Remarks Prepared for Delivery
The Hon. Gale Norton, Secretary of the Interior
National Parks Conservation Association
Board of Trustees & National Council Luncheon
Weston Fairfax Hotel, Washington, D.C.
March 21, 2001, 1 p.m.

It's wonderful to be here today with you, the members of the National Parks Conservation Association.

You work for a great cause - protecting our national treasures for future generations of American families to enjoy and appreciate.

I worked on park issues as the Interior Department's Associate Solicitor. We worked on everything from trying unsuccessfully to persuade bison herds to stay inside Yellowstone to regulating a great national controversy - nude beaches.

The history between the National Parks Conservation Association and the National Park Service goes way back. The NPCA began just three years after the creation of the Park Service in 1916.

Ever since, you have been a model for bringing together the nation's parks enthusiasts to support and protect our national treasures for future generations.

Over the years, the NPCA has shown how outside groups can partner with the federal government to conserve our natural and cultural resources.

And I'll use this model at the Interior Department - to show how groups can communicate their ideas and come together to produce results.

I've served as Secretary of the Interior for all of seven weeks. Those seven weeks have been very busy, very exciting and - I hope and believe - very productive.

I've listened a lot. I've learned a lot. And I've spent a lot of time studying the intricacies of Department's budget.

Since the confirmation process, I've had the distinct privilege of sitting down and talking with many different people committed to conservation and environmental protection. People who - like me and really everyone at the Interior Department - care deeply about protecting and managing our national treasures and wild places. I've received tremendous feedback.

But there's a real problem in Washington D.C. today - too often groups are pitted against each other.

Too often political conversation becomes bitter and divisive. Too often the unintended casualties of this culture of partisan conflict are the very creatures and places that both sides are seeking to defend.

President Bush campaigned on changing the tone in Washington. And he's made great strides in returning civility to political debate. People are at least starting to disagree - without being disagreeable.

As Secretary of the Interior, I will work to change the tone in which we talk about conserving and protecting our environment. I hope to foster a new culture of communication, cooperation, a culture of consultation - all to serve the cause of conservation.

I believe there are good ideas all over America - and I believe in the value of developing partnerships and listening to people.

I've asked my Department to take up the challenge and chart a new path for environmental conversation. By reaching out to all people and working together, in partnership with state and local officials, individuals and groups like the NPCA, we can achieve results.

I've heard that the NPCA is, on one hand, pleased with the amount of attention President Bush and I are giving our national parks. On the other you may worry that the needs of the - as one leader put it - "bird and bunnies" are not receiving adequate attention.

I assure you that we have the utmost concern for preserving the natural and cultural resources in our national parks. I look forward to working with you in that effort.

To accomplish this goal, experience shows that we must expand our partnerships for natural resource stewardship to include individuals and organizations outside the Park Service. When we do, our National Park System reaps the benefits.

In Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a collective effort is underway to conduct a comprehensive study of all species inhabiting the park in order to better understand and thus protect our natural resources.

Students from schools and universities, as well as experts from museums and from the fields of biology, botany, taxonomy and ecology band together with a common goal that couldn't be accomplished by the Park Service alone.

This relationship with the National Park System provides a study area for young conservationists and advances appreciation for resource protection by future generations.

For example, at Great Smoky Mountains, graduate students design and construct traps used in the park for identifying species. Nearby grade school students check the traps. Visiting scientists examine and track the data. And the Park Service receives the best guidance possible for future planning decisions.

We must continue to build these beneficial partnerships with: Researchers who just need an invitation to use our parks as laboratories; nearby landowners who have a shared interest in preserving our resources; students who desire knowledge and experience; and members of groups like NPCA who have been studying ways to better manage resources in our parks.

We can achieve more by working with people - capitalizing on the knowledge to be gained by their expertise. I will invite more of these parties to the table and encourage those who are already working with us - like the NPCA - to continue to do so.

President Bush outlined another way to protect habitat through the Natural Resource Challenge. The President has designated $20 million for its continuation and expansions.

The Resource Challenge is designed to examine a knowledge backlog that is critical to the Park Service's mission to protect and conserve our natural resources.

In the Great Smoky Mountains National Park - where the research I mentioned is in progress - we think we may have more than 100,000 species inhabiting our park --but we don't know. As you could imagine, it is very difficult to make decisions about how to conserve our natural resources when we don't know where they are, what they are or what we should do to protect them.

The Natural Resource Challenge, now in its third year, has three objectives: to find out what natural resources are in our parks and monitor their trends; to actively manage exotic plants and animals to prevent them from crowding out native species; and to create a community of collaborative research in our National Parks.

While we learn more about our parks resources, we must also address a looming problem for our National Park System - and that's the backlog of maintenance projects that have been neglected for too long.

Safety hazards created by many of these projects endanger our visitors, our park employees and the natural habitat and cultural resources we aim to protect.

The visitors center at California's Lava Beds National Memorial is two 1974 trailers bolted together. If the center was on private land it would have been condemned five years ago. The safety of visitors and park staff is threatened. And the 18-foot-wide makeshift visitor center sits atop caves that are in danger of collapsing.

The Monocacy Aqueduct in the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park in Maryland is a true icon of early American engineering. It is the largest and most impressive of the eleven aqueducts erected along the canal. Historians say it is one of our nation's finest canals.

Today the aqueduct sits atop a list of the 11 most endangered historic places. The aging structure may soon become more damaged by frequent floods, and jeopardize the safety of our visitors and the restoration of this magnificent structure.

Yosemite National Park, with its high cliffs and waterfalls and marvelous giant sequoias, is also home to an antiquated sewage system - with parts dating back to the 1930s. The system's crumbling clay pipes are causing sewer spills in Yosemite Valley.

The failure to prioritize maintenance of our national parks has left them near the breaking point.

On behalf of President Bush, I'm glad to report: help is on the way. The President has come to the rescue of the backlog nightmare and is committed to injecting $4.9 billion over five years to solve this problem. But money is not the only answer. Management reform is a critical step to eliminate the backlog and prevent it from piling up again.

In the past management priorities haven't been established, maintenance management systems haven't been clearly enacted and parks haven't had true standards.

The President's goal is to establish by next year's budget a set of performance measures that can track the quality of facility maintenance performed, instead of just relying on the quantity of funding provided.

I wholeheartedly agree. I am excited about the partnership between the NPCA and the Park Service to develop business plans for our parks. And I strongly support the principle underlying these business plans. We should be establishing performance goals and benchmarks for our parks and we should be held accountable for meeting those benchmarks and goals.

Better financial planning and management in the parks will enable us to do a better job of protecting park resources - both the facilities and the natural resources - and of ensuring that visitors every year have a safe and enjoyable experience.

I am also interested in the concept of using business plans as a positive incentive for funding. I have heard about NPCA's efforts to bring business school students in to analyze park finances. That seems like a good idea and I look forward to working with you.

Well, the fire season is upon us. The 2000 fire season was one of the most intense and prolonged in decades with more than 90,000 wildland fires, nearly 7.5 million acres burned and more than 800 structures destroyed.

I got my own dose of smoke and fire in Colorado last summer, as did the park staff at Mesa Verde National Park. However, thanks to the preventative measures taken by Park Service staff, precious resources were spared.

Mesa Verde cleared dangerously dry brush which saved both natural habitat and cultural artifacts.

Improved fuels management is a key part of the new national fire plan we have begun to implement across bureaus at the Interior Department this year.

And although I cannot control the fire-prone conditions that seem to be evident across the nation again this year, I lifted the hiring freeze for fire positions.

I truly believe that our success - the Federal government's success - in managing and protecting our nation's national parks depends on our ability to develop partnerships with you and other interested parties.

We can benefit from your expertise and creativity.

It will be challenging to move from our current system of conflict to one of cooperation - but with President Bush leading us - we can make it happen.

To each of you, I thank you. For your concern about the environment. For your passion in protecting our natural resources and national treasures. And for your interest in furthering the kinds of partnerships that will make our National Park System stronger and better for future generations. Thank you.