comparemela.com

Welcome to afterwords on book tv. Your book is titled you report to me. Where did that title come from . Who was reporting to who . Well, that book is really titled based on a conversation. I with President Trump, right . As i was becoming acting secretary of the interior and i sat down with the president and had a discussion about potentially taking this role after serving as deputy secretary and in our discussion, we got to the end of the discussion. I said to him, who do i report to . And he said, you report to me, which was a very different perspective than i expected. I expected to be told. I reported to the chief of staff someone else. And so i walked out of there, out of out of the oval office with that crystallized in my memory. And it turned out that it was actually true that as i worked with the president , what i found is that i called him, discussed issues with him, and he made, you know, the inputs that he wanted to make. And it turned into a working relationship that was very, very efficient and much different than the experiences i had experienced in the Bush Administration. And so i used that title. But as you read the book for, those that do read the book, it actually has a broader meaning. And my view is that all of the individuals in government, whether theyre in the Civil Service or or elected officials or in the judiciary, ultimately all of them through their oath of office, report to the American People. And we should remember that now. Well talk a lot in this conversation about the agencys relationship to the president , the leader of the agencys relationship to the bureaucracy. Well talk about congress in the courts, but maybe we should talk first about the interior department. Its a its a large it does a lot of things. A lot of people are there. But my guess is its not necessarily the most famous of the cabinet departments. No offense. Its one that i know well from my old career in energy law. But for those who dont study interior quite so closely, could you just talk what it does . Absolutely. First off, its a Important Agency with a very Important Mission in the department of the interior manages approximately one in every five acres of land in the united through its administrative jurisdiction. Thats converted conferred to it by congress, as well as activities that take place on the outer continental shelf. And so it has a milieu of responsibilities related to those lands, depending on the direction the congress has provided. For example, some these Areas Congress has designated to be National Parks, in others fish and wildlife refuges. Other lands are designated multiple use lands administered by the bureau of Land Management. The department, the interior also manages water responsibilities in the west through what is called the bureau of reclamation and play a very Important Role in delivering water for agriculture and municipal and industrial uses to a lot of people in the west and then their scientific responsibilities, such as the usgs logical survey. Now whats really interesting about the department is its a very old agency. It was actually established. In 1849 and it when it was established, it was the outcome of other cabinet departments hoping to get rid of certain activities that they had within their jurisdiction. So the department of treasury was able to get out of the Work Associated with the general land office, which was largely in charge of transferring lands as a means of creating revenue for the federal government. The War Department transferred the responsibilities associated with American Indians to the department of the interior. The veterans pensions and benefits were part of the department of the interior, and even the office was initially a part of the department of the interior. And so it was even back in the 1840s and fifties, it was this organization, and that was very complex, based on a lot of stuff that other department didnt want to focus on. When you come to washington, often you see all these agencies and you kind of feel like theyve been here forever. But but some of them are very new. Some of them are very old. And your story about the history of interior reminds me of just 20 years ago when the government created the department of Homeland Security and had to bring together so many different component parts, some not new, some old. And sometimes its hard to actually work out how all of these things will row in the same direction and i gather that even for an agency thats now almost, what, almost 200 years old, sometimes it is still difficult to Row Everything in the same direction. So what you have at an agency like interior is specific, and within that department specific agencies have very different statutory missions and so in the role of deputy secretary or solicit are or even secretary, youre often harmonized as in the mandates of these agencies in a way that works for your overall responsibilities. And so historically that can have tension that can have a lot of public attention. And and you do learn through that process how to try and manage the responsibilities in a way thats consistent with the law, consistent with the facts, and then to the extent that its appropriate, consistent with the policy direction that the president has now, even before you became deputy secretary, then secretary, interior was an agency that you knew pretty well youd had a long career there, right . Thats correct. I spent eight years as a political appointee, first as a very junior appointee, working my way up in the Bush Administration for eight years. I ultimately served as a solicitor of the department, which is there a chief legal officer at the end of the bush george w Bush Administration, and then, of course, returned to serve as deputy secretary in the trum bush george w Bush Administration, and then, of course, returned to serve as deputy secretary in the trump administration. Now back to the theme of the book you report to me. How would you describe the relationship between a president and his cabinet secretaries . Well, i think it really is a relation ship that is largely dependent on the views of the relationship. The president actually wants to have. I mean, if you look at constitution, you know, there is theres not a lot of direction on the Job Description of of the relationship between the secretary and the president. You know, the president points you you have to be confirmed by the United States senate. And then the constitution basically says the president can ask you for a written report. Right. Right. And it and ultimately the response abilities associated with that job are laid out in law. But you have to have a relationship with the president and what he wants. And, for example, when i sit down with the president to talk about a potentially im serving as secretary, one of the questions i had for him is what did he want in the job of secretary . Because depending on, you know, his interests, the role may be something that i was not the optimal candidate for. So we we talked about and and ultimately the president decides how that relationship is going to work, what the involvement is that he wants with the secretary. And and its a very personal choice, in my opinion. Now, interiors a big place, but the white house is a big place to the president has not just his his core staff and advisers. Theres the entire domestic policy council, the National Economic council, National Security council, oira, all of that. And so when President Trump says you report to him, i mean, understand that the sense that youre youre his appointee and youll have a a one on one relationship in a lot of your work, but youre still surely working a lot with the broader team of the white house. And at its best, that larger structure helps the policymaking process. So how did you navigate that reporting to the president . But working with the broader team . Well, first off, youre absolutely right that there is entire team. And, you know, my perspective on the president s direction was as follows youre working with everybody collaboratively because you are a team and and you want to accomplish what you need to accomplish. And youre part of an effort where the white house is raising issues, potentially. Youre giving them solutions or raising issues to them to ensure that they are aware of of activities that. The president set very clear goals for me. He said, here are your goals. But what that statement meant to me was that ultimately i had the ability to talk to the president when i needed or wanted to, and that to me was a difference than the experience that id seen in the in the Bush Administration at times in the in the Bush Administration. I witnessed it taking literally months for a secretary to be able to raise an issue directly. The president , while working through that white house process with President Trump, you could move forward and get that call back very, very quickly. And that allowed you to resolve issues and move forward at a pace that really was dramatically different than my experience in the prior administration. And that was important. The to me it was at least important. And i think it would be important to any manager what you want as a as a manager, i think of any role is, you know, you want clear direction, you want a degree of consistency in that direction. And and when you need feedback or, a response, you want that quickly and you want to know that the superior has your back to a certain extent. I think everybody that works for anyone wants those types of things. And as i lay out in the book you report to me, i felt that i had that with the president. Whats an example that. Well, a great example would be one of the first actions that i took. I came in as an secretary. It was in the middle of a government shutdown. And i explained this in the book, and i made a decision to begin to utilize some money for recreational that was that was from recreational fees to address some issues at the National Parks and actually put some of our folks that were in facilities fees and maintenance who are really hurting back to work right away during the shutdown and in doing that, i knew that it would be controversial and i was confident it was legal. But i raised the issue with the white house and directly what the president explained to him. What i was going to do. And he said to me, hey, three things essentially, youre doing this now, even though its been a while with the shutdown, maybe you should have thought about doing it sooner, which i thought was a completely legitimate and responsible issue. Secondly, youre the new guy and because youre the new guy, maybe you ought to say that i you to do this, which i found incredibly interesting, given that i had told him it would be a controversial decision that he would have my back and then third and this was really important to me he said hey when you have something that you think is right and you need to do it, just do it and let me know and run your department the way you need to. And that was very enabling. And to have that direction from from the president , United States to move forward on his policy, vision i thought was an incredible act of management. Now, when youre not dealing with the president in the white house, youre dealing with the broader interior team. And thats one of the core messages of the book, the difficulty of leading a large cabinet, a cabinet level with many statutory responsibilities and a huge team of Civil Servants and others who dont necessarily agree with a given president s particular agenda. How would you describe the relationship between the cabinets of the agencys leader and, the the Civil Servants . Well, first off, it starts with the role of a respective secretary. And in the in the case of the secretary of the interior, congress has clarified that the secretary of the interior supervises all functions of the department of the interior and then lists those functions. And whats interesting that ive always thought is the word supervise his supervise to me is a is a word that conveys both an active sense like you need be on top of things and an element of accountability and then word all added to that means youre responsible for everything thats occurring in that department which is significant in the role. So i was very lucky when i first came to interior during the Bush Administration, and i ended up working in a very small office and. The great thing about that particular office was that the folks in that office believed it was their mission. The career folks in that office believed it was their mission to help secretary shine no matter, who the secretary was. And so that was getting in an experience to work collaboratively with career staff me a couple of things. First off, it taught me that i could over perform if i worked with them, if they collaborated with me, if i was able to learn from their expertise and then use to move the ball forward in 2016 after the election, what we saw in the in in the press in particular here was a lot of. Highlighting efforts to suggest that folks in the Civil Service should be resistant to the new president. And that was, frankly encouraged in the media. If you go back and look at bloomberg stories or others and, i highlight some of those stories in the book, and that was very troubling to me because the end of the day, when you sign up for the Civil Service and, you take the you take the same everyone takes to, you know, well and faithfully execute the law and in doing that in doing that, you buy into the system of whoever is the person thats elected. You need to carry out the mission according to the direction the American People expect and so my first message as deputy secretary laid out, you know, my my view of need for us to Work Together and highlight, you know, the respective roles, the Civil Service on one hand and political appointees. Now, the book the book, a whole series of of events from other agencies where you see a lack of collaboration at different times. And i also highlight some great points of collaboration in a president s and a president s frustration with the bureaucracy is that its a very old story in washington. President truman was was frustrated. The bureaucracy he, if i remember correctly, he joked that president eisenhower would arrive thinking hes like a general, where everything he does will immediately get saluted. Youll find out. In fact, things move a lot. Kennedy and his administration frustrated with the bureaucracy. President clinton, president obama, they were often frustrated with military bureaucracy. We often think about this as republican president s being frustrated by by domestic policy, Civil Servants. This happens on both sides of the aisle. That said, there does seem to be a difference recently in the last few administrations. And like you said at the outset of the trump administration, where you had Civil Servants protesting around the arrival, their their new leadership, i remember stories of the epa bureaucracy protesting outside of the epa building. Thats right. Even before secretary or administrator pruitt was was appointed to the agency. What has changed in the last, say, 20 years or so . I think a couple of things. But but i also think all of these things can be overcome. But do think that on one hand, it became socially acceptable to engage in this activity. The other hand, it is also a result, i believe, of a feeling of impunity that there will be no consequence for for acting in a manner thats unacceptable all. And i think in some instances actually believe that the activities are beyond appropriate. And i highlight the book an example of an individual who is working with the white house on communications and she devises a methodology where if the white house doesnt like shes written and gives her edits back she will make changes to the edits but then reinsert her own language that wasnt approved back into the document in other places and then send it forward, quote a workaround and you know, in any other line of work that would be blatant, blatant in subordination here, the person actually a book highlighting her utilization of doing that. And so i think on one hand it became acceptable. Why is that. Yeah. Well, of it, in my opinion, is that the leaders of these agencies themselves have allowed some of this to happen from standpoint of not clear that they are responsible for these documents. Theyre going to try to check them, going to add in them, theyre going to own them and doing that, theyre going to do the effort to rigorous in their review and. What i really found is if you are rigorous your review and you and you are willing to do the work, people find a way to accommodate you and realize that, you know, ultimately the buck does stop with you. And if youre willing to shoulder the burden of the responsibility they are. They are typically willing to work with, you know, a professional Civil Service, a nonpartisan Civil Service is actually one of the great achievements of american history. In the after the civil war in the late 19th century, you had laws like the pendleton act that were enacted in order to get us away from a spoils system, where each new newly elected president would come in and hand out jobs like political gifts. Youd have a professional Civil Service that would carry over from one administration to the next for the sake of stability in government for for for for expertise, government and more. A moment ago, you mentioned the respective roles of the Civil Servants versus the political appointees. Maybe you could unpack that a little bit. What are the respective roles of the political appointees and the Civil Service . Well, i think at the end of the day, im just as i said, you know, the secretary is the supervisor of that agency, whether people like it or not, whoever is appointed and confirmed is in charge, the views of the president are on one hand a important component but but but equally important, the laws that youre tasked administering. Those are ultimately your true responsibility. And you have facts. And its within the realm of looking at the confines of the law, looking at the facts you have. And then to the extent that theres policy discretion, thats the difference that an election should make. But ultimately, all of that responsibility rests with those senior appointees and. Then its delegated down and as its delegated down those responsible parties are really there for the civil to help the actual official, the principal, make the right decision or take the right action. And help them and inform them theyre there to be an aide. And in terms assistance and carrying out the responsibilities, theyre not there to be the policy director. Theyre not there to be the, you know advocate for a cause. Theyre there to faithfully carry out the law as its as it has been conferred by congress. And by whoever is in charge, subject to the policy that exists and to do that and to do that, there are incredible people. I you know, early on in tenure in the Bush Administration, i worked with someone who. She she basically had worked on the same issue for for many many years through consecutive administrations. And every time a new a Different Party came in to power, they would change on that issue, 180 degrees and she had a document called an Environmental Review is, an Environmental Impact statement. And and i was looking it once and she had literally color coded in the facts associate it with the document for those facts that were the best arguments for one administration versus another to save her time every time somebody came back in and said, hey, we need help with this, and those are the people that can really do help you make phenomenal progress. As for in charge, conversely, if you have 1 of folks resisting, thats one thing. If you have 2 , thats another. If you have 10 or 20 or 15. And my fear is if we dont recognize the import instead of Holding People accountable all to their responsibilities, that number could grow depending on whoever they happen to not like being elected and we cant have that and have outcomes that are good for the American People. Now lets set aside the sort of obvious case where a Civil Servant is making life difficult for president because hes a republican or because hes a democrat. Just by setting those aside. What about the cases where a Civil Servant thinks that the politically appointed leadership is just wrong on an issue is is is misinterpreting a statute, is misconstruing the facts its not even so much a disagreement about the policy discretion. They just think that the law or the facts are on the other side of the decision. Now, of course they could they could resign, but there must be some kind of dialog or process. There are certainly is. I mean, first off, any employee can go to the, you know, the general counsels office or the solicitors office. They can raise issues with their supervisor. They can go to the inspector general. There arent higher mechanisms. And and if they think its really inappropriate in terms of like a political activity, they can even go to the office of special counsel. So theres a whole host of remedies is that you can take beyond resistance or bad behavior and those remedies should be taken many times. You know, an employee not necessarily know the law or have full assessment of the facts or have a perspective, and that dialog is helpful other times the political appointee may be misinformed and the importance of as the role of a political appointee, in my opinion, is the ability to identify the law and identify the facts and be able to get the information you need to make an informed decision. And that really is maximized when you have collaboration back forth by with the career staff and you often have it and and sometimes its educational for both parties. You recount a story in the book where there was a debate around applying the endangered species act and. The lawyers were were reading a statutory i think the term was indirect effects. And they said, heres what the law means. And there were other experts in the agency or outside of the agency advising the agency who were construing the term indirect effects much, much more broadly. So you have people in and around the agency who had a very broad sense of the agencys mission. And then you had lawyers within the agency who were who were focusing much more on the statutes, is that i thought that was an interesting example. Is that is it a common occurrence in agency, in your experience . Oh, go ahead. Well, particularly on an issues related to science, you can have you know, there are legal and regulatory terms. And then can have issues that people think are and you know, we live in a society of law. And so at the end of the day to have any certainty of our Decision Making to have predictability in the law that what the how the law to find something or how the regulation defined something is really important. And somebody can have a view on what a word might mean. Maybe the regulation should be a broader definition or a different definition. Well, thats legitimate, but the issue that needs to be taken up is you should change your regulation or you should change the statute you dont get to insert your view there. Theres theres a number of examples in the book where there are terms that are commonly used have maybe a meaning that is somewhat different in a particular legal or regulatory context. And the on the agency is to their regulations or change them. Maybe one of the most famous examples. This is the decades long fight over the statutes that govern the waters of the United States. Thats the epa and the army corps. And youll have long scientific documents on how different bodies of water are connected or not connected. But first and foremost, there is the legal requirements that congress has put in law. The agencies are governed by the laws. But when i talk with folks in Civil Service and i mean good folks in Civil Service who really are doing the best job that they can, they often talk about the agencies mission. And its my sense that agency personnel, first and foremost, have a broad sense the agencys mission. And its not always rooted immediately. Statutory text. I dont blame them. Theyre not the lawyers. But how can politically appointed leadership really move the agency when the agency staff like the new policies, are at odds with their kind of general sense of an Agency Mission . I guess that probably requires a lot of trust between the new leaders and the in the incumbent staff. Well, i think first and foremost, it requires, as you have to be clear, you have to be direct in what you lay out and then you have to be rigorous in insisting that. Thats the way youre doing it. And it takes to change. And agencies, culture, a lot of folks a lot of folks are passionate about mission and thats fantastic. I like that makes things great but that passion has to be combined by the reality of the law. And thats what i try and highlight in the book is at the end of the day, the congress decides what the law is. The executive branch clarifies where x through guidance on regulations and guidance activities. And then we have to apply that if we want a different system. The to do it is go change the law. Theres nothing wrong with that. Thats great. But thats a role of activist. Its not the role the Civil Servant just simply deciding what the law might be. Now, weve been talking at a very high level generality mostly, but the subtitle of your book is a accountability for the failing Administrative State. Your bottom line in the book is that there are some very significant reform that are needed reforms to the Civil Service and more in order to bring about a new generation of agency work that really does follow each president s directions in enforcing the statutes. Absolutely i fundamentally believe know when you look back at history, much of the environment thats created, what i view as a is a lack of accountability really is from the 1960s forward. And whats interesting and is thats when a number of appeal mechanism were put in place. And its also the same time that the executive branch really began expand the the scope of the Administrative State in some ways. And so you have these things happening together and all of this authority flows to the executive branch, the people at the highest levels with the responsibility are delegating that down without a lot of oversight. And my view is that what we need to do is, is improve our methodologies of accountability minimize the opportunities for unneeded appeals, consider even moving into more of an atwell system. These are all questions for congress, not for David Bernhardt or others, but to think about how we improve the system so we get Better Outcomes for the American People. I also believe that leaders of these agencies need to be better prepared. I think they need to understand the law of the agency. Theyre going to they need to understand the processes better and think that that preparation helps them move forward. Now, been talking about president s and agencies. We have mentioned congress a few times. Congress has a bunch of different in play here. Theres the procedural laws about how agencies do their work. The laws you just mentioned governing, Civil Service and accountability. And then theres the substantive laws of the are actually administering. You talk in your book about how broadly statutes are written. They leave immense discretion in the hands of of the agencies. But a lot of the subjects that the department and others are actually administering, theyre very complicated. They require a lot of judgments. How could Congress Actually write laws that are that are clear and specific, but still enable the agency to to to make judgments based on the facts . Well, congress has it could do a lot. Congress could decide whether they play a role in the issuance of new regulations. Congress could have to approve them. Congress could ask. You know, i was i found it interesting whenever i testified, congress no one said to me, are you accomplishing your mission . What is what are the goals of this program . You know i believe that every program should be looked and and congress say, what are we trying to accomplish here . And are we. And if were not, maybe we ought to think about doing this program differently and improving it. The problem is oversight by congress involves a lot of work and involves a lot of effort, but they really should these programs instead of the program just simply being on autopilot. Youre in, youre out. The fights on the budget are never about dramatically decreasing the program. What theyre really about is how fast are we going to increase the program . And and what does it mean when we and and those are questions that if if you we have limited resources and you assume we want the best outcomes we can have and were in the middle of a technical technological revolution. You think congress would be saying, what is the purpose of this program . How can it be done more efficiently . Where can it be done . And and in doing that, should we be restructuring the way Government Works . At the end of the interior is organized pretty much the same way its been organized since the very beginning of time, which is one local field office a little ways away. Another larger management office, a state office or Regional Office and then headquarters. And thats the way its been aligned since since interior starting now, congress has written these broad, broad laws. And you mentioned each president going to have his own view of what the right policy is within that field discretion. But what that means is, that we have huge swings in policy from one administration to the next. The story you told earlier about the Civil Servant with the color coded Environmental Impact statement. On one hand, i like that story. Its a good example. A Civil Servant whos really trying to work with with leaders from both Political Parties on other hand, it is a little horrifying to think that the Civil Servants have to think about the inevitable swings in policy from one administration to the next. I know each president comes to office to put his own stamp on the policies, but what could an administration do to help ensure some stability from one administration to the next . So my of that is that that really is the choice of because, for example, there are some statutes lets take the determination of whether something as a a listed species under the endangered species act. Right. Thats that act less five specific criteria that determination. Five and those five dont change under any circumstance. Right. So whether its a one Political Party as secretary or the other at the end of the day, the five are immutable. And the only thing thats the question is, does the facts supported determination based on those five . And so congress decides ultimately in these areas what scope of jurisdiction they want to give to the executive and that scope may vary or it may be limited. And and so my view is that really is the role of congress to to determine that. And then and then its the executives job to implement it accordingly. What about the courts . Obviously, the courts get to decide whether or not the executive in the case i just mentioned, you know, looked at those five factors, applied the facts to those five factors and made a reasonable decision based on the law. On one hand and the facts on the other and thats thats the decision in the last few years the Supreme Court has had has shown great interest in maybe recalibrating how parts of the Administrative State work. The court has looked cases involving Agency Independence the independence of people within agencies to theyve looked at the zone of discretion that agencies get. Its called the non delegation doctrine questions about maybe congress delegated an unconstitutional amount of power to to an agency and courts. The Supreme Courts thought about what we call chevron deference, which is not deference, the chevron oil company, but but deference. Its named after a case involving chevron. And its a deference to the agencies of the laws and you work through some of those doctrines and and youd like to see the courts rethink some of these things, maybe a little less deference, both to the agencies and a little less deference congress in in delegating much power away. Thats right. In the in the book, what i talk about and i think this is part of a phenomenon, chevron basically allowed agencies to believe that they could push the limit on the interpretation of statutes. So to the extent there that they could find in ambiguity, they could drive that ambiguity maybe to a place that they would like to go as a matter of policy. And in doing that, i believe agencies became more and more aggressive. And the or sorry and the courts, by deferring to them, encouraged and and know the courts have a view that like maybe the executive branch is the best place for those issues to be worked out. My, my view personally is that is, is, is not good overall for Representative Government in that it is it is it is encouraged so much that its taken away both the role of congress to a some extent. And that is essentially the courts abdicating their role to an extent. And my my own view of that is a principle would help the agencies be a little more thought fall in the grounding of their of their policy these. And its so much easier a executive to want to find a solution that doesnt require having to go to the United States congress and get at. And so theres a constant nudging of could we could we maybe just fit this a little farther . And then those are the cases that often create, create extraordinary situations. Yeah, well, were living in a in a in a under government now where it seems with each new administration, the new administration is making a lot of new policies. Congress is sitting back kind, sitting in judgment of it all. And lot of decisions are being made to sort of once a policy is enacted by District Court judges who get lawsuits and who make hugely important decisions about policies Going Forward or not Going Forward. But it seems like everybody else is kind of doing somebody elses job here. Maybe i guess the courts could nudge the Political Energy back to congress, but thats going to be thats going to require a huge judgment call by the Supreme Court itself over whether to create a new non delegation doctrine. Well, and and and how far the courts are willing to go on that is a question but i think the last term has indicated that theyre at least going to try to nudge things a little bit of a direction. And that and i think that is important. It does put onus on the other branches now and and at the end of the day, at the end of the day, it may be discombobulating. It may create an element of uncertainty, but we have to move to a place. Here is my underlying and this is really in the book the American People have to feel and believe fundamentally that the government writ large is accountable to them and that it acts fairly and not in an arbitrary way. And if if we dont make changes, i fear that were going to move farther and farther away from the American People having that confidence. And when i see folks active here resisting a president , whoever they are, on whether whether i voted for that president or not, i say that simply cannot stand. Yeah. Well, the time we have left, lets talk about some of the specific examples of of that you grappled with when you were leading interior and speaking of moving further and further away. One of the most controversial decisions you made while you were the was the decision to move the headquarters of a of a subcomponent interior, the bureau of the bureau of Land Management. Thats right. Move it out west to the boulder junction. Grand junction. Why . Why move it out there . Why not just keep it here in washington . So, you know, i am. Well, my predecessor, ryan zinke, before really then from the moment he was nominated and he began working our reorganization plan and and it really was a very effort to try and reform the department of the interior management regime and of the components from the very beginning was to begin to think about moving the headquarters of agencies out west. And it turns out in some, for example, the bureau of reclamation within the department only has few people here in washington most of them are already out west. Other agencies have have done that with the bureau of Land Management. When i looked at the situation we have folks in state offices is that really could you know we could deploy our assets to the states. We could set up a region, a headquarters in the west and most of the bureau of Land Management lands and activities are in the west. And my view was that you could keep the folks you needed in d. C. , the people that deal with certain things that need to be here, but that you could put them out there and and that the perspective of that they would have would be. Number one, different in that they would closer to the issues that they work on. But there was also a factor that people didnt really appreciate publicly, and that was this that for many years, interior to get their best at the bureau of Land Management to come to washington d. C. To work. And why would that be . Well, the cost of housing is dramatically different. The commute time has dramatically different. And some of our best managers in the west really love their western lifestyle. And so the ability to recruit the best and the brightest to serve these Important Roles, i thought was a very a very positive thing. And so we went through a process of reorganizing and sent sent the facilities in a different direction and now today with the Technology Associated with zoom and all of these other similar applications and i have a hard time being believing that there is not a benefit to moving a substantial number of these positions to different parts of the country. I can assure you that there is certainly impact if you are making a decision that affects a community and you have seen that community, youve been youve interacted with that community that has a difference in the way you approach a problem than if you dont. I have to admit, ive gone back and forth on this issue over the years. You point out all the reasons it would be good for agencies to be closer to the communities and and the places that theyre really affect thing. On the other hand, i wonder if moving these agencies or parts of them out to distant places you move usda to iowa move department of transportation to detroit. You know, move housing and development to out to a major us city outside of washington that might make it more difficult, right, for the and and the politically accountable leaders to really supervise and and manage people in these distant places. I mean, maybe theres some wisdom in the founders putting in the constitution that wed have this this ten mile square district act that would have that would be the seat government wouldnt necessarily have everything. But but focusing as much as possible in one place where it would all Work Together. Well, theres certainly an argument for that. And, you know, my my view on that would be that we have your position is likely to prevail over time. I dont think were likely to see a dramatic elimination of the government in a federal government in washington, d. C. But at the same time, i would say that when you look at limited, you to ask yourself how do you optimize those resources to serve the people . And having a bunch of people here may or may not optimally utilize that resource versus putting them in offices that have functions. My, my view is maybe you dont need a headquarters of, you know, 1500 people wherever is maybe the or thousands of people maybe those are are activities that would be restructured some way. For example, when a document comes in from the bureau of Land Management to dc to be reviewed, when i when i got to interior. 30 or 40 people would review that document before it came to the desk of the secretary of the interior to be sent to the federal register. And, you know, my my question is, are all of those positions really critical or could we put those positions in places, in field offices that really need the support . So i think thats really the question. When you get down to the analysis is how do you optimize productivity . That organization in a way thats effective and to our leaders really need to be here and. My view of that with the blm director was absolutely not. I could interact and lead him and his deputies just as easily with, him located as in Grand Junction as i could, having an office at 1849 c street and i could talk to him just as often. Yeah. And i think surely thats the right answer in the end. Is that moving jobs out of washington would achieve everything that you describe. Also, it might help people in far american cities, towns to feel more connected in the part of the government. Thats right. Weve talked a lot about documents and the production and review of documents in government. Im a im a lawyer. I know sort of the Legal Process around administration very well. It seems to me that weve created a system thats very good at producing documents and, analysis, but not necessarily very good at actually administering an laws in ways that make real changes in day to day. Every new Administration Announces new policies. Theres executive orders and memos and then rule makings and Environmental Impact statements and on and on and on. But thats not the sum total of administration. At the end of the day, the job of administration is actually to to change, to carry out that process in a way that makes in day to day life. How do we get out of this trap where were producing documents over and over again, but not actually implementing them . You cant really build anything in america anymore. We can other than stacks and stacks of Environmental Impacts statements. And thats just one example. How do we move, administer nation from a process to actual outcomes . Well, you know, thats a great question. And one of the interesting things about working with president is he was an outcome person like he didnt want to hear process. Right. He wanted one. Now, thats not always thats always the best thing. It may not be, but at the end of the day, the government is here to serve the people and deliver the outcomes that the American People need. And to do that effectively, you have to look at the processes you have in place and say, how can you make them better . And, you know, you look at the permitting process, theres lots of ideas out there of to improve that process. When i was the secretary and even the deputy secretary and interior, you know, we sat down and said, okay, what can we do administratively to improve this process in a way that makes it meet the the goals of the act, which fundamentally were to under nepa, which was to ensure that there was a Public Participation process and that in decision is informed of alternatives. The proposed action and the varied environmental consequences and we took a massive slow process and consolidated it into a series of calls and briefings, a face to face communication and just recently i received an email from a career Civil Servant that was explaining to me his recollection of meeting with me to discuss an environmental document that we streamlined where i basically said, hey, on page 230, you said x and im not sure where you got that from. And his reaction was, oh god, what in the heck did say on page 230 . Because he was surprised that people would actually read document. And we have set up processes that are more about the process than the informing of the Decision Maker and moving forward and ultimately, congress is going to have to grapple with the best way forward with some of these things. And theyre trying. But when it takes years to develop a plan for something years to litigate it, it really begins to freeze what we can do as a country. Yeah, it seems one of the greatest challenges we face right now that the unsteadiness of administration from one administration to the next the changes and also just the if you have a huge capital intensive project, a huge energy project. Now the new Green Energy Projects are running into this. They have a planning horizon of a decade or more and an investment horizon beyond that. If actually want to do that, they need some stability. And what were seeing is, is uncertainty and that will deter investment and innovation. And how do we solve this . Well, ultimately, the rules have to on some of these, the reality youre the problem you identified is clear. And investors realize. Right r and r or operators or even other Government Agencies and. So what do they do . They try get through the process or they just simply walk away. And our challenge, particularly in a time where the public and many governments are expecting major infrastructure change, is that something has to improve. My own view of this is that is that the reality today in our society is that virtually every decision is really meaningful. We thought through in terms of the potential Environmental Impacts and and that is an important consideration. But we also have to factor in the social benefits of projects and and and and make decisions collectively about do we want to move forward with these items in a responsible time frame because we are wrapped up in red tape literally. Again the book is titled you report to me accountability for the failing Administrative State, and the author is David Bernhardt. Former secretary of the interior david for joining us on book tvs. Afterwards thanks a lot for having me

© 2025 Vimarsana

comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.