CONFIRMATION STATEMENT

REBECCA WUNDER WATSON

NOMINEE FOR ASSISTANT SECRETARY, LAND AND MINERALS MANAGEMENT

UNITED STATES SENATE

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES

December 5, 2001

Chairman Bingaman, Senator Murkowski, and Members of the Committee:

It is a humbling experience to come before the United States Senate today. Our country is now faced with a heightened challenge to its security. I am deeply honored to have been nominated by President Bush to serve at this critical time. The events during and after September 11th have reawakened our pride in America and have underlined the goodness and strength that lies in the singular diversity of our citizens.



I believe that the responsibilities of the Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management for the Department of the Interior are related directly to who we are as a Nation. The Office of Surface Mining, Minerals Management Service and the Bureau of Land Management together provide over 28% of our Country's energy. These bureaus also provide timber, clean water, forage for grazing, wildlife habitat and significant recreation opportunities for the rapidly growing populations of the West. In exercising the responsibilities of this office, the Assistant Secretary must seek to balance our desire for a strong and secure economy with our Country's equally strong desire to protect the landscapes and ecosystems that make our country unique.



I think most Americans share the same goal - that we have a secure energy foundation for the continued strength of the American economy, but that this security is achieved in a way that does not sacrifice the environment for short-term gain. I believe that the public lands and minerals can continue to play a key role in contributing to the strength of the national and regional economies, without sacrificing their ecological integrity.



Congress, in a series of laws, has provided clear management direction for public resources - the multiple use concept. Multiple use management recognizes the diverse benefits provided by public resources - food for our table, timber to build homes, energy to light and heat those homes, recreational opportunities to challenge and educate us, and landscapes to refresh our spirits and to support wildlife. The foundation of the multiple use concept is sustainability - meeting those needs not just for today but for the future generations of American citizens. Sustainability-- or finding that balance between today's demands and future expectations for public resources-- is the challenge that an Assistant Secretary of Land and Minerals Management must grapple with every day she is on the job. I pledge to the Committee that, should I be confirmed, I will meet this challenge with hard work, honesty and a dedication to finding fair and balanced solutions to public resource management issues.



I am confidant that I have a background that will help me fulfill this responsibility to the American people. A first-generation American mother and a father whose ancestors immigrated on the Mayflower raised me in the Midwest. I was brought up to love and honor this Country, to appreciate its diversity, to work hard for my employer, to find pragmatic solutions and to believe that through education I could achieve anything. Sitting here today before this Committee, I know that the guidance of my parents and grandparents was correct. I commit to bring those same values to the responsibilities of this position.



I have lived most of my adult life in the Rocky Mountain West. I left the prairies of the Midwest for the Rockies after I saw my first mountains. The focus of my legal practice has been to serve the people and businesses of the West primarily in natural resource development and public lands management. I was educated and worked in the "New West" urban center of Denver, spent a decade in the "Old West" economy of Wyoming and live now in Montana where the philosophies and economies of the New West and the Old West are often in conflict. I have worked in Washington, D.C. for five years. First, at the Department of Energy helping to develop policy to minimize the environmental impacts from the use and production of energy and, next, at a private law firm where I primarily represented the timber industry on Endangered Species Act and historic resource preservation issues.



Although I enjoyed the national policy-making opportunities in Washington, I returned to the West because I love the landscape, the outdoor lifestyle and most of all the western people. I admire their combination of independence and willingness to reach out to help others in need. Life in the West is not all as portrayed in "A River Runs Through It" and "The Horse Whisperer" - people in the rural West struggle to find good jobs, contribute to their communities and educate their children. As you know, the public land states have a unique challenge that results from federal management of from 30-80% of their surface area. How the federal lands are managed has a direct impact on the health and well being of those states -particularly for more vulnerable rural and reservation economies.



I believe that while we must address the sometimes competing demands of the larger American public for development and conservation of the public lands, we must also help the public land states and Tribes develop a diverse and sustainable rural economy. I am optimistic that multiple use management and Secretary Norton's guiding principles of conservation through communication, consultation and cooperation can both meet national needs and help rural and reservation economies find a sustainable future.



If confirmed, I pledge to work with Congress, conservation groups, states, Tribes, local communities and natural resource interests in a bi-partisan and forthright effort to find that often-elusive balance point in the management of public resources. Each of us in this hearing room is well-aware that this will not be an easy task or one lacking in controversy. I am confident, however, that Americans of goodwill can cooperatively work together to find the common ground that best reflects the desires of our citizens for a strong economy and for the conservation of public resources to benefit present and future generations.



I welcome the questions of the Committee.