some policy thinking...
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The New York Times
September 28, 2005
Interior Secretary Says U.S. Will Push Search for Energy
By FELICITY BARRINGER
WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 - Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton said Tuesday
that after the two destructive gulf hurricanes that battered the
nation's energy heartland, the Bush administration would intensify its
push to expand energy development on public lands including the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge and in the nation's coastal waters.
"The vulnerability of having all the energy supplies and refining and
processing capacity in one geographic area reinforces the idea that we
need diversity of supply," Ms. Norton said in an interview.
Citing government reports on the increasing demand for petroleum and
natural gas and the sustained high prices that tend to result, she
said, "The hurricanes have brought more attention to the fundamental
issue."
While Ms. Norton took no position on a Congressional proposal to end a
25-year moratorium on oil leases on the outer continental shelf and to
eliminate internal departmental appeals of administration decisions to
lease public lands, she did not reject its approach.
She said she had read only a two-page summary of the measure, which is
before the House Resources Committee, but she was open to the idea of
alternative energy development on public lands.
In a wide-ranging interview in her spacious, wood-paneled office, the
secretary - one of the few Cabinet members to serve since the opening
days of the Bush presidency - spoke of what she deemed the flaws in the
Endangered Species Act and of her worries about restrictions on some
activities in national parks. But she carefully sidestepped any
endorsement of final solutions.
Ms. Norton's remarks came at a time of intense debate over efforts by
Congress or the administration to reshape longstanding laws and
policies on matters within her department's purview, among them oil
leasing practices, protection of endangered species and management of
the national parks.
But while cautious about endorsing legislation or making new policy
pronouncements, Ms. Norton left little doubt that she would continue
her efforts to reshape the policies and practices that have restrained
private interests - be they energy exploration companies or the makers
of recreational vehicles like motorized water scooters and all-terrain
vehicles - that seek greater access to public lands.
Craig Manson, an assistant interior secretary, who joined Ms. Norton
for the interview, defended the review of national park management
policies.
Permissible "impacts" on park lands, Mr. Manson said, are confused with
impermissible "impairments."
"Footprints are going to be made if people are in the parks," he said.
"But that's not necessarily an impairment."
The 1916 law creating the park service, known as the Organic Act, says
its purpose is "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic
objects and wildlife" of parkland and "to provide for the enjoyment" of
these in a way that "will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of
future generations."
Citing this law, Mr. Manson said, "It's important that there be a
balance between the two aspects of the mandate."
He added, "From time to time those two aspects sometimes get out of
balance."
The "bulk of the work" of the current rewrite of department policies
set in 2001 - a rare occurrence, as rewrites are not usually done so
frequently - will be handled by "park service management," Mr. Manson
said.
A draft revision of the management policies that govern more than 390
units of the park system produced sharp denunciations by the National
Parks Conservation Association and a group of retired park employees,
who said it was catering to commercial interests, like the
manufacturers of often noisy recreational vehicles, at the expense of
conserving park resources.
While saying that the revisions were a work in progress, Ms. Norton did
say that she found it hard to see how noise, like the noise of
recreational vehicles, impaired park resources.
"Sound is an instantaneous issue," she said, adding: "There are things
that need to be dealt with in terms of the enjoyment of current
visitors. Clearly, current visitors are the ones impacted. But we tend
to lump all of that under impairment."
Construction of cellphone towers, Ms. Norton said, is not necessarily
deleterious to park landscapes.
"Cellphone towers are an issue," she said, "but the scale of land use
of a cellphone tower is a very tiny impact. We have some cellphone
towers that are disguised within buildings, or fake tree cellphone
towers. There are ways you can do it without impact."
The two officials took no stand on the rewrite of the Endangered
Species Act that the House is scheduled to consider Thursday. But they
made clear their openness to the act's two major proposed changes.
The first would replace the current process of designating areas of
"critical habitat" deemed essential by biologists for the recovery of
an endangered species with a slower and less binding process of
identifying "specific areas that are of special value to the
conservation of the species."
It also proposes the use of financial inducements to win landowner
cooperation and the reimbursement of landowners who, because of the
law, must forgo economic benefit their property would have provided.
* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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