Department of Interior

Public Comment Requested on DOI Draft Strategic Plan

WASHINGTON, DC-- The Department of the Interior released its Draft Strategic Plan for public comment today. The plan would delineate the Department’s strategic missions, establish overall goals and expected results, and guide the Department’s activities for the next five years.

More than a year in development, the plan integrates views and recommendations from stakeholder focus groups, internal teams, and senior Departmental managers. Thousands of pages of meeting information, comments and proposals were considered and vetted to produce the current draft.

This strategic plan is a marked departure from previous plans in both the manner in which public input has been sought and used and in the way the plan has been structured. The process began with stakeholder focus meetings in which participants were asked to present views on the missions of the Department, the results that the Department should strive to achieve, and the measures by which success could be gauged. The information derived from external and internal meetings and reviews was used to construct this draft document for further public comment. The new draft also differs from preceding plans in being a unified, Department-wide strategic plan. This single results-driven document replaces a suite of loosely coordinated nine bureau/office plans previously adopted by Interior.

Strategic planning is required of federal agencies by the Government Performance and Results Act. Interior’s draft strategic plan covers the years 2003-2008. The request for public comments during the next 60 days was published today in the Federal Register (Volume 68, No. 36, pp. 8616-17). The Draft Strategic Plan as well as the Federal Register notice are posted on the Interior’s website at under the “Hot Topics” link.

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