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Interior considers reorganization
Wants to improve permitting efficiency by standardizing regional boundaries for all of its bureaus; considering other efficiency moves
The U.S. Department of the Interior is planning a re-organization aimed at improved permitting efficiency, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources on March 16, when responding to questions on the proposed new budget for his department. The idea is to establish unified regional boundaries across the department’s bureaus, thus enabling the bureaus to talk to each other and work together in a consistent manner, Zinke said.
Based on science and activities The proposed new regions are defined on the basis of science, using watersheds, ecology, trail systems and wildlife corridors, facilitating a focus on recreational use of national lands, administration of the National Environmental Policy Act and the permitting of activities, Zinke said.
By way of illustrating the type of problem being addressed, Zinke commented that an activity impacting a waterway carrying trout and salmon, with an upstream dam, a downstream irrigation system, and passing through a National Forest holding, might need permits from five or more agencies: the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and, possibly, the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
“You could have literally multiple biological opinions produced independently by bureaus that don’t have the same regions, or don’t talk,” Zinke said.
13 regions He said that the U.S. Geological Survey had made a first pass at defining new regional boundaries and had proposed 13 regions. A review by senior executives in Interior then resulted in some adjustments to this initial effort. Communication with state governors over the proposal indicated a strong opinion from the states that there should be a continuing role for Bureau of Land Management state directors, a role that the proposed reorganization would not impact.
According to a document posted on the Interior website, the reorganization will likely to take several years to accomplish. The document says that the current idea is to first launch the concept in Alaska, given the size of the state, the fact that most bureaus are active in the state, regional offices are in a single city, and there is only one state government with which to interact.
However, the boundaries of the 13 new unified regions should take effect in the first half of 2019.
Matrix management It appears from the Interior document that the proposed new organization will have a matrix structure, with national bureau directors having authority over national issues such as national policies, the budget and workforce planning, while new regional directors for the 13 regions will take responsibility for coordinating functions that are common to multiple bureaus within individual regions. Although regional supervisors within individual bureaus will continue to report to the bureau directors, the regional directors will make the ultimate decisions for each region, taking into account the advice of each bureau’s chain of command.
Hub cities Each regional organization, under a regional director, will be established in a regional hub city. Hub cities have yet to be identified but Zinke suggested to the House Natural Resources Committee that Interior is considering locations where the cost of living is reasonable, so that new, young Interior employees, expected to replace upcoming retirees, can enjoy affordable lifestyles.
And the delegation of more responsibility to the regions under the proposed reorganization should improve relationships between Interior and state and local governments, the Interior document says.
Permitting efficiency Zinke said that Interior is also looking at other ways of improving permitting efficiency. He commented that, given that the government tends to lag behind innovation, it is important that the regulatory framework incorporates best science and best practices, while also ensuring that there is a threshold for safety, reliability and stewardship.
“It is clear with horizontal drilling and some of the innovations on wind and solar as well that our regulatory framework is not capable of keeping pace with industry innovation, and in many ways innovation improves reliability and safety,” he said.
One issue, for example, concerns the permitting of multiple wells in a single oil and gas basin, where all of the wells involve the same regulatory issues. Rather than treating the permitting of each well as an individual project, it may be possible to avoid the repetition of permitting work that is common to all of the wells, Zinke said.
Interior is also investigating the possibility, subject to the constraints of the law, to work in a more integrated fashion with state regulators. For example, rather than repeating actions already taken by state regulators, the federal regulators may be able to assign the front end of a permitting process to the state and then simply complete the tail end of the process, Zinke commented.
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