Public Version

Background

A core team of subject matter experts studied the land-use management planning and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) business area across the Department of the Interior (DOI) with these three goals in mind:

• To establish findings regarding the similarities and differences between existing land-use management planning processes across the Bureaus and offices
• To make recommendations for process improvements toward a high-level, DOI-wide, fundamentally common management planning process with provisions for handling truly unique differences between organizations
• To examine the current and projected management planning investments and document findings and recommendations on the fit of these investments to the recommended business process

The Management Planning and NEPA Business Focus Area Vision and Strategy is shown below:

Using standard DOI methodology, the core team developed a comprehensive set of twelve findings and associated recommendations. In addition, a transition plan for the recommendations was created. Central to the recommendations are seven cross-DOI planning program principles to govern the implementation of these management planning recommendations. Most critical is the recommendation to establish a cross-DOI senior management steering committee to own the implementation of these recommendations. This senior team does not exist now and will need to oversee and drive implementation across the DOI.