Remarks Prepared for Delivery
By The Honorable Gale Norton
Secretary of the Interior
National Association of Regional Councils
Thank you Richard, I
appreciate your warm welcome.
It is an honor to address
the members of an institution that for more than three decades now has
Your selfless work has
assisted communities to address economic development, air and water
That is why I am proud
to formalize our relationship with NARC through the signing of a
Memorandum of Understanding at the conclusion
of my remarks.
When I was sworn in as the Nation’s 48th Secretary of the Interior,
I made a personal commitment
We have the same challenge and goal as the regional council’s—thriving
communities
and environmental conservation.
To achieve this, I am committed to a new era in the conservation of our
nation’s natural
resources; I call it “new environmentalism”.
Our 2004 $10.7 billion
budget request provides the single clearest statement of how we
will honor this
commitment in the upcoming year.
It is the largest
presidential budget request in the Department’s history, and it lays the
foundation to meeting our mission
responsibilities.
We take great pride in our mission to protect and manage the Nation’s natural resources and
That mission determines whether farmers will
have water and people can turn on the tap.
It preserves
In fact, a couple of weeks ago first lady
Laura Bush announced an initiative that will
provide you with greater support to protect and
restore our nation’s cultural and natural
The President signed an executive order that
directs federal agencies to inventory
and promote greater use of historical sites in
partnership with state, tribal, and
local governments.
Part of the goal of Preserve America is to
support community efforts to restore
cultural resources for heritage tourism. All of you know that preserving and
celebrating our past is critical to heritage
tourism and thriving communities.
Fortunately, we are not
alone in fulfilling these important objectives.
Now more than ever,
managing our public resource requires the development
I've borrowed a story from
history to illustrate that interaction.
One particularly large
rock was in the path of one of the principal avenues that had
been planned, and bids
were solicited for its removal.
The bids that were
submitted were very high. This was
understandable, because
at the time, the modern
machines we are familiar with did not exist and there
were no high-powered
explosives.
As officials pondered
what to do, a local resident offered to get rid of the boulder for
a much lower price than
those submitted by the other “more credentialed” bidders.
The city officials chose
to take a risk and gave the job to the local peasant.
The next morning he
showed up with a crowd of other peasants carrying shovels.
They began digging a
huge hole next to the rock. The rock was
propped up with
timbers to prevent it from
rolling into the hole.
When the hole was deep
enough, the timber props were removed and the
rock dropped into the
hole well below street level. It was
then covered
with dirt, and the
excess dirt was carted away.
It’s a simple example of
what creative thinking can do to solve a problem.
The unsuccessful bidders
only thought about moving the rock from one place
to another on the city’s
surface.
The peasant looked at
the problem from another angle. He
considered
another dimension – up
and down.
And so there it is; let
us look at the current challenges from another dimension.
At Interior, we are
using collaborative and community-based approaches to land
management. We have been
working on this approach because we believe it is
a better means to deal
with the complex challenges we face today.
Nowhere is that challenge more evident than
the issue of managing water
resources in the West.
The poet Thomas Hornsby Ferris, wrote about the West: “Here is a land
where life
is written in water.” The reality that we face today is that in some
areas of the West
there is not enough water to go around even in good years.
The stakes are
enormous. Cities need water for their
growing populations. Farmers
need water to grow food,
Tribes need water for their people and their future, and fish
and wildlife need water
to survive.
Yet the population of
the West and Southwest has exploded over the last decade.
While the Census Bureau
reports a national population growth rate of 13%, in the West the
average is almost twice
that. In several states it is much higher. Over the ten-year
census period,
This trend shows no sign
of changing.
Our challenge is made
greater by the drought that grips much of the West.
Before the current drought
began, in October 1999, reservoirs in the
38 feet and
below its highest
level. It is the lowest it has ever been
since its initial filling.
In other areas, like
that even if the runoff
in 2003 is twice as much as normal, there will not be enough
water to meet existing
needs this summer.
We must recognize the
realities of life in the desert, and the limits on the amount of water
that is available.
The President’s budget
request emphasizes the need for water use efficiency in our water
infrastructure. It is a commitment to return to the solid
principles of conservation.
Many water delivery systems
use technology popular when the 18th Century Spanish missions
We will take steps to develop
a resource management program that will respond to growing demands
The budget request includes
$11.0 million to launch a Bureau of Reclamation Water Initiative that uses
The Bureau of Reclamation
will use and further the concept of water banks wherever possible to help
We view the drought as a
warning to plan for scarcity in the future.
Let me now focus on the President’s Healthy Forest
Initiative.
To hear critics describe
it, the Healthy Forest Initiative is an undercover effort to move the West
back to a logging
In reality, it is an effort
to protect western communities. It is an effort to allow you to have a tourist
economy near
Tourists don't visit burned-out
forests or camp at burned over BLM lands. I don't have to remind you how devastating
While fire is a natural
part of a forest ecosystem, these fires were beyond natural. They burned hotter
and faster resulting
As you well know,
thousands of communities near Federal land are at risk from fire.
Some groups are claiming
that we only need to worry about the wildland urban interface areas.
Frankly, such a narrowly
focused strategy doesn't protect watersheds or critical habitat or endangered
species in the rest of public lands.
Hundreds of communities
have been affected by wildland fires either through evacuation, or tragically,
destruction of homes or
In
Working together, federal
and local firefighters controlled 99.7% of these fires on the initial attack.
We are doing our job and we have
But the extensive drought,
the dense fuel loads and disease and insect infestation allowed some fires
to explode. A century of fire
It does not have to continue
like this. We have tools available
to us: prescribed fires and mechanical thinning.
Where there was thinning,
the fire burned low to the ground, swept through quickly and left no lasting
damage.
The budget proposes
almost $700 million for wildfire prevention--almost $50 million more than last
year’s budget proposal.
It will allow the Department
to treat more than 300,000 high priority acres in the wildland-urban interface
and an additional 768,000 acres
When the President signed
the Omnibus Appropriations Bill several weeks ago, Interior was granted new
authority to help us improve the
For the first time, Interior
will be able to contract with private or public entities to cleanup or restore
lands in exchange for the value of timber
Taxpayers can not do it
alone.
Stewardship contracts will
allow us to achieve some of our land management goals that we have developed
with you.
In the past, contractors
have not been willing to take on projects because they were short-term and
could not guarantee a return on their
With the longer-term contracts,
investments can be made in equipment and facilities. Contracts for small diameter wood products can
be
This is new ground for
us and we see it as an extraordinary opportunity to improve the land. For this to work well we are going to need
Lastly, we will continue
funding for Rural Fire Assistance. Frequently,
local firefighting departments are the first responders to wildland fires
In 2002, the Department
assisted more than 5,000 rural and volunteer fire departments through grants,
technical assistance, training, supplies,
equipment, and public
education support.
Gateway Communities
The
Department’s parks, refuges, and public lands provide access for economic
uses and activities that fuel the economic engines for communities
Gateway
communities often are the welcome wagon for our National Parks, wildlife
refuges, monuments and public lands.
We
recognize the Department’s decisions can greatly impact these gateway communities.
We will work in partnership with the people who live on the
As we deal with growing
populations in the West, new pressures on the natural landscape emerge.
Citizens are looking for
increased recreational opportunities on public lands.
Increased population
leads to increased urbanization, which leads to rising land use,
cross-jurisdictional problems and growing use of facilities.
We
are looking at ways to work with communities to fit our land management program
into matching their local needs–not the other way around. Working
The
Moab Information Center in Utah, illustrates such a project where everyone
pitched in. This visitor center is
a joint effort of the Grand County
Grand
County leases the building to the Canyonlands Natural History Association,
which pays for it through the sale of books, maps and items
The
center is a focal point for visitors and community members alike and has served
as a major factor in Moab’s downtown revitalization.
Twenty
years ago, the BLM had 30 campsites at Moab–today they have more than 400.
The
visitor center is a necessity.
Some of you may have heard
me say before that the Four C's is a guide to how I want Interior to move
forward. They stand for communication,
At the heart of the Four
C's is the belief that for conservation to be successful, we must involve
the people who live on, work on, and love the land.
And not just in the West.
The
President’s Executive Order on Historic Preservation
–Preserve America
--Heritage tourism
Another Interior program with nationwide impact is
the Endangered Species Act.
When Congress enacted
the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1973, it is unlikely that anyone ever
imagined the far-reaching role it would play in a wide
range of land use and
water management decisions.
With more than 1200
species of plants and animals listed as threatened or endangered in the United
States, and millions of acres of designated critical habitat,
the ESA has the
potential to affect day-to-day decisions in every State across the country.
Consider just a few
examples: Water supply and flood
protection operations in South Florida are designed to take into consideration
the habitat needs of the
Cape Sable Seaside
Sparrow; road construction in New Hampshire has been impacted by the presence
of bald eagle nests; new development and the use of
pesticides in vineyards
will likely be impacted by a newly-listed salamander in California; and farmers
throughout the Midwest have to deal with piping plovers.
We have opportunities
across the country to change the dynamic of how we implement the ESA – to move
towards a new era of cooperative conservation that
achieves significant
benefits for species, while respecting the needs and interest of our partners.
This does not mean
abandoning the regulatory regime, but rather, supplementing it with
incentive-based approaches and partnerships.
We are working actively
with States, counties, and private landowners to develop a variety of
conservation agreements to protect habitat for
endangered species,
while still allowing economic activity to proceed.
Under these agreements,
for example, small timber lot owners in the Southeast can harvest timber and
protect the red cockaded woodpecker. In
Texas, ranchers
graze cattle while
providing habitat for the aplamado falcon.
We are also working to
improve our regulatory processes to maximize flexibility and target limited
resources where the potential impact on species is the greatest.
We have developed new
guidance on the use of conservation banks, similar to wetlands mitigation
banks, to encourage the preservation of habitat while assisting
landowners who want to
develop their property. We are working
to streamline our review of federally-funded projects. And we are improving the process for
designating critical
habitat.
We are committed to
fulfilling our responsibility to implement the ESA and recover species. Together, we can do a better job of
protecting species and people too.
In conclusion, I am mindful that the decisions we
make at the Department of the Interior have huge impacts on communities.
And as such, we are changing our policies to allow
for flexibility in management and to make room for as much local and regional
input as possible—those most
affected, not just the interested.
This is the path to a new environmentalism, a path
away from conflict and toward consensus and partnership. This is the path this
administration has taken. I am
confident that working together we can find ways to
move that boulder from the middle of the road.
Thank you.