we like ours very much. Ohio, 

too. No question about that. 

They all support resource conservation by providing species protection and recreational opportunities for the surrounding communities. According to the outdoor Industry Foundation, outdoor 

recreation activities contribute $730 billion annually to the U.S. 

economy, supports 6.5 million jobs across the country, generates almost $50 billion in annual national tax revenue, and produce $290 

billion annually in retail sales and services across the country. 

In addition to managing the National Refuge System, the Service 

is also responsible for implementing the Endangered Species Act, 

which is terribly important and should be to all of us. The service 

does this either by working with partners to keep species off the 

threatened or endangered list, or working to recover species that 

are on the federal threatened or endangered list. 


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As a Nation we have over 1,320 endangered or threatened species, and we have been able to recover such icons as the bald eagle 

and the peregrine falcon. I can see a bald eagle each morning now 

nesting above the Potomac River. It is a wonderful sight, not so 

much when they are sitting there on the branch, but when they 

take off, what a majestic sight. It is understandable why we have 

chosen them as our national emblem. 

As we look to the future, our management and stewardship of 

these species and resources becomes even more critical, and that is 

particularly the case in light of the very real threat of climate 

change. As John Muir said, you have heard of John Muir, Mr. 

Simpson. 

Mr. SIMPSON. This is a Zen moment? 

Mr. MORAN. It is so I want you to prepare. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. 

Mr. MORAN. When we tug at a single thing in nature, we find 

it attached to the whole rest of the world, and that is the point that 

we want to make that, you know, it is all interconnected, and that 

is the importance of the Fish and Wildlife Service to the quality of 

life of everyone. 

So we are interested in hearing how you will continue to support 

your mission and transition to the landscape scale when you are 

proposing a $4.6 million decrease in the Fish and Wildlife Service’s 

budget and absorbing over $14 million in fixed costs. We also have concerns about the $4 million in proposed cuts for 

operations of the National Wildlife Refuges. As you know, this subcommittee has worked hard over the past several years to help the 

refuges receive adequate funding for their operations. And finally, it cannot go without mentioning that the $20 million 

proposed increase for land acquisitions should be an issue subject 

to discussion with this committee. It is a large increase. When you 

are asking your agency to absorb $14 million in fixed costs and decrease your refuge operations and other important programs, we 

obviously will be interested in understanding your explanation for 

why you chose to do that. 

Mr. MORAN. And at this point I know we would like to hear from 

Mr. Simpson. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, Assistant Secretary Strickland and Deputy Director Gould. 

In all sincerity I wish we were meeting here today under different circumstances. I, too, like many of you, were deeply saddened by the loss of the late Fish and Wildlife Director, Sam Hamilton. I only knew him for a brief time, but I came to know him 

as an honest man and a man of his word. 

As you well know, Mr. Hamilton was at the helm of an agency 

going through a major organizational change. The Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to move towards a landscape-level approach 

to conservation. I am not entirely sure what that means or how 

that will work with the constraints of the Endangered Species Act, 

but if it enables the agency, together with the states, to move more 

quickly to de-list species and to more effectively prevent listings, 

then you will have my full support. 


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I am looking forward to this discussion today and coming out 

with a better understanding of where the Service is headed with 

this Landscape Conservation Cooperative, how the Service’s existing programs tie into this effort, and how this effort compares and 

contrasts to existing regional collaborative scientific efforts led by 

other Interior bureaus. 

This Nation has a long history of fish and wildlife conservation, 

which has long been led by hunters and anglers, including the late 

President Theodore Roosevelt, who said rather wisely and succinctly, I have to put quotes in now because if there Chairman is 

going to throw in quotes, I have to put in quotes, too. So as Theodore Roosevelt once said, ‘‘There can be no greater issue than that 

of conservation in this country.’’ 

Mr. MORAN. Excellent. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you. 

Mr. MORAN. Profound. 

Mr. SIMPSON. My own father, himself a hunter and an angler, instilled conservation ethics in me at a very young age. It is my privilege to be able to sit here today with you who represent so many 

that share this same ethic. 

Again, thank you for being with us today, and I look forward to 

your testimony and working with you on the Fish and Wildlife 

budget. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Simpson, and Mr. Strickland, would you care to proceed with your statement? 

TESTIMONY OF TOM STRICKLAND

Mr. STRICKLAND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the 

subcommittee and staff and guests in the audience. It is an honor 

to be here today to introduce the 2011 budget request for the U.S. 

Fish and Wildlife Service and to assist our Acting Director Rowan 

Gould and other members of the Fish and Wildlife team to answer 

your questions. 

As you know I am also the Secretary of Interior’s Chief of Staff. 

In that role I see the breadth of the influence of this subcommittee, 

and I want to share my appreciation for your support. In my role 

as the Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, I have 

a special appreciation for your leadership in these areas and with 

these bureaus. Your support is helping us to build a strong foundation in these agencies to tackle climate change impacts, conserve 

our treasured landscapes, support energy development, and engage 

America’s youth in natural resources programs. I look forward to 

working closely with you to continue to advance these priorities. 

The mission of the Department of Interior is as simple as it is 

profound, and each of you in your statements alluded to those 

points. We protect America’s natural resources and cultural heritage. The Fish and Wildlife Service has a very big part of that mission; conserving, protecting, and enhancing fish, wildlife, plants, 

and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. 

Through extensive partnerships across the Nation, the Service 

protects and conserves migratory birds, threatened and endangered 

species, certain marine mammals, and inter-jurisdictional fish, and 

we administer the National Wildlife Refuge System. 


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We have almost 9,000 employees who are a dedicated cadre of 

professionals that face enormous challenges. Challenges they confront every day to protect fish and wildlife, adaptively manage in 

the face of climate change, support accelerated energy development, and restore our treasured landscapes. 

SAGE-GROUSE

Recently we announced our decision for protection of the greater 

sage-grouse. As with every decision, the Service utilized extensive 

scientific and commercial information to ensure that its decision 

was based on the best possible information. 

SAM HAMILTON

Most recently, the Service, and its employees, were faced with 

perhaps the biggest challenge in recent memory, and you each alluded to it, and I thank you very much for your acknowledgement 

of the loss of our Director, Sam Hamilton. Sam was a visionary and 

a professional whose years in the Service and passionate dedication 

to his work have left an indelible mark on these lands and wildlife 

that we cherish. His forward-thinking approach to conservation, including his view that we must think beyond boundaries and think 

in the landscape scale. Congressman, we look forward to responding a little bit more to your desire for fleshing that idea out—will 

continue to shape our Nation’s stewardship for years to come. He 

was a remarkable leader, and he was a compassionate, wise, and 

very optimistic man. 

When he became the Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service on 

September 1 of last year, he brought over 30 years of experience 

with the Service, beginning when he was a 15 year old, Mr. Chairman, as you acknowledged, working as a Youth Conservation Corps 

member in the Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge in Mississippi. In 

fact, I think it was Senator Cochran who introduced him at his confirmation hearing. 

Throughout his career, Sam exhibited outstanding leadership 

and fostered creative and innovative solutions to the challenges facing wildlife conservation. In the southeast region, which he ran for 

12 years, he supported efforts leading to the establishment of a carbon sequestration program that has helped biologists restore 

roughly 80,000 acres of wildlife habitat. He had great emphasis on 

partnerships with other landowners and State and local and private entities. 

He has bolstered our Fisheries Program, and he helped establish 

the Southeast Aquatic Resources Partnership that restored vital 

aquatic habitats around the country. 

We recognize, and we honor Sam. We are going to actually have 

a service at the Department on April the 9th, with his family, to 

continue to pay our respects to him. He played a key role in the 

recovery after Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, which had devastating 

impacts to our natural resources and certainly our human resources down in the southeast. 


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2011 BUDGET OVERVIEW

Let me turn to an overview of our 2011 budget. The 2011 budget 

for the Department reflects the challenges of our constrained economic times. The overall budget request for current appropriations 

is essentially level with the 2010 enacted level. We recognize the 

significant increase that the Congress provided to us in 2010, and 

we sustain most of that in this 2011 proposed budget. 

The proposed budget for 2011 is $1.6 billion, which is $4.6 million below 2010. It is 194 million, however, above the 2009 enacted 

level. The tough choices we made across the Department are reflected in our own reductions in the Fish and Wildlife Service budget. Department-wide we identified reductions of $750 million that 

enable us to direct funding to maintain progress on a set of key priorities for a new energy frontier, climate change adaptation, treasured landscapes, WaterSMART, which is our water sustainability 

initiative, youth in natural resources, and empowering tribal nations. 

These cuts include $82 million in management efficiencies, Department-wide again, such as reduced travel, and $620 million in 

program reductions and $54 million in Congressional earmarks. 

The funding increases for these initiatives in the 2011 budget 

will allow the Service to do the following things: to be able to confront the realities of climate change; continue to implement an integrated strategy for climate change adaptation; and develop a 21st 

century conservation agenda that protects treasured landscapes, including funding for Land and Water Conservation Fund programs, 

and investments in major ecosystem restoration projects throughout the country, including but not limited to the Chesapeake Bay, 

California’s Bay-Delta, the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi, 

and the Everglades. 

It also allows us to support the New Energy Frontier strategy 

that creates jobs and reduces the Nation’s dependence on foreign 

oil and reduces environmental impacts. 

Finally, we will engage America’s youth in natural resources 

commitment. 

CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTION

In the area of climate change adaptation, I will just say a few 

words. The Service’s contributions to these initiatives and their importance to ensure success cannot be overstated. The Service created the Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) approach that 

is now one of the organizing principles for the Department’s Climate Change Program. The Service has moved out quickly to establish LCCs and will have nine created this fiscal year. They are 

working collaboratively with the other Interior bureaus, other departments, States, Tribes, and partners based on a well-thoughtout and comprehensive strategy. 

Just for a second, I might add Sam Hamilton was very involved 

in this, along with Dan Ash and other leaders, but it literally is the 

work of the Fish and Wildlife Service over the last few years that 

has been the organizing effort to bring a coordinated approach to 

the entire Department of Interior as we look out and approach climate change. A year ago at this hearing we would not have been 


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able to say that. We did not have our people in place, and we did 

not have this coordinated strategy. Today, as we sit here, we can 

say with great confidence that we are all on the same page, all five 

bureaus at the Department of Interior. 

This subcommittee supported a robust 2010 budget for the Service’s Climate Change Program, and we are moving swiftly to execute the program in a way that honors your request that we be 

strategic. 

I would like to assure the subcommittee that we are responding 

to your request to develop a National Fish and Wildlife Adaptation 

Strategy. We recently provided a timeline to the subcommittee on 

this project. 

NEW ENERGY FRONTIER

In the area of the New Energy Frontier, I would like to say that 

as the stewards of the Nation’s natural and cultural resources, we 

are mindful of your concerns that we ensure careful consideration 

of the potential impacts of energy development. The 2011 budget 

includes increased resources to carry out endangered species consultation and other wildlife conservation efforts and provide timely 

environmental review of renewable energy projects. 

The Service does not bear the responsibility for the protection of 

resources on its own, however, as the other bureaus are also committed to the protection of our treasured landscapes. 

I grew up hunting and fishing, like many of you around the 

table, with my father and my family, and I bring the perspective 

of a sportsman to this job. Our system of wildlife refuges spans all 

50 states, and they play an invaluable role in preserving and protecting countless species. Yet these vital lands face enormous pressures from population growth and climate change. We must develop a strategic plan to ensure that these challenges are addressed 

so that we have a vibrant 21st century Wildlife Refuge System. 

The 2011 budget proposes $106.3 million, that is an increase of 

$20 million, for additions to 44 refuges and wildlife management 

areas. These additions will protect endangered species, migratory 

birds, and plants while providing increased areas for wildlife viewing and other recreational pursuits. Mr. Chairman, I will be happy 

to speak to you about the strategic goals there as compared to 

other needs and will look forward to your questions in that area. 

ECOSYSTEMS

The budget also includes increases targeted to key ecosystems for 

restoration and renewal. I mentioned those a moment ago; the Everglades, California’s Bay-Delta, the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and 

Mississippi, and the Chesapeake Bay. We will talk about these a 

little further during Mr. Gould’s testimony. 

NORTH AMERICAN WETLANDS CONSERVATION FUND

The budget also continues important programs that complement 

these efforts. The North American Wetlands Conservation Fund 

budget request is $42.7 million. It is a reduction of $5 million from 

the 2010 level. This program leverages Federal funding by more 


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than one to one and funds partnerships with others to protect wetlands and waterfowl habitat. 

YOUTH IN NATURAL RESOURCES

Our Youth in Natural Resources funding is one of the bright 

spots in the 2011 budget, and this is a program that reaches young 

people from all backgrounds. The Service’s budget includes an additional $2 million for youth employment programs at National Wildlife Refuges and $1 million to partner with the National Fish and 

Wildlife Foundation in public-private partnerships to engage youth 

through conservation projects on public and private lands. 

NATIONAL FISH AND WILDLIFE FOUNDATION

I just want to take a moment to say that we have a great partnership with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, not only 

on this youth program but on a whole range of things, and we want 

to point out what a great partner they are, and of course, their connection to this committee is well known to you. 

YOUTH IN NATURAL RESOURCES

In 2010, the Service will increase youth employment by 50 percent and by an additional 25 percent in 2011. You can tell that that 

is a big priority for us. 

In summary let me say, again, thank you for the opportunity to 

testify on behalf of the President’s 2011 budget request for the Fish 

and Wildlife Service. I want to reiterate my appreciation for the 

longstanding support of this subcommittee and to say that I look 

forward to working with you throughout the 2011 budget process. 

We have a tremendous opportunity to improve the future for our 

children and grandchildren by developing wise investments in 

clean energy, managing the impacts of climate impacts, conserving 

treasured landscapes, and engaging our youth in natural resources. 

This concludes my written statement. I am happy to answer 

questions you may have. I know Mr. Gould has some prepared remarks as well. 

[The statement of Tom Strickland follows:] 


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Mr. MORAN. Thanks very much, Mr. Strickland, and maybe Mr. 

Gould, I see that your statement, although it is not on both pages, 

it appears to be at least as long or perhaps more than Mr. 

Strickland’s. We might want to summarize it a bit and then get 

into the questions if it is okay with you. 

Mr. GOULD. I would be happy to do that, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you. 

Mr. GOULD. By the way, congratulations on your becoming Chair 

of this Subcommittee. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, sir. 

TESTIMONY OF ROWAN GOULD

Mr. GOULD. We have worked with you in the past and look forward to continue to work with you in the future, and I would also 

like to thank Mr. Simpson. It is always a pleasure to be working 

with you. You have supported us in the past, and this committee 

has been hugely helpful. The Fish and Wildlife Service wants to 

thank you for that. 

I will summarize my remarks considerably. The President’s fiscal 

year 2011 budget request for $1.6 billion for the U.S. Fish and 

Wildlife Service will focus funding on the agency’s highest priority 

conservation initiatives, while containing costs to address government fiscal realities. 

Among our top investments are increases of $18.8 million for climate change adaptation, an additional $16.2 million for ecosystem 

restoration and $20 million for federal land acquisition. The budget 

focuses on key ecosystems threatened by pollution, water shortages, and habitat disruptions through our treasured landscapes initiatives. It also includes an additional $3 million as Tom indicated 

in Youth in Natural Resources. 

CLIMATE CHANGE

As previously indicated, the Fish and Wildlife’s 2011 budget provides for an increase of $18.8 million for climate change, and that 

is one area where I specifically want to address my remarks. The 

budget will build on the new Landscape Conservation Cooperatives, 

LCCs, which are partner-based, centers for biological planning and 

shared science. Notice I did not say shared management. It is planning and shared science. By the end of fiscal year 2010, nine LCCs 

will be established as indicated, and fiscal year 2011, three additional LCCs will be established with $3.8 million of the requested 

increase for climate change planning. 

That is our expected amount. Because of the active involvement 

of other agencies in the Department of Interior, we may even move 

forward faster in establishing these LCCs. The Secretary has 

shown great support for the concept, and other agencies are really 

working with us to help convene some of these LCCs along with 

other government agencies including State agencies. It has been a 

great success so far. We are in this development phase, but we are 

showing a lot of success. 

To press these scientific needs we are adding upon the funds that 

were provided to us in 2011. We are adding an additional $5 million to provide funding for climate models, species and habitat asVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:10 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 057302 PO 00000 Frm 00275 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A302P2.XXX A302P2

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sessments, and other information needed to make required management decisions by the various partners that are part of the 

steering committees of these LCCs. 

The budget also provides $8 million for continued development of 

our Refuge System Climate Science Inventory and Monitoring Effort, as well as $2 million for conservation measures on private 

lands through the Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program. The 

availability of additional scientific information and better decision 

support tools make the Service and its partners more effective in 

delivering conservation on the ground by identifying high-priority 

areas for conservation, as well as tailoring actions collaboratively 

to achieve population objectives. 

Similarly, additional science capacity will expand our ability to 

monitor and evaluate our collective successes in sustaining fish and 

wildlife in the face of climate change. These monitoring efforts are 

not just with the Fish and Wildlife Service and other DOI agencies, 

but with the Forest Service, and other partners that will bring together a monitoring system that will allow us to look at our successes over a large landscape level. The whole LCC concept is 

seamless in this geographic scope and will allow everybody to coordinate and cooperate without, at the same time, infringing upon 

folks’ management authorities and responsibilities. 

TREASURED LANDSCAPES

Tom indicated that we have $16.2 million for treasured landscapes. He indicated I was going to go into some more detail, but 

in the interest of brevity, I will forego that. 

YOUTH IN NATURAL RESOURCES

When we talk about funding for jobs in natural resources for 

youth, $2 million of that is going to our National Wildlife Refuge 

System, and that is for our YCC Programs and other youth employment activities. An additional $1 million is going to go to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, an incredible partner of the 

Fish and Wildlife Service. They are actually going to leverage that 

$1 million with private contributions and implement a competitive 

grant program to develop new and existing conservation job initiatives. So we thank them for that. 

The 2011 budget for the refuge systems is roughly $500 million, 

a net decrease of $3.3 million. This includes an increase of $8 million for the Climate Change Inventory and Monitoring Program, 

the improved information that we will develop from our inventory 

and monitoring program, as well as the biological planning support 

from LCCs will provide us with much better information to enhance Service decisions in the refuge system and elsewhere 

throughout the Service. 

ENDANGERED SPECIES

In endangered species, the budget includes a total of $181.3 million, which is an increase of $2 million from the 2010 level. The 

budget includes funding to support the Department’s New Energy 

Frontier Initiative, providing consultations on renewable energy 


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projects. The budget also provides additional funding for high-priority species recovery activities. 

Additionally, there is an increase in recovery to fund projects for 

species on the brink of extinction or within reach of recovery. The 

Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund, very important to the states, is funded at $85 million, matching the fiscal year 

2010 enacted level. 

AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT

The Service was fortunate to be able to help with our Nation’s 

financial recovery through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The act provided the Service with $115 million for 733 

construction projects, roughly three times the size of the Service’s 

average annual construction budget. In 2011, the Service will be 

completing many of the ARRA-funded projects, and therefore, the 

budget proposes a smaller-than-average construction program to be 

funded with annual appropriations. The 2011 Construction Request 

of 23.7 million will fund the highest-priority projects not funded 

through Recovery Act funding. 

The budget proposes to increase land acquisition by $20 million 

to a total of $106.3 million. The fiscal year 2011 project list includes several large landscape-scale projects, several examples of 

these projects would provide us with increased acreage into the 

system that is consistent with the types of decisions we are making 

in these Landscape Conservation Cooperatives. 

The Service will also purchase additional acreage in many of the 

areas that you guys are interested in, locally, Virginia, Idaho, so 

on and so forth. So hopefully that budget will be successful for all 

of you. 

I thank you for the opportunity to testify this afternoon, and I 

look forward to answering any questions as well as working with 

you through the appropriations process, and I think I cut it in half. 

[The statement of Rowan Gould follows:] 


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Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Gould. We thank you very much. 

LAND ACQUISITION AND REFUSE OPERATIONS

Mr. Strickland, you have requested $106 million for federal land 

acquisition. It is an increase of $20 million over last year’s level, 

but you have not requested any increase for operations and maintenance. Instead you have proposed reductions in refuge operations, 

law enforcement. You failed to fund the full fixed costs for the Fish 

and Wildlife Service itself. 

So the question that the committee wonders is can we really afford to add new land when funding for operations is deliberately 

constrained. You have a maintenance backlog of $2.7 billion, and 

so some would wonder if you cannot fully improve habitat on the 

land that the Service already owns, I guess the question we would 

like to ask you is should we not work on reducing that maintenance backlog and improving habitat on the land we already own 

first. Mr. Strickland. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Chairman, thank you for that question, 

and it is a very good question. Budgets are always about priorities, 

and they do reflect the values that you bring to an undertaking, 

and so those are very good questions. 

It certainly is not ideal to take a cut in any of these areas, because there has been a long-term under-funding of the Service, and 

we are trying to restore that now. This committee was very, very 

supportive in the 2010 budget, and so we were able to make some 

big steps forward. When you add to that the Recovery Act dollars 

that Rowan just talked about, we were able to pick up a big chunk 

of the most important backlog in deferred maintenance and construction projects with an emphasis on immediate job creation. 

The most precise answer that I can give your question is we were 

balancing competing priorities, which are way beyond what we 

have the dollars to deal with, but we have, we believe, an urgency 

with respect to certain acquisitions. About half of the acquisitions 

are fee and half are acquisition of conservation easements. We have 

land prices at a record low. The land acquisitions are all within existing refuge boundaries. The added operational costs are minimal 

because in some ways it actually makes it easier to manage the 

lands because you have unified ownership. 

It is a balancing act, and different folks might come at that differently, and you all certainly have your imprimatur to bring to 

this exercise, but we tried to use our best judgment to look at 

where we could accommodate and absorb further efficiencies in our 

operations and still take advantage of these record low prices. Climate change is putting huge pressures on our habitat, and our 

portfolio of refuges and habitat will have to make adjustments as 

we deal with differing impacts of climate change. 

Mr. MORAN. That is a good answer, underscoring the historically 

low price of land and the fact that these pieces of land are being 

bought up within areas that are already being managed so it does 

not apparently require as many new personnel. I do think it is still 

a concern for the committee, though. 


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CLIMATE CHANGE

Last year’s statement of the managers of the Appropriations Subcommittee asked that you be mindful of the need to effectively and 

efficiently use this funding, so we want to ask how are you ensuring that you are not duplicating the climate change efforts of other 

agencies such as the U.S. Geological Survey, who are also very 

much involved in climate change. What kind of resources are the 

partners bringing to the table to leverage federal funding for climate change? We are all in this together, so how are you coordinating? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Thank you for the opportunity to answer that 

question, and I can say that we are in a much better position to 

answer that question I think satisfactorily to the committee today 

than we were a year ago because a lot has happened, and this is 

one of the areas where Sam Hamilton really led. I am going to let 

Rowan elaborate here, but frankly the approach that the Fish and 

Wildlife Service has developed over the last few years, these Landscape Conservation Cooperatives, are now not just a Fish and Wildlife exercise, the entire Department, all the bureaus are organizing 

around these operations. We are going to have these sets of regional climate science centers and then at a lower level, I guess, 

or a more closer level to the landscape we are going to have 17 

or—— 

LANDSCAPE CONSERVATION COOPERATIVES

Mr. GOULD. Twenty-one. 

Mr. STRICKLAND [continuing]. 21 now. It has been a moving number but 21 Landscape Conservation Cooperatives. The Department 

of Interior, the Secretary is committed to that, and he has put out 

a Secretarial directive to that effect. 

I am going to let Rowan add to that as well as talk about the 

fact, and you might pick an example of one that we have stood up, 

because we have partners stepping up with their own dollars at the 

local level and—— 

Mr. MORAN. In doing that you are asking for three brand new 

Landscape Conservation Cooperatives, LCCs. Where are you going 

to put those? 

Mr. GOULD. Well, actually, the three have not been delineated. 

The answer is there may be more, and the reason is because we 

are getting a lot of support from Bureau of Reclamation and the 

National Park Service to bring additional resources into this whole 

process. 

For instance, Landscape Conservation Cooperatives are an offshoot, as Sam envisioned it, of the joint ventures that still exist, 

and are very effective, and what LCCs are are all-species joint ventures. We have actually had two joint ventures; one in Florida and 

one in the Great Plains area, stand up and say, we want to stand 

up these LCCs, co-convene with the Fish and Wildlife Service. 

There are other resources coming to bear to stand these things 

up outside of the Federal Government, and that is very gratifying. 

The states are supportive of participating in some of these, so the 

exact three have not been defined yet. I cannot tell you exactly 

what they are, but the resources we will bring to the table will be 


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able to stand up in partnership and co-convene at least three more. 

So that is good news. 

In terms of the coordination with other agencies, as you are 

aware, NOAA is looking at this climate change issue from a very 

large perspective. It is looking at weather change patterns, sea 

level rise, ocean acidification, that sort of thing. They have resources going into climate change this year and next year. 

The next level down are Climate Science Centers that are funded 

by USGS, and these folks will take this very large, high-level information, step it down into taking physical models and physical understandings of the changes that are going to occur, and allow a 

biological assessment at a larger landscape level to then pass down 

to the LCCs so that that shared scientific capability can use that 

information to predict effects on population size, where we do restoration projects, and take into consideration the moving landscape, that sort of thing. 

The coordination between agencies, all the participants, at all 

different levels is at this point, from a conceptual phase, seamless. 

We have already stood up an LCC, for instance, in Hawaii that 

considers existing partnerships. They are using the science money 

that is going into the LCCs to determine effects of climate change 

on island habitats, sea bird islands, that sort of thing, which could 

be profound. This particular process has been accepted by the Governor as the way wildlife adaptation is considered from a state perspective in the larger plans they are putting together to deal with 

climate change in the future. 

Mr. MORAN. Okay. When Mr. Simpson gets free, we will give him 

an opportunity to ask another question. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I have been ready for so long. 

Mr. MORAN. Well, now is your chance. 

NATIONAL FISH AND WILDLIFE FOUNDATION

Mr. SIMPSON. Not to miss out on any of the love going around 

the table, let me just tell you. I want to endorse what you said 

about the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. It is a great organization. What do you think about it, Greg? You have not told us 

yet. I do not know what they had to do to get in both your testimonies. I am just kidding. Well, not really but—— 

REFUGE AND HATCHERY DEFERRED MAINTENANCE

I see that as was mentioned, the maintenance budgets for the 

refuges and fisheries have always been kind of low, and we caught 

up with those with the ARRA funding. I mean, we tried to address 

all of that in the ARRA funding? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. We made some progress. 

Mr. SIMPSON. What this kind of reminds me of is what happened 

with the National Institutes of Health, NIH. In 1996, Congress said 

that they were going to double the NIH budget over a 5-year period, which they did. I came in ’98, kind of in the middle of that 

doubling period, and we did double their budget over a 5-year period. The next 5 years it was the de-doubling of the 5-year increase 

because everybody said, well, we have done that for NIH. Now we 

do not have to do that anymore. Let us go do something else, and 

I think they may have been better off had we not said we are going 


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to double your budget and just done a normal, you know, over that 

10-year period some normal increases. 

And I wonder if we are putting a whole bunch of money into this 

in the ARRA funding, saying, well, we have addressed this need or 

at least taken care of a lot of it, and now we are going to see degradation of the maintenance and so forth because we think we do 

not have to do that anymore. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Actually, we will always be investing in our deferred maintenance, and we will always be making a commitment. 

It just allowed us to catch up, you know, cut the backlog, if you 

will, but the effort is ongoing. We have to do it—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. The level we are at now is going to add to the 

backlog. Right? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Well, I will let Rowan step in here as well. I 

think that we are keeping up. I think with the increases that we 

saw in 2010, to our budget, it was an increase over the funding we 

had in the previous years. Then the boost from the ARRA funding 

allowed us to do, I think it was 3 years in 1 year. That has given 

us a little bit of breathing room, but we have to continue to make 

a strong effort every year, and we are going to be here. We are not 

done with that, and the ARRA funding did not get us altogether 

out of that backlog. The same thing for the parks. You had the 

hearing on that, and you heard that we—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. Sure. 

Mr. STRICKLAND [continuing]. Have a $9 billion backlog there. I 

think it is going to be a continued priority and a continued effort. 

I do not think this is going to put us further behind. 

Mr. GOULD. In fact, the $280 million we received of ARRA funding, $105 million was for construction projects, $100 million went 

toward deferred maintenance program, both in fisheries and refuges. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. So we addressed the deferred maintenance. 

Mr. GOULD. Right. That is correct. 

Mr. SIMPSON. With the budget that you requested this year, will 

that deferred maintenance backlog grow or decrease? 

Mr. GOULD. It will decrease. We actually accelerated our work on 

the construction side of things 4 years, and we accelerated our 

progress 2 years on deferred maintenance projects. 

Mr. SIMPSON. With the ARRA funding. 

Mr. GOULD. With the ARRA funding. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I am not suggesting that that—— 

Mr. GOULD. We are still—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. I am saying with the amount that we have got for 

the next budget year—— 

Mr. GOULD. Right. 

Mr. SIMPSON [continuing]. Ignoring the ARRA funding—— 

Mr. GOULD. Right. 

Mr. SIMPSON [continuing]. How much would we have to put into 

the deferred maintenance to address it over say the next 20 years? 

To reduce it to zero over the next 20 years. 

Mr. GOULD. We do not have that information here today and 

would be glad to provide that to the committee later, but $2.7 billion is our backlog. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Is the backlog. 


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Mr. GOULD. Yes. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. Well, I would just like to make sure that we 

are not just talking about Fish and Wildlife Service. I am talking 

about all of our agencies, that we do not take advantage of the 

ARRA funding to reduce what we need in the future, which I have 

seen happen, not particularly here but in other types of instances. 

ENDANGERED SPECIES

Let me talk for a minute about sage-grouse, or let you talk for 

a minute about sage-grouse, since it has huge impacts obviously, 

potential impacts on Idaho. Could you tell me what the main 

threats to the species are, and along with that, is grazing, properlymanaged grazing, a threat to sage-grouse, and for that matter, the 

slickspot peppergrass either. And I say properly managed because 

obviously you can overdo everything. I mean, you can graze ground 

to the nubbins where there is no grass left, which we have all seen 

happen in some instances before, but properly-managed grazing— 

is it one of the threats to the habitat of the sage-grouse or to the 

condition of the peppergrass? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Well, I will let Rowan speak to the peppergrass. 

Congressman Simpson, your focus on proper grazing, there is a 

way to have a harmonious development or harmonious activities 

with grazing, just as there is an opportunity to do energy development on public lands and private lands and do it in a responsible 

way. 

Your Governor and certainly Governor Freudenthal of Wyoming 

have identified core areas where there are the nesting areas. If we 

are smart from the start and we figure out where the most sensitive areas are and then we manage with those areas in mind and 

we have special protections where they matter the most, then we 

can have a wide range of activities. 

Now, the sage-grouse is an interesting situation because I think 

60 percent of the habitat, the remaining habitat of the sage-grouse 

is BLM land. We have to get it right, and your question really kind 

of speaks to that in terms of BLM grazing and that sort of thing. 

We are confident that this sage-grouse strategy that has been put 

together, really was premised, on creating an opportunity based on 

science. We made the decision that the listing was warranted but 

precluded based on higher priorities. 

That also reflected the sense of urgency or lack thereof relative 

to the immediate threat. Now, the threat with the grouse is not immediately the numbers, because the numbers are decent, they are 

solid, and they are dispersed out over a wide geographic area, but 

it is the habitat. It is the threat to the habitat, which is only a fraction of what it was historically. 

We have to manage the remaining habitat wisely. We have to 

start in our own backyard at the Department of Interior because 

we have such a huge impact on that. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Right. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. The answer to reiterate is that we can have 

grazing, and we can have energy development, and we can have 

human activities, but the fact is the spread of the grass, the development over time that was not consistent or did not take into account good science has caused, you know, pressures to be placed on 


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the sage-grouse. We are cautiously hopeful that we can avoid having to actually list it if we take advantage of some of the very good 

partnerships. This is probably as good an area as any where we see 

good leadership. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Will this affect any of the CCAAs that have been 

going on out there? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. They are very consistent. That is exactly the 

kind of thing we want to have more of. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I am sure you understand that cattle ranchers and 

others are frightened to death because they have seen in the past 

listings used to essentially what they would consider run them off 

the ground, and so I understand the basis of their fear, and I would 

hope that the Department and the Interior Department as well as 

the Fish and Wildlife Service would work cooperatively with these 

people. 

We have examples out there where working with landowners we 

can actually accomplish more than using the hammer, you know. 

If you look at organizations like the Peregrine Fund and the Birds 

of Prey, what they have done with the Aplomado falcon and working with landowners in Texas to cooperatives. I mean, you know, 

the Texas ranchers actually like the birds, and we can do, I think, 

a lot better in preservation and restoring a lot of these species than 

we have done working with landowners by making it an advantage 

to have something on your land rather than a shoot, shovel, and 

shut up sort of situation. 

But I will turn it back to you for a minute, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. 

Mr. Dicks. 

You know that they deferred it. I think you would agree with 

their decision for the time being not to pursue this aggressively. 

Warranted but precluded. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yeah. You have not seen any bad press out of me. 

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Dicks. 

SOLICITOR OPINION

Mr. DICKS. Well, first of all, I want to welcome Tom Strickland 

here to the committee, and sorry I was not here for your testimony. 

Actually, I am very pleased with the direction of the Fish and 

Wildlife Service. Our committee on a bipartisan basis has been 

very supportive, after we knew that we had a major problem with 

refuges. We had a public hearing, and the witnesses came in and 

members of the Refuge Caucus talked about the fact that the Refuge System was under threat, just like the Park Service had been 

a few years before. 

And I think on a very bipartisan basis this committee has addressed both of those problems, and I think the Park Service and 

the Fish and Wildlife Service are at a better place because of it. 

Now, I want to ask you a question. Last year I raised concerns 

and asked you about a 2007 opinion by the previous Solicitor, interpreting the definition of significant portion of the range under the 

Endangered Species Act. You offered to work with Congress on 

ways to improve the administration of the ESA. Three months ago 

on November 6, 2009, myself and three other House committee 


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chairmen sent you a letter requesting that you immediately withdraw the opinion. 

We recently received a letter stating that you were still reviewing the issue. As you are well aware, the erroneous interpretation 

of the Endangered Species Act, at least in my judgment, has already been relied upon by your Department to de-list wolves in 

portions of the Northern Rockies, including Montana and Idaho. 

However, a federal Judge last year issued a preliminary ruling 

that this de-listing and the former Solicitor’s interpretation of the 

significant portion of range upon which the de-listing was based 

are not rational or consistent with the ESA. 

What are we going to do about this? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Well, Mr. Chairman, as you know and we have 

had many conversations about this and the specifics of the wolf decisions that have been made-enormously complicated issues. We inherited a lot of Solicitor opinions that are currently being revisited. 

This is one of them. I do not have a definitive answer for you today 

other than to say that they are top priority issues. We are looking 

at them in the context of a broader evaluation of ESA. 

We have a number of outstanding issues through court decisions 

and otherwise that are open issues, definitional issues that really 

do need attention. When we were putting our team together, we 

paid respects as I know you have as well to the loss of Sam Hamilton, but Sam was very aware of and focused on this issue, and 

he was a key part of our team reviewing the opinion and the situation with the wolf. 

We understand because it is in litigation, the court could rule 

any day on that, and the court did make some indications of where 

it might land when it finally rules. We are trying to sort through 

a whole range of Solicitor opinions, not only on this issue but a 

number of others, and we are doing that, and as you know, it took 

us awhile to get our team in place. Mr. Hamilton was not confirmed until September the 1st, and our Solicitor not much before 

that. 

We are working to be in a position to answer your questions definitively and to try and add more stability to the ESA across the 

board. We think the ESA can be made to work better. We have to 

answer these ambiguous questions. We inherited, frankly, a morass 

of litigation in terms of the administration of the ESA, questions 

about whether science had been used appropriately in arriving at 

listing decisions, and we want and try and look at these legal questions not in a one-off way, Mr. Chairman, but in the context of a 

broader review of our administration of ESA. We want to do it in 

a way that it will hold up, not just as a series of individual reviews. 

That review is underway. 

We brought Michael Bean onto the team. He is one of my Deputy 

Assistant Secretaries. Michael Bean is probably the country’s leading expert on ESA, and he is a key part of our team that is reviewing the ESA at this time. 

Mr. MORAN. Incidentally, I want to associate myself with Chairman Dicks’ perspective on the endangered species. 

Mr. DICKS. Well, I appreciate that. 


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NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE SYSTEM

So let me ask you this. How are we doing with the refuges, Mr. 

Gould? Do we have better staffing now, and have you utilized the 

money under the Recovery Act? 

Mr. GOULD. Yes. We actually are doing well with refuges. We obviously could do better, but given the tight fiscal year and the fact 

that there are different needs for the refuges than we saw a few 

years ago. For instance, we are putting $8 million into monitoring 

programs related to climate change, monitoring that could also be 

important in dealing with invasive species issues, dealing with 

water issues, disease issues, all the things that are important to us 

now. The biological programs are going to be beefed up considerably, and more importantly, I think, with the kind of information 

that we are going to get from these Landscape Conservation Cooperatives, we are going to make better decisions about our management actions on refuges. From that perspective, efficiency of 

what we do with a long-term view about the actions we take and 

its affect on the species, we are in much better shape. 

Mr. DICKS. Well, I want to tell you that I have followed one refuge quite closely on the Nisqually River in Washington State, and 

this has been a good project between the Fish and Wildlife Service, 

the Nisqually Indian Tribe, several citizens’ groups and the state 

agencies. And we have taken out some of the dykes there, and by 

this one project we have recreated 30 percent more estuary than 

Puget Sound had before we started. It is hard to believe that we 

have taken away that much estuary at Puget Sound, which is one 

of the major issues in salmon restoration. 

Jean Takekawa has done a phenomenal job, and we had great 

support from the Administration on that project. We needed just a 

little bit of money to finish. In fact, I called her and told her we 

had the money, but she did not believe me. She just did not really 

believe what could happen, but you all helped us, and it was a relatively small amount of money, but we needed to finish the project. 

And this is one of those projects where also there is tremendous 

citizen interest, and we had to take away some of the walking 

trails that were on the top of the dykes, but we worked it out so 

that you could still have a way to walk in and really have a great 

view of what is going on but at the same time achieve what we 

needed to do. 

And another one I will mention is the Skokomish River with the 

Skokomish Tribe, and they had another area which had been dyked 

for agriculture. It was a terrible mistake, and they worked with the 

Fish and Wildlife Service to restore that area, and it immediately 

helped the salmon. In Nisqually there is indications that the small 

smelts from other rivers actually are coming over to that area. 

These are all examples of really good efforts where the people all 

worked together in the community for a great outcome. So I want 

to tell you I think you have got some great people out there. 

Mr. GOULD. Very good. 

SALMON RESTORATION

Mr. STRICKLAND. I appreciate that. I just wanted to point out 

that many of the programs that you have championed over the 


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years, obviously, we put into our base program in 2009 related to 

salmon and habitat restoration for the salmon issue out there are 

now starting to show some great results, including great partnerships on other issues, and thank you very much for what you did. 

STATE AND TRIBAL WILDLIFE GRANTS

Mr. DICKS. Could I have time for one more? 

What about the State Fish and Wildlife Grant Program? How is 

that doing? State and Tribal Wildlife Grants. 

Mr. GOULD. For the State and Tribal Wildlife Grant Program, we 

are maintaining our funding at essentially level this year. We do 

have a competitive State grant program of $5 million. It has been 

a huge boon for the states to enact activities that support the State 

Wildlife Action Plans, which were the result of this money originally being proposed and appropriated. It has been a greatly successful program. 

The states are now counting on it to implement their non-game 

programs, and in fact, are using some of these funds to be more 

involved in climate change and other landscape-level activities that 

are appropriate within their specific boundaries. We are looking at 

the State Wildlife Action Plans and the State Wildlife Grant 

money. We are talking with the states about how that money could 

better be used, specifically the $5 million that is presently in place 

for competitive grants. We are discussing how those grants might 

be best used by states to be more active in participating in LCCs. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Dicks. 

Mr. LaTourette. 

GREAT LAKES RESTORATION

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

your testimony. 

The one thing that I did not hear in your testimony was the 

Great Lakes, and that is kind of important to me. The Administration I think deserves great credit for the Great Lakes Restoration 

Initiative. We were a little disappointed that it went from $475 

million to $300 million this year, but when we had Administrator 

Jackson in front of us she explained that they were not ready to 

put it out the door, but I am asking for $475 million again. 

My disappointment, I guess, in the way that it is structured is that most of the money remains in the EPA, I think of the $300 

million proposed it is retaining $169, $170 million. But I noticed 

in fiscal year 2010, the Service got $58 million. I just want to ask 

you what you spent the dough on and what you plan to spend the 

money on in 2011. I think you are only getting $32 million. 

Mr. GOULD. That is correct. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Let me just speak, Congressman, for a moment, 

and our oversight in not mentioning it is duly noted because it is 

a high priority. We are not the lead agency there. As you noted the 

EPA is, but it is very important, and we have meaningful dollars. 

I have personally been involved in an inter-agency effort with the 

Asian carp, which is a huge, huge concern we know to the Great 

Lakes States. The Fish and Wildlife Service is playing a key role 

there in terms of bio-barriers and monitoring, trying to do everyVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:10 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 057302 PO 00000 Frm 00294 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A302P2.XXX A302P2

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thing we can to keep the Asian carp out of the lakes. I just wanted 

to highlight that. I appreciate that. 

Mr. GOULD. Some of that money that we are getting is actually 

funding that activity, part of that activity anyway, and we are also 

looking at toxic substances. We are also looking at invasive species, 

other invasive species issue. 

If Mr. Dicks were here, he would be very glad to know that we 

are now using that money for the mass marking effort to determine 

wild fish versus hatchery fish, those sorts of things. It has been a 

hugely-productive partnership, and while it is funded by EPA, the 

partnership is well-coordinated, everybody is talking with one another, and it is actually kind of an example of how disparate agencies can come together with common goals and move forward to 

save an incredibly important resource. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. One of the best exhibits I have seen since I 

have been here was when the Fish and Wildlife Service set up a 

display in the atrium of the Rayburn Building and brought some 

critters over. When you talk about invasive species, some people, 

you know, when I talk about sea lamprey, their eyes glaze over, 

and they think it is like an electric eel or something, but when you 

actually see a couple of them swimming around and know that 

they are going to suck the life out of game fish on a regular basis, 

it is an eye-opening experience. 

I did mention to Administrator Jackson, because this big pot of 

money, just from my perspective, the EPA is a regulatory agency. 

They are an enforcement agency. They are really not a boots-onthe-ground, going out and cleaning up toxic areas of concern or restoring habitat. 

And so I attempted to indicate to her, maybe if you re-jostled the 

percentages and the Fish and Wildlife Service got more, the Park 

Service got more, the Corps got more, we would actually see more 

things done. And they are talking about taking this big chunk of 

money and apparently having competitive bidding, and my concern 

is you are going to get a lot of little projects that are not going to 

accomplish much rather than really focusing on, for example in my 

part of the world, the Ashtabula Harbor. It costs $54 million bucks. 

It would not have done us any good if we had gotten the $2 million. 

So I think people in our part of the world would understand that 

it is not our turn this year, so we are going to do something in 

Michigan, but eventually we are going to get the whole shooting 

match. 

So if you agree with that, if you could advocate for that. You 

mentioned the Asian carp. When USGS was in to see me, they said 

they are working with some of their money on a pill apparently to 

kill the Asian carp. There is a big dust-up going on between Illinois 

and Michigan at the moment about the closure of two locks. The 

news today is that the Supreme Court is going to reconsider whether or not to look at that case. I do not know if you have seen the 

YouTube videos of the Asian carp, but this is a big deal. The zebra 

mussels were bad for water intake, the round goby is annoying, the 

sea lamprey, you know, by spraying the eggs, we got it under control. But this Asian carp thing is serious, serious business. 

So aside from your barrier work and some other things, have you 

looked into the idea that we could make dog food out of these fish? 


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Mr. GOULD. What I do know is—— 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Or cat food. 

Mr. GOULD [continuing]. The partnership is looking at every possible means that we can to, first, keep them out of the lake through 

the electric barriers, through the Chicago Ship Canal, and other 

areas. We are looking more comprehensively, at the DNA to look 

for the presence of them, and more importantly, to look for other 

biological controls. The partnership, with USGS obviously is very 

active in this particular area, and we need to Rotenone. It is the 

old standard process, but we got to know where they are and what 

life stages, you literally have to have the biology of the animal 

worked out pretty well to use those techniques. 

I can guarantee you we are leaving no stone unturned to try to 

figure out how to keep these fish out of the lake. It would be a disaster if they went into the lake. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. To add to that, we actually had a meeting in 

the Roosevelt Room at the White House with several of the Governors, the head of CEQ, Secretary Salazar, myself, several other 

Cabinet Secretaries, and this is in the time that I have been here, 

in the last year, I cannot think of another issue that has so quickly 

gotten on our radar screen, at this high level, with the kind of commitment of resources and sense of urgency. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I appreciate that, and Mr. Chairman, have you 

ever seen the YouTube videos of these Asian carp? They weigh like 

100 pounds, they knock grown men out of boats, and they eat 40 

percent of their weight every day, which I am only about 33 percent a day. I mean, it really is a big deal. Actually USGS, and I 

will close with this, said they had some Chinese scientists come 

over to study what they were doing, and they wanted to know how 

come we were so successful in breeding Asian carp because all the 

Asian carp in China are dying. 

And so maybe if we had a little technology trading we would 

work this thing out. 

Mr. MORAN. Would you tell us what the outlay level will be for 

the Great Lakes Initiative in fiscal year 2010 and fiscal year 2011, 

assuming that there is a cut in actual appropriation from the $475 

to $300? 

Ms. NOLIN. The 2010 level was $58 million, and the 2011, level 

will be $32 million. 

Mr. GOULD. Of the $32 million in 2011, there is approximately $6 million that the Fish and Wildlife Foundation is assisting on. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you. Mr. Cole. 

Mr. COLE. Thank you very much. 

Mr. MORAN. Incidentally, I should let everyone know we have 

twelve minutes left on the first vote, and then there are four more 

after that. So we will conclude this hearing before we go to vote. 

Mr. COLE. Thank you, Chairman. I just want to tell my good 

friend Mr. LaTourette, there are still lots of invasive species 

around the Longworth Atrium if you just keep your eyes open. 

TRIBAL WILDLIFE GRANTS

I want to pick up on something Mr. Dicks asked about actually 

and go a little bit further. He mentioned state and tribal wildlife 

grants, and I am, with him, a great admirer of these tribal wildlife 


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grants. They have been very successful. You guys have done a 

great job administering them. 

But in 2010, when the budget went up for the agency, they 

stayed flat. If you look at the state wildlife grants, they moved 

from $63 million—all $15 million went to the states. There was 

nothing for the territories, nothing for the tribes. About one out of 

five of those grants now, as I understand it, get approved. 

So why nothing for the tribes, nothing for the territories, but a 

pretty major expansion for the states? 

Mr. GOULD. There was a proposed increase and because of the 

tough budget times, quite frankly, it did not—— 

Mr. COLE. But that was not a tough budget year. They were held 

flat in the good budget year. They are being held flat now. 

Mr. GOULD. Not this year. 

Mr. COLE. Yeah. The year that the state ones went up, they were 

flat. 

Mr. GOULD. Yeah. I am told that it was Congress that held that 

level flat. 

Mr. COLE. I would ask you to look at that going forward, because 

frankly, it is hard to believe that all the increase needed to be in 

one area than the other two, but I am not surprised if somehow 

Indians did not fare well in Congress. 

MIGRATORY BIRDS

Secondly, I have two additional questions that are really local 

but with national sort of perspective. I want to explain a problem 

I had a few years ago. I was a freshman, and all of the sudden out 

of nowhere in a little town, a little area in southwest Oklahoma we 

had an egret rookery emerge. I mean, you have never seen anything like it, Mr. Chairman, because when tens and tens and tens 

of thousands of egrets descend on an area, and there were homes 

in this area. It absolutely just destroyed properties. It became almost unlivable, a health hazard. 

Now, when the egrets migrated, I learned a lot more about this 

than I ever had before. Evidently, they migrate with other species 

of birds that are not nearly so common, and so these folks were 

prohibited by federal law, and I assume by Fish and Wildlife, from 

actually dealing with them or trying to drive them off, and you can 

understand. You do not want to kill, endangered species in the 

process, and that was certainly a risk. 

But they got zero help out of Fish and Wildlife. Eventually, to 

get this problem dealt with, they told us the state would have to 

deal with it. They did not have any money to deal with it. My good 

friend, Henry Bonilla, was chairman of the Ag Subcommittee then. 

I went and begged him, and he managed to somehow get money 

out of the Department of Agriculture, but it was a matter of concern to me that the agency in charge and legitimately protecting 

the wildlife, had nothing to do to mitigate when they were the 

invasive species so to speak in what was not a refuge. This was not 

park land. This was commercial land, but no money there to help 

people protect their own property. 

Mr. GOULD. Well, I do not have any specific answer on the case 

you are talking about. I do know that there is a process we can go 

through to deal with, for instance, seagulls in large numbers 


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around airports. There is a permitting process you can go through 

to allow the take of those animals using whatever—— 

Mr. COLE. These folks had done everything, and, again, it was 

a problem. You cannot wait months when this stuff is destroying 

your home. So I would just ask, again, and this is not directed at 

you guys. These things happen in government, but there needs to 

be money set aside so when what are supposed to be protected species traveling with unprotected species, and you don’t have to protect these animals at the expense of people. That actually breeds 

a lot of resentment at what is a pretty good program, which is to 

try and protect migratory birds. There was an enormous amount of 

resentment in the southern end of my district when this happened. 

This was not a matter of days or weeks. This was months to finally 

get rid of it, and I cannot imagine this is a unique incident. It must 

happen in other places. I never seen anything like it in my life, and 

evidently this is somewhat common with egrets. 

NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE SYSTEM

The last question is about the Wichita Wildlife Preserve. It is one 

of the crown jewels of the wildlife refuges and you guys do a great 

job. It is one of the first ones. It is one of the places where we 

brought buffalo back for the first time and moved them to other 

places in the country. It is a splendid, splendid reserve. 

We do have the normal tension, I would think, between people 

that want to use the preserve and officials at the preserve. These 

are issues that come up regularly and frankly, we are never quite 

sure where to resolve them. 

You have got a town of 90,000 that has always been there but 

never that size, and they want to do things like, a 10–K race for 

the local heart fund and they have a terrifically difficult time. This 

is actually graveside, sacred land for a lot of Indian tribes. Sometimes they have trouble getting access there. The Wichita Mountains are very sacred to the Commanches, the Southern Cheyenne, 

the Arapahos. 

So do you guys look at that? 

Mr. GOULD. Yes, we do. Usually it is through some special use 

permits that applications are made to the refuge manager and then 

we go through a process to determine whether that use, in fact, is 

compatible with the purposes for which the refuge was established. 

We work very hard to be as accommodating as we can within the 

constraints of the Refuge Improvement Act and the regulations 

that surround that act. 

Usually the way we get those things done is by having very tight 

relationships with the local community, finding out the needs of 

the local community well ahead of the actual event or whatever it 

may be, and see if we can work out some process by which we can 

accommodate the needs. The issue always comes down to communications and working with one another and understanding each 

other’s responsibilities and the regulations that we have to by law 

live by. 

Mr. COLE. Well, again, I would just ask you to look at those. I 

do not want the three concerns I have to make you think I have 

anything other than enormous respect for what you do and how 

well you do it under the complexity of problems. Especially the 


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tribal grant situation. Maybe it was Congress, I am sure it was, 

but there was not a request for an increase this year, and we are 

much less balanced than we were. And I think that is actually really a superb program. Again, you guys do a good job with the money 

you have. I just think you need a little bit more. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Cole and Mr. LaTourette, Mr. Simpson. We will conclude the hearing at this point because we do have 

a vote on. We appreciate the testimony, and we appreciate all the 

great service that the Fish and Wildlife Service provides America. 

Thank you very much. 


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THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 2010. 

CONSERVING AMERICA’S LAND AND HERITAGE: DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR FY 2011 BUDGET REQUEST 

WITNESSES 

HON. KEN SALAZAR, SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 

PAMELA HAZE, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUDGET, FINANCE, 

PERFORMANCE, AND ACQUISITION 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. We are very happy to welcome you, Secretary 

Salazar, to explain the President’s fiscal year 2011 budget request 

for the Department of the Interior. You have made much progress 

in the last year, and I know you have a very substantial agenda 

for the Department of the Interior and for the Nation as a whole, 

and we applaud your vision. 

Those of us who sit on this subcommittee do so because we have 

a love of the land and a deep and abiding commitment to protect 

our natural resources and our environment. Your Department is at 

the forefront of those efforts. Our Nation has a long history of efforts to protect our natural resources, and both Mr. Simpson and 

I enjoy quoting Theodore Roosevelt; so out of deference to—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. This is the first time you have quoted him. 

Mr. MORAN. Yes. But it doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy quoting him. 

Back in 1907—you remember that, Mike. 

Mr. SIMPSON. This is a quote from memory. 

Mr. MORAN. Theodore Roosevelt said, ‘‘Conservation means development as much as it does protection. I recognize the right and 

duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of 

our land, but I do not recognize the right to waste them or to rob 

by wasteful use the generations that come after us.’’ 

Had Theodore Roosevelt and his generation of visionaries not 

created the forest reserves and today’s parks and refuges, our Nation would be a much poorer and diminished place to live. But it 

is also true that in our management of these public lands, we are 

not without competing and often conflicting interests. 

President Roosevelt also said, ‘‘The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem, 

it will avail us little to solve all others.’’ 

I mention that because I have a strong sense that it is wholly 

consistent with your vision, Mr. Secretary, the same vision that 

Theodore Roosevelt had for our country of conservation and protection of our most important natural resources. His words are as true 

today as they were at the turn of the last century, and the challenge is just as great, if not greater. 


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The Department of the Interior plays the most essential role in 

integrating the protection of our natural resources with the American economy and our cultural identity. Your Department manages 

20 percent of the land area of the United States and substantial 

areas of subsurface minerals and the Outer Continental Shelf energy areas. These areas produce one-third of our Nation’s energy. 

The Department is expected to collect $14 billion in fiscal year 

2011, in revenues for deposit into the U.S. Treasury. I kind of wish 

we could figure out a way to put those into this bill to offset some 

other things, but they go right into the Treasury. We won’t be able 

to change that this year. 

The Department’s lands, including the 392 national park units 

and 551 national wildlife refuges, host more than 470 million visits 

each year. 

The Department of Interior also honors the Federal commitment 

to the first Americans by supporting social service, education and 

justice programs for nearly 2 million Native American areas, and 

underlying all is unbiased science, which helps the Department 

and all Americans make better decisions. 

Your budget requests nearly $11 billion to fulfill all these responsibilities. It is basically level with the amount that was provided 

for fiscal year 2010. I know there are some in this body who believe 

last year’s budget was too high. I don’t happen to be among them, 

but there is some sense of that, and that justifies the 2011 request. 

I do firmly believe that our work over these past 3 years to increase funding for the Department has only partially increased the 

previous trend, which had seen a 17 percent reduction in the Department’s budget request. 

I also recognize the need for deficit reduction. We will scrutinize 

this request. We may have to plus-up some areas and decrease others, and we will look to find some areas of waste. I do applaud your 

initial efforts to deal with the number of management problems at 

the Department such as occurred at the Minerals Management 

Services. That was an embarrassment. But we can’t stop there. We 

will work with the Inspector General to identify additional actions 

needed to eliminate remnants of waste, fraud, and abuse. 

We are also very much interested in your initiatives. The Energy 

Initiative; the Climate Change Science and Adaptive Management 

Initiative. There is a large increase, of course, requested for land 

acquisitions. We will discuss that. 

We will have, in fact, many questions as we move forward. One, 

for example, will involve the fact that the request assumes your 

Department will absorb 96 percent, or more than $100 million, of 

the increase for fixed costs such as salaries and rent. 

Now, before I turn to Mr. Simpson, whom I know everyone is 

anxious to hear from, I want to recognize one of your staff. Pamela 

Haze has to be one of the hardest-working people in the Federal 

Government. She is truly an important human resource, and without her we wouldn’t be doing as good a job managing our natural 

resources. I welcome the opportunity today to thank her for all she 

does day in and day out, and I know my colleagues here beside and 

behind me count on her so much every day, all day long and into 

the evening to serve both you and your priorities, Mr. Secretary, 

and, of course, this Committee. 


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Mr. MORAN. So at this point, now that Mr. LaTourette has arrived because he wants to hear Mr. Simpson as well, we would like 

to turn it to Mr. Simpson for his opening statement. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I apologize for not hearing you. I did come for 

Simpson. 

Mr. MORAN. I just filibustered so that you could hear everything 

that Mike had to say. 

So now Mr. Simpson. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. I will put my opening statement in the record. No. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t have a quote from Theodore 

Roosevelt today, and I am sure it wasn’t him that said—gee, let me 

think of one. Never mind. 

Mr. Secretary, I would like to join Chairman Moran in welcoming 

you back to our subcommittee, along with other members of the 

subcommittee. I hope to cover a lot of ground with you today on 

energy, grazing, land acquisition, climate change and other issues. 

It is clear from your first year in office that you set an ambitious 

agenda for the Department. While I might not agree with every decision you made—in fact, it would probably scare you if I agreed 

with every decision that you have made—I do believe that overall 

you are setting a tone that is balanced and reasonable. The fact 

that people on opposite ends of the political spectrum can be happy 

with you on one day and mad at you the next is a pretty good sign 

that you are doing a decent job. 

Let me begin by expressing my appreciation, as the Chairman 

did, to Pam Haze and others in the Department for your collaboration on several issues important to my constituents in the State of 

Idaho. I greatly appreciate the close coordination and communication between the Department and my office on the recent sagegrouse announcement. 

I am also grateful for the considerable efforts taken to resolve 

complex and emotional issues relating to the Minidoka national 

historic site in Idaho. I am hopeful that we can soon finalize an 

agreement acceptable to all parties. 

I want to make several brief points before we receive your testimony. First, I am puzzled, as the Chairman said, by several decisions made by OMB with regard to your budget request. The fact 

that your bureaus are being asked to absorb $109 million in pay 

and fixed costs next year really, I think, is unacceptable. 

I also question the request for a Presidential Wildlife Contingency Reserve Fund, which would essentially be a third pot of 

money to address fire suppression needs. Congress created the 

FLAME Wildfire Suppression Reserve Fund last year for both the 

Department of Interior and the Forest Service to prevent borrowing 

from nonfire accounts to pay for fire suppression. Let us test that, 

what we did before, before we tinker any further. 

Lastly, I am very disappointed that next year’s budget fails to 

address the considerable backlog in grazing permits. I hope to work 

closely with the Department and with Chairman Moran to address 

the grazing issue and these other issues this year. 

Mr. Secretary, while your budget request is relatively flat after 

a healthy increase last year, I am concerned about the trade-offs 


hsrobinson on DSK69SOYB1PROD with HEARING
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your budget makes, particularly when it comes to increases in the 

Land and Water Conservation Fund at the expense of other critical 

base programs. These rapid increases in land acquisition coupled 

with decreases in construction and maintenance budgets tells me 

that the administration places a higher priority on acquiring more 

land rather than responsibly managing what the government already owns. 

I would like to touch on one other issue today, and that is energy. Shortly after the President nominated you to be Secretary, 

you made a commitment that you wanted to ‘‘take the moon shot’’ 

at achieving America’s energy independence. I agree with you on 

that it can be done through a combination of renewable energy, nuclear energy, clean coal, and both offshore and onshore oil and gas 

drilling. But up until now the Obama administration has seemed 

determined to drive up the price of energy, including the price of 

gas at the pump. It has done this through promoting cap-and-trade 

legislation, new rules on greenhouse gases, and new fees on domestic oil and gas production, all efforts that will drive up the costs 

that will be passed on to the consumers. 

The administration’s emphasis on renewable energy, including 

tax incentives and expedited environmental reviews, is a positive 

sign. Yet if our goal is to become less reliant on imported oil and 

gas, why aren’t we with equal zeal advocating the development and 

production of proven domestic sources of oil and gas? When it 

comes to energy, the President’s budget clearly creates winners and 

losers. Renewables are the big winners; oil and gas are the big losers. With gas prices edging ever closer to $3 per gallon, we are reminded of the need for a balanced energy portfolio. To achieve energy independence, we ought to be vigorously pursuing an assortment of proven energy sources rather than pitting one energy sector against another. 

In closing, I want to compliment you on the fine professional 

staff the Department has that serves you and serves this country 

well. As I said, and as the Chairman said, Pam has done a wonderful job in working with our committee, and her willingness to work 

with us to seek solutions to some very difficult problems is much 

appreciated. 

With that, I thank you for being here today. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. 

Mr. MORAN. And I hope, Mr. Secretary, you noticed the purple 

shirt and tie. Mr. Simpson had heard a rumor that purple was your 

favorite color. 

Mr. SIMPSON. No. It is the royal color. 

Mr. MORAN. Oh, the royal color. Excuse me. Just to make sure 

he was fully appreciated. 

Mr. Secretary, we are obviously delighted to have you with us, 

and we look forward to your testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF SECRETARY SALAZAR

Secretary SALAZAR. Thank you very much, Chairman Moran. 

Let me first, Mr. Chairman, congratulate you for your chairmanship of this committee, which is so important to the United States 

of America and to the interests that you share as a responsible 


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steward with the Department of Interior. I congratulate you, and 

I very much look forward to working with you on all of the issues 

you addressed in your opening statement, as well as other issues 

included within this budget. 

To Congressman Simpson, likewise, I look forward to working 

with you on many issues. 

I do think one of the things that typifies this committee is the 

fact you are able to develop a bipartisan approach to many of the 

challenges that we face. Certainly that was the relationship that I 

had with Chairman Dicks and you, Congressman Simpson, and I 

very much look forward to having that same relationship with the 

new Chairman, Moran. 

Let me at the outset recognize and acknowledge your wonderful 

staff, from Delia, to staff on both the Democratic and Republican 

side, and the staff who work at the Department of the Interior. 

Pam Haze, as you say, walks on water and, frankly, probably does 

the work of four people. She is one of our great efficiency personnel 

in the Department of the Interior because it would take four people 

to replace her. With me also is Rhea Suh, who is the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget; and Christopher 

Mansour, who is in charge of congressional affairs and who worked 

here in the House of Representatives for many years. 

Let me just make a couple of opening comments, and then I 

would be delighted to take your questions. 

First, the mission of the Department of the Interior, Chairman 

Moran, you set out very clearly in your opening statement, and the 

way I have seen it and I have articulated it from day one is we 

really are the custodians of America’s natural resources and America’s cultural heritage. That is manifested in our work in our national parks, where we are the guardians of the national icons of 

America, but also the custodians of telling America’s story. It is 

recognized with respect to our 551 national wildlife refuges which 

support our wildlife in this country and in so many other ways. 

ECONOMIC IMPACTS

I could describe the Department in great detail, but let me just 

say there is one thing that I think often is missing when people 

think about the Department of the Interior, and that is we are a 

huge economic generator and job creator for the United States of 

America. I recently had the Department of the Interior develop an 

economic analysis identifying the number of jobs created through 

the efforts of this Department. We create, according to our economists, 1.4 million jobs that are supported across this country. I 

think at this time when this Congress and this President are so involved in trying to get our economy stood up again, we ought not 

to lose the huge economic contribution that comes from the efforts 

of the Department of the Interior, supported through this Appropriations Committee. 

We generate over $370 billion in economic activity, from recreation to the oil and gas and mineral development around the country. We have 414 million visitors that come to visit our places 

around this country, and we truly are the Department of America. 

From sea to shining sea, into the territories, and into the Outer 


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Continental Shelf, we have major responsibilities on behalf of the 

American people. 

When I came on as Secretary of the Department of the Interior, 

I was on the other side of the Capitol as a United States Senator 

for the State of Colorado, and I did not relinquish my position as 

a United States Senator very easily because it was a great position 

that I held. I also recognize that within the Department of the Interior, the mission of this Department is an exciting one and one 

in which we are forging the future of this country’s natural resources and moving forward with the kind of vision and the kind 

of agenda that President Theodore Roosevelt had for this Department almost 100 years ago. 

CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENERGY

My priorities have been fairly simple. First, I want to be and 

have been a part of the President’s energy and climate change 

team. That includes the development of conventional oil and gas resources, and I will Congressman Simpson, respond to some of your 

statements on energy development. We have also been the guardians of establishing a new energy frontier for public lands and in 

the OCS offshore. We look forward to developing wind, solar, and 

geothermal in significant numbers, including, hopefully, by December 1 of this year having approximately 5,000 megawatts of renewable energy power onshore and moving forward with new efforts in 

offshore wind development off the Atlantic, which I know, Congressman Moran, you have been very supportive of. 

CONSERVATION

Secondly, I want us to move forward with a new conservation 

agenda for the United States. It is true when President Teddy Roosevelt became the conservation President of our country, he was 

ahead of his times in many ways. When Doug Brinkley wrote the 

biography of Teddy Roosevelt and called him the ‘‘Wilderness Warrior,’’ it was a very different time than the time we face today. 

The challenges are different today than they were then. We now 

look at wildlife habitat fragmentation, we look at the challenges of 

climate change. We recognize that we lose about 2 million acres a 

year to development as farms are converted over to development. 

The conservation challenges are different today than they were 100 

years ago. Nonetheless, I believe that by working with and respecting private landowners and private property rights, and working 

with local governments and State governments, we can develop a 

conservation agenda for this 21st century that President Obama 

has asked me to develop with all of you. 

INDIAN AFFAIRS

Third, I want us to move forward in my time as Secretary of the 

Interior and do everything we can to help the Nation’s first Americans. For too long the Nation’s first Americans have been forgotten, 

and we need to have a new beginning. That is why in this first 

year we moved forward with the settlement of the Cobell litigation, 

which essentially had hamstrung this Department for 13 years. I 

hope to have that question resolved with congressional approval of 


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the settlement, which we worked on very hard in the last year. We 

are also working on law enforcement initiatives within Indian 

Country, as well as education, and economic development within 

Indian Country. 

YOUTH

Finally, with respect to our next generation of conservation leaders and young people who really understand the outdoors, we have 

moved forward with a youth initiative. Part of it is reflected here 

in the budget. When one thinks about what the Civilian Conservation Corps did during the era of Franklin Roosevelt, the last time 

we had a huge economic crisis in this country that rivaled some of 

the economic crisis we have been through here, it was the young 

people of America that built much of the legacy we depend on 

today. We believe we can do some of the same things with our partners in the nonprofit world as well as by providing employment 

within the Department of the Interior. We hope to, over the next 

several years, more than double the number of young people who 

are working in all of the different programs we have within the Department of the Interior. 

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I very much look forward to working with all of you. I know there are tough issues. This budget that 

is presented to you is a tough choices budget. It would not have 

been the budget I would have presented had we not been dealing 

with the fiscal reality we are facing here today. We had to make 

some hard choices, and it is the best budget relative to how we can 

move forward to accomplish the mission for the Department of the 

Interior. 

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Secretary, thank you. A very good statement. 

[The information follows:] 


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ENERGY DEVELOPMENT

Mr. MORAN. I would like to begin with a discussion of the issue 

of energy and your stewardship of oil and gas programs. You are 

to be commended for proposing a very impressive, comprehensive 

and long overdue list of reforms of the Federal Government’s onshore oil and gas programs. In January you proposed a new oil and 

gas leasing program for the BLM that is intended to introduce the 

balance that is sorely needed between oil and gas development and 

protecting the environmental values on our public lands. I wonder 

if you could tell us when you plan to get those new reforms finalized and underway. What is the time schedule for that, Mr. Secretary? 

Secretary SALAZAR. In the very near time, Chairman Moran, we 

have the instruction memorandum which had been sent out by 

BLM to the field for review and comment, and the Director of the 

BLM, Bob Abbey, will soon be able to issue those instruction 

memoranda. 

Mr. Chairman, I know time is valuable here, but I also think we 

have had a balanced energy approach, and partly in response to 

Congressman Simpson’s statement, the fact of the matter is that 

President Obama has long said our energy program for the Nation 

has got to be comprehensive in nature. It has to include conventional energy as well as renewable energy. It also has to address 

the realities of global warming which are affecting our children. We 

have been moving forward with an agenda that embraces that comprehensive package. 

The one thing I would point out to this committee, because you 

have overseen what happens with oil and gas development, is that 

we have had a robust oil and gas development program in the Department of the Interior. I won’t go through all the statistics, but 

let me just give you a couple. 

In 2009, we leased more acres in the Gulf of Mexico than in any 

other year since 2000, with the exception of 2008, which was a high 

record year for prices for oil and gas. In 2009, our onshore, which 

I know, Congressman Simpson, you care a lot about, we had the 

highest level of bonus revenues since 2001. The onshore acres 

leased in 2009 actually increased over where they were in previous 

years, and onshore oil production increased, and offshore acres 

leased also increased. 

When you look at the statistics, the fact of the matter is we have 

had a significant production component of the President’s comprehensive energy plan. 

ENERGY REFORMS

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Secretary, will the new reforms that you have 

cited include explicitly rescinding the various instruction memoranda? They were issued throughout the previous administration’s 

tenure that are counter to the intended policy of balance, but they 

seem to still be in place. Do you have any intention of rescinding 

some of those instruction memoranda? 

Secretary SALAZAR. Chairman Moran, we have moved forward 

with rescinding policies from the past we thought did not achieve 

the balance the President and I believe ought to be achieved on our 


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public lands. They have included, for example, our efforts to make 

sure we are protecting our national parks and wildlife refuges and 

special places from development. 

Our motto, Chairman Moran, is to really be smart from the start. 

I think in the past what happened is that oil and gas leases were 

essentially just given out like pieces of paper to whoever came in 

and actually bid on these places. The approach we are taking is to 

be proactive in identifying those areas best suited for oil and gas 

development, because otherwise what ends up happening is that 

we end up creating uncertainty for the oil and gas industry. Fortynine percent of the leases that were issued in 2008 were actually 

protested and went into some form of administrative litigation or 

even beyond that. Steps are now being taken to carefully manage 

decisions with respect to those areas that we leased. 

OCS FIVE YEAR PLAN

Mr. MORAN. That is very interesting. 

Now, we are also interested in the activities concerning new 

Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas development. I know that you 

are reevaluating the proposed new 5-year planning process which 

the previous administration began 2 years ahead of schedule, just 

before they left town. I know that you recently announced environmental studies which will precede geological surveys off the east 

coast. We would like to know what is going on now and how might 

this impact areas that have not seen drilling for decades, such as 

the mid-Atlantic. 

Secretary SALAZAR. Chairman Moran, we are getting close to the 

point where we will have an announcement on the Outer Continental Shelf and what our plans are with respect to oil and gas development. I will say it has been a matter that has been in litigation in large part because the prior administration didn’t do the environmental work that it should have done. A conservative court 

judge in the D.C. Circuit court writing the opinion said the environmental analysis for the 2007–2012 plan had not been appropriately done. We had to go back and redo the 2007–2012 plan as 

well as deal with the new 5-year plan. We are within weeks of completing the decisionmaking process, and you can look forward to an 

announcement. 

That plan is guided by a number of different factors, including 

the eight factors set forth in the law that governs development in 

the Outer Continental Shelf. Included in that plan and in those factors is that we need to assess and understand the science as well 

as the geophysical information that is available to us in each of the 

different areas we are considering. 

RENEWABLE ENERGY ON THE OCS

Mr. MORAN. Thank you. 

The Minerals Management Service also has responsibility under 

you for renewable energy development in the Outer Continental 

Shelf, such as wind and wave projects. I think we would be interested in how that is progressing, the energy potential for this resource. I wonder if you could just give us an update before I turn 

to Mr. Simpson. What is happening to the cape wind project off 

Massachusetts, and what are the barriers to this project and to 


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others, such as the potential wind farm off the coast of Virginia, 

that might be proposed in the future? 

Secretary SALAZAR. Let me say three things. First, I believe 

standing up the Atlantic wind energy potential is something we 

can do and will do in the timeframe of this administration. There 

is huge potential out there, including the National Renewable Energy Lab that has quantified the amount of wind energy that could 

be produced from the OCS off the Atlantic as well as other areas. 

Second, we have broken what had been a regulatory logjam, because of a jurisdictional dispute between MMS and FERC last year, 

and we now have a set of rules that allow us to move forward with 

renewable energy permitting for offshore wind. 

Third, we have created or are in the process of creating a consortium of the States along the Atlantic so we can work closely with 

them in the development of offshore wind off the Atlantic. I think 

there is huge potential, because unlike in Congressman Simpson’s 

State where we are actually working to stand up transmission on 

a fast-track program in Idaho, one of the things that is an opportunity in the Atlantic is you don’t have to go through a lot of the 

same considerations you have to go through when you are standing 

up transmission on the onshore. There is huge potential for the offshore wind, including putting in a backbone for transmission off 

the Atlantic. You will be hearing a lot more about that in the very 

near future. 

CAPE WIND

The final point on Cape Wind, we are in the process of getting 

close to a decision. I have terminated the consultation process that 

had been in place and have moved it over to the Advisory Council 

on Historic Preservation. Their deadline to report to me with their 

advisory opinion is, I believe, April 15th. I will take that opinion, 

along with all of the rest of the information that I have the record 

on, and I will render a decision on the Cape Wind application. That 

decision will either be to have cape wind move forward, or, in the 

alternative, it will be to deny the application. 

Mr. MORAN. And when would you be making that decision? 

Secretary SALAZAR. It will be probably towards the latter part of 

April. 

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much. 

Mr. Simpson. 

OCS DEVELOPMENT

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I suspect you saw the Washington Post yesterday and the article 

on the front of it that said, ‘‘Tide for Drilling off Virginia Turns Favorable,’’ and that it is not a partisan issue. Both the Democratic 

Senators from Virginia and the Governor of Virginia, a Republican, 

both support offshore drilling off of Virginia since the 25-year moratorium lapsed in 2008. 

Just out of curiosity, when we built the Woodrow Wilson Bridge 

across here, we waived more environmental laws than Carter has 

liver pills to get that built. Is there anything that Congress or the 

Administration can do to speed up the process to access that oil 

and natural gas off the Virginia coast? 


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Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Simpson, we spent a lot of time 

on that, and that will be part of the announcement we have on the 

OCS. Because this is still a matter under court jurisdiction, without telling you where I will end up on that decision, I will say the 

particular area you are interested in, Lease Sale 220 off the Virginia coast, ought not to be seen as the panacea for any of the 

budgetary woes that are being seen in Virginia. The reason for that 

is, first of all, the seismic information that we have off the Atlantic 

coast is 30 years old. So what is there, in the triangular area off 

the coast, is still something which is an unknown. It is not something that is going to be developed in the next however many 

years. 

Secondly, even if the decision is to move forward with Lease Sale 

220, there is still the need to move forward with the environmental 

impact statement which needs to address the military issues in 

part and other issues that are impacted by whatever happens within that particular area. 

The long and short of it is, Congressman Simpson, you say that 

the tide has turned. The fact is whenever we do any decision with 

respect to offshore drilling, the policy of the State which is involved 

is one of the factors we look at, and I am certainly aware of the 

policy of the State of Virginia and the statements you talked about 

in that Washington Post article. 

Mr. SIMPSON. So you wouldn’t suggest that we waive all the environmental laws like we did on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge? You 

don’t have to answer that. 

Secretary SALAZAR. No. 

Mr. MORAN. I am not sure we are planning on building a bridge 

to England from Virginia, but go ahead, Mr. Simpson. I don’t want 

to interrupt you. 

EQUAL ACCESS TO JUSTICE ACT

Mr. SIMPSON. I think he got my point. 

EAJA, the Equal Access to Justice Act, it is very difficult to find 

out how much money we have paid under that act. As you know, 

it is an act set up with the best of intentions to help citizens pay 

for attorneys’ fees when they bring lawsuits and prevail. How is 

that being handled by your Department? Who pays it? Is it the 

judgement fund? Is it your Department? If they have a lawsuit and 

end up paying attorneys’ fees, is there any way to get an accounting of, governmentwide, how much we are paying into this fund? 

As you know, there are organizations, probably organizations on 

both sides of the issues, that almost look at this as a way of funding the organization. Again, is there any accounting? Is there any 

way of determining who assesses the fees that are being charged 

and so forth? Can we get that information? From what I understand, originally when it started off, there was an accounting of 

that, and the public actually had access to it, and then it just kind 

of disappeared, and it has been—nobody knows. 

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Simpson, that matter really is 

something which comes from the Department of Justice because 

that is where the judgment fund is—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. Is that who pays it? 


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Secretary SALAZAR. It comes out of the judgment fund. For example, in the Cobell litigation we have been involved in, the money 

that ultimately would pay for the attorneys’ fees and, in fact, for 

the settlement, is money that comes out from the judgement fund. 

I think that is a question which I will be happy to raise with the 

Attorney General. 

Mr. SIMPSON. If someone sues the BLM over a grazing permit, 

and it goes through all the court procedures, and a settlement is 

made, BLM doesn’t end up paying the EAJA fees for that plaintiff; 

it is the judgement fund? 

Secretary SALAZAR. I believe that to be the case, Congressman 

Simpson, but I will check further on that and get a more specific 

answer back to you. Or perhaps this is something that Pam Haze 

might know something about. 

Mr. SIMPSON. And I am not trying to ask this in a way that says 

it is not justified or anything else. I would just like to know how 

much we are paying and if we appropriate money for it. But if you 

would get back to us—— 

Secretary SALAZAR. Let me just ask Pam to provide the answer. 

Ms. HAZE. My understanding is the Department of Justice pays 

it, and they have an accounting, and we are supposed to over time 

reimburse those costs. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Through appropriated dollars? 

Ms. HAZE. Through whatever means it is available. If it was a 

mandatory account where the action was related to, that way. 

Mr. SIMPSON. So essentially the Department pays for those in the 

long run? 

Ms. HAZE. I think it is fair to say many of the departments have 

not been keeping up with all of the reimbursements. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Because we have not been able to find an accounting of who is getting these fees and how much they are being paid? 

I would sure like to find out, but I will follow up—— 

Secretary SALAZAR. I think it is an important question, and let 

us get some information back to you that will be responsive to your 

question. 

[The information follows:] 

EQUAL ACCESS TO JUSTICE ACT

The Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) (5 U.S.C. § 504; 28 U.S.C. § 2412) provides for the award of attorney fees (up to $125 per hour) and other expenses to eligible 

individuals and small entities that are parties to litigation against the government. 

An eligible party may receive an award when it prevails over the government, unless the government’s position was ‘‘substantially justified’’ or special circumstances 

make an award unjust. 

To recover under EAJA, a claimant must show that it is a ‘‘prevailing party.’’ Parties are considered to be prevailing parties when they have been successful on any 

significant issue in litigation that achieves some of the benefit the parties sought. 

A party must also show that the lawsuit was a material factor in bringing about 

the desired result and the outcome was required by law and was not a gratuitous 

act by the government. Finally, whether a party is a small entity for purposes of 

EAJA is determined by a unique size standard included in the act. Compliance with 

the size standard is a threshold requirement for an award of fees under the Act. 

GRAZING PERMITS

Mr. SIMPSON. I appreciate it. Last year we appropriated a million 

dollars to address the backlog in grazing permits. This year OMB 

and the Department left that out. What are we doing to address 


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the backlog in the grazing permits and trying to get that up to 

speed so that we don’t have the problems we have with the grazing 

going on across the country? 

Secretary SALAZAR. Director Abbey has been very involved in addressing this issue. I don’t know whether he has testified before the 

committee yet, but he is the Director of BLM and worked in the 

BLM for about 30 years, was State Director in Nevada, and he is 

aware of the grazing permit backlog, and I know that he is working 

at it. 

At the end of 2009, there were 4,326 grazing permits that were 

backlogged, and about 90 percent of 18,000 permits have been processed at least once in their ten-year expiration cycle. We are working on it. 

Mr. SIMPSON. We appropriated money last year to work on it. 

That money is not proposed in your budget. Added on top of that, 

$109 million throughout the Department in fixed costs that have 

to be absorbed by the Department somewhere. Assuming, as I said, 

during I think it was the hearing at the BLM that you don’t hire 

people just to drink coffee, without fixed costs there is going to be 

something that doesn’t get done. There are going to be fewer people 

to do something, to decide to do some activities rather than other 

things. How are we going to address the backlog in that arena and 

others if we have reduced personnel and so forth in the future? 

FIXED COSTS

Secretary SALAZAR. Well, Bob Abbey says we are going to be 

smarter about it, and that what BLM will do is to prioritize the 

permit renewals where we are able to move forward where, for example, we are not tied up in litigation. 

On your broader question on fixed costs, and absorbing the fixed 

costs that we have, it is a tough budget. It is not the budget I 

would have proposed if we were not dealing with the fiscal situation that we are currently dealing with. We had to take some cuts. 

I think it is $62 million or so just with respect to travel, acquisitions and information technology. One of the things that we did is 

Rhea Suh and Pam Haze took the budget line by line, working with 

our Bureau Directors, looking at where we could make the cuts. As 

we move forward, there may be some areas where we can find 

greater efficiencies and still do the job; there may be other areas 

where we need to revisit with this committee relative to some of 

those allocations. 

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

I will say, for example, not on the fixed costs, but on information 

technology, our Department essentially was spending, I believe, 

$1.3 billion a year on information technology. Part of what was 

happening is we have such a stovepiped Department because of its 

history that there wasn’t the kind of coordinated, integrated approach to information technology. We believe we can achieve efficiencies in IT through a more coordinated approach. 


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TRAVEL

We believe we can cut back on travel by eliminating unnecessary 

travel and by not as many people traveling to conferences. 

It is in that vein that we are trying to come up with a realistic 

budget for these very tough budget times. We absorbed the fixed 

costs for our employees. Our view is we can find smart ways of 

doing our work, but recognize that it is not the preferable way to 

go. 

COST-CUTTING

Mr. SIMPSON. Let me just conclude by saying it somewhat reminds me of what we around here always do when we want to save 

some money: We just say, we will just get it through waste, fraud, 

and abuse. Nobody knows what that is, but we are going to get it 

through waste, fraud, and abuse. 

And when I look at this overall budget, it kind of concerns me 

that while we are trying to address things like backlog maintenance, we are trying to do backlog and grazing permits and so 

forth, we are putting money into acquisition of land and increasing 

the appropriation for that and some other things, while it seems 

like we are shorting some of this backlog stuff. So I would expect 

if we continue this over the next 3 or 4 years, we will see an increase in the backlog, and that concerns me, because I think one 

of our primary concerns over the years as a committee has been to 

try to address the backlog whether it is in maintenance, whether 

it is in grazing permits, whether it is in other things, but try to 

get the Department caught up rather than expanding, if you know 

what I mean. Thank you. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. 

Incidentally, for what it is worth, it took 10 years to build the 

Wilson Bridge, including 2 full years for the NEPA environmental 

review. 

Mr. SIMPSON. It would have taken 100 if it was in the West. 

Mr. MORAN. Moving along. Mr. Chandler. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. CHANDLER

Mr. CHANDLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, it is nice to see you. You and I have known each 

other for a long time, and I think that this Department and this 

country are awfully lucky to have you serving in that role, a difficult role, in my opinion. The challenges are pretty great. The 

main challenge is one of balance, and I know you deal with that 

every single day, how you balance preservation and development 

and so forth on so many different fronts and all the decisions that 

you make. You are the number one steward for our country. That 

is your responsibility, to be a good steward for this Nation, and I 

thank you and the Department, and I think you do a tremendous 

job. 

I was just wondering, first of all, if there are any specific areas 

in which you have—in your first year being Secretary—seen instances in which you have struck that balance; that you have dealt 

with some things that have been difficult, and you found the balVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:10 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 057302 PO 00000 Frm 00365 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A302P2.XXX A302P2

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ance that you were looking for, which, of course, led to a better 

stewardship for any particular part of the country. 

And another thing I am curious about is where we are headed 

in terms of putting together a strategic plan on climate change and 

what the Interior Department is doing in that regard. I know that 

there was a GAO report that came out last year that said that the 

Federal Government really had not had a coordinated strategic 

plan related to climate change, and I assume that there are some 

folks in the Interior Department who are interested in how climate 

change is going to affect certain parts of the country and how we 

would adapt to those effects. Thank you. 

OIL AND GAS

Secretary SALAZAR. Thank you, Congressman Chandler and Attorney General Chandler and great friend from Kentucky. Let me 

just say first in terms of the areas of balance, probably the area 

that has received the most attention has been what we have done 

with oil and gas. Some people have not been happy with what we 

have done there, but we believe and I believe we found the right 

balance. We have allowed oil and gas exploration and development 

to move forward in the right places and at the right time. We also 

have done it in a way that we are protecting other values that are 

very important, including national parks and wildlife areas and 

places that have very special ecological or historical values. That 

is a balance I think we are achieving. 

We have still got a way to go on the onshore. I believe the plan 

you see on the Outer Continental Shelf will also reflect that kind 

of balance. 

CLIMATE CHANGE COORDINATION

Second, with respect to climate change and how we are coordinating the Federal Government effort on that, let me respond in 

two ways. First, it is an issue which the President has been very 

focused on and has wanted to make sure that the agencies of the 

Federal Government are, in fact, working in a coordinated fashion. 

An interagency council has been created to deal with climate 

change and adaptation, and our Department works closely with the 

other departments working on that issue to make sure we have a 

coordinated strategy going forward. 

Second, with respect to the Department of the Interior, we have 

coordinated our own efforts with a Climate Change Response Council, which I created, which I chair, and which includes all of the different agencies of the Department of the Interior. Prior to my coming on board, on this issue as well as with many other issues, we 

essentially had what was a stovepiped Department with each of the 

agencies doing its own thing. We aren’t doing that anymore. We 

are working hard to make sure the efforts of the United States Geological Survey, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park 

Service, the BLM, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs on the issue 

of climate change are, in fact, coordinated. 

Let me just say one final thing, Congressman Chandler. I know 

you and Congressman Salazar often talk about this issue of climate 

change, as does Congressman Simpson. Let me say, for me, the 

place where I sit in the United States Government on this Cabinet 


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level, I see it in some very real ways. I see it when I go to a place 

like Pelican Island, as I was there a couple of months ago with 

Sam Hamilton, who passed away recently. I see Pelican Island, the 

first national wildlife refuge, essentially disappearing because of 

the fact that the sea is rising. I see it in Montana, where I visited 

Glacier National Park with Senator Baucus in the summer of last 

year, and they tell us that the glaciers at Glacier National Park 

will no longer be there in the year 2020. And I see it in places like 

the Apostle Islands, where Dave Obey and I, in going to the islands, received the assessment of the scientists there that the surface water temperature is now 5 degrees warmer than it used to 

be. The consequences of that for the fishery and for the other ecological values of the Great Lakes ought to be sending off some 

alarm bells in people. 

I know there is debate still going on in the Congress about how 

we fix the climate change challenge of our time, but as a steward 

of our Nation’s natural resources I see the impacts of climate 

change in a very real way. I have seen them through my eyes. It 

is an urgent problem that is crying out for a solution. 

Mr. CHANDLER. I appreciate that, Mr. Secretary, and thank you 

for watching out for that. I believe it is very important, too, and 

I am glad that you could enlighten us a little bit on some of the 

real things that you are seeing along those lines. I hope you have 

just completed your first of eight good years as Secretary. Thank 

you. 

Secretary SALAZAR. Thank you very much. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chandler. 

Mr. LaTourette. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. LATOURETTE

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would just say to my friend from Kentucky that I will do my 

level best to make sure that the next Republican President of the 

United States keeps the Secretary in place. 

Welcome, and thanks for being here. 

Last year we talked a little bit, and I give President Obama, you 

and your Department very high marks for finally treating the 

Great Lakes as an entire ecosystem. I think the President’s Great 

Lakes Restoration Initiative is a great one. But we have had the 

opportunity to have Administrator Jackson in front of us, and we 

had your Chief of Staff who was filling in for Mr. Hamilton the 

other day on the Fish and Wildlife Service. And my concern—and 

I will invite your comment on it if you want to comment on it, but 

you don’t have to—is that I get why it went from 475 million to 

300 million. I think Administrator Jackson did a good job of explaining that. 

My concern continues to be that the lion’s share of the money is 

being maintained in EPA, and if you take Fish and Wildlife, for instance, they got $58 million out of the$475 million. This year they 

are only slated for $32 million, and you see that kind of pattern, 

whereas the EPA out of $300 million is going to retain for their disposal $169 million, I think. 

Now, the problem with that is EPA is a great organization, but 

when you talk about cleaning up the Great Lakes or making sure 


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the Asian carp doesn’t get into Lake Michigan, they are really not 

the ‘‘boots on the ground’’ people. It is the outstanding people that 

you have at the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Park Service and 

the Corps of Engineers and everything else. 

I think when the Administrator of the EPA was in front of us, 

she said, well, the game plan is to accept grants, applications from 

State and locals and distribute that money, you know, sometime 

after the rules are put in place. And as somebody who had an area 

of concern on the Great Lakes, a place called Ashtabula Harbor, it 

took us a long time and $53 million to get it done. You know, I 

think the analogy I would give is you are going to have a lot of 

check presentations, but not a lot of ribbon cuttings, because a 

problem that takes $53 million, if you throw a million at it, you are 

really not going to get it done. 

So I asked both of your Directors to sort of think about maybe, 

one, getting some of the cash out of EPA’s hands in the future; and 

two, redesigning this grant program so that—and you know I 

would—I think there are 52 areas of concern left in the Great 

Lakes. So I would understand if today Michigan got the $50 million 

and we would have to come back next year. I mean, I think we all 

get that. My concern if we each get a million dollars is that we are 

not going to get it done. So any thoughts that you have and—— 

GREAT LAKES

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman LaTourette, let me respond 

just in two ways. First, I think we ought not lose sight that the 

President has put a spotlight on the Great Lakes, and I think the 

initiative says a lot when you talk about additional increases in 

funding for the Great Lakes initiatives. We are involved in that 

through a number of our agencies, including the Fish and Wildlife 

Service. We will continue to be part of that broader effort. 

I do think one of the questions you raised, which I think is a very 

legitimate question for this committee and this country, is how we 

develop the right templates for the restoration of these complex 

ecosystems. We are involved in a number of these initiatives all 

over the country, including right now in a very heated controversy 

concerning the water supply issues in California and the San Francisco Bay Delta. I have asked the National Academy of Sciences to 

help us try to figure out the best practices relative to how we actually succeed in the restoration of these ecosystems. 

Congressman Moran and others who follow what has happened 

here in the Chesapeake Bay know the amount of money that has 

gone into the Chesapeake Bay. We still have a lot of progress that 

we have to make there. The same thing is true for the Great Lakes. 

A place where we have made very significant progress has been 

the Everglades. The Everglades restoration may, in fact, be a template for one of these very complex ecosystems which can be restored. 

If there are suggestions you have, Congressman, about how we 

can be more effective with the boots on the ground relative to the 

restoration of the Great Lakes, I believe that our administration 

would be very open to hearing from you. 


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BIOLOGICAL RESOURCES DIVISION

Mr. LATOURETTE. I would say Administrator Jackson has been 

kind enough to send people over who are in dialogue. I just wanted 

to bring it to your attention. And because of my great respect for 

you on the water issue in California, I am not going to pull any 

questions out of my pocket from Congressman Nunes. We are going 

to talk about something else. 

Several years ago when my colleague Ralph Regula was the 

Chairman of this subcommittee, he worked with former Secretary 

Babbitt to develop a biological expertise for the entire Department, 

especially the land management agencies at USGS, through the establishment of a Biological Resources Division, and I guess a 

multipart question is, are you committed to this division and the 

support that it is providing to your land management agencies, and 

why does it appear, I guess, that agencies within the Department 

appear to be building their own capacity in this regard rather than 

relying on the initiative of Chairman Regula and Secretary Babbitt? 

Secretary SALAZAR. I believe that the efforts of Secretary Babbitt 

in establishing the biological survey and integrating the efforts of 

the Department was a very worthy cause. I believe we need to integrate the efforts of our Department and do away with the stovepipes of the Department. I am supportive of efforts that do away 

with the stovepipes and provide the kind of information sharing 

across the bureaus that is important. That is part of the reason 

why we have established a Climate Change Council, which I chair, 

because I want to make sure the science we are developing at 

USGS is science we can use with the Fish and Wildlife Service, we 

can use with the Bureau of Reclamation and so on. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I think that was Secretary Babbitt’s vision. My 

only concern is that we are receiving reports that different land 

management agencies are sort of standing up their own redundant 

services. If that is not true, I am happy to hear that. If it is, then 

I guess that is my concern. 

Secretary SALAZAR. I would appreciate it if you have the specifics 

of concern there, because that is something that we will look into. 

Just if I may, Congressman LaTourette, you think about a Department that has been around since 1849. It has been around for a 

very long time, and each of these agencies has its own history and 

its own culture. One of the challenges is how you work across the 

bureaus to essentially find the efficiencies and share the information that we need to share. We are doing much better at that because of the way we are working with all the bureaus of the Department of Interior. It has been one of the management signature 

initiatives where I put a lot of personal energy into it, and that is 

trying to cut down the silo activity to provide efficiencies such as 

we are doing with information technology and science development. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I will be happy to send you a letter, but my 

great staff has just indicated that two examples are Fish and Wildlife Service—Landscape Conservation Cooperatives at $18.8 million, and, in the Park Service, the cooperative ecosystem study 

units. So I will send you a letter, and maybe we can talk about it 

another day. Thank you. 


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Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. LaTourette. 

Mr. Cole. 

Mr. COLE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And actually I 

have Congressman Nunes’ questions, but—not really. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I do. 

COBELL SETTLEMENT

Mr. COLE. You do. Well, they gave them to the big guy. 

Seriously, I want to begin by, number one, just thank you on the 

Cobell settlement. That was an extraordinarily important issue. 

Count me in the camp that thinks it is not enough money. I feel 

that very strongly. On the other hand, you did what two previous 

administrations, one Democrat and one Republican, couldn’t do. I 

think it is very important for the progress in Indian Country, I 

think it was very important for the Department, and I really appreciate the role that you played in sort of pulling the poison out 

of this thing. And if there is any way, when the appropriate time 

comes, that I can be helpful working with my friends on the other 

side of the aisle to make sure that Congress then follows through 

on your work, you certainly have my commitment to do that, and 

I look forward to working with you. 

I want to thank you, in addition, just again for your whole attitude, you know, bringing the tribal nations together early in the 

administration in the manner in which you and the President did, 

and the manner in which you have operated and, frankly, the administration has operated across the board in agency after agency 

where tribal nations are concerned. They are to be highly commended. So you guys are off to a great start, and I appreciate it. 

TRIBAL TRUST LITIGATION

Cobell, of course, is not the only litigation issue. As I am sure 

you know better than anybody on this side of the dais, you have 

got 100 different cases out there, all sorts of cases, litigation pending. Seventeen of them are from my own State. And in full disclosure, although I am not going to talk about a specific case, but one 

is from my own tribe. 

COBELL SETTLEMENT COSTS

Looking forward across that broad range of issues, do you have 

any idea financially what you are looking at in terms of potential 

settlement costs and length of time? What are you doing to expedite and move these cases forward? You have certainly done that 

in the Cobell case, and I assume that will be the approach, where 

you can, across-the-board. 

Secretary SALAZAR. Thank you, Congressman Cole. Let me first 

thank you for your leadership in this arena as well as for your help 

as we have dealt with the great challenges that face Indian Country all over this Nation, and I know in particular in Oklahoma, 

many of the issues that we are facing there. I want to respond to 

your second question, but first I want to make a comment about 

Cobell. 

Chairman Moran and Ranking Member Simpson and all the 

members of this committee, we are at a point, frankly, where unVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:10 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 057302 PO 00000 Frm 00370 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A302P2.XXX A302P2

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less we get congressional approval of the Cobell settlement, it essentially could blow up in our very hands, because when we arrived 

at that settlement in December, the judge who was in that case 

was about ready to retire. He has stayed on that court in order to 

see the settlement through. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Could I interrupt for just a second? What does 

Congress need to do there? Do we have to appropriate the money? 

Have you submitted that request? 

Secretary SALAZAR. It needs to be approved and appropriated. 

The language has been approved, and I think there have been discussions that have been going on to try to figure out when it is appropriate to get that done. 

Mr. COLE. As the Secretary knows, there was an initial date, this 

was to be done by a date in February. We are in extension now, 

to I think April 16th, if I recall correctly. But there is a point 

where this stops. We could slide right back into litigation. 

There is criticism coming from both sides. A lot of folks say, 

‘‘Gosh, it is not near enough and we need to fight for another 15 

or 20 years.’’ But the reality is that this is an agreement negotiated 

in good faith on both sides of the table. It is awfully reasonable, 

and we really do need to deal with this now. Frankly, we have seen 

great leadership by the administration in bringing this to closure. 

This thing dragged on for the Clinton years, this dragged on 

through the Bush years. There is a lot of bipartisan finger pointing 

that could legitimately go on in this case. But the fact that we have 

a chance to settle is a big deal, and we ought to do it. And it will 

be very well received broadly in Indian Country, just that the historic problem has been recognized, people have tried to deal with 

it in good faith. It is just very important, I think. 

Mr. MORAN. Will the gentleman yield for a moment? 

Mr. COLE. I will certainly yield. 

Mr. MORAN. I agree with everything you have said, Mr. Cole, I 

think you know that, and I think Mr. Simpson agrees. The problem 

is that it is $3.4 billion, and the Office of Management and Budget 

has decided it will not give it emergency designation, which means 

that we really can’t get it into the supplemental, which was the 

plan. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Who makes that determination, them or us? 

Mr. MORAN. The Office of Management and Budget said they will 

not consider it for emergency designation. It was not submitted 

with an emergency designation. So that makes the situation problematic for us. 

I don’t know what we are going to do. We need to work on it. 

I think we are all in agreement it needs to be paid. But it is a problem if it doesn’t get emergency designation, because then it falls 

under the PAYGO requirement. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Well, I would suggest that what falls under emergency designation is up to us, not OMB, and that if we need to do 

it, we need to do it, however we need to do it. So I would be more 

than willing to work with you to make sure this gets done. 

Mr. MORAN. Let’s try to do that. Sorry for the interruption. 

Mr. COLE. No, it is enlightening. Again, I think the Secretary has 

brought us to the brink of closure and victory, and it would really 

be a shame if one part of the bureaucracy or Congress blew an opVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:10 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 057302 PO 00000 Frm 00371 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A302P2.XXX A302P2

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portunity to settle a case whose roots reach back into the 19th Century and which has been actively litigated for 14 or 15 years. It is 

sure an emergency if you are one of the recipients who have been 

waiting a long time. It is sure an emergency if you are in the Department, which I agree very much with the Secretary, certainly 

the BIA has been tied in knots over this thing, and it has impacted 

other things that needed attention. So I don’t know how much 

more of an emergency it can be than that. 

Mr. MORAN. Agreed. But if we don’t get emergency designation, 

I don’t know where we find the offset. 

Mr. COLE. I will be happy to work with you. I don’t have a lot 

of stroke at OMB these days. I never did though. But whatever we 

can do to be helpful. I think this is an issue that the time is right 

and it ought to be dealt on this. 

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Secretary, did you want to weigh in on Mr. 

Cole’s question? 

COBELL SETTLEMENT

Secretary SALAZAR. Let me say all of you are correct. It is a huge 

issue that we have a very unique opportunity in history to resolve, 

and it has been a problem that has built up over 100 years. What 

we have here is a very fiscally responsible settlement. Senator 

McCain and a couple other Senators along with former Attorney 

General Gonzales and Secretary of Interior Kempthorne had offered to settle for nearly $7.5 or $8 billion a few years ago. How 

we structured this settlement I think is a very good settlement for 

the United States of America, as well as for Indian Country. 

In addition to just being a settlement to those historic damage 

claims, it also, Chairman Moran, addresses the issue going forward 

so that we won’t have the issue of fractionation in the future and 

we won’t find ourselves in the same situation 10 or 15 years from 

now. 

I know the President is strongly behind reaching congressional 

approval of the settlement. We are having discussions with OMB 

and with CBO and the Members of Congress, and I am very optimistic and hopeful that we will be able to make it happen. 

TRIBAL TRUST LITIGATION

With respect to just very quickly your second question on the 

tribal cases, they are out there, and our view is we believe that if 

we can get this settlement done, the tribes themselves are interested also and have approached us to engage in a dialogue about 

how we resolve those cases. 

There are about 100 of those cases out there. We don’t have a 

sense of what kind of money we may be talking about there. But 

in this particular case we are dealing with, Cobell, we are dealing 

with millions of fractionated interests and hundreds of thousands 

of people. So the complexity of this case is probably 1,000–fold over 

whatever the complexity will be in dealing with the specific tribal 

cases. 

Mr. COLE. Let me just finish, because I know I have taken a lot 

of time, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your kindness. 

Mr. MORAN. But we intervened as well, so please proceed if you 

would like to. 


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LAND FRACTIONATION

Mr. COLE. I will go back to my other issues in another round. I 

do want to finish with this. 

I am glad you touched on the fractionated issue. I think that was 

a brilliant settlement. It was a great way to deal with a thorny 

issue, and frankly a way for tribes to have land effectively returned 

to them that they can utilize. It takes care of a lot of individuals 

in the system. And the scholarship fund is really a welcome addition. 

So there is a lot of attractive features to the package which you 

negotiated and was negotiated by the other side. It really is good. 

Frankly, it solves a lot of problems at one time. You are just to be 

commended for that. 

TRIBAL JURISDICTION AND LAW ENFORCEMENT

If I can, I will ask one other question in the area of tribal jurisdiction and law enforcement. I commend you again for putting a lot 

of emphasis on law enforcement problems that we have in Indian 

Country. I particularly would like to get your views. 

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin has a great bill, there is a companion 

bill in the Senate, actually that is where it originated. In the meantime, what are the things that we can do to enhance jurisdiction 

and direct involvement by tribes? 

When tribes can control their affairs—their education system, 

their health care system—and individual tribal members know 

where the decisions are made, it is not somewhere hundreds or 

thousands of miles away, it is in their community with their own 

leadership that they can hold responsible they do better. The more 

of that that can happen, the more levels, the better off I think you 

are, because you are withdrawn from some of that, and the better 

off the tribal members are, because they are in control and they 

know who to hold responsible. 

There are some transitions that need to be made, but I have seen 

this happen in my own tribe. It makes all the difference just to let 

people control their own assets, resources and governance. 

There is a lot there, but I would appreciate your response. 

Secretary SALAZAR. Let me just say, Chairman Moran, that I 

think Congressman Cole raises a very legitimate issue, and there 

is tremendous confusion frankly over jurisdictional issues between 

the tribes and non-tribal law enforcement agencies. Attorney General Holder and I have established a task force that is working on 

developing recommendations on how we can address the issue of 

lawlessness and crime we see on Indian reservations across the 

country. 

We believe we are going to be able to cut down the level of crime 

on reservations essentially just by having the Federal Government 

coordinated in its own efforts and then working alongside with tribal law enforcement authorities. We also have in this budget, we are 

looking at expanding the law enforcement authorities within the 

reservations themselves, including training. 

Finally, I would say the legislation being proposed by Senator 

Dorgan and Representative Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, the legislation they have put together, has a good framework for us to be able 


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to move forward to address justice and law enforcement issues on 

reservations. 

Mr. MORAN. A good question and good response. Thank you. 

We notice that both you and Mr. Calvert have been on the floor 

speaking, so we appreciate the fact that both of you chose to return 

to us. 

Mr. Hinchey and then Mr. Calvert. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is a great 

pleasure to be back here with you, and it is a great pleasure to be 

with you. 

I just want to express to you, Secretary Salazar, my great appreciation for you and for all the very appropriate and high quality attention you are giving to the responsibilities that you have. I think 

that in so many ways this country is in much better condition as 

a result of you being there and the work that you are doing. 

I am just saying that because of the deep way I feel about all 

of the things that really need to be done and the way in which your 

attention is being focused on all of these things in such a positive 

way. So I just want to express my appreciation to you and thank 

you. 

Secretary SALAZAR. Thank you very much, Congressman Hinchey. 

OFF-RESERVATION GAMING

Mr. HINCHEY. The oil and gas reforms that you proposed earlier 

this year were among those that were very positive, and I and 

many others thank you for proposing them and we look forward to 

seeing the policies in place soon, whenever that might be. 

I want to mention something about off-reservation gaming. This 

is a very local issue in New York State. 

Last August, your Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, Larry 

Echohawk, visited Sullivan County, New York, a place that I represent, and he came there to discuss the issue of off-reservation 

gaming with the local community. He met with people on both 

sides of this issue, and by all accounts his visit was a big success. 

Everybody, no matter what they thought about it, whether they 

were opposed to it or for it, thought that he was very good. He did 

a great job, and the event was very positive. 

Sullivan County was previously one of the Nation’s premier resort destinations. That was in the last century, probably most of 

the first half, a little bit into the second half of the last century. 

Thousands of people from the New York Metropolitan Area and 

across the country visited the county for its many resorts and its 

pristine natural resources. Today, almost all of those resorts are 

gone. There is little industry. Unemployment is rising. 

One growth opportunity that has received a lot of attention and 

local support is off-reservation casino gaming. Several tribes, with 

the support of the local communities and with the State of New 

York and the local congressional delegation, worked in good faith 

with the Interior Department for several years to complete the rigorous review process for off-reservation gaming operations. 

A couple of the tribes had essentially completed the process and 

were preparing to move forward with their projects, but they were 


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stopped when your predecessor abruptly changed the rules of the 

game and essentially prohibited new off-reservation gaming. 

For some time now, we have been told that your Department was 

reconsidering its off-reservation gaming policy, but to date no decision has been announced, and I can understand this may not be 

an easy thing to deal with. 

But I would just like to put this question to you for your consideration: Do you plan to keep in place the current policies that essentially prohibit new off-reservation gaming operations, or are you 

considering, just considering, changing this policy, and what can 

we expect to hear in the context of some kind of a final decision 

on this matter and when do you think that might happen? 

Secretary SALAZAR. Thank you, Congressman Hinchey, for your 

very, very good question. Let me just say that the issue of gaming 

and Indian gaming in general is a very complicated and emotional 

issue across this country, and there are really two sets of applications that one needs to look at. 

The first set of applications with respect to gaming are those applications where frankly there is not any discretion on the part of 

the Secretary of the Department of the Interior in terms of granting them. For example, if the tribe wants to build a casino on the 

reservation and other requirements of law are met, then there is 

not a problem with those kinds of establishments. 

When you get to the issue of off-reservation gaming, it becomes 

more complex, especially when you get into discretionary parts of 

the statute that allow for the Secretary to make a determination 

based essentially on what is a hardship case. 

The Assistant Secretary and I have been trying to work through 

a process that will provide some clarity with respect to how we address the gaming issues. We had meetings as recent as yesterday 

trying to figure out a path forward that will provide some clarity 

to those who are regulated by us. I can’t give you an exact time 

when we will be able to move forward with the policies, but we are 

working on it very hard. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Well, I very much appreciate that, and I appreciate that answer to the question. I know how complicated this is 

and I know all the other aspects of it that have to be taken into 

consideration as you deal with it. So I appreciate very much what 

you are doing and what you just said. 

This is something that economically, financially, could be very 

significant. In Sullivan County and in Ulster County, in a place 

called Monticello in Sullivan County and a place in Ulster County 

just outside of Ellenville in southern Ulster County, it could make 

a very significant difference. It could bring back a lot of energy, it 

could bring back a lot of enterprise in various ways, it could bring 

back a lot of jobs, and it could elevate the context of the economy 

there in those two counties very substantially. So it is something 

that we are interested in. 

It would have to be done in the right way, it would have to be 

done responsibly, of course, but it is something that we are very 

interested in for both of those counties, Monticello in Sullivan 

County, and just outside of Ellenville in Ulster County. 

So, whatever you could do to try to make some kind of a decision 

on that would be deeply appreciated. 


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Do I have any more time, Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. MORAN. Do you have a quick question? Normally members 

have raised a couple of points, and you stuck to one, although I 

think you fully exhausted the first issue. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Yes, I fully exhausted the first issue, no doubt 

about it, and I fully exhausted it very intentionally, Mr. Chairman. 

It wasn’t accidental at all. But there are other things we could talk 

about. But I will be happy to wait my turn. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Hinchey. 

Mr. Calvert. 

CALIFORNIA BAY-DELTA

Mr. CALVERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, being from California I can’t let you escape without talking about the Central Valley a little bit. As you know, and 

you have been up there a number of times, it is literally a 

Steinbeck novel up there. It is a chapter out of Grapes of Wrath 

and it is not getting any better. 

Mr. COLE. They are actually going back the other way now. 

Mr. CALVERT. They are going back to Oklahoma. But it is no 

laughing matter. It is a huge problem. 

I am from Southern California, but we are impacted also. When 

we are talking about the Bay Delta, we are not just talking about 

the Central Valley. We are talking about water exports to the 

southern part of California also. 

As you know, the snow pack is greater than it has been in a 

number of years. I know you have changed your allocation. We 

thank you for that decision recently. I think you went up to 25 percent allocation on the west side. I would hope that that would go 

up significantly from there based upon the amount of snow pack 

and amount of water that I believe is in Shasta at the present 

time. 

I had met with David Hayes over a year ago, and we talked 

about some interim projects to resolve some of the problems with 

the Delta Smelt. One of those was the Two Gates Project that 

seemed to be a good idea to help mitigate the smelt going into 

those pumps, and the second project was the intertie between the 

State water project and the Federal water project. 

It has been frustrating for a number of folks that these projects 

haven’t moved ahead. I understand the Army Corps of Engineers 

is involved with these projects, and sometimes things don’t work 

out as quickly as you would like it. 

Literally the future of many Californians is in your hands and 

how we handle this problem. They can’t go another year. A lot of 

the folks that have permanent crops up there have stressed their 

crops as much as they possibly can and they need to get water on 

them in order to save those permanent crops this year. 

So, if you would like for the record to say what you can do, and 

I know you are familiar with these projects, to get this moved along 

so we can give some folks up there in the Central Valley some level 

of relief. 


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Secretary SALAZAR. I appreciate the question, and in terms of 

issues, we have an all-hands-on-deck approach to dealing with the 

California water crisis we are facing. 

There are really two concepts we are moving forward with. The 

first is dealing with the short-term problem and the short-term 

pain. The second, which is the longer term issue, is the collapse of 

the entire ecosystem and the water supply system that was built 

for a population which was less than half the size it is serving 

today. How we move forward with that longer-term initiative is 

something on which we have been working closely with Governor 

Schwarzenegger and members of the California delegation to try to 

develop the long-term plan for the Bay Delta, as well as the water 

supply needs of those who depend on that water. 

In the short term, we have been taking a number of different initiatives to provide water supply to those places that you describe 

as The Grapes of Wrath and right out of John Steinbeck’s novel, 

because it is true, and I have seen the pain down there in Mendota 

and all of these other places. 

We have tried to do what we can within the constraints of the 

law, and also being true to the science, the guides and biological 

opinions from the Fish and Wildlife Service and from NOAA. Within those constraints, we were able to expedite the timing for announcing the allocation of water, so instead of waiting until the end 

of the month we were able to make those announcements in the 

middle of the month. 

With respect to a number of other projects, including the intertie, 

our hope is we will actually be able to move forward and construct 

the intertie between the two canals. 

With respect to the Two Gates project, Congressman Calvert, 

there probably is a less costly way for us to be able to gather the 

same information that the Two Gates demonstration project was 

supposed to fulfill. There were problems with that project relative 

to the costs, as well as to the evaluation that was going to take 

place. 

What we have done with respect to Two Gates is we have had 

the United States Geological Survey actually going out and doing 

studies on the turbidity of the water and how that affects the smelt 

within the Delta. We believe the studies have been positive in 

terms of giving us the kind of information we would have gotten 

through the Two Gates project. 

Let me just assure you, I spent my first hour of the morning 

today receiving a report from the National Academy of Sciences, 

and that report essentially was an evaluation of the reasonable, 

prudent alternatives that were set forth in the biological opinions. 

David Hayes is on his way to California over the weekend to also 

continue his work on the water issue. 

So we are focused on it very much. 

Mr. CALVERT. One last point on that. Anecdotally, it seems that 

the pumping has been significantly curtailed and the smelt population continues to crash. It would seem that, as Representative 

Costa I am sure has mentioned to you, that there are other factors 

inpacting the smelt population other than pumping: the wildland 

urban interface within the bay area, in the San Francisco region, 

along with the islands in the Delta and the farming activities 


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there. There are a number of reasons why that smelt population 

has probably diminished over the years. 

We ought to look at those factors rather than just pumping, because I don’t think the answer is as simplistic as turning off the 

pumps. I would hope we could come up with some interim solution, 

because, as you know, a long-term solution obviously is the bypass, 

but that is going to take some time. 

Interim solutions are necessary immediately, because we don’t 

have any time to waste, as you know. If these California farmers 

lose those crops, the packinghouses are next, the communities are 

shuttered up. A solution is something we have to jump on right 

away. 

Secretary SALAZAR. I agree with you, Congressman, that there 

are a number of different stressors affecting that ecosystem, and 

they include invasive species and water quality and a whole host 

of other issues that affect the ecosystem there in the Bay Delta. 

That is why we are moving forward to a long-term solution. An effort that I think will rival what we have done in the Everglades 

is what I think is going to be necessary in the San Francisco Bay 

Delta. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Calvert. 

Mr. Dicks. 

ENDANGERED SPECIES

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Secretary, I regret that I wasn’t here to hear 

your statement, but I am sure it was very good. We have had a 

number of these major issues under the Endangered Species Act. 

We had to face it up in the Northwest on the Spotted Owl and 

Marbled Murrelet. 

I guess the thing I would say is it has to be scientific. Whatever 

you do has to be scientifically credible and legally defensible. I 

know you will follow the science and the law, and I think that is 

what you have to do in these situations. 

I am sorry Mr. Calvert left. There are circumstances in which 

there is the so-called god-squad provision in the Endangered Species Act. If something is of such a magnitude that you could bring 

in other people to evaluate it, I think it is the head of the Corps 

and yourself and others. But I think what you are doing sounds as 

if you are addressing this thing in an appropriate way. 

LANDSCAPE CONSERVATION

One thing I know that you have been very committed to, besides 

getting young people back out into the woods and into our forests 

and out doing things, is developing these important national landscapes. I just would like to have you, again for the edification of 

the committee, explain what you have in mind here, what your 

thinking is here. I know you played a big role in doing this in Colorado, and I am very favorable towards this. I just would like to better understand what your concept is. 

Secretary SALAZAR. Thank you very much, Chairman Dicks. 

What we did in the State of Colorado when I was the Director 

of the Department of Natural Resources there was we developed a 

conservation program which I think has become the envy of conservation in the country, essentially creating a pot of money that 


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has allowed for incentives for private landowners, for conservation 

easements, for river corridor protections, and for community separators between cities. It was an effort that was brought together in 

part by the business community and part by the conservation community in recognition that the quality of life we had in Colorado 

was very important to job creation in our State. As a result I think 

there has been an indelible mark that has been placed on Colorado 

in a very positive way. 

It seems to me we ought to be able to do a similar thing here 

at the national level, and I think we are doing it, and doing it without necessarily the hand of the Federal Government coming in in 

a heavy-handed way. 

There are landscapes of national significance, such as the Great 

Lakes and the Everglades, the San Francisco Bay Delta, the Chesapeake and the Crown of the Rockies and the Appalachian area, and 

the list goes on, and Puget Sound and the Outlook River and Olympic National Park. I think all of these landscapes of national significance deserve the kind of attention that 5 or 10 years from now 

will make us proud of what we have done to invest in those places. 

In addition to that, I think that part of the conservation agenda 

for this country has to involve urban communities, and that is 

through urban rivers. Our population is no longer as urban as they 

used to be. So how we restore urban parks and urban rivers, I can 

see the great urban parks of St. Louis connected up to the Arch in 

Missouri, or in New York on the Hudson River and all of the historic sites and properties that are overseen and managed by the 

National Park Service. I can see all of these places all around the 

country. 

Mr. DICKS. So part of your vision isn’t just something new, it is 

to reevaluate and re-look at and restore existing places that could 

be made better. 

I think of Puget Sound. I think of the Elwha River, taking the 

two dams out. That river corridor will be incredibly enhanced by 

that. So there is a lot of things we can do in terms of restoration 

that will enhance existing areas that have been protected or should 

be protected. 

Secretary SALAZAR. Very much so. Whether it is the Elwha River 

and the efforts in Puget Sound or the San Francisco Bay Delta, I 

think there are probably 100s of those landscapes of national significance that are in fact valuable places to protect in their own 

right as an ecosystem, but they also are valuable places to protect 

because of the economic value they inject into their economies. I 

think that is one of the parts that has been missing in the discussion about conservation. 

Mr. DICKS. You know, one area up in the State of Washington, 

right near Seattle, is Lake Washington. When I was a kid growing 

up in Bremerton my dad would take us over to the baseball games, 

and we would go out to Lake Washington. And there were signs up 

at the time, ‘‘Do not go into the lake.’’ You could not swim in the 

lake because it was so polluted. This was before the Clean Water 

Act. This was back in the early fifties. 

The people of Seattle and the surrounding area bonded them- selves for $140 million and they cleaned up Lake Washington. 

Now, there is one house today on that lake, Mr. Gates owns it, and 


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it is worth $140 million. So you think about the value that was enhanced and protected by just that one restoration. 

I think of Puget Sound, a deteriorating polluted Puget Sound 

would have a major economic impact in the Pacific Northwest. But 

if we restore it and bring back the Salmon, bring back the Orcas, 

bring back the wildlife, that would have enormous economic value. 

But it would also be a wonderful environmental thing to do as well. 

So these are not in conflict. I see this as something that the Everglades, the Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes, all of this would 

add value if we can make these restorations work. 

So I commend you for challenging us. I think what you have 

done is lay out a new opportunity, and I think it is very positive. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MORAN. Terrific point. 

LEADERSHIP OF CONGRESSMAN DICKS

Secretary SALAZAR. Mr. Chairman, if I could publicly in front of 

this committee and both the Democratic staff and Republican staff, 

say that Chairman Dicks has been an enormous and Herculean 

champion for all of the Interior missions. There have been good 

times and there have been bad times at Interior. There have been 

times of Secretaries of the Interior that probably were not so great, 

and the times of people like Stewart Udall and Harold Ickes. 

Through the good and the bad, Chairman Dicks and this committee 

have been there making sure that as the custodians of this Nation’s natural resources and its heritage, this committee has 

watched out for the Department. I just very, very much want to 

thank you, Chairman Dicks, for your leadership. 

Mr. MORAN. It is so true that Mr. Yates began the tradition, and 

then Mr. Dicks was such a stalwart supporter of our environment 

that he really has established quite a legacy. 

HERITAGE AREAS

Mr. Secretary, as you know, Congress has designated 49 National Heritage Areas, adding nine new areas to the list most recently just one year ago. We are told that in this past year alone, 

these areas had 87 million visitors. Clearly they succeed in not only 

drawing tourism, but exposing Americans to their distinctive regional cultures. 

Earlier this week we heard testimony from your Park Service Director in response to a question about Heritage Area partnerships 

wondering why there was the reduction in them. He did say they 

have been very successful in instilling the local story and providing 

economic benefits and a wide range of things. 

Your request reduces this program by 49 percent from last year’s 

level that was provided by this committee. We understand from 

Mr. Jarvis that the reduction was a purely budgetary decision 

made to meet your allocation, but everything is a budgetary decision. Some things do well, others don’t. 

We are wondering why reduce the Heritage Areas? Do you envision Heritage Areas as a permanent part of the Park System, and 

if so, would you consider sending up a legislative proposal to structure the program and provide criteria for selection of new areas? 


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Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary SALAZAR. Chairman Moran, this is a tough budget with 

tough choices. I would be the first to say that I have been a great 

champion of the National Heritage Areas because as a U.S. Senator 

I pushed legislation that created two of them in my State of Colorado, the Sangre de Cristo National Heritage Area and the Park 

County National Heritage Area. 

I think it is important for the Department of the Interior as the 

custodian of America’s heritage to tell America’s story, as we do in 

the battlefields and as we do in the Heritage Areas. We have many 

partnerships that we form in the Department of the Interior and 

we will continue to work on those partnerships, and perhaps as we 

move forward with the budget there will be some ways in which 

we can come back and revisit this issue with respect to the Heritage Areas. In my view, they are very important. 

Mr. MORAN. Good. We figured they were. That is why we were 

surprised at the budget mark. 

BLM NATIONAL MONUMENT MEMO LEAK

In February, someone—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. It wasn’t me. 

Mr. MORAN [continuing]. Leaked portions of an internal Interior 

Department document that listed 14 areas managed by the BLM 

that could be considered in the future as potential National Monuments. 

I know you have discussed this at other hearings, but I think it 

is important to put on the record your perspective on this, what the 

background was behind the Bureau compiling such a document, 

and how you expect your Department and this administration to go 

forward with National Monument designations? How real was this, 

or was it just kind of let’s throw everything at the wall and look 

at the big picture, or were these specific pieces of property that you 

clearly intend to purchase? 

Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary SALAZAR. Chairman Moran, the memorandum that had 

been prepared by BLM personnel contained information with respect to places that might be considered for additional protection. 

The tools that are available for additional protection are many, and 

one of them does include the Antiquities Act. I can say without any 

equivocation, Chairman Moran, there has been no direction from 

the White House to move forward with anything on the Antiquities 

Act, not one single monument, and that is where the effort would 

have to be initiated, because that is where the power is. 

Having said that, I think this committee, Democrats and Republicans, would always want me to ask the people who have come in 

to run our services and bureaus to take a look and to come up with 

their best ideas of those places that do need additional protection, 

and that is what I have done with my agencies. 

When the Bureau of Land Management responded, they oversee 

over 250 million acres and there are some very special places within that public domain. Some of them may be places where the 

Members of the House of Representatives will in their particular 

districts want to move forward and add additional protection to 

those special places. 


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At the end of the day, my view on these issues, Chairman Moran, 

is that we should work with the local communities and with the 

Members of Congress to essentially do what we did last year. What 

I consider to be one of the foundational pieces of work of this Congress and this administration is the passage of what was known as 

the 2009 Omnibus Public Lands Management Act, which I see as 

a first chapter in the Great Outdoors America chapter of these 

times. But in those cases, in places like Utah, where there is a lot 

of controversy over these public lands issues, it was working with 

the local communities to come up with the places that deserve that 

kind of special protection, and that is the approach that we intend 

to take. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you for clarifying that, Mr. Secretary. 

Mr. Simpson. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Would you give me some assurance that you will 

not make any National Monument designations under the Antiquities Act without seeking local input and congressional input before making any of those determinations? 

Secretary SALAZAR. Yes. 

LAND AND WATER CONSERVATION FUND

Mr. SIMPSON. I appreciate that. Back to where I started, or 

where I ended, I guess, the last conversation, within your budget 

you are seeking a $106 million boost in the Land and Water Conservation Fund. I happen to support the Land and Water Conservation Fund. As a matter of fact, there is not much in your 

budget I don’t support. The question is some of the priorities. A $106 million increase in the Land and Water Conservation 

Fund to $445 million, a 30 percent increase over fiscal year 2010. 

At the same time, construction accounts within the Department are 

reduced substantially next year. Employee housing across the National Park Service is rated as poor by the Facilities Condition 

Index, and yet the fiscal year 2011 budget requested a 40 percent 

reduction in funding. And particularly concerning to me is the fiscal year 2011 budget for the Interior Wild Land Fire eliminates 

rural fire assistance and cuts hazardous fuels by $43 million. 

So I understand it is a tough budget, only so much money. Why 

the decision to increase Land and Water Conservation funding at 

the expense of some of the other programs that I think we all recognize are important, and is it going to lead to eventually an increase in the backlog and a lot of the problems that we will have 

to address down the road? 

In other words, are we acquiring more and not taking care of 

what we have got? 

Secretary SALAZAR. I think it is a very important question that 

you ask, Congressman Simpson, and let me respond in this fashion: 

First, we believe we can carry out the mission of the Department 

of the Interior and do a good job with the increases that this committee has pushed through in the last several years. 

Our budget for 2011 essentially flat lines us at 2010. You who 

have been on this committee for a long time know that the budget 

for the Department was significantly eroded under the prior administration, and we have been playing catch up. But when we look 

at the increases of 2009 and 2010, which Congressman Norm Dicks 


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and you and the members of this committee helped push through, 

we believe, within those resources, we can find efficiencies to allow 

us to do a good job and continue to address the issues of backlogs 

in permitting, on grazing permits and some of the other issues that 

you raised. 

At the same time, it has seemed to us and it is part of the Great 

Outdoors America agenda, we need to move forward towards full 

funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. 

We have had many conversations, including with members of 

this committee, about the creation of LWCF by Secretary of the Interior Udall and President Kennedy back in the sixties. The idea 

at the time was as we take something from the Earth, oil, gas, and 

mineral resources, some of those royalties would be devoted back 

into a fund that would help us with wildlife habitat and other conservation initiatives. 

The fact of the matter is, very little of that money has been appropriated into the Land and Water Conservation Fund. There 

have been champions for LWCF in this Congress in a bipartisan 

fashion, but it has become essentially a paper entry, where if you 

were to look at the founders of the Land and Water Conservation 

Fund today, I think what they would say is it has been a broken 

promise to America. 

The President’s budget presented here puts us on a trajectory to 

get to full funding of LWCF by the year 2014. We believe it is an 

important thing for us to do as part of our history of conservation 

here in America. 

STATESIDE LWCF

Mr. SIMPSON. What about stateside Land and Water Conservation funding? 

Secretary SALAZAR. Stateside, we are moving forward as well. It 

is part of the effort to try to get full funding for LWCF. 

CLIMATE CHANGE

Mr. SIMPSON. One other question. I hate to even mention the 

word, because every time I do, somebody thinks I am against it or 

dragging my knuckles on the ground or something like that. Climate change. 

One of my concerns has been not that we are studying it or anything else. I don’t even know that I am concerned about the 

amount of money we are spending on it. What I am concerned 

about is coordination. I know we have had meetings set up that got 

canceled because of snowstorms, but we are rescheduling those. 

But within the various departments, within the Department of 

Interior, almost every agency has some money for climate change. 

As we have listened to testimony from these various departments, 

it is surprising to me, or maybe surprising isn’t the right word, but 

some of the testimony sounds like some of the agencies are doing 

the same thing. USGS is studying the impact on lands and how 

that is going to impact fire suppression ability on public lands. 

BLM is looking at the impact on lands and the fire suppression 

ability on public lands. 

I question whether not just within the Department of Interior, 

but government-wide, we know how much money we are spending 


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on climate change, and if our response to climate change isn’t ‘‘let’s 

just appropriate a bunch of money for it and that will show we are 

committed to it,’’ instead of coordinating an effort on it. 

Do you have a concern in that way? 

Secretary SALAZAR. I do have a concern there is that perception 

out there, and there may be some reality that the efforts in addressing climate change across the Federal Government are not as 

coordinated as they should be. 

We have taken an effort to make sure we are coordinated and 

that there is not a duplication of effort within Interior through the 

creation, by Secretarial order, of a Climate Change Response Council, which I personally chair. For every one of those meetings which 

I hold, which have been already many, I have each of the Assistant 

Secretaries and Bureau Directors come to those meetings to ensure 

there is not a duplication of effort and that we are doing the best 

in terms of assembling the science needed for all of us to understand the realities of climate change we are seeing, and we are developing the adaptation strategy so we can adapt to the changing 

science. 

Sam Hamilton, who is not here because of his untimely death, 

would have told you this is probably the greatest threat we have 

to wildlife in America. For hunters and anglers in this country, 

how we address the issue of climate change I think is a real issue 

for all of them. 

What we will try to do at the Department of the Interior is to 

maximize the use of the resources this committee has appropriated 

for us to address the issue of climate change, and we also will work 

with other members of the Federal family to make sure there is a 

more coordinated approach. 

The President has created the Interagency Council on Climate 

Change and Adaptation, and it is through that forum we are trying 

to coordinate our efforts. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I appreciate that. Hopefully we are going to get 

this meeting set up with your different bureaus and climate change 

people in those different bureaus so we can sit down. I am not comfortable with the amount of money that we are spending that I 

know what it is going for. Maybe that is just my ignorance in not 

knowing. So I am trying to educate myself to it, and I am trying 

to raise the issue not only with Interior but across the agencies. 

I have talked with Rahm Emanuel about it, and I spent a little 

time with Carol Browner last week talking about it also. So it is 

something that we need to do. The Department of Energy plays a 

big role in this also. But there is money in virtually every single 

budget that goes through here for climate change. 

I appreciate your answer. Thank you. 

Secretary SALAZAR. I am aware that David Hayes, the Deputy 

Secretary, along with the Council on Environmental Quality, has 

set up a briefing, I am not sure if it is with you or the entire committee. They will be prepared to answer those questions, because 

it is a very legitimate question. You don’t want to be throwing 

money at a climate change initiative where there is duplication and 

waste. 


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Mr. MORAN. I think we may want to have the head of the Council of Environmental Quality at the interagency meeting, because 

she is trying to pull them all together in response to your concern. 

Mr. Hinchey. 

HYDRAULIC FRACTURING

Mr. HINCHEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, I just wanted to ask a question about hydraulic 

fracturing and chemicals disclosure. I regard it as a very important 

issue. 

As you know, back in the mid-1970s there was legislation passed 

that would require whenever there was drilling in the ground for 

chemicals, oil, but also natural gas, and there were the injections 

of chemicals in the context of that drilling, there had to be disclosures of the context of those chemicals. That came about as a result 

of the prior experience of those chemicals that were injected causing a lot of problems, very serious problems. But, unfortunately, 

that provision was extracted from the law back here in 2005. 

So we are introducing legislation that would require that process 

to come back, requiring that when the drilling takes place and 

there are chemicals that are introduced in the ground in the context of that drilling, they have to be revealed. 

Now, in the meantime, I know that the BLM, for example, cannot require oil and gas operators to comply with the Safe Drinking 

Water Act, but you could require operators on Federal leases, Federal lands, to publicly disclose all of the chemical compounds they 

use in drilling operations on those Federal leases. 

While some of these disclosures take place now—only a few of 

them take place, not very many of them—they are very limited. For 

example, there was a situation in Colorado where a nurse in that 

State died after being exposed to fracturing fluids, in part because 

the drilling company refused to provide doctors with the list of 

chemicals to which she was exposed. 

I believe this incident was related to drilling on State lands that 

BLM does not manage, but the point remains the same, and that 

is that there are public needs that require these chemicals to be 

revealed. We need to know what they are, and I think if we know 

what they are, if there is a requirement they be revealed, the whole 

situation is going to be changed and made much safer. 

So I just wonder if you may have considered requiring operators 

on Federal leases to publicly disclose all of the chemical compounds 

they use in operations on those leases? In doing so, that would be 

very important as we struggle to get this bill passed here, that 

would bring back the requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act, 

and in fact the Clean Water Act as well. 

If it were possible for you to do this, such a requirement would 

help set a national standard for disclosure that could be emulated 

by States that have regulatory responsibility for the oil and gas 

drilling on their lands and therefore on non-Federal lands. 

So I think that this is a very important issue, and I wonder if 

there is any insight going on, any consideration going on, to try to 

deal with this in the same way that it was dealt with back in the 

1970s based upon all of the damage that took place prior to the esVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:10 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 057302 PO 00000 Frm 00385 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A302P2.XXX A302P2

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tablishment of the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water 

Act? 

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Hinchey, let me just say it is 

an issue we are looking at. I don’t have a definitive response for 

you. I have in meetings with oil and gas companies asked that 

same question, what is the problem in terms of disclosure. The response I have gotten from oil and gas executives has been there is 

a proprietary nature to some of the fluids that are injected. 

There is a way in which I think the proprietary nature could be 

safeguarded, but still require the disclosure of the fluids that are 

being injected. I know there are oil and gas companies, for example, that follow a best practices guide to hydraulic fracking, and 

they will bring in the community to let them know what the fluids 

are that are being injected and use what they call green fluids to 

make sure they aren’t creating environmental problems. It seems 

to me that it is a good way for oil and gas companies to go in terms 

of relating to the communities affected by their activities. 

I don’t have a definitive response to the specific issue you raised, 

which is to use the authority under the statutes that apply to the 

BLM to require the disclosure. It is something we are looking at. 

Mr. HINCHEY. It is something that is being examined. That is 

very comforting, to know that. It is something being examined here 

in the context of this Congress in legislation that has been introduced on both sides, both in the House of Representatives and in 

the Senate, and we are trying to generate more support for it. 

If I have another minute, I would like to ask another question, 

if I may. 

Mr. MORAN. Go ahead. 

WILDERNESS POLICY

Mr. HINCHEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is on wilderness policy. The protecting of our wild public lands, of course, as we know, 

is something that is deeply important, and I know no one more so 

than you shares that understanding. 

I have deep concerns about some of the legacy policies put in 

place under the previous administration and which remain in effect 

today, unfortunately. One of those policies is the so-called Norton 

Settlement, which prohibits BLM from carrying out one of its core 

missions, that being the identification of, and administrative protection of, public lands that have these wilderness characteristics. 

Your Department has been working on a new policy to address 

how best to protect and manage BLM lands with wilderness qualities that have not yet been designated as Wilderness Study Areas. 

So I wonder, can you tell us when that new policy is likely to be 

put into place? 

Secretary SALAZAR. We are looking at various alternatives, including the possibility of rescinding straight out the Norton-Leavitt 

Settlement, to other authorities that we have to make sure we are 

protecting special places that have wilderness characteristics. I expect in the months ahead, perhaps as we have a dialogue on the 

conservation agenda for this country, we will make an announcement about how we are moving forward with respect to wilderness 

policy. 


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I disagree with the Norton-Leavitt Settlement because I do not 

think it was an appropriate way to essentially cede the authority 

of the Bureau of Land Management, which essentially is what happened in that particular case. It is something that is very much on 

my mind and something to which we are devoting a significant 

amount of time. 

At the end of the day, Congressman Hinchey, where we will aim 

for is to make sure we have the appropriate level of protection for 

these special places that do have wilderness characteristics, but at 

the same time recognizing the BLM in its mission also has a multiple use responsibility and there are activities, such as grazing 

and oil and gas activity, that need to proceed. 

It is part of the effort we are undertaking with Assistant Secretary Wilma Lewis and Director Abbey. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Secretary, thank you very much. I deeply appreciate it. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Hinchey. 

Mr. Cole. 

HYDRAULIC FRACTURING

Mr. COLE. I hadn’t intended to ask this, but I just want to get 

a couple of things on the record about hydraulic fracturing, which 

I know my friend has serious concerns about. 

Mr. Secretary, do you have any idea how long this particular 

process has been used, how many wells have been drilled using hydraulic fracturing? 

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Cole, I am aware that thousands upon thousands of wells have been drilled. 

Mr. COLE. It is literally in the neighborhood of 1 million wells. 

So this is not a new thing. It is new now to certain areas of the 

country, but it is pretty well established, and certainly in our State 

it has been used very widely. 

Are you aware of any studies that suggest it is a health hazard? 

Have there been any scientific studies or anything like that that 

you are aware of? 

Secretary SALAZAR. Congressman Cole, I am not aware of any 

studies personally, but I am not saying there aren’t studies out 

there that reach the opposite conclusion. 

Mr. COLE. I am not trying to trap you. Because I am not either. 

And, again, this is an old established technology. It is not new. It 

has had extensive use. To my knowledge at least there has been 

no evidence of health hazards here. 

Just for the record, it is very heavily regulated at the State level, 

where the regulations have been pretty successful, because, again, 

when you are talking about this technology, it usually, frankly, is 

so deep, that we don’t drill this deep for water. 

Anyway, I am sure we will have an opportunity for a lot of discussion about this. Again, I recognize the legitimacy of the concern, 

particularly in certain parts of the country, because it is emerging 

now as a concern, not in the places where it has been used in the 

historic oil field States so much, but in new areas, particularly 

where natural gas is now being discovered in terrific quantities and 

may offer the solution to at least part of our energy puzzle. 


hsrobinson on DSK69SOYB1PROD with HEARING
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So I just want to be very careful as we go forward in this area, 

and I am just speaking for myself, that we not take away proven 

technologies or walk into litigation situations without meaning to 

on something that has been proven, used for literally decades. This 

is not, again, new science, new technology. But it is an extraordinarily valuable tool in reaching what I know is a shared goal of 

as much energy independence as we can get. And particularly in 

the natural gas area you are talking about the cleanest form of fossil fuel that we have. So there is a lot to be said for it. 

If you want to respond, that is great. If you want to just leave 

it there, that is fine, too. 

Secretary SALAZAR. Let me just respond because I think it is a 

good discussion to have and a good forum to have the discussion 

in. I would say Congressman Hinchey is correct, if we can prevent 

pollution from occurring and dangers to the public health, we certainly ought to do that because we have huge examples for many 

centuries in this country where we haven’t prevented the pollution 

and we end up having to pay a lot more to clean it up after it occurs. So it is a legitimate question that he raises. 

Your point also is a point well taken, that fracking has been a 

practice of the industry for a very long time. I would caution, as 

I cautioned the members of the industry, that as we look at the potential contribution of natural gas to the energy portfolio of the Nation, which is something the President and I support, much of that 

natural gas development will depend on hydraulic fracturing. 

As we move forward with the development of those resources, it 

is also going to be very important to make sure there is a level of 

public confidence. If the public does not know what it is that is 

being injected into these underground aquifers because of a faulty 

disclosure system we have, that is something I think is ultimately 

going to hurt the natural gas industry. 

Mr. COLE. I think that is a fair point, and I think the discussion 

will be very helpful for all concerned. One of the problems you deal 

with in your capacity as Secretary is the amount of litigation that 

goes on now that frankly I think is pointed at—you mentioned, I 

think, the figure 48 percent of the leases you have let are under 

some sort of litigation. Some of that is very legitimate. A lot of it 

is frankly just simply designed, in my view, to stop the development of fossil fuels on Federal lands. I think particularly if you 

look at the explosion of litigation over the course of a decade, it is 

hard to believe there is that much local issue, there is a national 

concern here. 

So I just want to be very careful as we move forward. And anyway I appreciate your approach. I certainly appreciate my friend’s 

questions. I think they are very legitimate ones. But I did want to 

get into the record that, again, hydraulic fracturing is not a new 

technology. It has been used very widely in a lot of States. It is regulated and we don’t have, at least to date, any sort of information 

that would suggest a significant public health hazard to my knowledge. But I am sure we will have this talk again. I suspect so. 

Secretary SALAZAR. Chairman Moran, if I may. 

Mr. MORAN. Please. 


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Secretary SALAZAR. I had a 4:30 phone call I had to make and 

I am running a little late, but I will be happy to make the call and 

then come back. 

Mr. COLE. I apologize. I will hold my other question, which was 

pretty minor, for the record and get it to you. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Cole. 

Go make your phone call. Thanks very much for the time you 

have spent with us, Secretary Salazar. It has been very enlightening. 

The hearing is concluded. 


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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010. 

MAINTAINING NATIONAL CULTURAL AND SCIENTIFIC 

CENTERS: FY 2011 BUDGET REQUEST FOR THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, 

KENNEDY CENTER, WOODROW WILSON CENTER, PRESIDIO TRUST 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. HINCHEY

Mr. HINCHEY [presiding]. We will have a very busy and interesting session, so I want to get started right away. Today we will 

examine the budget request for five of our Nation’s leading cultural 

and knowledge generating institutions, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Gallery of Art, the Kennedy Center, the Woodrow Wilson Center, and the Presidio Trust. 

Our plan is to deal with each institution one at a time, giving 

each witness the chance to make their case and for the committee 

members to pursue issues of interest. 

First, I would like to welcome Dr. Wayne Clough, Secretary of 

the Smithsonian Institution. This Subcommittee held an oversight 

hearing on the Smithsonian last December. At that hearing, the 

GAO and the Smithsonian’s Inspector General reviewed the 

progress the Institution is making to implement important governance reforms. Previously, there were major concerns about Smithsonian management before the time of Secretary Clough. 

I think it is safe to say that the Members were generally pleased 

that the Secretary and his team have made as much progress as 

they have and probably could. It is important that we examine the 

Smithsonian’s budget request closely because this institution is important to the Nation and it is a keystone to the national capital 

region’s culture and tourism. 

I am generally pleased with the Smithsonian’s fiscal year 2011 

budget request. It appears to be a responsible request. It helps to 

see it organized around the four major themes of the new strategic 

plan, Mysteries of the Universe, Biodiversity, Valuing World Cultures and Understanding the American Experience. The requests 

build on this Subcommittee’s work last year to strengthen the collections, and the request has a small, targeted increase for key research and science. I will be interested to hear more about the 

Smithsonian’s role in climate change science. 

The capital budget also has $20 million for design of the new National Museum of African-American History and Culture to be built 

next to the Washington Monument. 

Lastly, I note the request has $106 million for baseline facilities 

revitalization, which will help with the huge deferred maintenance 

backlog. 


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Mr. HINCHEY. And I want to thank you for being here, Wayne. 

Thanks very much. And before I ask you to begin your statement, 

I would like to turn to our Ranking Member, Mr. Simpson. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Simpson, it is a great pleasure to be with you, 

and frankly, I must tell you, it is a great pleasure to be this close 

to you. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I am not quite 

sure how to take that. Thank you. Dr. Clough, thank you for appearing today. I apologize for being late because of the Virginia 

traffic. That would never happen in my district. We do not have 

that many cars in my district, especially in one place. 

One of the wonderful things about serving on this Subcommittee 

is the opportunity to spend time with interesting people who enlighten and educate us. Our conversation with you today is a case 

in point. We appreciate you joining us this morning to share your 

vision for the future of the Smithsonian and to discuss your budget 

request for next year. 

It was not long ago that you laid out an ambitious 5-year strategic plan for the Smithsonian. As we have discussed on more than 

one occasion, I am particularly interested in your plans to reach a 

larger and broader cross-section of America, including small communities in rural America, like those in my home State of Idaho. 

The resources of the Smithsonian are incredible, but not everyone 

has the means to travel to the Nation’s capital to visit the national 

treasures that reside in the Smithsonian’s many museums. Providing content-rich educational materials on line and connecting 

with rural communities through traveling exhibitions are worthwhile endeavors that I fully support. 

Earlier this week I was reminded yet again of the vastness of the 

Smithsonian’s reach. With the help of your staff, I had the opportunity to tour the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum where I 

saw the Framing of the West, an exhibition featuring the work of 

photographer Timothy O’Sullivan who captured in stark terms the 

complex and rugged landscape of the American West. O’Sullivan 

was a photographer for two of the most ambitious geographical surveys of the 19th century, and he spent a lot of time in the mountains and desert regions of the western United States. Some of his 

best work captures the beauty and the majesty of the Shoshone 

Falls and the Snake River in Idaho. 

Dr. Clough, in closing I want to thank you for the fine work of 

the professional staff that serves you and the Smithsonian so well. 

Nell Payne, Maura Reidy, and countless other dedicated professionals do an incredible job communicating with us, educating us 

and keeping us informed of the Smithsonian’s many activities, and 

we greatly appreciate their efforts. 

I look forward to your testimony today and continuing to work 

with you. Thank you. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Thank you, Congressman Simpson. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Clough. Thank you. 


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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010. 

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 

WITNESS 

DR. G. WAYNE CLOUGH, SECRETARY 

TESTIMONY OF SECRETARY WAYNE CLOUGH

Mr. CLOUGH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it very 

much. We are pleased to be here, and we are thankful for the support that Congress has given to the Smithsonian and to its future. 

We would like to think we have begun a new era at the Smithsonian. We have put a lot of the past behind us and are moving forward with our new strategic plan. 

As you know, our new plan calls for us to shape the future by 

preserving our heritage, discovering new knowledge and sharing 

our resources with the world. And Mr. Chairman, you very nicely 

described the four grand challenges which are intended really to 

take this institution with its many moving parts and focus it in 

these challenging areas. Also, they allow us to do cross-disciplinary 

things, in other words, to take the resources of the Smithsonian 

and use them, in a way, more creatively, to cross the disciplines 

and cross the different museums and different ways to address the 

major topics of the day. 

Added to this, as Congressman Simpson has indicated, we want 

broadened access to the Smithsonian. We want to actually take the 

museum to the people through partnerships and using digital technology as well as traveling exhibits. 

So this is an ambitious plan, we think, but we think we can do 

it because we have 6,000 very talented people, passionate people, 

who work at the Smithsonian. And in addition, we have 6,500 volunteers who love it just as much. I gave a 50-year pin to a volunteer the other day. That is a long time for volunteer work. 

We are, we believe, making progress on many fronts: exhibitions, 

visits, collections, digitization, outreach, education, and more, and 

I will give you a few examples. 

EXHIBITIONS

Last year through the help that we received from Congress, our 

Collections Care and Preservation Fund directly improved the care 

of 1.5 million items, and we opened a state-of-the-art facility on 

Pennsy Drive which offers us much more capacity to protect the assets that we have for the American people. Last month we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the opening of the National Museum of Natural History, the most visited museum in the United 

States. It has an exciting new, permanent exhibit called What Does 

It Mean To Be Human? I hope you all have a chance to visit that. 

If you would like to and you have not, we would love to give you 

a tour. 

But this is one of only 10 brand-new exhibits that we have, and 

you mentioned one, Framing the West, which is a very good one, 

across the Smithsonian for the visitors who are starting to come in 

droves in the spring and the summer. 


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This month also we are celebrating the truly original American 

art form, jazz. We have our own jazz group, and others are invited 

to participate with us. All of these are free events and live performances. This week marks the 40th anniversary of Apollo 13, and 

Commander James Lovell is joining us at the Air and Space Museum to help relive that mission and that dramatic space flight 

which we will remember for all time because of his words, Houston, 

we have had a problem. 

VISITS

From kites on the mall, the Smithsonian sponsors the National 

Kite Festival, to curators on YouTube, we are reaching out locally, 

globally, in person and on-line. If you cannot come to us, our motto 

is, we will come to you. We had 30 million visitors last year, 6 million more than the year before but nearly 190 million visitors to 

our websites. We reached another 5 million visitors in person 

through our traveling exhibits program. We now have nearly 200 

social media accounts across the institution, and on our central social media accounts alone, we have 50,000 Facebook fans, 62,000 

Twitter followers and our YouTube videos are being viewed at very 

high rates, particularly the First Lady’s gown exhibit, and that indeed is the leave behind for you today. You have four of our new 

YouTube videos. I hope you will have a chance to take a look at 

them. 

People have told us the most popular one of these four is the 

First Lady’s gown event which was marvelous, and the First Lady 

was delightful. But my favorite is the one that you will see shown 

on the CD cover with a gorilla eating. 

It is about the chef at the zoo. The chef at the zoo prepares daily 

meals for 2,200 animals with completely different appetites and different nutritional requirements. I found it fascinating. The idea is 

to bring out from behind the walls more of what is happening at 

this institution. 

DIGITIZATION

We are hiring a new director of digitization and will issue a 

digitization strategic plan this month. We are making steady 

progress on creating the digital Smithsonian. For example, our Encyclopedia of Life Project, which has the objective to have one web 

page for every species of life on earth already provides access to 

400,000 species pages, and that is up by 200,000, or doubling the 

number that we had last year. We have 20 million pages of literature devoted to biological diversity through the Biodiversity 

Heritage Library which we share with others. 

Mr. Chairman, good to see you. 

Mr. MORAN [presiding]. Good to see you. This is embarrassing. 

The 20-minute trip took nearly an hour and a half. But that is not 

your responsibility. 

Excuse me very much for interrupting you. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Not a problem. 

Mr. MORAN. Doctor, please proceed. It is very nice to see you. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Good to see you. So we were just going over our efforts in digitization and global outreach, and you have this in front 


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of you. That is YouTube videos which you can see at your own time 

when you have a chance to do it. 

So we are trying to share our resources with others around the 

country and indeed around the world. In fact, we would like to 

begin to use these resources to revitalize K through 12 education 

in the country. So we have been having discussions with the Department of Education and with many others who do just that. And 

we just hired our new Director of Education, Claudine Brown, who 

actually worked with the Smithsonian in her past life, to coordinate our efforts in education. 

EDUCATION

We have much to offer students, teachers and parents, and indeed learners of all ages. For example, today actually is Day 2 of 

a four-day Smithsonian on-line education conference sponsored by 

Microsoft Partners in Learning. Microsoft Partners in Learning 

reaches 2 million students in this country and some around the 

world. The conference addresses our four grand challenges that we 

have in our strategic plan, and it allows participants not only to 

hear from our experts but to ask them questions. It reaches all 50 

states, six continents and the Microsoft network of 2 million teachers and students. It will be archived for continued access, and we 

have plans for more such on-line seminars in the future. 

COLLABORATION WITH FEDERAL AGENCIES

We are also proud of our collaborations with other government 

agencies. We indeed want to make sure we do not overlap too 

much, that in fact we are working consistently with them. 

For example, we are working with the State Department on a 

number of fronts. Last month with the State Department we 

hosted the President and First Lady of the Republic of Senegal at 

our African Art Museum for a lunch, and Saturday we hosted the 

President of Argentina to help launch our 26-event schedule that 

will celebrate the bicentennial of Argentina this year. And in Haiti, 

we are working closely with the State Department, the President’s 

Committee for Arts and Humanities, the Defense Department, the 

NEA, the NEH, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services 

and many American cultural institutions who want to help Haiti 

recover its cultural assets, many of which lie today in the rubble 

of the buildings there that need to be rescued and restored. 

The Smithsonian has always been an international institution 

explaining what it means to be an American to both our citizens 

and to those of the world. Our fiscal 2011 budget totals $797.6 million. This is the proposal to you from OMB. I want to assure the 

Committee we are determined to use every penny as wisely as we 

can. We just received an unqualified audit opinion of the whole institution from KPMG with no significant deficiencies and no material weaknesses, and on Friday we will complete a big study we 

have been doing called the Best Practices Study so that we will become a better institution, use our resources more clearly and carefully and communicate with our people about how we do that. We 

want to run a tight ship and maximize every dollar because we 

know those dollars are hard to come by today. 


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So thank you for your continued support, and I am very optimistic about the future of the Smithsonian. 

[The statement of Mr. Clough follows:] 


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EDUCATION

Mr. MORAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me inquire into two or three areas and then give an opportunity to my 

friends and colleagues here. 

You talked about education, and yet there is no additional money 

to pursue that educational initiative. How are you going to get the 

resources to accomplish that? 

Mr. CLOUGH. Well, the good news is that my colleagues at the 

Smithsonian recognized this as an important issue a long time ago. 

And so they have basically built that into their budget since, so almost all of our museums and research centers have educational 

outreach programs already built into their budgets. But what we 

are doing at this point in time before we actually look for places 

to actually get the funding from the federal side is that we have 

brought in private money. We are paying, for example, the salary 

of our new Director of Education with a grant from Bob Kogod, one 

of our regents, who is very interested in education. We think there 

will be a lot of private interest in this, and there will be grant processes that we can go through with the Department of Education 

and other institutions. We will be opening two learning labs at the 

Smithsonian working with the Pearson Foundation. They will pay 

entirely for the software and hardware, and those two labs will be 

run by existing organizations at the Smithsonian for which we already have the funding in our budget. 

REGENTS ROLE

Mr. MORAN. Good answer. You mentioned Mr. Kogod, and it 

brings up the role of the regents. The GAO did a pretty intensive 

investigation because we have had some problems in the past, 

some questions have been raised, particularly with regard to the 

role of the regents. Could you give us a brief description of how the 

regents now provide that oversight and guidance as was intended 

when it was set up? 

Mr. CLOUGH. After they had the problems, I think to the regents’ 

credit, they brought in folks who could really speak to the idea of 

best practices for governance. And those best practice reviews 

showed that the Smithsonian really was lacking in some areas. 

And I would say after having looked at those myself and having 

been at a public institution which was a non-profit, that the Smithsonian was behind the times. Many of the things that they were 

recommending were things that universities had already done, 

needed to do. But it amounted to 25 new policies and procedures 

which were fairly extensive, some of which really went deep into 

the institution. So an effort was undertaken to implement all 25 of 

those procedures and policies. Now the GAO sort of parsed those 

in a different way, and their version of it was that it was the same 

set of parameters, but they identified 46 different ways to look at 

it as opposed to 25. 

The Smithsonian has completed all of those activities. When the 

GAO did their latest review which was fairly recently, they found 

the Smithsonian had completed 38 of the 46. Three of those sort 

of lay on the institutional side, and we have completed all three of 

those. Three of those lay on the Regents side. An example of that 


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would be advisory boards. The Smithsonian is a big place with a 

lot of moving parts. And so to its credit it has many advisory 

boards. Every museum has an advisory board, and the question as 

raised by GAO and others is how do those boards communicate 

with the Board of Regents, which is the governing board. And so 

the regents have taken this very seriously. Many of the regents 

serve on some of these boards as well. And then the chair of the 

boards, for example, and I meet annually or since we have been active with the strategic planning and other processes, we are meeting twice a year with all the chairs of all the committees. And 

when I say that, there are about 30 of them. So there are lots of 

those boards. So that was one of the findings is find a way to integrate the planning and the board activities for all of the advisory 

boards. Now, all the boards that I mentioned are just advisory 

boards. The fiduciary board is the Board of Regents. And so they 

are working themselves to satisfy all the GAO recommendations. 

We think we will be done with all those very soon. 

Mr. MORAN. Very good. It seems as though you were almost 

prepped on these. I guess they are obvious questions to ask. 

Mr. CLOUGH. I have had to live with this—— 

INTERNATIONAL ASSISTANCE

Mr. MORAN. They are not particularly original questions, I guess. 

Let me ask you one for which I am sure you are not fully prepared, 

but I know we will get a good answer. 

Mr. Dreier, Dave Dreier and I were on a CODEL a few years ago, 

and we went to Mali which not a whole lot of CODELs go there 

because it is something of a God-forsaken country, very poverty 

stricken. We went to one of the oldest mosques in the world, and 

they had manuscripts written down by original, some they say 

were at the time of Mohammed. I do not know that that is true, 

but clearly well over 1,000 years old. But there was no temperature 

control, and in fact, we saw insects eating away at the paper. 

You mentioned that you are an international institution. Do you 

ever, for example, have people go there, give them instructions and 

maybe in return for whatever cost might be, they might lend us 

some of those manuscripts once they are restored? We wouldn’t 

want to take them from the country, obviously. But there could be 

some benefit to the United States, but more importantly, you are 

an international institution, and it is an international resource. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Right. 

Mr. MORAN. Do you do that kind of thing? 

Mr. CLOUGH. Well, on any given day, there are people from countries like that who are here seeking our help, seeking our advice. 

And we provide that readily to them. We have something called 

Museum Conservation Institute which deals specifically with issues 

like that because we have issues like that ourselves. We have documents, we have artifacts that can be attacked by insects and things 

of that sort. We have expertise. And I recognize after having been 

there a little while that this is an expertise that most museums 

cannot have. They just cannot afford the kind of talent that is necessary or the equipment because there is equipment involved to 

make sure you understand the quality of the artifact and so forth. 


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We make this kind of information readily available to people. We 

have thought, however, because it seems if we are getting more of 

those requests than we did in the past that we should create a 

structure. And so our regents recently approved something called 

a Museum Professional Studies Program for us so that we will 

have a central resource. So rather than having someone from Mali, 

for example, come to three of our museums or not know which one 

to go to, we will have a central entity that will be a gateway for 

people who have requests like that so we can refer them to different places. 

In addition, we have thought about the fact that we should recover costs because this does take time away from people who are 

in demand here to do the things we have to do here. So we are putting it on the basis of a cost structure, if you will, to recover our 

cost for these kind of activities. It only makes sense when we do 

these kind of things. 

Now, there are cases where people simply do not have the 

money, and that would be Haiti as an example. We have worked 

with the First Lady and others on how do we help Haiti because 

their whole cultural heritage is at risk there. And somehow they 

will have to have an international coalition come together, donors, 

and we have already had a donor gift, for example, to provide art 

materials to many of the artists in Haiti, and we will help sell the 

materials for them and the monies will go back to a fund that will 

be controlled by a non-profit agency to see that it gets back to the 

right people. 

So we are trying to think about how we do this in a more structured way as opposed to highly unstructured. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Mr. Ranking Member 

Simpson. 

OUTREACH

Mr. SIMPSON. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I mentioned during my 

opening statement and you mentioned during yours getting the 

Smithsonian out to rural America. Most people from Idaho that 

come here, after the White House, the next thing they want to see 

is the Smithsonian when they call our office and ask, you know, 

what should we do, where can we go. They do not realize the 

Smithsonian is big. They are thinking of a building, you know. 

You mentioned you had a new education director, I guess it was. 

But what are we doing to get the Smithsonian out to the rest of 

the country because while it is nice that while I am here, I have 

the opportunity to go to the Smithsonian. Most people in Idaho are 

never going to be in Washington. 

Mr. CLOUGH. And that is a subject that is very sensitive with me 

personally because I grew up in a rural part of the State of Georgia. My parents did not have a lot of money, and so we never came 

to Washington until later in life. And I thought about that. My parents actually helped pay for the Smithsonian, and they never had 

the benefit of it in a way. So to me, I think we need to reach out 

to these communities. We need to let them know what we have. 

Fundamentally, if you think about it, although I think our demographic is fairly broad because we get 30 million visits a year but 

still, it tends to be more college-educated, more higher income 


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bracket, fewer young people. We really have to find a way to connect to the young people. That is why we are getting into YouTube. 

Fewer folks from rural areas really get to see us. Now, we have 

traditionally done traveling exhibits which is a very effective way 

to travel exhibits, and we may have an exhibit that we start here 

at the Smithsonian, but it will end up in 30 cities over a period of 

3 years. And we do that and that is provided by free access, and 

upwards of 5 million people see those traveling exhibits. But 

digitally we can reach everybody. 

And so we are in the process, and you have been very generous 

to support us in our efforts to digitize our collections, and we want 

to do that in a very dynamic way. We do not want to just show 

somebody a picture or something. It should be, for example, if you 

are interested in air and space and Amelia Earhart that you see 

not only her beautiful plane that she flew but you could turn it 

over and see the struts and how the wheels work and look on the 

inside of the cockpit. And some day, it will take off and you will 

be able to watch that happen. 

So we want to make that experience as engaging as we can make 

it for those folks and encourage them to come to see the real thing 

when we do it. With the Director of Education, we want to get 

more focused as opposed to just making it available for free on the 

web which these are, and we have had tremendous response to the 

things that we are putting on the web. But in that case, we want 

to say to a particular school district, for example, what do you 

need? Because we have all these collections, 137 million objects 

that can be used for science lessons, used for history lessons, used 

for culture lessons. And so what we want to do is to try to find out 

how far down the road we can go to sort of customizing the delivery 

of what we do to some of the K through 12 districts that need the 

help. 

As you know, the K through 12 system is run by the states anyway, and so we are working hard. One of the most effective connections for us is the Council of Chief State School Officers, CCSSO, 

and their headquarters is not far from here. We are working closely 

with them. We, for example, honor the teachers of the year from 

all 50 states, and we do not just let them go. Once we honor them, 

they become part of a network for us. And so over a period of years, 

we built a network of teachers of the year all over the different 

states. We are trying every way we can to reach and get more 

structure about delivery. 

NATIONAL MALL

Mr. SIMPSON. One of the other things you do is the Folk Life Festival that has been going on at the mall for a number of years. As 

you know, we are trying to restore the mall with the National Park 

Service, and have talked about this, I do not want to say, conflict, 

but sometimes competing needs, trying to restore the mall so that 

it is—I guess probably the biggest disappointment that most people 

have when they come and when they see the pictures of the mall 

and how green and beautiful it is in the pictures and then they go 

down there and go wow, that is not anything like the pictures. And 

so this committee is trying to restore this mall to the prominence 

that it should have. Sometimes that creates competing needs and 


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overuse. And you recently received a letter from the Parks Service 

allowing you to do the permit for this year—— 

Mr. CLOUGH. Yes. 

Mr. SIMPSON [continuing]. For the Folk Life Festival. Are you 

going to be able to work with the Park Service and try to work out 

a plan where you can still do the Folk Life Festival understanding 

the needs that the mall is going to have? 

Mr. CLOUGH. Absolutely, and I am meeting with Mr. Jarvis tomorrow, I think it is. So we are going to have that discussion. And 

they have been very good in allowing us to comment on their process. We have tried to be responsible in our responses back, and I 

have helped draft them personally myself because I have a strong 

interest in this. If you really want to see the condition of the mall, 

go up to the top of the tower of the Castle Building and you can 

see how poorly maintained it is presently and you know, how much 

traffic it gets on it and that kind of thing. So it really impacts us 

and the impression people have of the Smithsonian. We are very 

anxious to work to improve this. We did ask that they undertake 

a scientific study to try to look at this balance of public use versus 

the look of the mall, and they are doing that. We will be very supportive of them in that activity. 

ARTS AND INDUSTRY BUILDING

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. I appreciate that. Arts and Industry Building. The committee went down and took a look at it last year. I 

think the committee is very interested in seeing that building reopened for use. Where are we on that, and what is it going to take 

in the way of funding to do that? How much of it is going to be 

raised privately, how much by the committee? 

Mr. CLOUGH. Bear with me for a moment and I will tell you 

where we are because you did provide us with $25 million of stimulus funding which was very helpful to us. And because of the stipulations about being shovel-ready, we can only use about $5 million 

on the building. But we did apply that and I think very effectively. 

That contract is just being completed today. We did repoint the 

outside. That was a very important thing to do, and on the inside, 

over time that building has been built up with many, many offices 

which should not have been there. And as a result, the original 

concept for the building which was to kind of see through it was 

lost. And so we really—you know, I indicated to the contractor, go 

in and take those walls out. And so they have done a lot of that, 

have not quite completed, and to work on the hazardous materials. 

This is an old building with hazardous materials. Get that stuff out 

of there. 

And so you can go there today, and we would invite you again 

if you want to come back and take a look. I was just there with 

our regents because the regents wanted to see it on Monday. And 

you can actually begin to see what it used to look like back in the 

days when it was the only museum or the only exhibition hall on 

the mall. 

So that has been done. And we have $12.6 million in fiscal year 

2010 which we are applying to design and really to try to get at 

the core issue which you raised and that is how much really will 

it cost to bring this building back? And there are some basic eleVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:10 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 057302 PO 00000 Frm 00480 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A302P2.XXX A302P2

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ments that have to be undertaken for this building no matter what 

its ultimate use. For example, it has to be brought up to code. It 

is not up to code. And it has issues. You have to blast proof it. The 

roof is a very complicated roof. It has 137 different angles on top 

of it if you ever look at it. So it has leaked over time. It has no 

insulation. It took a heavy snow load during the snow. I came in 

during the snow. I can walk to work fortunately, do not have to go 

on the GW parkway, and you know, when you are standing there 

you can see water coming through in certain places where they 

have the valleys and so forth. So the roof is a big problem. We do 

not know quite what the cost will be. It will not be inexpensive. 

Now, simultaneously, some time back, our regents had tasked me 

with figuring out what would we do with it if we could open it, and 

there were various proposals that were there in place. And we have 

had groups in the Smithsonian and other advisory groups who 

have given us pro bono advice on what to do with it. And the notion is that we could create what we call a gateway center. Because 

the Smithsonian is such a diverse institution, very few people know 

as you said about all these museums. They do not know we have 

this magnificent Reynolds Center up on 7th and G where the Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum are. And 

so the idea would be that this would be an entryway where people 

could come in and understand the history and the entirety of the 

Smithsonian and understand something about the history of the 

mall as well which is a fascinating story in itself. And we have had 

an architect engage with us who specializes in taking old buildings 

and doing fairly dramatic things inside them that are engaging for 

folks. And so we just had a presentation on that. It is an exciting 

possibility. We think it would be very reasonable in terms of the 

cost of that part of it, but the basic part will be relatively expensive. We just do not have a number on that yet. But we are moving 

down that road. 

In addition, so you should be aware, the Latino Commission 

which is considering the possibility of a Latino museum and considering who should run it—we are not necessarily designated or will 

not be necessarily chosen to do that—have indicated and sent me 

a letter that the A&I building is one possibility they are considering among a number. And they have a group that is looking just 

at siting as we speak, and we should hear from them in the fall. 

But regardless of what purpose, we need to do a lot of things to 

that building that have to be done to bring it up to code. 

Mr. SIMPSON. It is truly an iconic building for the mall and for 

the Smithsonian, and it would be nice to have it as an entry structure for the rest of the Smithsonian to see what was going on with 

the rest of the museums, and it would be nice to be able to do it 

at the time we refurbish the mall also—— 

Mr. CLOUGH. Yes. 

Mr. SIMPSON [continuing]. To have all that done. 

Mr. CLOUGH. It would be wonderful. It is exciting to think about 

the prospects, and this new plan is a very exciting plan. And you 

know, I am out on the mall a lot on the weekend because I live 

nearby, probably every fifth group that comes by tries to get in the 

building. And it is a shame for the building not to be open, and it 

is an iconic building built in 1881, one of the most spectacular 


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buildings in Washington. It can be used as an exhibition hall, not 

as a museum. You would never get the temperature and light controls as you would like. 

But we have done the studies on sustainability. We could probably make it what we call a Gold LEEDS building. The roof does 

capture water, and we can put that in cisterns. And it does have 

beautiful, now that you open it up, natural lighting. You do not 

need artificial light in that. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Really? 

Mr. CLOUGH. The architect was a genius when you think about 

it. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Go ahead. I have got a couple other questions. 

Mr. MORAN. Good. Thank you, Mr. Simpson, Mr. Hinchey, and 

thanks again for enabling us to start a little closer to the scheduled 

time. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Thank you. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you for your time. 

Mr. HINCHEY. It was a great pleasure. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Secretary, thank you. It was great listening to you, and it 

is great listening to your response to these questions. They are very 

important and intriguing. I was deeply interested in what you were 

talking about in the initiation of your remarks. All of the things 

that you are involved in from gorilla behavior, to jazz to the expansion of space travel, and a whole host of other things are deeply 

intriguing and very important for our country. They are particularly important in helping people understand it and see what is 

going on, and I think this is one of the wonderful things that you 

do. I am deeply grateful for everything that you do. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Thank you. 

FOUR KEY CHALLENGES

Mr. HINCHEY. The four key challenges of the new strategic plan 

are also very intriguing and very interesting and are going to 

produce a great deal of interesting new developments. So I would 

appreciate it if you might talk to us about that and tell us exactly 

what that situation is going to be and how it is going to develop 

and how the Smithsonian is going to operate in the context of those 

new four operations. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Well, thank you for that. We are excited about it, 

and this was a plan that was developed that was very inclusive. 

It has never been done before at the Smithsonian, but we do have 

a lot of moving parts at the Smithsonian and we have people who 

are around the world. We brought everybody together to talk about 

this. And so I think it is a very focused vision. It captures our current efforts by and large, the core efforts that we want to focus on 

and then allows us to do cross-cutting things across. 

A good example of that I think is the American Experience. What 

does it mean to be an American? And I find that a very compelling 

topic. And when I start to talk to people about it at first there is 

not a connection, but the more you talk to people about it, the more 

they realize how important that is. What is the glue that holds a 

country together that is made up of peoples who have come from 

so many different places, some of whom were here in the beginning, many of whom came here to seek opportunity, some who 


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came here under bondage. And so there are many different stories 

to be told. 

And the Smithsonian is unique because it has different aspects 

of this topic within it and also in addition, we hope to collaborate 

with other institutions. We could work with the National Gallery, 

we can certainly work with the Library of Congress and others to 

help tell these stories. But if you take the Smithsonian alone, we 

have the National Portrait Gallery, we have the Smithsonian 

American Art Museum, we have the National Museum of American 

History, we have the National Museum of the American Indian, we 

have the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, we have the Air and Space Museum which tells another side 

of the great story of America as creating in essence the aerospace 

industry and both the airplanes as well as the space part of that. 

And so the idea is to bring all of these resources together to 

speak to these common issues and we have to organize ourselves 

to do that because the museums by themselves do not have the capacity to do that. 

So we are going to create what we call a consortium or a center 

that will speak to this issue. And we are going to make it so that 

it will be very lightly administered, that is, we do not want to build 

up another silo or another organization. This is an organization designed to facilitate the working together of different groups within 

the Smithsonian, as well as reaching out, for example, to the Park 

Service, because if you are going to tell the story of the American 

experience, well, there is a monument right there that is next to 

us that is part of that story, there is the Lincoln Memorial, there 

is the Jefferson Memorial. And so reaching out to the Park Service, 

reaching out to the National Gallery, reaching out to others who 

have resources we do not have will help tell that story. 

So organizationally we are creating this consortium. We believe 

shortly we will have a nice announcement to make about a foundation that is very keen on this idea that will give us a significant 

amount of funds to get this rolling and get it started and get our 

folks going. We had our first what we call idea fair. We are going 

to have four idea fairs, and so what we are doing is the idea fair 

will address each one of these topics. And so the first one was on 

this very subject, and we had 200 proposals that were sent in from 

across the Smithsonian about ideas of ways they thought they 

could fulfill this destiny or this story. We ended up discussing 70 

of them—we could not do them all—at the idea fair, and 250 people 

came to the idea fair, and it was interesting. It was not just the 

arts and the history museum but the scientists were there because 

the story of American science is also the story of America. 

We had some fascinating topics that were brought to the table. 

We are in the process of recruiting directors for each of the centers. 

We are going to situate them in the Castle building, and then we 

will all have one common source of administrative support so we 

do not have to duplicate that. But we are very excited about this 

prospect. We think we can do it. We think it is a great way for us 

also to reach out to our fellow cultural and scientific institutions 

and universities as well to help us tell the story. But it is a powerful thing because this country is getting ever more diverse and 


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needs to think about how it is going to stick together in the future. 

So we think it is historic but it is all about the future as well. 

EDUCATION/OUTREACH

Mr. HINCHEY. Yes, I agree. I think it is a wonderful thing to do. 

One of the most important things that you deal with is the expansion of education around this country and how significant it is for 

some local educational institutions, particularly for high schools 

that can actually come here. Not very many of them are able to do 

that, but nevertheless, it is a great experience. And I know that the 

educational aspect of what you do is something that is critically important to you and something that you are expanding on. Could 

you mention a couple of things about that as well? 

Mr. CLOUGH. Well, we try to build on this idea from several 

points of view, one is the conventional museum visit, to enrich that 

visit because we call it the Learning Journey. And this is a place 

where we try to tie together the digital outreach with the conventional visit. So if a high school group from New York is coming 

down and they are doing a civics lesson on what does it mean to 

be an American, they would have been able to access our website, 

access our digital material on that kind of information beforehand 

and would have been able to virtually talk to a docent or possibly 

one of our experts on this very topic or reach into our archived 

sources and get that material. 

So when they come here, they are prepared for their visit. They 

are not just wandering around hoping to see something, they really 

know—because the Smithsonian can be overwhelming. There are 

so many different places to go. And while they are here, they would 

hopefully have a very meaningful visit. And then when they go 

back home, they can still continue to interact with our docents 

using the Internet. So the idea is to build up the essence and the 

engagement activities regarding a visit. Now, in addition, we will 

be developing educational modules in and around topics. For example, we did an on-line seminar on Lincoln earlier this year, his 

200th birthday, and six of our curators had six different exhibitions 

on Lincoln, spoke to their exhibitions, why they chose the objects, 

how Lincoln had—you know, each thing we have, Lincoln touched 

in some way. So how was it Lincoln touched these objects. It made 

it very real, and the students could blog in and talk to the curators 

and talk to the docents, and we got to Douglas, Georgia, my hometown. So there were about 150 kids in Douglas, Georgia, who participated in that. So we want to get more formal about this, we 

want to work with the school districts and really make sure that 

we are not doing something they do not want. We give them something they need, and they can build it into their curriculum because they are losing the arts, they are losing the civics and they 

are losing the sciences, and we can fill that gap with that. 

I should say incidentally some great credit to our Smithsonian 

American Art Museum. They already have a contract with the Department of Defense which operates the largest K through 12 system in the world, and we are providing arts education to youngsters on military bases all over the world. 

Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Secretary, thank you. Thank you very much. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Thank you. 


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Mr. HINCHEY. Thank you particularly for everything that you are 

doing. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Thank you. 

Mr. HINCHEY. And how fortunate it is for this country. 

Mr. CLOUGH. I have a great group of people who are working 

with me, let me tell you. 

PROLIFERATION OF MONUMENTS AND MUSEUMS

Mr. MORAN. Thanks very much, Mr. Hinchey. Let me just register an observation because it is probably only—it may be unique 

to me but since I happen to be in this position, I want to take advantage of the opportunity to share it and then I want to give Mr. 

Simpson the opportunity to ask the rest of his questions. 

You have more money for, a substantial request actually, for the 

design of the African-American Museum as part of the Smithsonian. There is a request to turn the Arts and Industries Building 

into a Hispanic-American Museum. We have the Indian Museum, 

the new one. I am concerned about the proliferation of museums, 

and as we do that, we do not integrate as well. What is told in the 

African-American Museum should also be reflected in the Museum 

of American History fully. We just had a little spat over the proclamation on the Confederacy leaving out slavery which was an inexcusable omission. Unfortunately, it was only after the fact that it 

has been corrected. I had occasion to talk to the Park Service. They 

were almost doing the same thing in their commemoration, 150th 

anniversary. I think they are going to make sure that that is corrected and that the true cause of the Civil War is fully expressed 

in their depiction of it. Part of the proliferation of buildings is not 

your responsibility at all. The World War II History Museum, for 

example, had nothing to do with 50 states but had everything to 

do with one Nation. I find it inappropriate, frankly, and taking up 

an awful lot of space. The Indian Museum does not tell the story 

of Native Americans. It is kind of a glorified arts and crafts museum, frankly. I wish it was more evocative like the Holocaust Museum. It has told a story and left people emotionally affected. 

But as we proliferate, it is almost as though our generation, as 

large as my generation is, the baby boomers, it is almost as though 

our heroes and icons are the only ones that matter to history. 

There are going to be subsequent generations that will have their 

own heroes and ought to and ought to be able to have some space 

on the mall to express what inspired them to greatness, if you will. 

And there is going to be no room left. We are going to build an Eisenhower Memorial now on a little grassy plot in front of the education building. I think Eisenhower was a terrific president, but it 

is not so much a reflection on the individuals as where we are 

going with this. And particularly with the African-American and 

Hispanic museum, it almost gives an excuse not to fully reflect the 

true history of the country if you have a separate museum that reflects that. I find that objectionable. 

So this is kind of a personal statement, although I really would 

like to elicit from you a reaction from you, if you have given any 

thought to this because I do have great respect for your insight and 

reflection. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Thank you. 


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Mr. MORAN. Mr. Secretary, do you have any thoughts on that? 

Mr. CLOUGH. Sure, and I think we all share some concerns in 

this process, and I would say the Smithsonian shares some of the 

blame, if you want to take it that way, that we do have this proliferation of museums. I think if the Smithsonian had been doing 

its job, if it had been a more inclusive institution in the beginning 

and it had taken its job seriously to tell the story of the American 

experience at large, that you would have been able to do it within 

a larger context as opposed to sort of a smaller context. But this 

has already happened, and so I think our job is to say this is what 

it is. What can we do to bring coherence to this story? Because obviously we now know the melting pot idea is probably not the true 

way life works. All of us have roots somewhere, and all of us like 

to think about those roots and that is a fine thing. But there is a 

commonality. There is this glue that holds us all together. And I 

think we learned a little bit from the experience at the American 

Indian museum which I think is a fine museum and—its future 

still needs to be shaped for us. And fortunately we have a great director there, Kevin Gover, who is outstanding and who understands some of what might be considered shortcomings of that museum, and he is working hard on that. He is working hard to bring 

that more current, to bring more artifacts into that museum so people can really understand it better and more programs that are 

meaningful. And some of them are whimsical, and I like that. He 

just had one on skateboards, Indians and skateboards, you know, 

and why not because actually the kids on reservations or wherever 

they are love the same culture that other kids do. The Brian 

Jungen Exhibit is about the Northwestern Indian artifacts as you 

have behind you here, but it is done in a remarkable way where 

he talks about deep time but he uses artifacts that are very contemporary and very temporal and we lose them. And I think he has 

done a great job of trying to bring more people in so then you can 

tell your story. 

To the Smithsonian’s great credit, enduring credit, they hired 

Lonnie Bunch to be the Director of the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, and Lonnie is a remarkable individual. He had many years at the Smithsonian, but then he went 

on to a distinguished career outside of the Smithsonian and getting 

him back was important. He understands the point you just made. 

And having worked in the Museum of American History, if we had 

done our job there well, we would have been able to I think address 

these issues more holistically than we are doing them today. But 

Lonnie clearly understands this museum has many missions, if you 

will, one of which is to tell the American story. You know, the African-American story is an American story, to tell it in the context 

of America and what it means to be an American. But also to tell 

the dimensions of that story that were unique to the African-American community and the horrors of slavery and how those slaves 

were brought here. But he does not want this to be a museum 

where that is the only story that is told because there is a story 

of redemption, there is a story of greatness, and the African-American story of people making their way through this country, fighting for their rights, and finding fortunately some allies along the 

way and making a difference in the country. 


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And so you will find celebration of African-American contributions to music, to sports, to science, to all these other areas and to 

arts and so forth in this museum. I think they have done a great 

job of thinking this through about balancing the parts of the story 

that need to be told. And he has been all over this country in an 

attempt to make sure that all of the African-American smaller museums are a part of this, to see us as their national partner. And 

so he has done a great job of doing that. So he has listened a lot. 

I was with him at the Atlanta History Center just about 2 months 

ago with John Lewis who made an absolutely compelling case for 

this museum from his point of view. 

So I think that Lonnie understands it, I think Kevin understands, and I think we learned some lessons in the American Indian museum. Kevin is working I think to make that a broader approach to the issues that that museum represents. For example, in 

education, we note that an awful lot of American Indian youngsters 

live on reservations, go to Bureau of Indian Affairs schools and we 

need to reach them. And so you know, we are working with the Department of Education lastly on a plan to literally deliver education 

using the information background we have in that museum to 

these youngsters about what does it mean to be an American from 

their point of view and realizing they have a special set of issues 

that they deal with, an unfinished project with the American Indian in this country, and it is a tragic story, clearly. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Mr. Simpson? 

COLLECTIONS CARE INITIATIVE

Mr. SIMPSON. A couple quick questions. One of the most important things you do is obviously preserve over 100 million items. 

You got a $2.5 million increase in the Collections Care initiative. 

What exactly are we going to do with that, and where are we on 

the emphasis that the committee put on the military uniforms collection last year? 

Mr. CLOUGH. A full assessment has been made of where we are 

with the military uniforms and what needs to be done, and they 

are in the process of implementing that. So I think that project is 

well under way to take care of that. Those uniforms are in American History. And so it is a fairly targeted issue that we can deal 

with and address. But overall we have continued the need to add 

to our capacity to take care of 137 million artifacts. We are not intentionally trying to grow that collection, but there are times when 

it grows. For example, if we are going to have a Museum of African-American History and Culture, and right now that museum 

started out initially with no collection, they are up to 10,000 items 

now that they have been able to add to their collection. We have 

to preserve those. And so there is a component that addresses the 

growing collections. We are trying to work with other museums. 

For example, in our bird collection, we have 650,000 birds that we 

use that are used to help people for example with bird strikes. 

When the United flight went down on the Hudson River, the first 

place they came to was the Smithsonian, and we were able to tell 

them exactly what birds were, as they say, ingested into the engines, where they came from and where they had been residing. It 

is a remarkable story. But we work with the Field Museum and the 


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American Museum of Natural History in New York to say let’s do 

not duplicate our collections. If you have a collection that covers a 

different set of species than we do, that is fine. We will work with 

you. So we use the Field Museum collections in that process. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Are you able to keep up with the $2.5 million increase in this initiative? Are you able to keep up with the needs 

of preserving what we have got? 

Mr. CLOUGH. We think so. We think we made a lot of progress, 

as I mentioned in my statement, particularly with the new Pennsy 

facility. It gives us much better facilities than we had before. We 

do suffer that we still have some old facilities, the old Garber facilities out at Suitland, and you may remember we had a little collapse out there, one of our buildings. It was a very old building. 

Classical story that you see with a big institution. Somebody built 

that in 1967, said it was going to be temporary and it stayed. Now, 

we are going to tear it down, and our goal is to get all those torn 

down and get all those objects out into good places for them to be 

cared for. 

REVITALIZATION, CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE

Mr. SIMPSON. That leads to the other question and that is that in 2005 and 2007 the Smithsonian needed an investment of $2.5 

billion for revitalization, construction and maintenance over a 10– 

year period. We have got $137 million for facilities capital program 

to make major repairs to current building. What specific projects 

are we going to undertake with that funding and how do you 

prioritize those projects? 

Mr. CLOUGH. Yeah, and those are kind of two different things be- cause the $2.5 billion was really $250 million a year, and that was 

made up of two parts, one was the facilities revitalization and the 

second part was maintenance. And so we are fortunate in this 

budget, for example, to have $137 million targeted toward revitalization and another $73 million which covers the salaries and expenses category for maintenance. Ideally you would like to have 

$150 million in revitalization each year and $100 million in maintenance. So what we have is $137 million for revitalization and $73 

million. So we are not quite there, but there has been a lot of 

progress, and we are very proud of that. 

So we are making steady progress against the challenges, but 

when you are open every day of the year and you get 30 million 

visitors a year, that is a lot of boots on the ground in your buildings. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Well, thank you. It is obvious that you have a passion for your job. There are a lot of things we could talk about. I 

am interested in the Encyclopedia of Life and what is being 

planned there, but we will have an opportunity to talk about that 

in the future. And I want to reemphasize again, you have got great 

employees there. Whenever people talk about you know, those lums 

that work for the Federal Government and federal employees or 

state employees and all that kind of stuff, all you have to do is 

point to some of your own employees who are doing a fantastic job, 

and we really enjoy working with them. So thank you, and do not 

lose those employees. And congratulations to the Rambling Wreck. 

They had a great year. 


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Mr. CLOUGH. They did. Thanks. Well, I will certainly pass on 

your high regards to our people because they would appreciate it, 

especially during the snowstorm. You know, we kept a museum 

open every day during that snowstorm, and you know, I was up 

here and I pushed a few snow shovels around and things. But I did 

not do anything really. There were a lot of people out there who 

were working 12-hour days, and quite a few of them stayed and 

slept over in their buildings to try to keep something going for the 

American people. So they will be very appreciative of those words. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank them for us. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Excellent testimony. 

Mr. CLOUGH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

[The information follows:] 


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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010. 

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART 

WITNESS 

EARL A. POWELL, III, DIRECTOR 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Next we will hear from Earl Powell, the Director of 

the National Gallery of Art. We got a little show and tell here. We 

are going to have to talk about this because this is a big issue. But 

let us first go through the formality of welcoming you, Mr. Powell, 

as the Director of the National Gallery of Art. It has been a couple 

of years since you were last before this subcommittee. The Gallery 

of Art was established in 1937, by a joint resolution of Congress 

which pledged the United States to provide the necessary funds for 

the upkeep of the gallery, its administration, costs of operations, 

and the protection and care of the art. 

The gallery we enjoy today is considered one of the world’s premiere art museums. It has a renowned collection of American and 

European masterworks. There is actually even some Eastern works 

that are terrific. But we owe a debt of gratitude particularly to the 

Mellon family, who provided the museum’s original collection and 

financed the buildings that house these great masterpieces. This year’s budget request totals $163 million. It is a little bit less than last year’s appropriation. Of that almost $150 million is 

for the care of the art. No new collections or anything, just the 

maintenance, operation, and protection of the buildings and 

grounds. The remaining $48 million dollars funds repair, restoration, and renovation of the buildings. 

Your request includes funds needed to complete the repair of the East Building’s exterior marble veneer. Last year we provided $40 

million to begin this urgent work on repairing the facade of the 

East Building. This year you have asked for a second installment 

of another $42.250 million to hopefully complete this work. 

What really started this, Mr. Simpson, was that this arrowhead 

fell off the top, came down, had somebody been standing underneath it, it would have killed them. It stuck right into the ground. 

Mr. Powell wants to share that with us. 

Mr. POWELL. That is all that has fallen, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MORAN. Yes. Well, that is the concern, and we have met on 

this before. It is troubling at least to me and I know others that 

there was not a tough contract that would have enabled you to go 

back to the contractor and really make them liable for what would 

appear to be a construction defect. Now the taxpayers have to 

spend over $80 million to fix this. 

Now, you are going to tell us that it is a lot older than it appears 

to be, it is a beautiful building. But that is what we want to talk 

about particularly because I know we would much rather see this 

go into expansion of the collection and the presentation of the collections instead of the nitty-gritty work of taking down panels and 

putting them back up again and so on. That is really not what the 

taxpayers think they are funding when they fund the National Gallery of Art. 


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But that is what we will want to ask you about, of course, and 

I want to give Mr. Simpson an opportunity to say something if he 

would like to make an introductory comment. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I thought the same thing 

when I had to replace the front steps at my house two years after 

they built the house because they sank. That kind of stuff happens, 

and while we can complain about it all, the fact is we need to fix 

it, and that is just the reality. 

But, Director Powell, I will be very brief, and I want to join 

Chairman Moran in welcoming you to the subcommittee this morning. As an aspiring artist myself I marvel at the incredible collections contained within your gallery walls as I walk through the gallery and take in room after room of magnificent paintings. I think 

to myself, what if these walls could talk, but then I realize that 

these gallery walls really do talk, and the incredible masterpieces 

say something quite different to each and every one of us. That is 

the beauty and magic of art. I enjoy my work in Congress, but I 

must confess that you have one of the greatest jobs in Washington, 

DC, and quite possibly in the entire world. 

Lastly, I want to thank you, Director Powell, for surrounding 

yourself with dedicated professionals who are committed to their 

work and are truly a pleasure to work with. Pam Jenkinson and 

Bill McClure and your entire team serve you and the gallery well 

and the American people well. 

So thank you for being here today. 

Mr. POWELL. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. I appreciate that, and I 

know the staff does. 

Mr. MORAN. Nice comments, Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Mr. Powell, you may proceed. 

TESTIMONY OF DIRECTOR EARL POWELL

Mr. POWELL. That would be the central point I would like to discuss also, I know, but there are an enormous number of very positive things that have happened. This is an unanticipated, unwanted problem, but we certainly appreciate Congress’s support in 

helping resolve it. And that will be done in another two to three 

years, and the building will be restored to the pristine beauty that 

it was when it opened in 1978. 

The gallery we are very proud of. I know Congress is and the Nation is, and we appreciate your incredible support in the operations 

and maintenance of the building. It is not only an art museum. I 

was reminded of Secretary Clough’s comments about the Smithsonian, but it is an institution of higher learning. It was created and 

sustained by the Federal Government and the private sector, and 

in fiscal 2009, we welcomed 4.8 million visitors from throughout 

the country and abroad. That is the highest attendance of any art 

museum in this country, and I think the third highest in the world. 

We are very proud of that, and that is a trend that has been sustained and is growing. So we are excited about that. 

Mr. MORAN. I hate to interrupt, but it would be the Louvre and 

then London? 


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Mr. POWELL. The Louvre and the British Museum are alleged. I 

would say alleged but I will have to take it on face value, but I 

know our numbers are right. 

Mr. MORAN. Excuse the interruption. I just wondered who were 

the top two. 

Mr. POWELL. And you are very kind to mention the fact that the 

Mellon family did the donation of the art collection and the funds 

to construct the West Building and Paul Mellon and sister, Alisa, 

funds to construct the East Building, all private funds. Federal 

Government’s commitment to operate the gallery originates in the 

1937, joint resolution, and I think it has been arguably, I certainly 

believe, the most positive, sustained private/public partnership that 

exists that I can think of. 

The Federal Government has been matched by private donors 

who following Mellon have generously given works of art and funds 

to create the great collections. The Special Exhibitions Program is 

one of our great prides and joys, and that is a critical part of the 

gallery’s educational mission and another example of private and 

public sectors working together for the benefit of the American 

public. Major works of art are brought together from public and 

private collections around the world for the many millions of visitors to the gallery and to our website, which is another extremely 

important component in our outreach to the Nation and abroad as 

well. 

WEBSITE

That is a website that is ten years old now, and it is by those 

terms antediluvian, and we are redesigning the website, which has 

had millions and millions of visitors with private funding donated 

for that purpose. It is one of our great educational opportunities 

and initiatives, and I think the National Gallery, the kids’ site 

alone, has won numerable awards. 

PUBLIC EDUCATION PROGRAMS

Public education features are in fiscal 2009, more than 40,000 

students took part in over 2,200 programs. National Teaching 

Training Institute is held each summer in addition to teacher 

workshops, which are held throughout the academic year. We 

hosted 123 specially-planned family programs for some 13,500 

attendees, including summer programs for families with children 

ages 8 to 11. In addition, we have an extensive loan program of 

educational resources, which reach a viewing audience of more 

than 30 million through the elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, museums and television stations in towns 

and cities throughout the country. Our website extended the experience to more than 16.7 million virtual visitors to us, and that will 

certainly grow. 

REPAIR OF EAST BUILDING FAC ̧ ADE

The West and East Buildings we consider works of art as well, 

and they are landmark buildings and significant as great works of 

art which house the works of the collections and protect them and 

make them available to our millions of visitors, and I want to take 


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this opportunity to thank Congress and the Appropriations Committee and staff for your support for the repair, restoration, and 

renovation program. 

The repair of the East Building fac ̧ade is obviously for all of the 

unfortunately obvious reasons, included in the fiscal year 2011, 

budget request. This was first discovered in 2005, in the large 

stone veneer panels on the East Building exterior. I would stress 

the interior has not been a problem, but the exterior has, and that 

is due to a combination of circumstances, largely because of temperature changes, heat, et cetera, on the outside over 30 years. It 

is not a young building, Mr. Chairman, as you know and we have 

discussed, but the problems emerged. We have been dealing with 

it, you know, on a weekly basis. We have developed perimeter security around so the public will not be endangered in any way. A 

small stone fell off just last week, but it is a microcosm of the problem we will be addressing, and you will get a beautiful new building again. It is a complex reasoning, but we are working it as you 

know. We have appreciated your staff’s attention to it, your attention to it with us, and we have been able to get, I think, ahead of 

the curve on this project, which is such a high priority for us. 

The President’s fiscal year 2011 budget for the National Gallery as you mentioned is $162.8 million, including $114.6 for salaries 

and expenses, which is an increase of $3.8 million, and $48.2 million for repair, restoration, and renovation, which is a net decrease 

of $8 million. And once we have this project behind us, I am sure 

it is going to decrease exponentially beyond that. 

But the building will not have to close during the renovation, so 

it will not affect programs, exhibition viewing, educational initiatives, staff, or the public. 

[The statement of Mr. Powell follows:] 


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REPAIR OF THE EAST BUILDING FAC ̧ ADE

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Powell, briefly for the record I suspect that Mike 

has been briefed as I have but I think it is important to put in the 

record why we could not have been compensated for what was a 

structural defect in that the fac ̧ade has leaned over, that it did not 

hold fast to the—— 

Mr. POWELL. We had that looked at, Mr. Chairman. We had the 

Department of Justice review all the options. It is over 30 years 

old. Apparently it is more of an equation of problems than just one. 

It is not really a contractor deficiency, it is not really an architectural design deficiency. What happened over time is the building 

settled incrementally. It is a veneer, so the wall behind it settled 

somewhat. The stainless steel pins that attach these panels, which 

are 2 by 5 feet, and there are some 16,000 or so of them—— 

Mr. MORAN. Each weighs about 450 pounds. 

Mr. POWELL. They are heavy, and I think it is called pore rock, 

but it is a cement bonding material, over time began to degrade. 

The engineers believe because of the climate change largely. Not 

water intrusion, which is something I might have expected, but it 

was that. So the pins began pulling out, and our engineering staff 

monitored this, I would add, weekly to make sure that there is no 

disastrous occurrence. Began pulling out. That, in turn, began compressing them down on each other, so the gaskets bowed in. We 

had a distinguished team of world-class engineers review it over 

these several years, and they have come up with a proposal, but 

that is the circumstances. I can certainly provide the technical data 

for you, which is extensive. 

Mr. MORAN. No. I just think we need to—— 

Mr. POWELL. But historically, that apparently is what happened, 

and unfortunately, now we have to address it, and we certainly 

thank you for your support for the project. It will be a project that 

will begin this year. It already really has begun, and the support 

system that will go back underneath the veneer will be a different 

one, and I am sure we will get the warranties that we—I was not 

there at the time so I do not know that I can answer it further, 

Mr. Chairman. 

SPECIAL EXHIBITION PROGRAM & PRIVATE FUNDING

Mr. MORAN. I hear you. Unfortunately, it has an adverse impact 

upon other things that the gallery is able to do. For example, you 

have got the Special Exhibition Program. It enables the gallery to 

bring great art treasures from all over the world to Washington 

and then the majority of those exhibits actually travel to other U.S. 

cities outside of Washington. It has been a very popular program. 

The planning process takes four or five years, but this year your 

request is only for $1.7 million. It is half of what we provided last 

year. You suggest you are going to raise the money from the private sector, but it is tough to get private money to contribute for 

a planning process. What kind of success have you had in raising 

the private funding? 

Mr. POWELL. We have some success. The federal budget before 

has been higher than that and has helped immensely in bringing 

these to us. The one good thing as I mentioned is we will not have 


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to alter our planning programs for our exhibitions and public programs. Those will go forward for both buildings, and the exhibition 

funds are very sorely needed. We do raise private funds for them, 

but the federal planning funds are incredibly important for us and 

have always been. 

MASTER FACILITY PLAN

Mr. MORAN. Well, unfortunately, again, it is difficult to add any 

more money to these kinds of initiatives that we like when we are 

having to put more than $40 million into facility reconstruction. This committee has also put $140 million into your Master Fa- cilities Plan over the years, and this year you are asking $5 million, which is less than half of what the committee provided last 

year. Is this going to come back to haunt us, giving shortage to 

your Master Facilities? 

Mr. POWELL. No, I do not think so, Mr. Chairman, because working with OMB, the Master Facilities Plan is currently underway 

with existing funds, and what is in this budget will allow it to continue, but really the idea will be that during the veneer project we 

will halt it. It is probably an appropriate time and space to do it. 

The West Building has been a strategic plan that, again, we have 

worked with OMB and with Congress and with great success over 

the course of several years, and we are in what we call work area 

four, which is the fourth quadrant of the West Building. We will 

complete that. This will not affect that, and the money will allow 

us to begin design development for the next phase of the master 

plan, which theoretically would occur after we finish the veneer 

project. We would go back and finish. 

Mr. MORAN. Okay. Well, you are doing a good job defending the 

budget request, Mr. Director. Mr. Simpson, I think we will just do 

the one round of questions in deference to the people waiting in 

line—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. Right. 

Mr. MORAN [continuing]. To testify as well. 

Mr. SIMPSON. You have asked most of the questions that I had. 

You said working with OMB. You know, that is kind of an 

oxymoron but—— 

Mr. POWELL. The with, you mean? Yeah. Yeah. It seems like for, 

does not it? 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yeah. 

Mr. POWELL. Yeah. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Is the $80 million going to cover the cost of this? 

Mr. POWELL. Those are the estimates. We have had peer group 

reviews of those estimates, and if there is any glimmer of light in 

it, when we go to bid in this context, I understand we might see 

some benefits to the budget at that time. 

Mr. SIMPSON. When are they going to start construction? 

Mr. POWELL. It will start this year. 

Mr. SIMPSON. This year? So we will be able to see—— 

Mr. POWELL. It is being vetted now. The design has been done 

and approved. It is pretty much through. We will go to bid soon. 

We are taking a look at the contractors that might have the qualifications to do this sort of work before we put it out, but it will go 

out very soon. 


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MASTER FACILITY PLAN

Mr. SIMPSON. I compliment you on creating the Master Facility 

Plan the Chairman mentioned earlier. This obviously will affect 

that plan, and obviously OMB is looking at if we are going to put 

$40 million here, we are going to have to take it out of somewhere, 

and when you look at reducing the facilities plan from $15.8 million to $5 million that was meant to address the backlog, how long 

does this put the backlog off, trying to address the complete backlog? 

Mr. POWELL. I think we are keeping up, we are keeping pace 

with it, but it will slow things down. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Slow things down. By any particular time? A couple of years? 

Mr. POWELL. I can ask one of my colleagues. Two years. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Two years. 

Mr. POWELL. Two years is where that is. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I understand—— 

Mr. POWELL. We can use the money. 

OFF-SITE OFFICE LEASES

Mr. SIMPSON. Yeah. I understand that National Gallery leases 

space in nearby office buildings to accommodate employees who are 

displaced during this ongoing repair and restoration work, and one 

of the impacts of the delays of this implementation will be that we 

will need to extend the off-site leases that are scheduled to expire 

in 2012, and ’13. What is the anticipated cost to extending these 

leases, and how many years will you have to extend these leases, 

I guess, to about two years. Is that accurate? 

Mr. POWELL. We will. The cost I would need to get back to you 

on the exact cost of that but—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. 

Mr. POWELL [continuing]. It would be three more years of leases 

that we would have to incur. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. How successful are we in this environment? 

Because this budget as I look at it, anticipates being able to raise 

non-federal funds to do a lot of these things or to make up for some 

of these things, whether it is the gallery financing, whether it is 

the Special Exhibitions Program and stuff. We are going down from 

what, 63 percent of the total to 24 percent of the total. We are 

going to have to raise that. How optimistic are you that you will 

be able to raise that in this economic environment to cover those 

costs? 

Mr. POWELL. I would say cautiously optimistic. We have begun 

to see corporate support which evaporated substantially for us in 

that area, that part of the economy were major sponsors of many 

of our exhibitions over the years. That eroded. Some personal support, foundation support. Everything kind of retracted. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Right. 

Mr. POWELL. But I think for our Exhibitions Program it is easier 

for me to say, Mr. Simpson, we have not had to cancel anything, 

but it has been hard sledding. 

Mr. SIMPSON. And your number of visitors is up. Right? 

Mr. POWELL. Number of visitors is up. 


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Mr. SIMPSON. Kind of interesting. You see the economy go down, 

people start staying closer to home, visitors of the Smithsonian as 

Secretary Clough was saying, visitorship is up there. The demands 

on the facilities go up and the revenue of the Federal Government 

goes down. 

Mr. POWELL. It is absolutely true. Washington is a great destination for families and for visitors, and I am delighted about that aspect of it. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Well, I appreciate it. Thank you for the work you 

do, and again, you have got some great people working for you. We 

certainly enjoy working with them. 

Mr. POWELL. Thank you very much. 

Mr. MORAN. Thanks very much, Mr. Simpson. Thank you—— 

Mr. POWELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MORAN [continuing]. Director. We love the National Gallery. 

Mr. POWELL. We appreciate it. 

Mr. MORAN. Fine job. 

Mr. POWELL. Hopefully next year I will not have to talk about 

building repairs. 

Mr. MORAN. So thank you, Mr. Powell. 

[The information follows:] 


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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010. 

JOHN F. KENNEDY CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING 

ARTS 

WITNESS 

MICHAEL KAISER, PRESIDENT 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN MORAN

Next we will hear from Michael Kaiser, the President of the John 

F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. I have to tell you, Mr. 

Kaiser, you are traveling all over this country, if not this world, on 

behalf of the arts. It has just been terrific. Do you want your piece 

of stone back there? 

Mr. POWELL. I will try to glue it back. 

Mr. SIMPSON. We might need it at some point in time. 

Mr. MORAN. You know, I do not want to sound too biased here, 

but boy, the Kennedy Center has just done such wonderful work, 

and you have done a great job. I know. I have got my opening 

statement right here, but I just fixated on all that Mr. Kaiser has 

been doing and all that he has done for us through the Kennedy 

Center. 

But these are tough times. They are tough times for theatres and 

the arts throughout the country, and I know you have extended 

yourself to address that. 

Just a word about the Kennedy Center for those who are not familiar with it. It was established back in 1958, as our Nation’s cultural center. It has been a living memorial to the late President 

since 1964. It used to be administered by the Park Service, but now 

the Board of Directors has full responsibility for all its operations 

since fiscal year ’95. So that has been 15 years now. The request is for $37 million. That is $3 million less than was 

provided last year. The reduction, of course, is coming from the 

capital repair and restoration account. You do not include funding 

for the Arts Management Program, although the subcommittee provided one half of a million dollars for that last year. 

We do want to make mention that Kathy Kruz is now on your 

staff from Senator Kennedy’s office. Senator Kennedy obviously has 

made wonderful contributions to this country and the Kennedy 

Center. I have seen him so many times at the center. He is going 

to be missed there as he is missed in the Halls of Congress. In her 

new position we know that Kathy can help continue his legacy. 

We have some questions; It has been a couple of years since you 

have been here. We are delighted to have you, Mr. Kaiser. 

Mr. Simpson. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Kaiser, for being here today and 

for your leadership in continuing the legacy of the Kennedy Center 

as the premiere center for the arts and a world leader in the arts 

in general. I cannot help but note this morning that your appointment back in 2001 may well have been one of the best decisions 

made by a previous Administration. We just like to throw that out 

there occasionally. 


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Mr. MORAN. Some would say the competition was not keen, but 

it was an excellent decision. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I am not—— 

Mr. MORAN. But it was an excellent decision. We are in complete 

agreement on that. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you for being here today, and thanks for the 

job you are doing. 

Mr. KAISER. Thank you very much, sir. 

Mr. MORAN. Very good. Mr. Kaiser, you may proceed with your 

statement. 

TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL KAISER

Mr. KAISER. Thank you. It is my pleasure to appear today before 

the subcommittee to present the Center’s budget request for fiscal 

year 2011. Before doing so I would like to thank the subcommittee 

for its past support and for allowing me the opportunity to share 

with you the Kennedy Center’s progress with its operations, maintenance, and renovations. I also would like to extend my gratitude 

to your staff members for their impressive work they do for us 

throughout the year. 

KENNEDY CENTER OVERVIEW

I would like to take a moment to describe the Kennedy Center. 

The Kennedy Center is both our national cultural center and living 

memorial to President John F. Kennedy. I do emphasize the word 

living since there is a vitality to the building and the institution 

that far exceeds anything that could have been envisioned when 

the Center was originally chartered by Congress in 1958, under 

President Dwight D. Eisenhower. 

Each year the Kennedy Center reaches over 1 million people, 

with more than 2,000 performances in all performing arts disciplines. Every season our focus is on developing programming that 

achieves national and international acclaim as is befitting our role 

as a national cultural center. 

But our performing arts activities are not limited to the Washington DC area. We are committed to serving people in all 50 

states. The National Symphony Orchestra, a vital part of the Kennedy Center for over 20 years, is fulfilling this mandate by expanding its national touring activities. Our theatre for Young Audiences 

on Tour Program brings the best of family theatre to 65 cities in 

38 states and serves over a quarter million people annually. 

The center is committed to making the arts accessible to everyone and presents free performances every day of the year on our 

Millennium Stage. In addition, these performances are available 

free to everyone on the internet. 

ARTS EDUCATION

Our leadership in the performing arts is mirrored by our commitment to arts education. The center has created one of the most extensive arts education programs in the world. We have committed 

$125 million over 5 years in this effort and serve 11 million children in the United States annually. We now train 30,000 teachers 

every year to bring the arts into the classroom at all levels. Our 


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Distance Learning Initiatives, which touch more than 1 million 

teachers and children, enable classrooms to experience world-class 

performances and programs broadcast from the Kennedy Center, 

and to your earlier question, Mr. Simpson, to many rural areas as 

well. 

Our Partners in Education Program mentors relationships between arts organizations and their community school systems in 

103 organization teams and school systems in 46 states. One of our 

newest initiatives, Any Given Child, seeks to work with individual 

communities across the country to ensure that all children have the 

arts as part of their educational experience. 

Based on the premise that every community has rich cultural resources, a plan is created to combine those resources with the 

schools and the Kennedy Center’s resources to coordinate arts education in a logical, equitable, and especially economic way. The 

Kennedy Center also provides training to talented young Americans who aspire to careers in dance, music, conducting, and set designs. Our American College Theatre Festival identifies the next 

generation of actors, designers, and playwrights with 20,000 students from 900 colleges participating. 

ARTS MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE

In addition, the Kennedy Center has instituted several programs 

which we hope will change the landscape of the arts in America. 

The premise of these programs is that our Nation invests heavily 

to cultivate artistic talent but comparatively little to train arts 

managers. The Arts Management Institute prepares arts managers 

to lead arts institutions throughout the Nation and the world and 

offers arts organizations practical training to address management 

challenges. 

ARTS IN CRISIS

In February, 2009, remote practical strategies for financial and 

institutional help during these difficult economic times, I initiated 

Arts in Crisis, a free consulting service for arts organizations 

throughout the country and a set of community conversations for 

staff and board members. With the program the center will reach 

69 communities in 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia, and I might add that we’ll celebrate the conclusion of this 

tour in your district in Boise, Idaho, on July 16. We hope you will 

be at the Morrison Center. 

Mr. SIMPSON. What a coincidence. 

NATIONAL CAPACITY BUILDING PROGRAM

Mr. KAISER. In fall, 2010, the Kennedy Center will implement a 

National Capacity Building Program. This program is modeled 

after an initiative launched in 2002, and developed for culturallyspecific performing arts organizations to provide strategic planning 

guidance and other technical assistance for executive directors, artistic directors, and board chairs of 31 arts organizations whose 

mission is to produce and present work for, by, and about AfricanAmerican, Latino, Asian American, and Native American people. 


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The success of this initial program fostered programs for a broad 

range of organizations in Washington, DC, and northern Virginia 

I might add, New York City, and Chicago. The new National Program will provide arts managers at over 200 organizations in five 

American cities with comprehensive training and strategic planning, marketing, and fundraising. In each city, I, along with members of my senior staff, will lead seminars and online discussions 

and provide specialized mentoring to each participating organization. I am especially grateful to this committee for its support of 

this important effort. 

FY11 BUDGET REQUEST

The Kennedy Center Board of Trustees and its staff take very seriously our responsibility to maintain our building, a federal asset, 

in the best condition possible. We appreciate the support and guidance we receive from Congress and your subcommittee in particular. The Office of Management and Budget has worked very 

closely with my staff to assess our budgetary needs and to evaluate 

our comprehensive building plan. 

I will also say, Mr. Chairman, that I am most grateful to this subcommittee for its support for our request for $40.447 million for 

fiscal year 2010. The Kennedy Center is requesting a total of $37.42 million for 

fiscal year 2011. That amount covers two important accounts; operations and maintenance for which $23.5 million is needed, and capital repair, for which $13.92 million is requested. 

I will delineate for you the projects, renovations, and costs that 

comprise these numbers. The Kennedy Center’s request for 2011, 

for capital repair and restoration funding will allow two projects for 

which design is currently in progress to move forward with construction. These are door hardware replacement to bring all doors 

up to current code with new lever handles, compliant door openers, 

panic hardware, and other opening devices. This is necessary for 

both accessibility and for life-safety reasons. 

The second project is modernization of the heating hot water system. The center system consists of a combination of electric and gas 

boilers that deliver hot water in a complex piping system, much of 

which is original to the building. This project will provide invaluable updates to this system, to improve heating delivery and control, reduce energy consumption, and extend the life of the equipment. 

In addition, the center’s request includes funding for project design for the renovation of our Terrace Theatre. This theatre which 

opened in 1978, and still has its original finishes, requires improvements to accessibility, finishes, and mechanical, electrical, and 

plumbing infrastructure. Construction is anticipated to proceed in 

2013, contingent on funding. 

OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE

The operations and maintenance needs of the Kennedy Center 

for fiscal year 2011, totals $23.5 million. This amount will fund the 

daily operation of the physical facility and building systems, including utility costs, preventive and predictive maintenance to ensure 

the center is open and fully functional every day of the year, nonVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:10 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 057302 PO 00000 Frm 00517 Fmt 6602 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A302P2.XXX A302P2

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routine and emergency repair projects, security officers, staff, and 

safety personnel to maintain a safe and secure building. Essential 

visitor services, including public tours, interactive kiosks, informational brochures, and other services related to the memorial aspect 

of the building, and the infrastructure to support these ongoing activities, including tradesmen, contracting, finance, human resources, information technology, and management. 

In closing, I would like to point out that in all projects the Kennedy Center undertakes we are guided by our goal of ensuring the 

center’s infrastructure is as energy and resource efficient as possible, and we are committed to minimizing the effects of our operations on the environment. The mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems projects, for example, include energy efficient upgrades, energy efficient lighting, and occupancy centers are being 

installed, and we have a robust recycling program. 

Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the Board of Trustees I thank you 

for the opportunity to address you this morning. I have the remarkable privilege of overseeing one of the most exciting organizations 

in the world. It is a national monument to President Kennedy and 

a living tribute to our American cultural heritage. I am grateful for 

the committee’s support and partnership, and I look forward to answering any questions that members of the subcommittee may 

have. 

Thank you very much. 

[The statement of Mr. Kaiser follows:] 


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Mr. MORAN. Good for you, Mr. Kaiser. Thank you very much. 

The Kennedy Center is both a national treasure as well as a national resource. The situation that arts organizations have had to 

deal with during this deep recession, if not depression, has been 

very difficult. They have faced some severe adversities, particularly 

with regard to financing. Their attendance in many areas was way 

down. Since 2008, really the end of 2008, more than 28 arts organizations have folded including in Bend, Oregon, Waltham, Massachusetts, in St. Paul, and Orlando. 

Most, of course, have been due to the economy and the inability to raise funds. Last year this subcommittee provided $500,000 for 

the center’s Art Management Initiative. The purpose of this was to 

provide practical strategies in fundraising, Board development, artistic planning, marketing, and strategic planning so that we could 

help them sustain themselves through these tough economic times. 

This is not what you were hired on to have to do, but as we say, 

this is a national resource as well. You are personally a resource 

because of your entrepreneurial ability that you have shown 

throughout your career to get things started, to find the funding to 

get them marketed, and make them successful. 

Please take a few minutes to share with us what you have done 

with that relatively smaller amount of money in terms of helping 

arts organizations throughout the country survive this recession. 

ARTS MANAGEMENT INITIATIVE

Mr. KAISER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have done two 

projects so far and have another two in mind. The first thing we 

did was last February we offered any performing arts organization 

in the United States that wanted free consulting help to help them 

with their challenges, we offered them a free consultant. Eighteen 

members of my staff, and myself included, are volunteer mentors. 

We then solicited volunteer mentors from throughout the United 

States, and we have 160 other mentors who are volunteering their 

time, and they are true public servants. To date 760 arts organizations have asked for our consulting help, and we have been working with those over the past year. They are all still solvent, which 

is very good news. 

But what I noticed was that a lot of organizations did not feel 

they needed a consultant or wanted a consultant and so I started 

these series of public conservations. I have committed to visiting all 

50 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia, for a total of 

69 cities. I was the last two days in Phoenix, Tucson, and Santa 

Fe, and the week before in Bismarck and Billings, and I am doing 

sessions publicly for arts managers, for their Board members, for 

artists to talk about how to deal with this recession and how not 

to deal with this recession. These have been very well received, and 

I am estimating that when we finish in Boise on July 16 we will 

have talked to publicly at least 10,000 people across the United 

States. 

I am talking about ways you do fundraising in this environment, 

ways to keep your programming vital, ways to keep Board members engaged. I started this initiative frankly because I was reading in the newspaper about so many organizations going away or 

cutting their programming and doing exactly the wrong things in 


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this environment, and so because my background is in helping 

troubled organizations, I felt it was time for the National Cultural 

Center to step in and do this work. 

In the future we will be starting regional arts management training programs across the country. We hope these will be a mixture 

of private and public funds. We have raised private money to do 

this. We hope that even though it is not officially in our request, 

this committee might consider continuing their funding for this activity. In the parlance of the Bible we are not giving people fish. 

We are trying to teach them how to fish, and what we are finding 

is a tremendous response to this from arts organizations across the 

United States. 

CURTAIN WALL

Mr. MORAN. Good for you. Thank you. I just have a budget question, and I am going to turn it to Mike, but last year, actually, back 

in fiscal year 2008, this subcommittee provided a very substantial 

amount of money for what was called the Curtain Wall. 

Mr. KAISER. Yes. 

Mr. MORAN. It is that wall of windows in the Grand Foyer that 

overlooks the river? I think we need to get an update on the status 

of that project, how the money has been obligated. You do not necessarily have to do it publicly here, but we need to—— 

Mr. KAISER. I am happy to give a brief update. 

Mr. MORAN. Why don’t you just give us a brief update? 

Mr. KAISER. Certainly. The delay in this project, which really is 

not so much a delay, one was caused by a continuing resolution 

that made it hard for us to actually access the money the committee was kind enough to give us, but, secondly, and very importantly, these windows take about 10 months to fabricate, and thirdly, we did discover PCB in the gaskets and the seals of the windows, which had to be addressed. So it is a very extensive project 

which now is underway. If you come to the center now, you will see 

big scaffolding up, the windows are coming down, and going back 

up, and indeed, all the windows of the Kennedy Center, both 

ground floor and at the Terrace level, will be replaced over the 

course of this year. We expect the entire project to be completed by 

the end of December. 

Mr. MORAN. Okay. That is what we wanted to hear. Lastly, can 

you give us a kind of sneak preview for what we can look forward 

to in this ensuing year? 

UPCOMING EVENTS

Mr. KAISER. Well, there is so much coming up. There will be a 

big festival of India, on January 20th we are going to celebrate the 

50th anniversary of the inauguration of President Kennedy and the 

contribution of that Administration to the arts; we are doing a new 

production of Stephen Sondheim’s ‘‘Follies,’’ and we are also going 

to celebrate the bicentennial of Mexico. There will be a great deal 

of programming, and starting this Sunday at the Kennedy Center 

we are doing our very first gospel festival. I have been trying every 

year to bring an art form to the Kennedy Center that does not typically get attention by cultural centers. We started with our country 


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music festival, a couple of years ago we did our a capella music festival, and this year we are going to do gospel music. 

Mr. MORAN. Very good. My granddaughter has heard rumor that 

you are going to do Mary Poppins, too. Is that—— 

Mr. KAISER. We are doing Mary Poppins. Absolutely. This summer. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you. Very good. 

Mr. Simpson. 

ARTS MANAGEMENT INITIATIVE FUNDING

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you. Again, thank you for being here today. 

The Arts Management Initiative that the Chairman was talking 

about, we broke with tradition last year and put $500,000 into 

that. Again, as you mentioned, your budget does not request any 

funding for that this year. How do you plan on continuing that 

with no federal funding? Are you going to be able to raise the 

money, or is this an appropriate role for federal funding? Should 

a portion of it be federal funding should this committee take with 

light heart what the suggestion was? 

Mr. KAISER. I hope you will take with light heart. We do believe 

this is a perfect place for public/private partnership. We have 

raised money for this endeavor and continue to. We would also appreciate it if this committee would consider continuing this funding. 

Mr. SIMPSON. If we do not put any funding into it this year to 

continue it, will you be able to continue it? 

Mr. KAISER. No. What will happen is we will be able to do a few 

cities around the country where we will do some more in-depth programming, but we would really like to go to some other cities, and 

this is going to sound, well, inappropriate, but I really do mean it, 

we really want to go to some rural areas. We focused the larger 

program so far on some of the bigger cities that have been very 

hard hit by the recession like Detroit and Seattle, but we really 

want to go to some of the more rural areas. 

RURAL COMMUNITIES & ARTS

In my tour across the country yesterday was my 50th city of the 

69. I have really been struck by the challenges of the arts but also 

the rigor of the arts in the rural communities. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yeah. 

Mr. KAISER. And at this point we do not have the resources to 

go into those communities. We can actually, as you will understand, have an easier time raising private funds for the bigger cities—— 

Mr. SIMPSON. Sure. 

Mr. KAISER [continuing]. Than for the rural cities. So to the extent that we could have some additional funding from this committee, we would truly appreciate it, and it would allow us to go 

in more depth and develop two year training programs for the arts 

leaders in some of the rural communities of the country. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Sometimes the rural communities have a more difficult time because, just as you said it, larger communities can 

raise money, although it might be decreased amounts, but the rural 


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communities get shut out entirely and have a difficult time raising 

money during these kinds of economic times. So—— 

Mr. KAISER. Absolutely, and the marketing challenges in rural 

communities are very, very great because there is not the density 

of an audience base, and so we work a lot in the rural communities, and we have spent a lot of time with rural organizations, 

talking about the way to use internet particularly as a device for 

marketing that is very inexpensive and allows you to have a broad 

geographic reach without having to have a very expensive effort. 

Mr. MORAN. Mike, would you yield for a moment? 

Mr. SIMPSON. Sure. 

DEMAND FOR ARTS MANAGEMENT INITIATIVE

Mr. MORAN. If the committee, for example, doubled that amount 

of money, are you suggesting that you still would not be able to 

meet the demand that is out there for consultation? 

Mr. KAISER. That is absolutely true. The demand is astonishing. 

There are 100,000 private, not-for-profit arts organizations in this 

country, and we begin to scratch the surface but only scratch the 

surface, and our goal with this more in-depth program is it was 

great for me to go around and meet everybody and talk about some 

of these high-level approaches, but each organization has its own 

needs, and what I do then is I am doing a program in New York 

right now for 266 organizations that I will complete next week. I 

have been working for 2 years to get each one to really understand 

how they can implement my suggestions. To me this is a very critical time to be doing this for the arts of this country. 

Mr. MORAN. It sounds like you may have some bipartisan support for that outreach. 

RURAL COMMUNITIES & ARTS

Mr. SIMPSON. It is fascinating to watch. It is not just how to 

manage a local, rural art initiative that is going on or something. 

A lot of times these small communities do not know what is available out there, and I went up and met with the Paul Allen Foundation in Seattle several years ago, and I did not know at the time 

when I went up there I was looking at some of the research they 

were doing on brain tissue and things like that, they have a huge 

impact on the arts throughout the Pacific Northwest. 

Mr. KAISER. Absolutely. 

Mr. SIMPSON. And one of the ladies that worked for them came 

down and toured—one of my staff people is on the Idaho Commission for the Arts—and toured the arts programs throughout Southeastern Idaho and Northern Idaho, in fact, and they do a great job 

in helping these small, rural entities maintain their art programs. 

Mr. KAISER. Absolutely. You know, I was just in Billings, Montana, two weeks ago, and 150 arts managers from around the state 

all drove in, some as far as six hours, because they do not have access to resources. 

Mr. SIMPSON. That was just on the other side of the mountains. 

Mr. KAISER. Exactly, and when they came in, meeting each 

other—not just hearing me speak—but meeting each other was 

really helpful in understanding what resources exist in that state, 

and we are finding that in every state to which I am touring. 


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NEA & KENNEDY CENTER COORDINATION

Mr. SIMPSON. Could you tell me what coordination there is between the Kennedy Center and the NEA? 

Mr. KAISER. Certainly. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Because the NEA does an awful lot with the arts 

obviously, and a lot of your testimony is similar to what the NEA 

does. What kind of coordination do you have? 

Mr. KAISER. We have a lot of coordination with the National Endowment. I spend a lot of time with Rocco Landesman myself discussing these issues. The NEA really funds primarily arts education as opposed to arts management education, and so these activities that we are talking about here are activities that complement and we coordinate with the NEA, but they do not duplicate the activities of the NEA or the funding of the NEA. 

Mr. SIMPSON. When we are trying to get arts out to rural America, as an example, Rocco was out to Idaho last week, and the 

Shakespeare Festival out there has a tour where they go to schools, 

seven actors go and they—— 

Mr. KAISER. Right. 

Mr. SIMPSON [continuing]. Presented Othello down in a couple 

rural schools and stuff, and we went to that presentation. You do 

some performing arts and presentations around the country also. 

Mr. KAISER. Absolutely. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Do you guys work together to make sure that you 

are trying to make this as broad based as possible? If the NEA is 

doing something in Idaho, do you say, well, we need to do something in Montana? 

Mr. KAISER. Absolutely. 

Mr. SIMPSON. So that it is spread across the country? 

Mr. KAISER. Most of this happens actually through the school 

systems themselves, that is, we work with the schools to make sure 

we are going to places where others are not going, because it is not 

just the NEA that is doing touring. It is also State Art Councils 

that are touring and individual arts organizations are touring, and 

what we do not want to do is have one school district have ten experiences and the next school district have none. 

And so what we are trying to do through the school systems, 

which tend to have the best information, to make sure that we are 

not duplicating the work of the NEA but frankly of the other touring organizations as well. 

EPA CITATION

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. Lastly, let me say, you know, tight budget 

times and stuff, and we are always looking for resources. Tell me 

if this is true. 

The center’s cooling system draws Potomac River water to absorb 

the building’s heat before it is pumped back into the river. Last 

year the EPA cited the center for pumping water into the river that 

was .2 degrees, not 2 degrees, .2 degrees Fahrenheit above the allowable temperature on one day of the year. Is that right? 

Mr. KAISER. Yes. 

Mr. SIMPSON. So what we are saying is if we are looking for 

money, there is an agency that has got some to spare. 


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Mr. KAISER. Certainly not ours. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you for being here, and I was going to say, 

not yours but if somebody is measuring the temperature at .2 degrees Fahrenheit, this is not even Centigrade. 

Mr. KAISER. Right. 

Mr. SIMPSON. This is .2 degrees Fahrenheit. One day a year. 

Somebody has got too much money. 

I appreciate you being here today. Thank you. 

Mr. KAISER. Thank you so much. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Kaiser. 


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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010. 

WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR 

SCHOLARS 

WITNESS 

LEE HAMILTON, DIRECTOR 

WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS

Mr. MORAN. We will now hear from Lee Hamilton, our former 

colleague, the Director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center 

for Scholars. It is awfully nice to see you, Lee. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Thank you, sir. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. It is important for this subcommittee to have hearings for all of these agencies. This is one of those that sometimes 

gets neglected, but those that it has direct involvement with recognize this is one of the best agencies in the Federal Government. It 

is unique, the federal contribution is relatively small, but the quality of the work is enormous, and the outreach extent of the Center’s is vital to provide policy-relevant research that enhances the 

capabilities of our leaders and citizens. 

The request is for $10 million. It is a 19 percent reduction from 

last year’s level. That would have serious consequences. I do not 

know why there is a reduction when this committee has been consistently and appropriately supportive. So I hope that you will take 

a little time explaining that to us, Mr. Hamilton, the layout, what 

impacts might occur if we were to follow through with this near 20 

percent reduction. 

Mr. Simpson, do you have any opening remarks? 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Briefly. In this day and age of 24-hour news and 

increasing tensions in the world over limited resources, I believe 

we need more forums for non-partisan discussion if we are to reach 

more sustainable solutions to our Nation’s and the world’s problems. And I can think of a no more distinguished and honorable 

person to lead that effort than our esteemed former colleague, Mr. 

Lee Hamilton. Thank you for being here today. I am tempted to say 

I can remember being just a little child sitting on my mother’s knee 

watching you on television in Congress, but that would be—— 

Mr. MORAN. He is not that old. 

Mr. SIMPSON. It has not been that long. Thank you for being here 

today. 

Mr. HAMILTON. I am not sure whether that is a good start or not. 

Mr. MORAN. Director Hamilton, you can proceed, if you would 

like. 

TESTIMONY OF MR. LEE HAMILTON

Mr. HAMILTON. Well, thank you very much. This subcommittee 

has been very important to us at the Wilson Center. We are deeply 


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grateful to you and your colleagues for the support that you have 

given the Center. 

We are kind of a unique institution. We are a public, private institution created by statute by Congress in 1968, 42 years ago now, 

and you provide core support for the Center, which is hugely important. It is about one-third of our budget, but terribly important. 

ROLE OF THE WILSON CENTER

We are not a think tank. We have two fundamental functions. 

We are a convener. President Wilson always believed that the 

scholar could learn from the politician, and the politician could 

learn from the scholar. That is basically what we are all about. We 

try to mix the two worlds. We try to link them. I think, we hope, 

to the benefit of both worlds, both academia and to the world of 

policy. 

So we get a lot of people together. To give you a quick illustration of that, yesterday we had General Petraeus at the Center. This 

afternoon we have the World Bank President, Mr. Zoellick, speaking. Next week we have Jim McNerney, who is the present CEO 

of Boeing, and so we have this incredible list of dignitaries and exceptionally-talented people coming into the Center, talking to our 

audiences there. 

We have over 800 meetings a year. Constant meetings. Most of 

them in this town but not all of them. Many of them around the 

country. Convening. That is the number one task. The number two 

task is we have scholars come from all over the world. We have 

about 150 scholars come in a year, maybe 70 or so at the present 

time are here, but we will have 150 throughout the year. These 

scholars are exceptional people. They are all doing very advanced 

research, very talented, very imaginative. They take their positions 

free of any constraint, no fundraising responsibilities, no tenure 

pressure, no faculty meetings, no university demands, no real obligations to the Center. It is an institution of advanced research. It 

is an academic institution. 

Now, the Congress has said, this Committee has said over a period of time, we want you to do three things. First of all, we want 

you to raise more money in the private sector. When I took over 

the responsibilities about a decade ago, we had one-third of our 

budget from the private sector revenue side, two-thirds of the budget from the public sector, from your appropriations. We have just 

about flipped that ratio, so it is now two-thirds private, one-third 

public. Just a little short of that now. So we have made dramatic 

progress in increasing the private funding, even at a time, which 

you all appreciate, that is pretty tough to raise money now from 

foundations and other places. So we have done pretty well on the 

raising of private money. 

Secondly, you said to us over a period of time, do a lot more with 

regard to outreach. You’ve got a lot of good activities going on down 

there at the Wilson Center, which is in the Reagan Building, but 

you are not getting it out enough. We have taken that seriously. 

I am not going to go into detail on that, but suffice it to say that 

we use a multiplicity of means to reach out, all kinds of print publications including award-winning books, brochures, speeches, 

websites, television, radio. You name the outreach mechanism, and 


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I think we do a pretty good job of it. We have put a lot of emphasis 

on that over a period of years. 

The third thing you have said to us is we want the work down 

there to be relevant. Now, I have to say upfront that what is relevant to the scholar and what is relevant to the politician are two 

different things, however, we have taken that seriously, and we 

have tried to focus our work on several broad themes: governance, 

future challenges to the United States, and the United States’ role 

in the world. 

Okay. That is by way of background. Most recently we have 

begun to expand our work in science. Mr. Simpson, you come from 

a scientific background as I understand it. We have had at the 

Center I think the finest project I know of in nanotechnology and 

have become deeply respected in that field, not science of nanotechnology so much as the implications of it. And we are now engaging 

a new initiative on synthetic biology. 

FY11 BUDGET REQUEST

Now, we’ve got a big problem. The big problem is the OMB has 

recommended what, in effect, is about a 20 percent, 19 percent cut. 

I do not know why, and they have to speak for themselves there. 

I talked just yesterday with the Director of the OMB, but they 

want to cut very sharply our programming. I will let them speak 

for themselves. 

We are requesting level funding for fiscal year 2011 plus the addition mandated for staff salaries, federal salaries. So we are requesting a total amount of $12.396 million. The OMB is recommending $9.922 million, and that is quite a gap. 

The Chairman asked what the impact of that would be. Obviously, we have looked at that very carefully, and I do not think I 

exaggerate when I say to you that it is a very dire situation if the 

OMB budget figure goes through, and I do not think I am exaggerating by saying to you it would call into doubt the viability of 

the institution. 

Let me give you some specifics. A 40 percent decline in the budgeted operating expenses for program and administrative activities. 

The elimination of some public service and outreach activities. One 

of those new activities, incidentally, is a new initiative with regard 

to Asia, which was very much an interest of your predecessor as 

Chairman. I understand he still serves on the subcommittee, Mr. 

Dicks. Among other things there, we put together the Kissinger Institute headed by former Ambassador Stapleton Roy. I tell you, the 

programming and activity of the Kissinger Institute has just been 

terrific, and I think we are developing at the Wilson Center one of 

the finest research organizations on Asia that we have in this country and a lot of good programming. All of that Asia Initiative would 

be eliminated. 

We would have a 59 percent, almost 60 percent reduction in public policy scholars. We have about 40 of these scholars in residence 

at some point this year. We would probably have to cut that to 12. 

We would have an 80 percent reduction in scholar support. When 

a scholar comes to the Center, they have all kinds of support, and 

we have a lot of recruitment expenses recruiting these people. We 


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have library research materials and access to data bases. All of this 

would be cut about 80 percent. 

The proposed budget cuts would eviscerate the Center’s library, 

almost completely wipe it out because the only thing that would be 

left would be the salaries of the librarian staff. We would not have 

any money for subscriptions, we would not have any money for 

publications, or all the rest of it. 

And the outreach activities, which you folks have very strongly 

asked us to improve over a period of time, would be reduced we 

think by about 36 percent. 

Now, I can furnish the staff with a great deal more detail and 

more importantly I want to say that your staff people have been 

exceedingly helpful and interested in what we are doing, and we 

have kept in close contact with them. I would be happy to furnish 

to the staff in detail the impact of these cuts. 

Our Board is Presidentially appointed. The present Board was all 

appointed by President Bush, and I expect there are going to be 

some changes beginning this year. New members will be appointed 

by President Obama. That Board has unanimously instructed me 

to oppose the OMB reductions, and so I am carrying out the wishes 

of the Board. 

The proposed budget that we suggest, which is the straight-line budget of $12.396 million plus the increase for federal salaries, 

would enable us to continue the work that we had been doing. We 

would have 150 scholars a year, we would not be expanding any. 

We would continue the increased Asia programming, which was incidentally referenced in the statement of managers that accompanied the Appropriation Bill last year. We would sustain the programs that we now have. 

We would be able to add, because of savings we have achieved, 

a preeminent scholar group. One of the things we have confronted 

here is the competition for scholars because of all of these think 

tanks around town which do terrific work. The competition for 

scholars is really tough across this country, and we—our institution—depends on attracting really high-quality scholars. Their reputation makes the reputation of the Center. 

So we would be able to continue all of that. We would be able 

to continue some important initiatives in outreach, including a redesign of our website, which we will pay for with private funds, but 

which we will need the public funds for continuous, necessary updates and maintenance. 

So the bottom line for me is that the cuts of the OMB, if they 

go through, will call into question the continued viability of the 

Wilson Center. Now, we know that we cannot become complacent. 

I will conclude with this. We are constantly reviewing, and the 

Board of Directors under Chairman Gildenhorn’s direction, has 

said to us we want you to start a strategic review, which we are 

now doing. We are looking at our outreach activities. We are looking at our how we recruit scholars. We are looking at how we better use our space in the Reagan Building. We are looking at how 

we increase our private sources of funding. Incidentally, we have 

completely redesigned our development activities. At one time we 

were very dependent upon fundraising dinners, with which we had 

great success at over a period of time. That method of fundraising 


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has kind of reached a plateau, and we are now doing many, many 

other things in development to increase private sources of funding. 

We are looking at diversity at the Center, not just the people who 

work there but the scholars who come there, and we are thinking 

constantly about how we attract better scholars, better speakers to 

enhance and improve the work of the Center. So all of that will be 

taking place this year. 

Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Hamilton follows:] 


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KISSINGER INSTITUTE ON CHINA AND THE U.S. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Hamilton. I am very well aware of 

Mr. Kissinger’s initiative with regard to relations with China during the Nixon Administration, but why is it named after Henry 

Kissinger? Does he contribute a lot of his time, or did he make a 

major contribution to it? 

Mr. HAMILTON. He does not contribute a lot of his time. It was 

named after him because he is especially identified, of course, with 

the opening to China. He was instrumental in that. He has been 

helpful to us in raising money, and he does participate in some of 

our programs. We had a program just a couple of weeks ago in 

Hong Kong. I did not attend. He was on his way there when he 

took ill in Korea, I believe, and could not make it, but he has come 

to the Center on several occasions to speak. He is personally very 

interested in the program, and he has been helpful to us. 

CUTS IN BUDGET, EFFECT

Mr. MORAN. I have got a number of questions here. I do not want 

to take up too much time. I want to give Mr. Simpson an opportunity, but your outreach. You talked about the impact on the library and on the Kissinger Institute. Is that where the cut would 

be exclusively focused, or how would it affect your outreach ability? 

Mr. HAMILTON. It affects us across the board. It is not just the 

Asia Initiative. I mentioned that because that was new. It has a 

dramatic impact on the number of public policy scholars we can 

have. It cuts them by 60 percent. It cuts by 80 percent the amount 

of money we can give to scholar support. It cuts very dramatically, 

as I suggested, the library, and outreach expenses. Printing is expensive. Radio and television are expensive, and so all of those programs would be cut back pretty sharply. 

Now, I suppose the OMB would say to us they want us to raise 

more money privately. I think our record is pretty good there, but 

even if we were to accept the OMB figure and try to make it up 

in the private sector, it would take us years to do that. You just 

cannot jump rapidly and raise $3 or $4 million additional dollars 

today. 

Mr. MORAN. Well, particularly at this time, particularly with all 

the competition for federal dollars. 

Mr. HAMILTON. You have got all the competition, you have got 

the private sector drying up. Funding is drying up. 

Mr. MORAN. Yes. About a third of your employees are federal employees. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Correct. 

Mr. MORAN. What would happen in terms of personnel cuts? 

Mr. HAMILTON. This is a delicate matter because anything I say 

on this is going to have some impact. We would do all we could to 

avoid reductions in federal employees. One-third of them are federal at our institution, but I could not guarantee that there would 

not be some reductions down the line. 

PARTNERING WITH ORGANIZATIONS

Mr. MORAN. I am interested in the joint venturing that you engage in with institutions here and abroad. Can you tell us a little 


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more about your activities, especially in Latin America and concerning transparency and accountability in Muslim countries? 

Mr. HAMILTON. We have an extraordinary partnering capability. 

I think we are now partnering with some 70 different institutions. 

Some are universities but not just universities alone. The Latin 

American Program which you mentioned specifically, we have cohosted with a variety of Latin American-based institutions on topics like Haiti, Cuba, U.S./Mexican relations, Colombia. We have the 

Kennan Institute which focuses on Russia and Ukraine. They have 

been working with the National Science Foundation, for example. 

We have Middle East programs that have spent a lot of time and 

effort on Islam and the U.S. relationship with the Islamic world, 

gender issues, and transparency issues, accountability issues in 

Muslim countries. 

I think we have some of the finest programming on Islam that 

I know of in this city. One of our staff scholars has a particular interest in the status of women in the Islamic world, and we have 

had a large number of Islamic women leaders come to the Center 

for programming and the like. 

We also have had very close relations with Korea, South Korean 

universities, Las Vegas Law School, it goes on and on and on. And 

we get so much enrichment in our own programming from collaboration. We participate with the National Laboratories on scientific 

endeavors and with the Hoover Institution, with Ohio State, and 

it just goes on and on. With the Miller Center at the University of 

Virginia. 

Mr. MORAN. Yes. Very good. Mr. Simpson. 

FUNDING, PRIVATE VERSUS PUBLIC

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Last year in ’09, the federal portion of the budget went from $10 million to $12,225,000. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Correct. 

Mr. SIMPSON. So there was about a 22 percent increase. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Right. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Now they are talking about a 19 percent reduction, 

and as I look at it it would be about $78,000 below the ’09, level, 

to $9,922,000. Is that right? 

Mr. HAMILTON. I think your arithmetic is about right. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yeah, so it would be back to roughly where we 

were in ’09, before we had the 22 percent increase. Now, are you 

going to be able to maintain the private fundraising level that you 

have in the past? Do you think you are going to be able to maintain 

the two-thirds portion? 

Mr. HAMILTON. It will be very difficult for us to do so, and the 

reason is that we have focused much of our fundraising capabilities 

on dinners, private dinners honoring different people. That has 

been very successful, but we have clearly hit a plateau on that, and 

it may even be going down. We have to make that up with other 

private sources. We have a new development director. She is putting into place a lot of new outreach and development efforts, but 

it is going to take some time to kick in. 

So we will not be able to replace with private funding that gap. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Not in this year at least. 


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Mr. HAMILTON. Yeah. 

Mr. SIMPSON. What we are talking about, though, is if you look 

at your total funding, two-thirds of it coming from private funding, 

one-third of it coming from federal sources. If you can maintain the 

two-thirds, what we are talking about is about a 61⁄2 percent reduction in overall funding because we are reducing by 20 percent, 19 

percent, one-third of your budget. Right? So that would be about 

overall a 61⁄2 percent reduction, which does not sound as bad, but 

I understand if you cannot maintain the private funding, then it 

is obviously more than that. 

Mr. HAMILTON. No. We would have very great difficulty, and we 

would not be able to carry out any of the new initiatives which you 

asked us to do. 

FUNDING, PRIVATE DONOR RESTRICTIONS

Mr. SIMPSON. Are there limitations on what you can use the private funding for when the private funds are given to your organization? 

Mr. HAMILTON. Almost all private funding has restrictions and 

constraints, and that is one of the really big problems. Donors 

today, as you know, it is their money obviously, but they put 

strings on it. 

Mr. SIMPSON. They put directions onto it? 

Mr. HAMILTON. They do. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yeah. 

Mr. HAMILTON. And a lot more than they did 10 years ago, for 

example. and the thing they do not like to pay for is administration. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yeah. 

Mr. HAMILTON. They want programmatic activity, they want impact, which is fair enough, but it does create really big problems 

for us because the administrative side gets short changed. 

Mr. SIMPSON. So is that why if this reduction were to stand, it 

would have such an impact on the administrative side, the library? 

Mr. HAMILTON. Right. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Those things that we consider the infrastructure of 

the program? 

Mr. HAMILTON. That is correct. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Donors will donate to, say, the China Initiative—— 

Mr. HAMILTON. That is right. 

Mr. SIMPSON [continuing]. To do that kind of stuff but—— 

Mr. HAMILTON. I think you have got it figured exactly right. We 

have about 140 people, I think, on the staff now. We have a wonderful facility. It takes a lot of maintenance, of course, and all of 

that administrative side would be hurt badly. 

NANOTECHNOLOGY AT THE CENTER

Mr. SIMPSON. Tell me a little bit about the nanotechnology. I 

kind of found that interesting. It is just something I never thought 

of. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Well, I am no expert in it, but we had from a 

Pew Grant money given to us to begin to explore the implications 

of nanotechnology. That project has pretty much reached its conclusion now, and as a result of it the Center developed, I think, quite 


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a reputation for understanding the implications of nanotechnology. 

We have had a number of conferences on it, and today nanotechnology is much better understood, not just because of our work but because of the work of many others; the implications, the potential 

of it. Among other things they would discuss a lot of products at 

the Center that were developed by nanotechnology, and you saw 

the potential of the program. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yeah. It is a fascinating subject, and I suspect you 

will be issuing a report. 

Mr. HAMILTON. I think reports already have been issued on this. 

What we did here, I think, was what we are pretty good at doing, 

if I may brag a little bit, and that is we convene people, not in 

large meetings, but you get the corporate people and the private 

sector people, the government people and the scholars to come together, and they discuss nanotechnology. Like any discipline, I 

guess, they tend to get very focused and very narrow, and what you 

want when you have a new science like nanotechnology suddenly 

explode on you, you want people from outside that science to begin 

to look at the implications of it, and that is what we have done. 

I will be happy to send to you the reports that we have. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I would love to read it. 

Mr. HAMILTON. You would understand them better than I. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I do not know if I would or not, but I will tell you 

that one of the biggest challenges we face in society today is the 

rapid change of technology, so rapid that we do not have time to 

adapt to it. You know, I am still one of those guys who is not going 

to buy a computer until they get the final one made because I am 

tired of every six months having to have a new computer. No, I am 

just kidding, but it is one of the real challenges, and we are faced 

at this time where us human beings like to see stability, and people ask me all the time, you know, how are we going to defend ourselves if we do not have a steel industry in this country? How are 

we going to build ships? 

I am not sure the next battleships will be built out of steel. 

Mr. HAMILTON. That is right. 

Mr. SIMPSON. And you cannot deny the advances in that technology that nanotechnology is having. They say that will be the 

next quantum leap like computers were, that nanotechnology will 

be the next quantum leap in materials and science. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Our heavy emphasis at the Center has been on 

the social sciences as you would expect. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yeah. 

Mr. HAMILTON. That is the Wilsonian tradition, but it is interesting. About five or six years ago we partnered very closely with 

the national laboratories on super-computing. We had all kinds of 

meetings with regard to the implications of super computers. Then 

we moved to nanotechnology. We really did kind of the same thing. 

What are the implications of nanotechnology? Now, the Center is 

doing synthetic biology. 

One of the advantages of the Wilson Center is that it brings together a lot of disciplines to focus on a particular problem, and you 

get out of these kind of stovepipe disciplines that have been true 

not only of government but of academia as well. So many of our 

projects are cross-disciplinary. 


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Mr. SIMPSON. One of the hugest challenges we have got and you 

are still focused on the social aspect of it even though you are 

studying nanotechnology because, I mean, you are not into the 

science of it, but all of these rapid discoveries have huge implications on all of our social institutions, whether it is our political institutions, religious, psychological, educational, whatever. It has 

huge implications on how they are going to affect our society. 

Mr. HAMILTON. That is correct. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yeah. Well, I appreciate the work you do and look 

forward to working with you, and I would like to see those reports 

just out of curiosity. 

Mr. HAMILTON. We extend an invitation to all of you. Our next 

Board meeting will feature the Federal Reserve Chairman, Mr. 

Bernanke, who is speaking. I will plug the Center in this way, too, 

that people like to come to the Center to speak because they recognize it is a non-partisan and a neutral platform, and there are advantages oftentimes to a speaker to have that kind of a platform. 

We try very, very hard to protect that reputation, and I think we 

do a reasonably good job of it. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I do, too. Thank you. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. This subcommittee is not 

going to force you to suffer that cut. It is just we are going to have 

to figure out where to get the money from someplace else. As you 

know, this is a zero-sum game. We find the money for you, we have 

to take it from somebody else, but we are impressed with your 

work, and we expect you to be able to carry forward with that very 

important work. 

Thank you, Mr. Hamilton. 

Mr. HAMILTON. Thank you. 

[The information follows:] 


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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010. 

THE PRESIDIO TRUST 

WITNESS 

CRAIG MIDDLETON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR 

Mr. MORAN. Next we will hear from the Executive Director of the 

Presidio Trust, Mr. Craig Middleton. Thank you for waiting so 

long, Mr. Middleton. Welcome. Thank you. Do you want to introduce your colleague for the record? Is she going to sit here with 

you? 

Mr. MIDDLETON. This is Dana Polk. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Yes, Dana. It has been a number of years since the 

subcommittee has been able to hear from the Presidio Trust as 

well. Let me just mention for the record some of the background 

here. The Congress established the Presidio Trust in 1996, to govern what is a unique National Park site, one of the Nation’s oldest 

military posts. The mission of the trust is to preserve the Presidio 

as an enduring resource for all the American people, to ensure its 

preservation by making it financially self-sustaining. Very important aspect of the authorization. 

Appropriations were authorized for 15 years through fiscal year 

2012, and then the trust is responsible for its own long-term operations and maintenance of the Presidio, and last year the committee provided $23 million. Your request this year is for $15 million, a reduction of $8 million. Although your 2011 request is consistent with the authorized amount before this year, over the years 

the trust has received $6.6 million less than was authorized. We 

are aware of that, and we do look forward to your testimony. 

Mr. Simpson. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. 

Middleton, for being here today to testify and more importantly for 

your longstanding leadership to make the Presidio Trust a model 

for a public/private partnership and a successful example of a 

green infrastructure. I enjoyed meeting with you yesterday to talk 

about this, and I will tell you what. If you look at that picture, Mr. 

Chairman, that is a valuable piece of property. 

Mr. MORAN. I should say. 

Mr. SIMPSON. We could—— 

Mr. MORAN. Do you want to put a real estate development there? 

Mr. SIMPSON. Except for that part where the golf course is. We 

need to maintain that. 

Mr. MORAN. Oh, yes. Priorities. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you for being here today. 

Mr. MORAN. Go ahead. Proceed. 

TESTIMONY OF EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR CRAIG MIDDLETON

Mr. MIDDLETON. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, 

Mr. Simpson, and thank you, Delia, for all your work. It is wonderVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:10 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 057302 PO 00000 Frm 00581 Fmt 6602 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A302P2.XXX A302P2

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ful to be here, and I invite you all to come out and see the property 

and recognize just how important it is to keep it in federal hands. 

I would like, Mr. Chairman, to submit my testimony and then 

summarize—— 

Mr. MORAN. Please summarize. 

Mr. MIDDLETON [continuing]. In the interest of time. 

Mr. MORAN. We do have things at noontime, but you have been 

waiting patiently, so we appreciate the acceleration. 

Mr. MIDDLETON. What I would really like to leave you with is 

two messages. One is that the Presidio Trust experiment or model 

for sustaining a park independent of ongoing federal taxpayer support is working, and we will be financially self-sufficient in 2013, 

as we promised. We believe in keeping our promises, and we will 

do that. 

The trust has leveraged public dollars, limited public dollars, to 

attract private investment. Over the past decade we have brought 

in about $1 billion, $200,000 in private investment, and that is 

about four times the level of the federal investment, so that we put 

great stock in leveraging, and it has been quite successful. 

The second thing I would like to leave you with is the results, 

and the result on the ground has really been tremendous. We are 

now welcoming about four million visitors a year, 7,000 people either work or live in the park. We are putting the finishing touches 

on a campground which will be the only campground in San Francisco, and we have rehabilitated over 300 historic buildings, making the Presidio the largest historical preservation project in the 

country, while also giving tangible expression to the importance of 

the history of the Presidio that dates back to 1776, when the Spanish founded a small post up there that ended up becoming San 

Francisco. 

PRESIDIO OVERVIEW

The Presidio is unique among national park sites. There are no 

other national park sites with six million square feet of buildings 

with the infrastructure of a small city and with a community that 

lives in the park. So to that end the Congress established a tailormade organization, the Presidio Trust, to be specifically designed 

to handle that kind of a problem or challenge. And the place itself 

inspires us. The place is beautiful as you have seen from the pictures, and I know you have been there and seen it in person. It 

has beautiful scenic qualities, it has huge historic importance related to the development of the Western United States, it has a 

community, as I mentioned, once military, now civilian, and it has 

a tremendous 200-year legacy of service to our country. 

So the place inspires us to think of what we do, not only in terms 

of the bottom line, which is, of course, very important, but also in 

terms of four pillars; environment, history, community, and service. 

So, for example, as we rehabilitate historic buildings, we are always looking for ways to make them more sustainable. Can we 

bring in more sustainable-type energy systems to put into the 

buildings? How do we use the Internet to help us regulate energy 

flows in buildings? And we have been quite successful working with 

the National Trust for Historic Preservation on figuring out how 


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best to marry these two things that do not often marry very well; 

sustainability and historic preservation. 

As we remediate Army era landfills we are replacing them with 

native plant communities. So we are just trying to blend these different things that are inspired by the place. We are building a community of tenants and residents. They invest in the park. They 

help us with ongoing operations. They get out and get their hands 

dirty and help with the stewardship of the place. We now have over 

200 organizations in the park, and they run the gamut. There is 

George Lucas’s Industrial Light and Magic, which does the special 

effects for many of the movies, and there is the YMCA that handles 

programs for kids, and Outward Bound has just opened up an office out there. 

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS

Twenty-seven hundred people live there in refurbished Army 

housing, everything from barracks to generals’ homes, and they pay 

rent. The rent goes to help support the park. We also are really devoting more time and energy to programming. We recognize the 

historic importance of the place, and so we are trying to use programming to help educate people about it, not only about the Spanish settlement and the origins of Spanish California and the origins 

of San Francisco, but also things like the top-secret military intelligence school that was established where Japanese Americans 

were cracking codes, while at the same time in World War II, General DeWitt was issuing the order from the Presidio to intern many 

of their families. 

So there is a lot of give and take and a lot of interesting stories 

to tell, not just about history but about history’s relevance to what 

we are facing today. 

Another program opportunity is our camping program. We have 

2,400 hundred kids coming out from underserved communities in 

the city and beyond to camp under the stars for the first time in 

their lives, and this is a great learning experience for them. I know 

for me camping was always a big deal when I grew up and still 

is, and so, you know, we are really trying to let kids from the Tenderloin and Chinatown learn what that is like. 

And as we celebrate our dedication to veterans and their dedication to the Presidio over the years and to the country, incidentally, 

the Speaker was with us on Veteran’s Day to commemorate a beautiful overlook above the National Cemetery, which was established 

in the 1860s, is the oldest in the West, the overlook was dedicated 

to veterans. But as we focus and think about their dedication and 

sacrifice, we try to figure out how the Presidio can contribute to the 

legacy of service that they left us, and service in the park is at 

record levels. Forty-thousand hours of volunteer time were clocked 

last year, and we are looking to the theme of service to country and 

community to help us figure out and inform what we want to do 

at Fort Scott, which is the last remaining fort within the five-fort 

system that is the Presidio. This Fort overlooks the Golden Gate, 

the Pacific and the city of San Francisco. We think it should be 

dedicated to service, and we are trying to figure out what that can 

mean and would love your advice on it. 


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PARTNERSHIPS

There has never been any question that the Presidio Trust would 

need partners, financial and programmatic, to pull off this transformation of the oldest, continuously-operated military post in the 

country to a national park site. The money itself required that, and 

as I mentioned before, we put great stock in leveraging; I have a 

chart here and I think that you can see that the federal investment, while very substantial, has contributed to a much larger investment by the private and philanthropic sectors. 

Appropriations are essential to this partnership strategy. They 

indicate government support, and certainly those other investors 

want to see the government support, and it has been very important. So thank you for your strong support over the years. This was 

clearly an experiment. In 1996, when we got this trust authorized, 

we were hoping we could get financially self-sufficient in 15 years, 

but, you know, projections are just projections. And I would like to 

say that it is working as a result of careful investment. We have 

gone from dependency on the federal dollar of 95 percent in 1998, 

to about 20 percent now. That percentage is obviously going down, 

and within two years will be 0 percent. 

In closing, I would just like to make the observation, and it is 

a totally objective observation, that this is one of the most interesting base realignments in the country and could not have happened without the strong and longstanding support of this committee and the Congress. And so I express the appreciation of our 

Board and of our entire staff and the community out there for your 

continued support. 

Thank you so much. 

[The statement of Mr. Middleton follows:] 


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DOYLE DRIVE

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Middleton. You received a fairly 

substantial sum just recently because of the Doyle Drive going 

through the park, and it has allowed you to accelerate your building renovation plans, although you are losing rental income as a 

result. But the right-of-way payment that you received did enable 

you to begin a number of projects which had been planned to take 

place in later years. How many additional projects were you able 

to fund? 

Mr. MIDDLETON. Well, I would say that, as you mentioned, all of 

the projects that we are funding were already on the list, we’re 

moving them up because of the availability of this funding from 

Doyle Drive. I would say about five or six new projects, or not new 

projects but projects that will be accelerated. 

Mr. MORAN. Good. 

Mr. MIDDLETON. Incidentally, I would like to mention that when 

we established the trust and created the various financing mechanisms, one of which was appropriations, a key piece was treasury 

borrowing, $150 million in treasury borrowing. That has not been 

forthcoming. Fifty million has been forthcoming, but the other 100 

has not for various reasons. That would have allowed us to essentially jump start, move projects up, and generate the revenue from 

those projects to help support the ongoing operations later. 

The $63 million that we would get from Doyle Drive, as you mentioned, it will offset some losses that we will sustain because of 

Doyle Drive, but it also helps to make up for that 100 million that 

we have not been able to get. 

Mr. MORAN. How much in total have you gotten out of the Defense Appropriations Bill over the years? 

Mr. MIDDLETON. Over the years? 

Mr. MORAN. Yes. 

Mr. MIDDLETON. I think we have probably gotten about 10 million. 

Mr. MORAN. Ten million dollars. 

Mr. MIDDLETON. That is a guess. I could get it for you. 

[The information follows:] 


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Mr. MORAN. Mr. Simpson. 

CLEANUP SITES

Mr. SIMPSON. I was going to ask that. Being a military base you 

would think the Defense Department would have done more, but 

I do not want to go there. Do you have other clean-up sites? Are 

there hazardous waste clean-up sites on the Presidio that need to 

be cleaned up like there are in most military bases when we BRAC 

them? 

Mr. MIDDLETON. Yes. There are. Presidio is pretty hilly and you 

can be sure that generally wherever there is a ravine, there is a 

landfill. That is where they put the stuff that they needed to put 

somewhere. So we have ten landfills on the Presidio. We are cleaning them up. Some of them we take out, and some of them we cap. 

Early on in 1999, we made a deal with the Army in which we said, 

look, this is really not your business. You need to go take care of 

the country. We need to take care of the Presidio. Why don’t you 

transfer the authority and the responsibility to us along with $100 

million, and we will do the clean up, and so they did. They gave 

us $99 million, and then we bought an insurance policy, two insurance policies totaling another $100 million to cover us for obvious 

overruns, and we are at about $150 million now. So I think we are 

going to come in just about right. 

Mr. SIMPSON. So you will have that cleaned up for—— 

Mr. MIDDLETON. Yes. 

ROUTE 101 CONSTRUCTION

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. Route 101 construction is going to add some 

cost. Is that right? 

Mr. MIDDLETON. Route 101, which is the approach to the Golden 

Gate Bridge, it is going to be a wider road. This is an antiquated 

road that is, I think on a scale of one to 100, 100 being safe, it is 

a two, so it needs to be replaced. And in widening the road and 

changing the alignment somewhat, they are taking out a number 

of our buildings that would otherwise be generating revenue for us. 

So there is a cost to us. 

And there is also a cost to us during the construction phase related to lower rents because people do not want to live near a construction site, so we have to give them some consideration for that. 

REVENUE

Mr. SIMPSON. Is most of your revenue that you get from the private side from rents? 

Mr. MIDDLETON. Yes. Almost all of it. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Does the city of San Francisco contribute any 

money? Because you mentioned that it is a camping site, trails 

through it, all of that kind of stuff. It is essentially a city park or 

will be. Kind of like the Golden Gate Park, will not it? 

Mr. MIDDLETON. Well, we consider it a national park. It has got 

national attributes, nationally-important aspects and it is like 

many of the national parks in urban areas, you know. It offers the 

National Park System a way of interfacing with urban populations, 


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which is really great for the system and great for the urban population. 

Mr. SIMPSON. But the city of San Francisco does not give you 

anything? 

Mr. MIDDLETON. Not really. The one thing that they do provide 

is bus service to and from the Presidio. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. 

Mr. MIDDLETON. But we generate most of our own water and to 

the extent that we do not, we buy it from the city. 

SELF-SUFFICIENCY BY 2013

Mr. SIMPSON. Self-sufficiency by 2013, going to be accomplished? 

Mr. MIDDLETON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. SIMPSON. The $5 million increase last year was to kind of 

make up for the fact that on our scale of what Congress will be appropriating over those years, we had not met what we had said. We 

still have not met it. We are still, what, $6.6 million down? 

Mr. MIDDLETON. Correct. 

Mr. SIMPSON. If Congress say does not come up with that $6.6 

million to get it back on the line, are you still going to be able to 

reach self-sufficiency, or do you need that $6.6 million? Obviously, 

you would like the $6.6 million. 

Mr. MIDDLETON. Well, obviously, we would like the $6.6 million, 

and clearly, you know, self-sufficiency is an important piece—— 

Mr. SINGLETON. Right. 

Mr. MIDDLETON [continuing]. Once the appropriations stop, I 

would say that by definition we are self-sufficient. So that is really 

up to you, but we will make it, but we will not be able to do as 

much. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Okay. Appreciate it. Thank you for being here 

today. 

Mr. MIDDLETON. Thank you. 

Mr. MORAN. Thanks very much, Mr. Middleton. We do appreciate 

you being here. I am glad we were able to have you testify this 

year, and we look forward to working with you at least through 

2013. Good luck. It is a beautiful national resource. 

Mr. SIMPSON. After that we will come and play golf. 

Mr. MIDDLETON. Well, thank you. 

Mr. MORAN. But we are not going to let them develop that Presidio. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Just a golf course. 

Mr. MORAN. Nice to see you, Mr. Middleton. 

Mr. MIDDLETON. Nice to see you. Thank you. 

Mr. MORAN. Thank you. All right. Concluded. 


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THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 2010. 

STRENGTHENING NATIVE AMERICAN COMMUNITIES: 

INDIAN HEALTH SERVICE FY 2011 BUDGET REQUEST 

WITNESS 

YVETTE ROUBIDEAUX, DIRECTOR, INDIAN HEALTH SERVICE 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Simpson will be here shortly, in time for questions. He has already seen your prepared statement, but perhaps 

in the interests of time, because once we have this series of votes, 

then there are going to be 5-minute votes, so we are going to have 

to cut the meeting to a shorter period of time than we would have 

liked. So maybe you could proceed now, Doctor. 

The Administration has proposed a substantial increase in the 

Indian Health Service budget. It stands out because it is one of the 

very few domestic discretion increases there are in the entire federal budget. It is a testament to you and to the confidence we have 

in your stewardship of Indian Health Service programs, and we 

have heard from many witnesses who have underscored the need 

for more investment in Indian health, so we would like for you to 

share your statement with us now and then we will ask some questions. Thank you, Doctor. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. ROUBIDEAUX

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Thank you, Chairman Moran, and to the members of the Committee, good afternoon. I am Dr. Yvette 

Roubideaux, the director of the Indian Health Service. I have with 

me Randy Grinnell, the deputy director. Also in the room from the 

Department of Health and Human Services is the deputy assistant 

secretary, Norris Cochran. I am pleased to have the opportunity to 

testify on the fiscal year 2011 budget request for the Indian Health 

Service. 

While the President’s budget for fiscal year 2011 for the entire 

Federal Government reflects the need to address fiscal discipline 

and federal debt reduction, the IHS budget request reflects and 

continues President Obama’s promise to honor treaty commitments 

made in the United States. In addition, this budget request reflects 

Secretary Sebelius’s priority to improve the IHS and represents the 

largest annual percent increase compared to other operating divisions in the Department of Health and Human Services. 

IHS BUDGET REQUEST

The fiscal year 2011 President’s budget request for the IHS is 

over $4.4 billion, an increase of $354 million, or an 8.7 percent increase over fiscal year 2010. The request includes increases for pay 


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costs, inflation and population growth that will cover the rising 

costs of providing health care to maintain the current level of services provided in IHS tribal and urban Indian health programs. This 

amount also includes funding to staff and operate newly constructed health facilities. The proposed budget also includes funding increases for a number of programs that will increase access to 

care, strengthen the capacity of the Indian health system to provide clinical and preventive care, and will help address longstanding unmet needs and inequities in funding levels in the Indian health system. 

This budget request includes an increase for the Indian Health 

Care Improvement Fund and will allow some of our lowest funded 

hospitals and health centers to expand health care services and reduce backlogs for primary care. The budget request also includes 

an increase for contract health services program including an additional amount for the Catastrophic Health Emergency Fund. Additional funding is included for the shortfall in contract support costs 

for tribes that have assumed the management of health programs 

previously managed by the Federal Government. The increase for 

the health care facilities construction budget will allow for construction to continue on the replacement hospital in Barrow, Alaska, San Carlos Health Center in Arizona and the Kayenta Health 

Center on the Navajo Reservation. 

PRIORITIES OF DR. ROUBIDEAUX

This budget also helps continue progress on my priorities for how 

we are changing and improving the IHS. The budget renews and 

strengthens our partnerships with tribes by aligning the agency’s 

budget increases to reflect tribal priorities. I have carefully listened 

to tribal input over the past 11 months and their priorities include 

more funding for IHS in general as well as funding increases for 

current services, the Indian Health Care Improvement Fund, contract health services and contract support costs. Therefore, this 

budget request includes its greatest increases in those areas. In addition, this budget addresses top tribal priorities such as chronic 

disease and behavioral health conditions. 

REFORM OF IHS

This budget helps us continue our work to bring reform to the 

IHS. Over the past 11 months, I have gathered extensive input 

from tribes and our staff on priorities for how to change and improve the IHS. Their input reinforced the need to change and improve the IHS and for us to focus more on how we conduct the 

business of health care. We are working on improvements in the 

hiring process, recruitment and retention, performance management and more effective financial management and accountability. 

We have also made significant progress in developing an effective 

accountable property management system. We are also working to 

enhance and make more secure our information technology systems 

to ensure the protection of patient care information and to improve 

our administrative options. All of these reforms are being conducted as we make all of our work more transparent, accountable, 

fair and inclusive. 


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In closing, the President’s fiscal year 2011 budget request for the 

IHS is an investment and a commitment that will result in 

healthier American Indian and Alaska Native communities and 

will advance the IHS mission to raise the physical, mental, social 

and spiritual health of American Indians and Alaska Natives to the 

highest level. 

Thank you for this opportunity to present the President’s fiscal 

year 2011 budget request for the Indian Health Service. 

[The statement of Dr. Yvette Roubideaux follows:] 


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Mr. MORAN. Thank you very much, Dr. Roubideaux. We have a 

problem here in that our practice is to always have a member of 

the minority party in attendance. It is not only appropriate but it 

is practical, too. I wanted to get your statement on the record. The 

problem is that Mr. Simpson may not be able to make it. I am 

going to share some thoughts with you for 5 minutes while we wait 

for Mr. Cole and then we will begin the formal part of the questions and answers, and unfortunately, shortly after Mr. Cole gets 

here, we will probably have as much as 15 minutes and then we 

will have to turn around and vote again. All right. I am filibustering here, Mike. We are happy to see you, Mr. Simpson. 

Dr. Roubideaux has shared her opening statement. Because we 

are so short of time, we wanted to get it on the record. I have not 

started asking any questions but I would be happy to defer to you 

if you would like. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Just go ahead. 

[The information follows:] 


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HEALTHCARE SERVICES AVAILABLE

Mr. MORAN. Well, take a few moments. I am going to ask some 

questions and then we will have Mr. Simpson and hopefully Mr. 

Cole will join us as well, and we thank Mr. Simpson very much because it is in the middle of votes, which meant he had to sprint 

over here and he is going to have to sprint back, although he is 

in good enough shape. He can do that. 

The first thing I want to ask you about is the interconnection 

with the other programs that serve the rest of the American population. I am very pleased that there is an increase for Indian health 

services here in this budget and I would hope we would continue 

that increase, as I cannot imagine we would ever come close to 

meeting the need. But I also hope that the expansion of health 

services availability both in Medicaid and Medicare and particularly through this new health care bill is also going to complement 

what we are providing. Could you briefly tell us how Native Americans can have the choice to use the Indian Health Service or the 

other traditional services that are available for non-Native populations? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Yes. American Indians and Alaska Natives are 

citizens of the United States and so they have all the options that 

every other American has, and so an individual American Indian, 

if they had access to a job could have employer-sponsored insurance, but as we know in many Indian reservations, there are very 

high rates of unemployment so access to health insurance is a challenge. The American Indians also can be eligible for Medicare or 

Medicaid based on their eligibility requirements, either being a 

senior or having income that is below the levels that the state requires. And so we are grateful that those sources of coverage are 

available for American Indians and Alaska Natives as is the Indian 

Health Service. The Indian Health Service, of course, is available 

for American Indians and Alaska Natives on or near Indian reservations who can demonstrate eligibility, the eligibility being a 

member of a federally recognized tribe or a descendent of that 

tribe. 

There are, however, a number of American Indians who move 

away from reservations, who live in urban areas, who may not 

have access to Indian health programs, although we do have 34 

urban Indian health programs as well. So the choices for health 

care for our first Americans are similar to the rest of the country 

but they also do have the Indian Health Service as well. 

Mr. MORAN. Well, thank you. We have a vote, so we are going 

to start running out of time again, but we have got a good 10 minutes of questions. 

Can you tell me about what percentage of Native Americans you 

think have health insurance policies? Do you have any idea? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. We would have to provide an exact number for 

you and—— 

Mr. MORAN. I do not want an exact number. Say on a reservation, are there many that have health insurance policies? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Well, it varies greatly. For some reservations, 

there is a lot of unemployment and so there is not an opportunity 

to get employer-sponsored health insurance. There are some tribes 


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that do have their own businesses and do have employee-sponsored 

health plans. 

Mr. MORAN. Or they benefit from gaming or whatever. They 

might have enough income. 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Yes, there are a small number of tribes who 

have enough gaming income, for example, to provide choices. 

HEALTH REFORM AND INSURANCE POLICY

Mr. MORAN. Now, all that has changed to some extent because 

everybody will have to have a health insurance policy. Does that 

apply to every Native American? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Do you mean with regard to—— 

Mr. MORAN. Every American will have to have a policy now or 

pay a penalty. Does that apply to every Native American? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Well, we are grateful for the passage of the 

health reform legislation because what it does is increases access 

to quality and affordable health care. One of the provisions in 

health reform is that American Indians and Alaska Natives who 

use Indian Health Service tribal or urban Indian health programs 

do not have to pay the penalty if they do not purchase insurance. 

Mr. MORAN. So they have a choice of whether or not to purchase 

insurance? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Yes. 

Mr. MORAN. Although if their income is under $44,000, which is 

going to include about 95 percent of the Native American population, they are eligible for a very substantial subsidy and enrollment in Medicaid now. 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Yes, we are very grateful for the expansion of 

Medicaid coverage as well because so many American Indians are 

under the poverty level. 

Mr. MORAN. Right. So now every Native American will have access to either the Indian Health Service and/or the traditional 

health care system that is available to non-Native populations in 

the same geographical area, correct? It does seem to me a fairly 

watershed event here in terms of the options that are available to 

Native Americans and the level of care. 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. We are very grateful for passage of health reform because it does expand access to affordable health insurance 

and does expand access to Medicaid. 

Mr. MORAN. So all will have an insurance policy option, right? 

And it will be almost entirely subsidized by the government. They 

can get an insurance policy. They can go into Medicaid. If their income is under $44,000, which is almost all, they have the option 

of either Indian Health Service services or any other service that 

is available in their geographical vicinity, or anyplace. 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Well, I would say a large number of American 

Indians and Alaska Natives have greater access for insurance. 

There may be pockets of individuals who do not meet any of those 

qualifications, or now they have the choice to not purchase the insurance because they do not have to pay the penalty. So it does 

provide the opportunity for increased access to health insurance, 

which we are very grateful for. 

Mr. MORAN. Well, it seems to me it does provide a fairly profound change in terms of the accessibility, the availability and the 


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cost and quality of health care available to the Native American 

population, and I want to pursue that further but I do not want 

to take up more time. Let me defer to Mr. Simpson and Mr. Cole. 

Mr. SIMPSON. I appreciate your optimism about the passage of 

the health care bill. As a wise man once said, we will see. It still 

has a long ways to go and there are some downsides to it obviously, 

we will not debate now. 

Mr. MORAN. Are you the wise man who made that quote? 

EARLY CHILDHOOD CARIES INITIATIVE

Mr. SIMPSON. No, actually not. 

The Early Childhood Caries Initiative, that the Indian Health 

Service initiative announced this year calls for a reduction in prevalence of early childhood caries among young American Indians 

and Alaska Natives by 25 percent and increasing their dental access by 50 percent by 2015. Are we at a point where dental caries 

in American Indians and Alaska Natives are at epidemic levels, 

and what is the annual budget for the initiative and what performance measures are you going to use to see if you achieve these 

goals of reduction by 25 percent by the year 2015? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Well, we do recognize that the problem of dental caries, especially in American Indian and Alaska Native children, is quite significant, and it is an incredibly challenging problem, given the problems it can cause them in the future. We are 

grateful that our staff have been able to develop the Early Childhood Caries Initiative because it is very innovative in terms of the 

interdisciplinary nature. It is preventive and educational and has 

early identification-type activities, not just with IHS but with some 

of our community partners like Head Start, like the WIC program, 

CHRs and community nurses. We are evaluating this program and 

we can provide the amount of funding that we are spending on it 

to you in a follow-up question. 

RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION OF HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS

Mr. SIMPSON. Historically, recruitment and retention of health 

care professionals has been one of the greatest challenges for providing consistent and proper health care in Indian Country, and I 

have heard that the hiring process for physicians and other health 

care professionals applying for jobs within IHS is inefficient and 

cumbersome. I am told that this causes delays that sometimes result in the loss of providers. Can you tell me, what are you doing 

to address that problem? Because obviously recruiting and retaining health care providers is one of the most important things we 

can do in making sure that we have available health care services 

regardless of the health care bill that passed. 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Yes, you are absolutely right. Recruitment and 

retention is critical. We need access to health care providers to provide critical care that we need in the system. We recognize that we 

have these challenges with the hiring process being too long because I did a round of input when I first became the director of the 

Indian Health Service, asked for top priorities for IHS reform, and 

the top priority was looking at human resources, our hiring process 

and improvements in recruitment and retention. So what we are 

doing right now is getting together our administrative leaders to 


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look at what are the places where we are seeing lags in the hiring 

process and try to improve those to shorten it. We also are looking 

at ways to standardize some processes to make them move quicker. 

We are also looking at trying to make the administrative part of 

how we are handling the hiring process differently, and then in 

terms of recruitment and retention, we are looking at position descriptions and how much we pay providers and see how we can be 

more competitive either through their salaries or through additional incentive pays or bonuses, and I have to say that has really 

helped us with the dental vacancy rate and the additional adding 

of incentive pays and improvements in salary along with increase 

in loan repayment awards to dentists has really improved our dental vacancy rate. 

ELECTRONIC DENTAL RECORDS

Mr. SIMPSON. One last question. Last year the Committee directed the Indian Health Service to use a portion of the fiscal year 

2010 health IT funding to make additional advances in electronic 

dental records. Where are we? What is the current status of that, 

and how much funding was directed to it in 2009 including the 

ARRA dollars and how much is being spent during the current fiscal year and what is budgeted for next year? You can respond to 

the last part of that in written response, if you would like, but 

where do we stand on the electronic dental records? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. We are making progress with the electronic 

dental record. It is critical for us to be able to provide good clinical 

care and track administratively our care. We used the ARRA funding for implementation, about $4 million of the ARRA funding, and 

also $1 million of our recurring dental budget, and this funding will 

get us up to about 80 of our sites potentially implementing the 

electronic dental record, and we realize that we still have another 

145 sites to go but we want to continue trying to make progress 

to implement it because we understand it is so important for us to 

provide better quality dental care. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thanks for being here, Doc. I apologize, as I am 

sure the Chairman does, for this screwy schedule that we always 

keep around here but we are certain that 4:30 is the appropriate 

time to hold a hearing because nothing ever happens at 4:30 until 

you schedule a hearing. 

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Simpson, thank you very much, and thank you 

for your extraordinary efforts to get here so that we could proceed 

with this hearing. It is very thoughtful of you. I mean that sincerely. 

Mr. Cole, I think we have a good 5 minutes. 

JOINT VENTURES AND HEALTH CARE FACILITIES

Mr. COLE. You are very kind. I will try and be quick. Again, I 

join my colleagues in apologizing for this going back and forth. It 

is unavoidable. 

Two or three questions. One, I have to tell you first, just thank 

you. Thank you for taking the position. Thank you honestly for 

what the Administration did last year and is proposed again this 

year with a very significant increase, and I know this Committee 

is appreciative of that too. It gives us all something to work on beVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:10 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 057302 PO 00000 Frm 00618 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A302P2.XXX A302P2

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cause I think it is going to take sustained commitment over time 

to deal with the challenges that we have got in Indian Country. 

You mentioned this briefly and I want to get you to elaborate on 

the possibility of joint ventures. They have come up a couple of 

times. My tribe is the Chickasaw Nation. We have a joint venture 

arrangement with you, and that has been very good. We are very 

happy to have built, or be in the process of building, a new $170 

million hospital with tribal funds. Obviously we count on the Indian Health Service to be able to work with us to staff the hospital. 

I think there are other tribes that might look on this as a model, 

and I would like your thoughts on whether or not we can, obviously 

only in certain cases, but use this as a way to cut into our backlog 

on construction of facilities. 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Yes. The health care facility needs are significant in Indian health and we are really grateful that we have this 

process of joint venture where we can partner with tribes to have 

health facilities built in communities by tribes as a partnership 

with the Indian Health Service. We have a regular application 

process for the joint venture and tribes will submit applications. 

We review and do a priority ranking of those applications and then 

based on available resources we approve some of those applications 

to move forward. We think it is an innovative way for us to deal 

with the needs for health care facilities construction and I am so 

grateful that the tribe in your area has benefited from that. 

Mr. COLE. It certainly has, Director. Whatever the merits and demerits of the current health care bill, we are talking about something that happens years from now really before it is fully implemented, and we have got a very diverse population in very different conditions. This does not really help you if you are on a reservation if the infrastructure is not there because it depends on the 

Indian Health Service. Having the coverage does not mean much 

if you cannot get the care. So it does not relieve us of the responsibility of continuing to make sure that you are adequately funded, 

particularly at the reservation level. 

URBAN HEALTH FACILITIES

I would also like to ask you about another place where I see a 

lot of Native Americans fall through the cracks. These are people 

away from either their reservations or areas of historic jurisdiction. 

In Oklahoma, the Indian health care clinic in Oklahoma City, 

where no tribe has jurisdiction, and in Tulsa, where only some do, 

are absolutely critical because we have got so many Native Americans there. Frankly, even if you are under another health care system, the needs of this population really are unique, and having the 

concentration of expertise and people familiar with dealing with 

substantial numbers of Native Americans is really critical for us. 

So how do you see these community health facilities in non-tribal 

areas serving tribal people continuing to be funded? Is that something you are comfortable with where we need to be? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Well, some of the American Indian individuals 

sometimes choose to move away from the reservations, and when 

they do that, for example, move in urban areas, they may lose their 

access to the Indian Health Service funding. We do have 34 urban 

Indian health programs that are nonprofit organizations that proVerDate Mar 15 2010 06:10 Jul 15, 2010 Jkt 057302 PO 00000 Frm 00619 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A302P2.XXX A302P2

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vide clinical services in communities across the country, and those 

are a great resource for these individuals that provide culturally 

appropriate services for them and those are supported in our budget. 

Mr. COLE. Did that go up as well? I have looked at the overall 

increase in your budget but are those facilities getting a comparable increase in funding? 

Dr. ROUBIDEAUX. Well, the urban Indian health program line 

continues to be in the IHS budget and will receive an increase for 

current services for increase in inflation and we also have a line 

item for increasing third-party revenues for the urban Indian 

health programs of $1 million, and that is really significant because these programs are relatively less funded by the Indian 

Health Service and rely more on third-party reimbursements, so we 

hope that the proposed budget increase for third-party billing, and 

technical assistance will help the urban Indian programs get more 

third-party reimbursements, and what that will mean is, they can 

provide more services. 

Mr. MORAN. This will conclude the hearing. Thank you very 

much, Dr. Roubideaux. 


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(i) 

W I T N E S S E S 

Page 

Haze, Pamela ........................................................................................................... 339 

Salazar, Hon. Ken .................................................................................................... 339 

Gould, Rowan ........................................................................................................... 263 

Strickland, Tom ....................................................................................................... 263 

Abbey, Robert ........................................................................................................... 55 

Mouritsen, Karen ..................................................................................................... 55 

Jarvis, Jonathan ...................................................................................................... 157 

Sheaffer, C. Bruce .................................................................................................... 157 

Clough, G. Wayne .................................................................................................... 459 

Kaiser, Michael ........................................................................................................ 514 

Powell, Earl .............................................................................................................. 498 

Hamilton, Lee .......................................................................................................... 544 

Echo Hawk, Larry ................................................................................................... 1 

Erwin, Donna ........................................................................................................... 1 

Nolin, Chris .............................................................................................................. 263 

Roubideaux, Yvette .................................................................................................. 603 


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I N D E X 

Bureau of Indian Affairs 

Page 

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act ............................................................ 25 

Biography: Larry Echo Hawk ................................................................................. 12 

Charitable Giving to BIE Schools .......................................................................... 668 

Climate Change.................................................................................................... 651, 665 

Contract Support Costs ........................................................................................... 651 

Crime in Indian Country......................................................................................... 14, 17 

Detention Facilities ................................................................................................. 644 

Detention Center Construction ............................................................................... 15 

Detention Facility Funding ..................................................................................... 639 

Drugs in Indian Country ......................................................................................... 642 

Education.............................................................................................................. 647, 659

Energy ...................................................................................................................... 661 

FBI Staffing in Indian Country ........................................................................ 16, 18, 22 

Firearms ................................................................................................................... 644

Housing on Reservations ......................................................................................... 24 

Indian School Health and Safety ............................................................................ 670 

Inspector General Reports ...................................................................................... 14 

ISEP Formula .......................................................................................................... 674 

Jobs ........................................................................................................................... 649 

Johnson-O’Malley ..................................................................................................... 21 

Jones Academy ......................................................................................................... 17, 19 

Law Enforcement ..................................................................................................... 644 

Leadership and Budget ........................................................................................... 4 

Management/Leadership Challenges ..................................................................... 639 

Mineral Resources Development ............................................................................ 22 

Museum Collections ................................................................................................. 652 

Opening Statement: Chairman Moran .................................................................. 1 

Opening Statement: Mr. Dicks ............................................................................... 2 

Opening Statement: Mr. Simpson .......................................................................... 3 

Performance Management ...................................................................................... 665 

Political Leadership Staffing .................................................................................. 17 

Public Private Partnerships .................................................................................... 667 

Questions for the Record ......................................................................................... 639 

Questions from Chairman Moran ........................................................................... 639 

Questions from Mr. Calvert .................................................................................... 667 

Questions from Mr. Simpson .................................................................................. 656 

Regional Detention Centers .................................................................................... 15 

Remarks of Mr. Cole ................................................................................................ 20 

Revenue Generating at Schools .............................................................................. 27 

Rights Protection ..................................................................................................... 664 

Shoshone-Bannock Tribal Justice Center .............................................................. 3 


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iv 

Terminated Schools ................................................................................................. 645 

Testimony of Assistant Secretary Larry Echohawk .............................................. 5 

Tribal Grant Support .............................................................................................. 20 

Violent Crimes...................................................................................................... 640, 656 

Office of Special Trustee 

American Indian Records Repository ..................................................................... 40 

Biography: Donna Erwin ......................................................................................... 34 

Cobell Settlement..................................................................................................... 35, 36 

Historical Trust Accounting .............................................................................. 35, 39, 49 

Opening Statement: Chairman Moran .................................................................. 28 

Opening Statement: Mr. Cole ................................................................................. 29 

Opening Statement: Mr. Simpson .......................................................................... 28 

Probate Backlog ....................................................................................................... 51 

Questions for the Record ......................................................................................... 44 

Questions from Chairman Moran ........................................................................... 44 

Questions from Mr. Simpson .................................................................................. 52 

Settlement Legal Fees ............................................................................................. 38 

Testimony of Principal Deputy Special Trustee Donna Erwin ............................ 29 

Tribal Trust Lawsuits.............................................................................................. 39, 49 

Bureau of Land Management 

Air Quality Data Monitoring .................................................................................. 154 

Alaska Conveyance .................................................................................................. 148 

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act .......................................................... 84, 144 

Antiquities Act ......................................................................................................... 76 

Authorizing Item on Non-Producing Wells ............................................................ 137 

Backcountry Airstrip ............................................................................................... 154 

Biography: Karen Mouritsen .................................................................................. 72 

Biography: Robert Abbey ........................................................................................ 71 

Biomass .................................................................................................................... 97 

Carbon Sequestration .............................................................................................. 94 

Challenge Cost Share .............................................................................................. 141 

Climate Change Adaptation............................................................................ 58, 92, 139 

Coal Management Issues ........................................................................................ 149 

Energy Development on Tribal Lands ................................................................... 92 

Equal Access to Justice Act .................................................................................... 86 

Fee on Non-Producing Leases ................................................................................. 81, 90 

Fixed Costs ............................................................................................................... 143 

GAO Management Challenges .............................................................................. 89, 138 

General Budget ........................................................................................................ 85 

General Mining Law ................................................................................................ 94 

Grazing Permit Backlog .......................................................................................... 77 

Helium Program ...................................................................................................... 147 

Inspection Fees ........................................................................................................ 83 

Lawsuits.................................................................................................................... 91, 95 

Leasing Review Process .......................................................................................... 87 

Management of Unprotected Wilderness-Quality BLM Lands ............................ 101 

National Fish and Wildlife Foundation ................................................................. 146 

National Landscape Conservation System ............................................................ 99 

National Monument Memo Leak ............................................................................ 99 

Native Plant Conservation and Restoration ........................................................ 73, 145 

New Energy Frontier ............................................................................................. 58, 131 

Oil and Gas Impacts ................................................................................................ 137 


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Oil and Gas Planning, Permits & Leases .......................................................... 101, 135 

Oil Shale ................................................................................................................... 91

Opening Statement: Chairman Moran .................................................................. 55 

Opening Statement: Mr. Simpson .......................................................................... 56 

Questions for the Record ......................................................................................... 99 

Questions from Chairman Moran ........................................................................... 99 

Questions from Mr. Simpson .................................................................................. 153 

Renewable Energy.................................................................................................. 90, 153 

Resource Management Planning ............................................................................ 148 

Sage-Grouse............................................................................................................ 79, 124 

Salazar report showing Interior Department supports 1.4 million jobs ............. 124 

Testimony of Director Robert Abbey ...................................................................... 57 

Treasured Landscapes ............................................................................................. 59, 74 

Western Oregon Timber ........................................................................................ 96, 148 

Wild Horse and Burro Strategy................................................................ 59, 75, 79, 125 

Wildlife and Fisheries, Threatened and Endangered Species Management ...... 145 

Youth in Natural Resources .................................................................................... 59 

National Park Service 

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act ............................................................ 239 

Biography: C. Bruce Sheaffer ................................................................................. 168 

Biography: Jonathan B. Jarvis ............................................................................... 167 

Blue Ridge Parkway ................................................................................................ 260 

Cape Hatteras National Seashore .......................................................................... 261 

Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Trails ................................................................... 208 

Chickasaw Park Management ................................................................................ 179 

Chickasaw Visitors Center ...................................................................................... 178 

City of Rocks National Reserve: Restrictions ........................................................ 249 

Climate Change Adaptation Initiative ................................................................... 203 

Consolidate Workforce Management Offices ......................................................... 209 

Construction Account........................................................................................... 210, 165 

Deferred Maintenance Backlog ........................................................................... 185, 186 

Equipment Replacement Program ......................................................................... 215 

Everglades ................................................................................................................ 175 

Everglades Modified Water Delivery System ........................................................ 211 

Everglades Restoration ........................................................................................... 256 

Firearms in Parks .................................................................................................... 182 

Fixed Costs ........................................................................................................... 181, 185 

Ford’s Theater—Petersen House ........................................................................ 186, 246 

Future Infrastructure Needs of NPS ..................................................................... 258 

George Wright Society IG Report ........................................................................... 241 

Guns in the Parks ................................................................................................ 196, 247 

Heritage Partnerships ............................................................................................. 230 

Historic Preservation Fund ..................................................................................... 165 

Historic Preservation Grants .................................................................................. 258 

Housing Improvement Program ............................................................................. 214 

Independent National Mall Commission ............................................................... 254 

Jefferson Memorial Seawall .................................................................................... 187 

Land Acquisition and State Assistance ................................................................. 237 

Maintenance Backlog, Budget Request Impact ..................................................... 244 

Management Efficiencies and Fixed Costs ............................................................ 169 

Management Savings .............................................................................................. 193 

National Heritage Areas and Second Century Commission ................................ 189 

National Mall ........................................................................................................... 187 


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National Mall Management Plan........................................................................ 194, 252 

National Mall Visitor Experience ........................................................................... 255 

National Mall: Re-engineering Soil & Turf........................................................ 170, 212 

National Recreation and Preservation Account................................................. 230, 165 

National Trail System ............................................................................................. 200 

New York State Parks ............................................................................................. 173 

North Shore Road .................................................................................................... 214 

NPS Marketing and Outreach ................................................................................ 257 

Ocean and Coastal Resource Stewardship ............................................................ 207 

Opening Statement: Chairman Moran .................................................................. 157 

Opening Statement: Mr. Simpson .......................................................................... 158 

Operation of the National Park System Account .............................................. 197, 164 

Park Partnerships................................................................................................ 217, 164 

Park Promotion ........................................................................................................ 173 

Preserve America ................................................................................................. 227, 231 

Programmatic Increases .......................................................................................... 180 

Protection of National Icons .................................................................................... 199 

Quagga Mussels ....................................................................................................... 251 

Questions for the Record ......................................................................................... 193 

Questions from Chairman Moran ........................................................................... 193 

Questions from Mr. Price ........................................................................................ 260 

Questions from Mr. Simpson .................................................................................. 244 

Record NPS Attendance in 2009 ............................................................................ 256 

Recreation Fees ........................................................................................................ 233 

Recreation Fees: Unobligated Balance ................................................................... 245 

Save America’s Treasures ........................................................................... 178, 227, 236 

Smithsonian Folklife Festival ................................................................................. 169 

Special Resources Studies ....................................................................................... 216 

State Historic Preservation Offices..................................................................... 182, 237 

Statue of Liberty ...................................................................................................... 211 

Terminated Programs [Save America’s Treasures & Preserve America] ............ 227 

Testimony of Director Jonathan Jarvis ................................................................. 159 

Trail of Tears National Historic Trail .................................................................... 188 

Yellowstone Bison .................................................................................................... 190 

Yellowstone National Park: Bechler Entrance ...................................................... 248 

Yellowstone Snowmobiles ....................................................................................... 247 

Yellowstone Wolves ................................................................................................. 192 

Youth Initiative .................................................................................................... 171, 202 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 

2011 Budget Overview......................................................................................... 267, 271 

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act ........................................................ 277, 310 

Biography: Rowan Gould ......................................................................................... 285 

Biography: Tom Strickland ..................................................................................... 274 

Bull Trout ................................................................................................................. 333 

Chesapeake Bay Restoration .................................................................................. 311 

Climate Change............................................................................................ 275, 287, 300 

Climate Change Adaptation........................................................................ 267, 272, 279 

Construction ............................................................................................................. 283 

Duck Stamp Fee Increase ....................................................................................... 323 

Ecosystems............................................................................................................ 268, 290 

Endangered Species ..................................................................................... 276, 282, 307 

Endangered Species Consultations ........................................................................ 313 

Endocrine-Disrupting Compounds ......................................................................... 310 


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vii 

Firearms ................................................................................................................... 324 

Fisheries ................................................................................................................... 283 

Great Lakes Restoration...................................................................................... 294, 321 

Habitat Conservation .............................................................................................. 283 

IG Report on FWS Plane Crash ............................................................................. 324 

International Affairs ................................................................................................ 309 

Land Acquisition and Refuge Operations .......................................................... 284, 286 

Landscape Conservation Cooperatives....................................................... 287, 303, 336 

Law Enforcement ................................................................................................. 282, 308 

Migratory Birds.................................................................................................... 297, 314 

National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.............................................................. 269, 288 

National Wildlife Refuge System................................................................ 282, 293, 298 

New Energy Frontier................................................................................... 268, 272, 280 

North American Wetlands Conservation Fund ................................................. 268, 309 

Opening Statement: Chairman Moran .................................................................. 263 

Opening Statement: Mr. Simpson .......................................................................... 264 

Peppergrass .............................................................................................................. 331 

Quagga and Zebra Mussels ................................................................................. 320, 334 

Questions for the Record ......................................................................................... 300 

Questions from Chairman Moran ........................................................................... 300 

Questions from Mr. Price ........................................................................................ 326 

Questions from Mr. Simpson .................................................................................. 328 

Refuge and Hatchery Deferred Maintenance ........................................................ 288 

Refuges ..................................................................................................................... 305 

Renewable Energy ................................................................................................... 314 

Sage-Grouse.......................................................................................................... 266, 328 

Salmon Restoration ................................................................................................. 293 

Sam Hamilton .......................................................................................................... 266 

Solicitor Opinion ...................................................................................................... 291 

State and Tribal Wildlife Grants ............................................................................ 294 

Testimony of (Acting) Director Rowan Gould ........................................................ 275 

Testimony of Assistant Secretary Tom Strickland ............................................... 265 

Treasured Landscapes ................................................................................. 272, 276, 280 

Tribal Wildlife Grants ............................................................................................. 296 

Wolves ....................................................................................................................... 331 

Youth in Natural Resources................................................................ 269, 272, 276, 281 

Department of the Interior 

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act ............................................................ 425 

Appalachia Coal Payments ..................................................................................... 452 

Atlantic OCS ............................................................................................................ 440 

Authorizing Items on Energy in the Budget ......................................................... 393 

Beaufort and Chukchi Seas .................................................................................... 390 

Biography: Deputy Assistant Secretary Pamela Haze ......................................... 358 

Biography: Secretary Ken Salazar ......................................................................... 357 

Biological Resources Division ................................................................................. 369 

BLM National Monument Leak.......................................................................... 381, 394 

California-Bay Delta ................................................................................................ 376 

Cape Wind ................................................................................................................ 361 

Challenge Cost Share .......................................................................................... 427, 430 

Climate Change ................................................................................... 383, 398, 444, 455 

Climate Change and Energy ................................................................................... 344 

Climate Change Coordination............................................................................. 366, 400 

Cobell Settlement................................................................................................. 370, 414 


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Conservation ............................................................................................................ 344 

Consolidated Appraisal Services......................................................................... 408, 438 

Cost-Cutting ............................................................................................................. 365 

Economic Impacts .................................................................................................... 343 

Endangered Species ............................................................................................. 378, 416 

Energy Development............................................................................................ 359, 390 

Energy Inspection Fees ........................................................................................... 392 

Energy Reforms ....................................................................................................... 359 

Energy Revenue Auditing, RIK and Ethics ........................................................... 391 

Equal Access to Justice Act .................................................................................... 362 

Everglades Restoration ........................................................................................... 446 

Everglades: Tamiami Trail ..................................................................................... 446 

Fees on On-shore and Off-shore Oil & Gas Producers...................................... 393, 439 

Fish Disease, Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia (VHS) ............................................ 424 

Fixed Costs ........................................................................................................... 364, 412 

Franchise Fees ......................................................................................................... 410 

Fraud, Waste and Abuse ......................................................................................... 408 

Grazing Permits ....................................................................................................... 363 

Great Lakes .............................................................................................................. 368 

Hazardous Fuels Program Reduction .................................................................... 415 

Heritage Areas ......................................................................................................... 380 

Hydraulic Fracturing................................................................................... 344, 385, 387 

Indian Affairs ........................................................................................................... 344 

Information Technology ........................................................................................... 364 

Land Acquisition and Treasured Landscapes.................................................... 394, 453 

Land and Water Conservation Fund ...................................................................... 382 

Land and Water Conservation Fund: Stateside .................................................... 383 

Landscape Conservation Cooperatives ............................................................... 378, 403 

Land Fractionation .................................................................................................. 373 

Law Enforcement: Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) ............................................ 420 

Leadership of Congressman Dicks ......................................................................... 380 

Maintenance and Construction Backlog ................................................................ 433 

Management Savings and Efficiencies ................................................................... 413 

Monitoring Needs .................................................................................................... 406 

Museum Collections ................................................................................................. 411 

National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center ........................................ 405 

Natural Hazards Science and Earthquakes .......................................................... 423 

New Off-Shore Areas: Environmental Work Needed ............................................ 440 

Non-Producing Oil & Gas Leases: New Fees ........................................................ 441 

OCS Development & Drilling .................................................................................

1, 451 ......................................................................................................

OCS Five Year Plan ................................................................................................ 360 

Grant Reductions: Office of Surface Mining .......................................................... 424 

Off-Reservation Gaming .......................................................................................... 374 

Oil and Gas .............................................................................................................. 366 

Opening Statement: Chairman Moran .................................................................. 339 

Opening Statement: Mr. Chandler ......................................................................... 365 

Opening Statement: Mr. LaTourette ...................................................................... 367 

Opening Statement: Mr. Simpson .......................................................................... 341 

Plane Crash: FWS ................................................................................................... 420 

Questions for the Record ......................................................................................... 390 

Questions from Chairman Moran ........................................................................... 390 

Questions from Mr. Cole ......................................................................................... 450 

Questions from Mr. Mollohan ................................................................................. 452 

Questions from Mr. Simpson .................................................................................. 435 


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Relocation Costs ....................................................................................................... 409 

Renewable Energy: Wind ........................................................................................ 442 

Renewable Energy on the OCS ............................................................................... 360 

Renewable Energy Permitting ................................................................................ 448 

Renewable Energy vs. Oil & Gas: .......................................................................... 438 

Revenues to the Treasury ....................................................................................... 416 

Sage Grouse ............................................................................................................. 435 

Salazar report showing Interior Department supports 1.4 million jobs ............. 432 

Southwest Border .................................................................................................... 417 

Streamgages ............................................................................................................. 450 

Testimony of Secretary Ken Salazar ...................................................................... 342 

Travel ........................................................................................................................ 365 

Treasured Landscapes ............................................................................................. 456 

Tribal Jurisdiction and Law Enforcement ............................................................. 373 

Tribal Trust Litigation......................................................................................... 370, 372 

WaterSmart and Streamgages ................................................................................ 422 

Wild Horse and Burro Management................................................................... 421, 447 

Wilderness Policy ..................................................................................................... 386 

Wildfire Contingency Fund ..................................................................................... 415 

Wildland Fire ........................................................................................................... 443 

Youth Initiative ........................................................................................................ 345 

Smithsonian Institution 

African American Museum of History and Culture .............................................. 492 

Arts and Industries Building .............................................................................. 480, 492 

Biography: G. Wayne Clough .................................................................................. 474 

Business Ventures ................................................................................................... 493 

Buy-Out Savings ...................................................................................................... 494 

Climate Change Research ................................................................................... 491, 495 

Collaboration with Federal Agencies ..................................................................... 463 

Collections Care Initiative ...................................................................................... 487 

Deferred Maintenance ............................................................................................. 490 

Digitization................................................................................................... 462, 492, 495 

Education...................................................................................................... 463, 476, 484 

Encyclopedia of Life ................................................................................................. 496 

Exhibitions ............................................................................................................... 461 

Financial Management ............................................................................................ 494 

Fixed Costs ............................................................................................................... 494 

Four Key Challenges ............................................................................................... 492 

Fundraising Campaign ............................................................................................ 494 

General Trust Support to Museums ...................................................................... 495 

International Assistance ......................................................................................... 477 

Latino Museum ........................................................................................................ 496 

Major Scientific Instrumentation ........................................................................... 495 

National Air and Space Museum External Science .............................................. 494 

National Mall ........................................................................................................... 479 

National Zoological Park Conditions and Animal Care at Front Royal .............. 493 

Natural History Museum Centennial .................................................................... 492 

Opening Statement: Mr. Hinchey ........................................................................... 459 

Opening Statement: Mr. Simpson .......................................................................... 460 

Outreach ............................................................................................................... 478, 484

Proliferation of Monuments and Museums ........................................................... 485 

Questions for the Record ......................................................................................... 490 

Questions from Chairman Moran ........................................................................... 490 


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Questions from Mr. Simpson .................................................................................. 495 

Regents Role and Governance Issues ................................................................. 476, 490 

Revitalization, Construction and Maintenance ..................................................... 488 

Science and Collections ........................................................................................... 491 

Security and Anti-Terrorism ................................................................................... 494 

Strategic Plan .......................................................................................................... 490 

Testimony of Secretary Wayne Clough .................................................................. 461 

Visits ......................................................................................................................... 462 

National Gallery of Art 

Master Facility Plan ............................................................................................ 506, 571 

Off-Site Office Leases .............................................................................................. 507 

Opening Statement: Mr. Moran ............................................................................. 498 

Opening Statement: Mr. Simpson .......................................................................... 499 

Protection Services .................................................................................................. 512 

Public Education Programs ..................................................................................... 500 

Questions for the Record ......................................................................................... 509 

Questions from Chairman Moran ........................................................................... 509 

Repair of East Building Fac ̧ade.................................................................. 500, 505, 509 

Salaries and Expenses—Fixed Costs ..................................................................... 510 

Special Exhibition Program and Private Funding ................................................ 505 

Testimony of Director Earl Powell ......................................................................... 499 

Website ..................................................................................................................... 500 

Kennedy Center 

Arts Education ......................................................................................................... 515 

Arts in Crisis ............................................................................................................ 516 

Arts Management Initiative ....................................................... 516, 525, 527, 531, 538 

Biography: Michael Kaiser ...................................................................................... 523 

Capital Repair and Restoration .................................................................. 533, 537, 541 

Curtain Wall ............................................................................................................ 526 

Demand for the Arts Management Initiative ........................................................ 528 

EPA Citation ............................................................................................................ 529 

Fixed Costs ............................................................................................................... 531 

FY11 Budget Request .............................................................................................. 517 

Kennedy Center Overview ...................................................................................... 515 

Minor Repair and Replacement .............................................................................. 536 

National Capacity Building Program ................................................................. 516, 534 

NEA and Kennedy Center Coordination ............................................................... 529 

Opening Statement: Chairman Moran .................................................................. 514 

Opening Statement: Mr. Simpson .......................................................................... 514 

Operations and Maintenance .................................................................................. 517 

Questions for the Record ......................................................................................... 531 

Questions from Chairman Moran ........................................................................... 531 

Questions from Mr. Simpson .................................................................................. 538 

Rural Communities and Arts .............................................................................. 527, 528 

Testimony of President Michael Kaiser ................................................................. 515 

Upcoming Events ..................................................................................................... 526 

Woodrow Wilson Center 

Biography: Lee Hamilton ........................................................................................ 559 


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Cuts in Budget ......................................................................................................... 560 

Funding, Private versus Public .............................................................................. 561 

FY11 Budget Request .......................................................................................... 546, 568 

Kissinger Institute on China and the U.S. ........................................................ 560, 569 

Nanotechnology .................................................................................................... 562, 579 

Opening Statement: Mr. Moran ............................................................................. 544 

Opening Statement: Mr. Simpson .......................................................................... 544 

Partnering with Organizations ............................................................................... 560 

Private Donor Restrictions ...................................................................................... 562 

Questions for the Record ......................................................................................... 544 

Questions from Mr. Simpson .................................................................................. 565 

Role of the Wilson Center.................................................................................... 545, 565 

Testimony of Mr. Lee Hamilton ............................................................................. 544 

Presidio Trust 

Biography: Craig Middleton .................................................................................... 589 

Clean-Up Sites ......................................................................................................... 592 

Doyle Drive ............................................................................................................... 590 

Educational Programs ............................................................................................. 583 

Opening Statement: Mr. Moran ............................................................................. 581 

Opening Statement: Mr. Simpson .......................................................................... 581 

Partnerships ............................................................................................................. 584 

Presidio Overview .................................................................................................... 582 

Public Funding ......................................................................................................... 598 

Questions for the Record ......................................................................................... 594 

Questions for the Record from Chairman Moran .................................................. 594 

Questions for the Record from Mr. Simpson ......................................................... 598 

Revenue .................................................................................................................... 592

Self-Sufficiency by 2013 .......................................................................................... 593 

Testimony of Executive Director Craig Middleton ................................................ 581 

U.S. Route 101 Construction............................................................................... 592, 601 

Indian Health Service 

Alcohol and Substance Abuse Grants .................................................................... 625 

Biography: Dr. Yvette Roubideaux ......................................................................... 611 

Budget Issues ........................................................................................................... 637 

Cavity Free in 2-0-1-3 ............................................................................................. 627 

Domestic Violence and Law Enforcement.......................................................... 621, 629 

Domestic Violence Prevention Grant Program ...................................................... 629 

Early Childhood Caries Initiative .......................................................................... 617 

Electronic Dental Records ....................................................................................... 618 

Health Education ..................................................................................................... 636 

Health Reform and Insurance Policy ..................................................................... 616 

Health Vacancies ..................................................................................................... 628 

Healthcare Services Available ................................................................................ 615 

IHS Budget Request ................................................................................................ 603 

IHS Research ........................................................................................................... 630 

Indian Healthcare Reauthorization ........................................................................ 637 

Joint Ventures and Healthcare Facilities .............................................................. 618 

Opening Statement: Mr. Moran ............................................................................. 603 

Opening Statement: Mr. Simpson .......................................................................... 613 

Policies Regarding Testifying in Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Cases 623 


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Priorities of Dr. Roubideaux ................................................................................... 604 

Property Mismanagement (GAO Investigation Findings) .................................... 624 

Questions for the Record ......................................................................................... 621 

Questions from Chairman Moran ........................................................................... 621 

Questions from Mr. Cole ......................................................................................... 632 

Questions from Mr. Simpson .................................................................................. 627 

Recruitment and Retention of Healthcare Professionals ...................................... 617 

Reform of IHS .......................................................................................................... 604 

Sexual Assault ......................................................................................................... 632 

Testimony of Dr. Yvette Roubideaux ..................................................................... 603 

Urban Health Facilities ........................................................................................... 619 

Youth Suicide ........................................................................................................... 633 


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