Remarks Prepared for Interior Secretary Gale Norton
National Press Club, February 20, 2002
Conservation in the 21^st Century: A New Environmentalism

I would like to thank the National Press Club for inviting me.

This first year has been very busy, very exciting and - I hope and believe - very productive.

After our first Everglades task force meeting last month, I slogged through Florida wetlands with water above my knees - while park rangers warned us to "watch out for alligators." In March, I shivered through a minus 75 wind chill on Alaska's North Slope near the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Contrast that with my visit to Arizona's Grand Canyon in the heat of August.

Through these and other fascinating experiences, I've seen many places and met many of the fine people who manage and care for America's public lands.

The Interior Department's eight bureaus manage more than one out of every five acres of land in the United States. We are entrusted with some of the most patriotic symbols of our nation, from the Statue of Liberty to Independence Hall. We host a half a billion visitors a year, creating economic engines for communities across the country.

We manage 72 percent of Nevada, almost 50 percent of Utah, and 62 percent of Alaska. My department includes vast multiple-use areas.

Interior lands and the Outer Continental Shelf produce nearly one third of the nation's domestic energy. In 2001, we generated more than $11 billion in revenue - $1 billion more than Congress appropriated. This is more revenue than any other department, except the Treasury Department - of course it helps them to have the IRS.

We work with more than 500 Indian tribes, and our Indian education program is the federal government's largest school system. We supply the water that makes the arid West bloom. We have thousands of scientists who specialize in everything from volcanoes to ornithology to satellite remote sensing.

I am continually aware of the impact of my Department on the lives of Americans. The decisions we make today on land management, wildlife and other resources will determine the America our children inherit.

As a Westerner who loves to hike and ski, I cherish our nation's natural beauty and the well-being of our land. The day I leave office I want to know that I helped build an America with a heathier environment and a more secure economy. To achieve this, we need to initiate a new era of conservation - what I call a "new environmentalism."

In launching this new era, we build upon a rich tradition begun at the turn of the last century with President Teddy Roosevelt. Roosevelt was a passionate outdoorsman - a hunter who believed in the preservation of our natural resources and the wise use and enjoyment of those resources. He put the weight of his presidency behind conserving public lands and wildlife, establishing the National Wildlife Refuge System and the U.S. Forest Service, and designating 18 areas of public lands as parks and monuments.

For the first few decades, the conservation movement focused on creation of parks and wildlife refuges, both at the federal and state level, and the management of game species such as waterfowl and deer.

Over time, the conservation ethic evolved and expanded. By the late 1940's Aldo Leopold, a forester by training, was calling for a more ambitious conservation agenda. He published the "Sand County Almanac," which provided the framework for a new approach to natural resource management - one based on managing our lands as a whole, rather than as individual parts.

Leopold is now widely considered to be the founder of the field of conservation biology. In my mind, he also laid the groundwork for a modern holistic approach to conservation and environmental protection.

At the heart of Leopold's conservation ethic was a call to all citizens to take responsibility and become stewards of the land. As a college student, I read Leopold's work. It helped shape my philosophy about the role of individuals in caring for our lands.

The history of the environmental movement over the last thirty-five years of the 20^th Century lacked the philosophical optimism of earlier decades.

The problems were perhaps more dramatically visible: our nation's symbol, the bald eagle, on the verge of extinction; the Cuyahoga River on fire; and smokestacks belching fumes in our cities. Rachel Carson captured the spirit of the times in her 1962 book, "Silent Spring," documenting some of the unintended environmental consequences of industrial development.

Out of this crisis period came the enactment of landmark environmental laws ranging from the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act to the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act.

Compliance with these laws and others have significantly improved our environment. But they have not been without controversy along the way. Federal policies resulted in conflicts, real and perceived, between economic growth and environmental protection.

Environmental discussions triggered passionate antagonism and hostility. In political and media debates, environmentalists and businesses demonized each other.

Again, my own experiences were shaped by larger societal trends. As a young attorney I represented farmers, ranchers, small business owners, and others who were frequently confused and angered by complex government regulation. They reflected the attitudes around the West known as the Sagebrush Rebellion.

These people simply wanted to pursue their dreams and livelihoods but saw a distant and heavy-handed federal bureaucracy standing in the way. Since I retained my own desire to protect the environment, yet sympathized with their plight, I sought ways to protect environmental values without trampling on other important values - like individual freedom and the basic need to make a living. I became interested in economic incentive approaches as an alternative to command-and-control regulation. In the early 1980's, for example, I spent a year at the Hoover Institution at Stanford researching emissions trading as an innovative method for controlling air pollution. Later, I did policy analysis for the Council on Environmental Quality on enhancing wetlands using economic incentives. I avidly read and discussed the work of others who were pursuing non-coercive, market-based ways of achieving positive environmental results.

Environmental issues today are more complex and subtle than the ones we faced in the 1960's and 70's. In the pollution context, major sources of life-threatening pollution are heavily regulated; the current challenges are issues like non-point sources and global climate change.

In the land conservation category, with the growth of our population and expansion of our economy, pressures have increased correspondingly on our undeveloped land, water resources, and wildlife.

Every year, Interior adds significant areas to its management responsibilities. We've found that public lands are no longer the only places to protect species. We have come to realize that we must work in partnership with people who farm, ranch and log on private land. While countless species depend on the land to sustain life, families depend on the land for economic survival.

I share Aldo Leopold's belief that Americans should be partners in the preservation of our lands and natural resources. I believe that most Americans, especially those who depend on the land for their livelihood, are ready and willing to step up to the challenge.

We need a new environmentalism, based on what I call the Four C's - Communication, Consultation, and Cooperation, all in the service of Conservation. 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, yes, love the land.

Fortunately, we're already seeing success stories. People are realizing that conservation doesn't happen in a vacuum. Rather than dictate from Washington how the land must be used, we need to work with people to determine how utilizing the land can be compatible with conservation. Americans are resourceful. We need to tap into our ingenuity and creativity.

Last summer, I visited the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Oklahoma. I saw free-roaming bison lumber among prairie flowers and producing oil wells. The Nature Conservancy owns the land. The Osage Tribe owns the mineral rights. If anything happens to one of the wells, the Nature Conservancy calls professors and students at Tulsa University to immediately mitigate the problem.

It's a beneficial win-win situation. The bison herd is thriving. The Osage people receive funds from the energy revenues. The university shares cost-effective environmental protection ideas with energy producers throughout the country. The students receive training and conduct research that improves technology across the nation. And the Nature Conservancy conserves and protects a vast landscape of the tallgrass prairie ecosystem.

For an example of today's complex issues, let's consider the Everglades. Starting in the middle of the last century, the Army Corps of Engineers undertook one of the largest water projects in history. The Corps did its job very well and plumbed South Florida to curtail flooding. The Corps provided water for agriculture and cities.

Unfortunately, this plumbing project has resulted in the loss of 1.7 billion gallons of water a day into the ocean. What worked well for flood protection left the Everglades to slowly die of thirst.

Something needed to be done, but how does one effect large-scale change throughout an ecosystem spanning half a state? How could one get dozens of competing interests to work together, including tribes, farmers, water districts, utilities, and parks and wildlife refuges?

In a strong display of bipartisanship, Congress passed the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. We have begun a process of restoring this great ecosystem. The "River of Grass" will be restored.

President Bush proposed $96 million in his 2003 Interior Department budget to support restoration. It hasn't been easy to reconcile all interests and it won't be easy as we get down to the nitty gritty. But together with all our partners - we will get the job done. It will take a lot more effort to negotiate and consult and build consensus than the Corps of Engineers first plumbing project, but in the long run it will be more satisfying for the participants and vastly more beneficial for the environment.

Likewise, new environmentalism is about meeting our nation's need for a vibrant economy and energy security - while at the same time protecting the environment. Some people say it can't be done. I know it can.

We can develop more renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, biomass, and geothermal on our public lands. We can use new technologies to develop domestic energy sources in environmentally sensitive ways, including energy production on a small portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

My view of successful environmental policy revolves around partnership, and one crucially important type of partner is state government. In my eight years as Colorado Attorney General, a lot of my time was devoted to environmental issues, especially as chair of the National Association of Attorneys General Environment Committee.

I spent a fair amount of time cooperating with federal officials on joint prosecutions and projects. But I spent an equal amount of time arguing with federal officials about whether Colorado could try something even slightly different from Washington mandates. That experience has strengthened my resolve to work closely with state officials on our common goal of resource protection.

Governors from across the political spectrum have been leaders in introducing new environmentalism. Governors have formally embraced a policy similar to the new environmentalism approach I am outlining today. They call their approach "Enlibra" from the Latin words meaning "toward balance." It's a philosophy designed to make progress on complex natural resource issues by working with community groups, corporations and state, tribal and federal organizations.

The concept puts collaboration ahead of polarization. Markets before mandates. It transcends political boundaries.

At Interior, we are working with states to amplify our ability to tackle tough environmental problems. I have made state and local government communication one of the performance goals of senior executives. We have rejuvenated working relationships with state wildlife officials, parks directors, and regulators, as well as governors. Several of our budget proposals have been structured to empower states to resolve environmental controversies.

New environmentalism captures Aldo Leopold's vision of a nation of citizen-conservationists. Successful conservation is a partnership between the government and the people. The government's role is to empower the people to take conservation into their own hands. Wherever you look, you will find places where this is happening:

• In Wyoming, ranchers, miners, and environmental groups are among 35 partners working together to protect streams and eliminate invasive species on 500,000 acres of land, an area equal to one quarter the size of Yellowstone.



• In Arizona, volunteers have contributed $2 million in labor to help rebuild both game and non-game fisheries in Lake Havasu, including restoring endangered bonytail chubs and razorback suckers.

• In North Carolina and Tennessee, 2,200 volunteers ranging from school kids to scientists are working on an inventory of nearly 1,500 species as part of conservation efforts at Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The mandates of the Endangered Species Act serve an important goal - and we will continue to enforce them. We are also working on ways to use cooperative approaches to recover endangered species.

Jim Bill Anderson is typical of the citizen-conservationists we hope to empower with new environmentalism. Anderson grazes cattle on a 49,000- acre ranch near the Canadian River in Texas. Like many ranchers, Anderson has a deep love and knowledge of the land and its wildlife. He wants to make a living - he also wants to conserve the land for future generations.

Over the last decade, Anderson voluntarily has paid to fence off environmentally sensitive areas of his ranch. Last year he split the cost of finishing the project with the Fish and Wildlife Service. The fencing has made his land more productive for both his cattle and for wildlife, including the lesser prairie-chicken, a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act.

Another Texas landowner recently summed up the sentiments of the partners who work with us on conservation projects. He told Jim Tate, my science advisor: "Thank you for empowering us to help ourselves."

We plan to further empower these types of habitat enhancement projects through the Landowner Incentive Program and the Private Stewardship Grant program. Both came into being this fiscal year as the result of a campaign promise by President Bush. We are seeking higher funding levels for the coming year.

This is the path to new environmentalism, a path away from conflict and toward consensus and partnership. This is the path this administration will take. As another example, I recommend and the President agreed to propose in his 2003 budget, a bold new step in the stewardship of our parks, refuges, public lands and wildlife - the Cooperative Conservation Initiative.

The initiative's goal is simple: to use government to remove barriers to citizen participation.

To fund this initiative, the President is proposing $100 million in challenge grants to landowners, land-user groups, conservation groups, and local and state governments for conservation projects that advance the health of the land and benefit people.

Half the new money, or $50 million, will be in invested with states to fund cost-share grants for innovative conservation projects. This will allow states to work within their communities to come up with solutions.

The National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management will utilize the other $50 million to fund cost- sharing grants. For example, a BLM area manager might work with a local government, the local cattlemen's association, and a private conservation group on an erosion control and watershed restoration project. The Cooperative Conservation Initiative would provide a grant to match the contributions of the non-federal partners so that the project will go forward.

Joining me at the head table is Evan Hirsche, President of the National Wildlife Refuge Association, who stood with me at the Tinicum Refuge in Philadelphia last month to help unveil the Cooperative Conservation Initiative.

The President issued a challenge in his State of the Union address for Americans to volunteer two years of their lives to national service.

Working to conserve public lands is one area where people can serve. More than 200,000 volunteers work on Interior lands. They outnumber Interior employees three to one. We could not manage our lands or welcome our visitors effectively without them. The more people we have volunteering, the more we can do. I hope that millions of Americans will answer the President's call.

Today, a special group of citizens heard the call and have agreed to become members of the commission that will plan the celebration of the Centennial of the National Wildlife Refuge System.

Two years ago, Congress passed the National Wildlife Refuge System Centennial Act to commemorate the system's 100^th anniversary. The Act authorizes me to appoint a centennial commission to coordinate the celebration and forge private sector partnerships.

I am pleased to announce that Bill Horn, the former Assistant Secretary of Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, will chair the commission. Bill is an avid supporter of the refuge system. In 1997, he was one of the forces who brought people together to enact the first comprehensive legislation defining the mission and management of the refuge system.

The commission includes a group of distinguished citizens, including Karl Malone, Pete Coors, Jack Hanna, and Ramona Bass.

Today the refuge system represents the best in American conservation. It is the largest system of lands in the world dedicated to wildlife. The more than 500 refuges cover an area the size of Montana.

The refuges themselves are incredibly diverse, with examples of virtually every kind of ecosystem in North America. They are enjoyed by 40 million visitors a year. The refuge system is an expression of the love the American people have for our natural heritage.

President Bush has proposed a record $56.5 million increase in the refuge system budget for 2003. This will help ensure the health and the wholeness of this national treasure as it begins its second century.

With new environmentalism, we will continue to find consensus and common ground. As the next generation of Americans become involved, we will have a healthier land, watched over by self-motivated citizen-stewards. We will spend more time tending the land and less time jousting with sound bites and hyperbole.

We are a nation founded on the principle that we can and must work together. We saw this in the aftermath of September 11^th - in the long lines at blood banks and the millions of dollars donated to victims and families.

We must apply the same sense of commitment to develop new environmentalism, ensuring our children and grandchildren inherit a nation that is as beautiful and strong as the one we inherited.

General Patton once said: "Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity." If we challenge the American people, we will create a new generation of citizen-conservationists, people who know the land, love the land, and take care of the land in the greatest tradition of our nation. Working together, we will get the job done. Thank you.