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Remarks from Budget News Conference - February 5, 2007

Welcoming Remarks
Shane Wolfe
Press Secretary, Department of the Interior

Good Afternoon.  Welcome to the Sydney R. Yates auditorium.  Today we will present our fiscal year 2008 budget request for the Department of the Interior. 

Our presenters today are Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, Assistant Secretary Tom Weimer, and Deputy Secretary Lynn Scarlett.

Secretary Kempthorne will highlight our initiatives, as well as our overall budget vision and key priorities.  Assistant Secretary Weimer and Deputy Secretary Scarlett and will discuss our plan for achieving our key goals in 2008.

When the slide presentation is finished, the Secretary, Deputy Secretary, and Assistant Secretary Weimer will take questions from the media.

During the question and answer session of the press conference, please come up to the microphones, which will be positioned at the front of each aisle, to state your name, affiliation and question.

After the question and answer session, bureau representatives will be available at the tables located around the auditorium for additional questions.

I now want to introduce Secretary Kempthorne.

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery for
The Honorable Dirk Kempthorne,
Secretary of the Interior

Good afternoon and welcome to the Department of the Interior. 

This is the first Department of Interior budget I have announced since I became Secretary last May. Throughout my career, I have been part of developing many budgets – first as mayor of Boise, then as a United States Senator, and finally as governor of Idaho.

Having reached this day, I can now tell you that developing a budget for the Department of Interior is an extraordinary exercise. We have an enormous mandate that rivals just about any governmental department in its breadth and diversity – and its importance to the everyday lives of our citizens.

Our 73,000 employees live and work in communities across America and its territories. We have 2,400 field offices. We manage 145,000 assets – second only to the Department of Defense.

Our work stretches from pole to pole from wildlife refuges in the Arctic to scientific research at the South Pole.

We oversee land and resources that stretch across 12 time zones from the Caribbean to the Pacific Rim. The sun literally never sets on the Department of the Interior.

We have the third largest contingent of federal law enforcement officers, with 3,400 officers and agents.

The list goes on.

In crafting the budget we are announcing today, I was acutely aware that this is more than an exercise in balancing numbers.

Each dollar we put into our budget makes a statement about the priorities we believe are important for the American people – and the vision we have for how we will serve the American people more effectively in the coming years.

The good news I can report to you today is that our overall 2008 request for the Department of the Interior is $10.7 billion -- nearly $450 million, or 4.5 percent, above the 2007 continuing resolution spending level.

Within this request, our budget includes a record increase of $214 million to fully cover the fixed costs of the entire department.

The budget is carefully crafted within the President’s commitment to continue to fund the nation’s highest priorities while eliminating the deficit in five years. The administration is on track to achieve this goal.

As Interior Secretary, I get to boast that my department actually returns more to the U.S. Treasury than we receive in appropriations. We project $15 billion in non-tax revenues for 2008, more than any other federal agency. That’s roughly one and half times our appropriation.

I believe that our 2008 budget will – in its entirety – make a dramatic difference for the American people.

 We will better conserve our public lands.

 We will improve our national parks.

 We will protect our wildlife and its habitat.

We will help craft a better future for Indian country and particularly for Indian children.

And we will produce the energy that America needs to heat our homes and run our businesses.

Assistant Secretary Tom Weimer and Deputy Secretary Lynn Scarlett will guide you through many of the specifics of our 2008 budget in a moment, but I want to highlight four major initiatives that are at the heart of the budget.

The National Parks Centennial Challenge to enhance National Parks as we approach their 100th anniversary in 2016;

The Healthy Lands Initiative, which will allow us to provide energy for the nation while also protecting critical lands and habitat;

The Safe Indian Communities Initiative to combat the methamphetamine crisis on Indian lands; and

 The Improving Indian Education Initiative that will enable Indian children to grow up in an environment that allows them to achieve their dreams.

Ninety-nine years ago, President Theodore Roosevelt convened a summit of national leaders to consider the future of conservation.  This historic conference established the framework for a uniquely American invention—the National Park Service.

Our National Parks are more than simply places to visit. They help define who we are as a nation – our land, our history, and our culture. We must ensure that they inspire our grandchildren, just as they inspired our grandparents in the last century.

  Last August, I had the honor of celebrating the 90th anniversary of the National Park Service at our first national park, Yellowstone. On that day, I announced the President’s National Parks Centennial Challenge.

Through this initiative, we are preparing the parks for their 100th anniversary in 2016.

The goal of the Centennial Challenge is not to wait until this anniversary to improve our parks. Rather, it is to begin the work now so that we can celebrate victory and a much-improved National Park System in 2016.

Our 2008 budget inaugurates this historic, multi-year investment with the largest ever budget for operations and programs that benefit our national parks —$2.3 billion.

Park superintendents repeatedly tell me their greatest need and highest priority is to increase funding for daily operations.

Park advocates like the National Parks Conservation Association have encouraged the American public to champion spending increases for our parks of $250 million over the 2006 budget.

Our budget surpasses that goal. Today, I am announcing an increase for park operations of $258 million.

As part of the operating budget, the President is proposing $100 million a year over the next decade – or $1 billion – as part of what we are calling our Centennial Commitment to improve both our park infrastructure and the experiences of people visiting the parks.

This will allow us to hire 3,000 more seasonal national park rangers, guides and maintenance workers. It will enable us to repair buildings; improve landscapes; and enroll more children in the Junior Ranger program. We will also expand interactive experiences that will appeal to today’s technologically savvy youth.

In addition to the operating budget, the President is proposing $100 million a year in mandatory funding over the next decade –or another $1 billion – under the Centennial Challenge to provide matching funds for contributions made by Americans for projects to improve our parks and open the way for better visitor experiences.

Unlike the Centennial Commitment funds, these funds will be made available to match donations from the American people to support these projects. As private partners match the amount, this will mean at least an additional $1 billion in contributions to improve our parks.

Taken as a whole, the funds for the Centennial Challenge initiative and the anticipated contributions of the American people will total a minimum of $3 billion over the next decade.

We are a nation united in our love and appreciation for our national parks. Each year, in fact, Americans contribute millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours at our 390 national parks, battlefields, memorials, and other sites that make up the park system.

As they embrace the Centennial Challenge, the voluntary contributions of Americans will help us invest in signature programs and projects that we will identify through a series of listening sessions throughout the country in the next few months.

At Yellowstone and Yosemite, Denali and Dinosaur, Grand Canyon and Grant Teton, Shiloh, Shenandoah and other parks, the National Park Service each year welcomes 270 million visitors.

Our Centennial Challenge will ensure that national parks continue to inspire Americans for another 100 years.

Beyond our Nation’s parks, Interior also manages millions of acres of public lands as working landscapes.  These lands support grazing, energy and minerals production, hunting and fishing, and other recreational opportunities.

As we seek to enhance energy security through domestic energy production, we must also maintain healthy lands to support wildlife and their habitat.

We must actively manage species such as the sage grouse to prevent the need to list them under the Endangered Species Act and to assure recovery of threatened and endangered species.

Addressing these challenges will require new management tools, increased resources, and partnerships.

My Healthy Lands Initiative meets these challenges. My Initiative includes, for the first time, a $22 million investment dedicated to conserving areas both vital to wildlife and to energy development.

Through this initiative, the Bureau of Land Management, working with the Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Geological Survey, will identify, restore and protect important wildlife habitat.

The Healthy Lands Initiative focuses on conserving the entire landscape and its wildlife as a whole, allowing us to better identify and protect wildlife corridors and other significant habitat.

A $15 million increase will enable the Bureau of Land Management to protect wildlife and restore habitat, primarily in energy interface areas.

The Healthy Lands Initiative will strengthen partnerships with communities, conservation organizations, and companies.

The Initiative focuses on six areas in the West.  Five of these areas contain the largest onshore reserves of natural gas in the country.

One of the six targeted areas for this initiative is the Green River Basin of Southwest Wyoming, an area of significant wildlife habitat and rapid energy development. 

Wyoming is home to more than 800 species, of which 12 are federally listed as threatened or endangered.  The Green River area alone has 9 listed species.

The Healthy Lands Initiative will build upon existing partnerships to restore 71,000 acres in the Green River Basin.

In his State of the Union Address, the President underscored the importance of domestic energy production.

BLM estimates that there are 1.9 billion barrels of oil and over 57 trillion cubic feet of natural gas on the federal lands in the area of Southwest Wyoming—an area also rich in wildlife. This is enough oil to provide for the needs of the entire Rocky Mountain region for nearly nine years. It is enough natural gas to supply homes in the entire United States for more than 11 years.

Our budget will ensure continued access to public lands for energy development.

In New Mexico, our Initiative will build upon recent experiences to apply landscape-scale habitat management. In the past, BLM undertook habitat restoration five to ten acres at a time. In 2005, this traditional approach resulted in improvements on less than 14,000 acres.

With resources from our Healthy Lands Initiative and using landscape-scale partnerships, BLM will improve nearly 100,000 acres of habitat in the wildlife-energy interface in New Mexico—seven times what it achieved under the traditional approach.

Overall, under the Healthy Lands Initiative, we expect the $22 million in Federal funding, combined with partner investments, to restore nearly a half million acres.

Our Initiative includes $5 million for the US Geological Survey and $2 million to the Fish and Wildlife Service to improve scientific information and monitoring.

The U.S. Geological survey will inventory species and habitats, monitor land and water resources, and integrate habitat and energy information.

In addition, the Fish and Wildlife Service will work with private landowners to conserve species at risk, exploring use of tools like mitigation and conservation banks.

I have spoken today about our vision for managing and preserving our lands for future generations to enjoy. 

I am also proposing two initiatives to ensure that future generations of Native Americans have safe and secure communities to call home.

I also want to ensure that all Native American children can fulfill their greatest potential through education.

If we are going to meet these goals, we must stop the scourge of methamphetamine in Indian Country. As I meet with Tribal leaders, they describe a meth crisis that has the potential to destroy an entire generation if left unattended.  They refer to it as the second small pox epidemic. 

This crisis has a human face. The face of destroyed lives. The face of neglected children.

I personally saw this human face when I was governor of Idaho. I accompanied state police on a drug bust at a private home. I have never seen such squalor and filth. There was garbage everywhere and in the backyard, an open septic tank leaked raw sewage.

As if that weren’t bad enough, I learned that the children of those arrested were about to arrive home from school. These children ate, breathed, and slept in rooms containing toxic chemicals. When they came home and saw mom or dad cooking on the stove, it wasn’t dinner. It was another batch of meth.

Tribal leaders have told me about a 9-year old meth user who was taken to the hospital with hallucinations and violent behavior. They told me of a young mother on meth who stabbed her baby to death because she thought he was possessed by the devil.

At one reservation particularly hard hit by this crisis, an estimated 25 percent of babies are born addicted to methamphetamine. One still-born baby had meth and five other drugs in its blood system.

This is not just a budget issue, this is a moral issue. We must help tribes put an end to this scourge and create an environment in which young people can thrive.

Our 2008 budget proposes $16 million in new investments for a Safe Indian Communities Initiative. With this Initiative, we will battle the rise of methamphetamine on Indian reservations. 

One of the challenges we face is lack of adequate law enforcement on many tribal lands. As a result, organized crime has targeted Indian reservations as a hub for the distribution and transportation of methamphetamine.

The result is a violent crime rate in some communities that is ten to twenty times the national average. 

Our Safe Indian Communities Initiative will increase law enforcement presence and training on tribal lands. 

With additional officers and specialized drug enforcement training, we will shut down these peddlers of poison.

It is not enough, however, to simply protect Indian children from drugs and crime. We must also help them to a brighter future through better educational opportunities in Indian Country.

Last year, I established a new Bureau of Indian Education to oversee education for the nearly 50,000 students in our school system.

As one of only two Federal school systems, our Bureau of Indian Education schools should be models for achieving the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act. 

Yet just 30 percent of our schools are meeting these goals.  We must change course so Indian children receive the education they deserve.

Our budget proposes $15 million to do just that.

Over the last 5 years, we have significantly improved the condition of Indian Country schools.

We must now focus on the classroom.

Through our education initiative, we will ensure that the dreams of today’s youth become the realities of tomorrow.

These four initiatives are at the heart of our vision for the Department of the Interior in the coming years.

As I look back over the past eight months, I am encouraged by the professionalism and dedication of our employees. I have full confidence that the budget we are announcing today will empower them to serve the American people better and to work in partnership with the American people to create a better future.

I would now like to introduce Assistant Secretary Tom Weimer. Tom will discuss Interior’s integrated approach to meeting our responsibilities and achieving our key goals in 2008.

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery for
Tom Weimer, Assistant Secretary
for Policy Management and Budget

Thank you Secretary Kempthorne.  I am pleased to join you today to discuss Interior’s key goals and objectives in the 2008 budget.

We used the Department’s new strategic plan to set our priorities.

Through Interior’s many programs and projects, the Department delivers energy, water, recreation, conservation, and other benefits to all Americans.

The President’s Management Agenda has spurred an unprecedented focus on better management to achieve results.

Strong management is what allows us to carry out our mission and achieve our goals.

Over the past five years, Interior has dramatically improved financial management.

Last year the Department received its tenth unqualified audit opinion, while completing the audit just 45 days after the close of the fiscal year. Five years ago, the same task took us five months to complete.

Interior has also expanded the use of financial information in decision making.

We are implementing an integrated Financial and Business Management System that will replace more than 100 legacy systems and subsystems.

In formulating this budget, we have made difficult choices to meet these priorities. One of these priorities is assuring energy security for this Nation.

In his State of the Union address, President Bush underscored that America must enhance energy independence.

Interior plays a key role in advancing this goal.

One-third of the energy produced in the United States each year comes from public lands and waters managed by Interior. 

Our 2008 budget encourages energy efficiency and conservation, promotes alternative and renewable energy sources, and strengthens energy security through increased domestic production.

This year, we will begin to implement the new five-year plan for the Outer Continental Shelf.  The plan provides the Minerals Management Service with a blueprint for managing offshore energy development.

The Minerals Management Service 2008 budget request for energy programs is $291 million, a $5 million increase over 2007.  This increase will facilitate deepwater development and the completion of environmental analyses for 2008 lease sales.

On January 9th of this year, the President announced an increase in the royalty rate for new offshore federal oil and gas leases.

We estimate the new rate will increase royalty payments by $4.5 billion over the next 20 years.

Onshore public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management produce 18 percent of the Nation’s natural gas and five percent of its oil.

Through improved permitting efficiencies and our Healthy Lands Initiative, we will help ensure continued access to over 85 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and over 2.2 billion barrels of oil.
 
A $3 million increase for inspection and monitoring in the non-pilot Bureau of Land Management field offices will ensure environmentally responsible energy development on public lands.

The production of renewable energy sources on public lands will also rise in the future. 

Wind energy capacity on Bureau of Land Management lands is expected to increase by over 3,000 megawatts in the next ten to 15 years. Two recent applications for solar facilities on Bureau of Land Management land have an estimated combined output of 1,750 megawatts.

The Department of the Interior, through the Bureau of Reclamation, is the largest supplier and manager of water in the 17 western States. 

Reclamation maintains 472 dams and 348 reservoirs with the capacity to store 245 million acre-feet of water.  Reclamation hydroelectric power plants produce around 44 billion kilowatt-hours annually.

These facilities deliver water to one in every five western farmers who produce some 60 percent of the Nation’s vegetables.

Reclamation facilities also provide water to over 31 million people for municipal, rural, and industrial uses.

One of the greatest challenges facing Reclamation and the American West is the scarcity of water in some of the fastest growing areas in the Nation.

Through Water 2025 and other conservation programs, Reclamation is providing over $30 million in financial and technical resources in areas of the West where significant water needs exist.

The 2008 budget includes $11 million for Water 2025, targeting areas with the greatest competing demands for water. 

This funding will diversify water supplies and help prevent shortages through conservation, improved technologies, and new management tools.

Much of the water infrastructure in the West was built in the early to mid-1900s. This infrastructure needs significant maintenance work or major rehabilitation.

Our budget initiates a new Bureau of Reclamation loan guarantee program that will leverage federal funds in loans to assist local water districts in maintaining or rehabilitating aging water supply infrastructure. 

Restoring forest health and reducing risks to communities from wildland fires remains a high priority.

The President’s Healthy Forests Initiative, launched in 2002, treats forests and rangelands to reduce the risk of unnaturally intensive and destructive fires.

Interior has conducted hazardous fuels treatments on about seven million acres from 2001 through 2006.

To build on these accomplishments, the 2008 budget includes $203 million for the Hazardous Fuels reduction program, an increase of $3 million over the 2007 level.

Along with its responsibilities for resource protection and resource use, Interior provides a variety of outdoor experiences and recreational opportunities for the public. Our lands attract over 400 million visits each year.

Whether camping at a National Park, hunting at a National Wildlife Refuge, or riding ATVs on Haystack Mountain in New Mexico, many Americans recreate on Interior lands.

Interior’s 2008 budget provides $1.7 billion to advance its recreation mission by emphasizing increased access and improved visitor experiences.

Interior also holds unique Indian trust management responsibilities for lands that encompass nearly 56 million acres, the largest land trust in the world.

The 2008 budget will invest $490 million throughout Interior to continue our trust reform program accomplishments.

I’d like to now introduce Deputy Secretary Lynn Scarlett, who will describe some of our key conservation priorities.

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery for
Lynn Scarlett, Deputy Secretary of the Interior

Thank you, Tom.

Nearly every American lives within an hour’s drive of lands or waters managed by Interior. 

To achieve our goals, we must work with our neighbors and across boundaries.

The President’s vision of Cooperative Conservation is strengthening conservation partnerships across the Nation.

Our 2008 budget includes $324 million for cooperative conservation programs, a $35 million increase over the 2007 level.

These programs leverage partnership funding to protect endangered and at-risk species, restore wetlands and uplands, and achieve our conservation goals while maintaining working landscapes.

Through these programs, we are fostering a nation of citizen stewards.

Also central to cooperative conservation, habitat restoration, and wildlife protection are our National Wildlife Refuges.

Our National Wildlife Refuge System includes 547 wildlife refuges and 37 wetland management districts covering 96 million acres. 

These wildlife refuges provide habitat for one-quarter of the nation’s 1,311 endangered or threatened species. One hundred and one refuges were created to provide habitat for those imperiled species.

Our 2008 budget includes program increases of $5 million for refuge and wildlife habitat management.  With this increase, the Fish and Wildlife Service will restore habitat for species such as the endangered Attwater prairie chicken.

We are restoring habitat on lands and restoring fish habitat in our rivers, lakes, and streams. Our Open Rivers Initiative and National Fish Habitat Initiative are new to our 2008 suite of cooperative conservation programs.

These fisheries conservation programs will invest over $16 million in Federal resources to leverage funding from partners to protect, enhance, and restore aquatic habitats.

With a program increase of $6 million for the Open Rivers Initiative, the Fish and Wildlife Service will have a total of $11 million to improve fish passage and restore vital ecosystems.

Through cooperative conservation, we are also protecting America’s wetlands. 

Around 85 percent of our Nation’s wetlands are on non-Federal lands, making public-private partnerships essential to improving their health, quality and use.

Wetlands provide life-sustaining habitat to hundreds of species.  They also provide protective buffers for towns and cities against hurricanes, floods, and storm surges. Some call our coastal wetlands horizontal levees.

Wetland losses over the past century have made the Coast more vulnerable to hurricane damage.

Hurricane Katrina alone transformed an estimated 118 square miles of coastal wetlands to open water.

The President set a goal of creating 3 million additional wetland acres by 2009. Our 2008 budget will contribute to this goal by restoring 800,000 acres of wetlands.

Interior’s responsibilities extend to our coasts and oceans.

A week ago, Secretary Kempthorne highlighted Interior’s role in managing our Nation’s oceans and coasts at a special budget preview with Commerce Secretary Gutierrez.

170 of our refuges and more than 70 national parks, covering more than 55 million acres, lie within coastal and ocean environments. We manage 1.7 billion acres of the outer continental shelf for energy and other activities.

Reflecting the significance of oceans and coasts in Interior’s mission, the Department’s 2008 budget includes $930 million to support the President’s Ocean Action Plan.

Our budget includes increases for the U.S. Geological Survey to implement a strategic plan for oceans research. 

Our budget also supports initial implementation of an interagency, national water quality monitoring network.

In a historic announcement last year, the President established the new Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument—140,000 square miles of spectacular islands and ocean habitat. Our budget will support the management of this Monument.

Through cooperative conservation, we are working with other agencies, Tribes, States, nonprofit organizations, and individual citizens to lend a caring hand to our lands and waters.

Among our greatest partners are volunteers from all backgrounds.

Through Take Pride in America, we encourage volunteers to join us in improving our public parks, forests, cultural and historic sites, and other recreation areas.

Annually 200,000 volunteers contribute over eight million hours to support Interior’s mission. Their efforts spring from their passion for our public lands.

The 2008 National Park Service budget includes a $3 million increase to expand the volunteer program by one million hours and to provide 44 coordinators to parks to better manage and coordinate the services of current volunteers.

The Department of the Interior has an astounding set of responsibilities.

  1. The Nation depends on this Department to improve our natural and cultural resources, economic vitality, and community well being.
  2. As a Federal Agency that touches the lives of each and every American, we work best when we work together.
  3. Our 2008 budget will deliver results to this Nation through partnerships, management excellence, and the use of science to inform our decisions.

We look forward to working with Congress, States, Tribes and all Americans to advance these goals.

I would now like to invite Secretary Kempthorne and Assistant Secretary Weimer to join me on the podium to receive questions from members of the media.