Secretary Meets With Alaska DOI Staff

Secretary Ken Salazar held his first meeting with the Department’s Alaska workforce on the afternoon of April 14th in a face-to-face session in the Alaska Regional Office in Anchorage and via simultaneous videoconference with employees in 23 other locations around the state.

Secretary Salazar emphasized his focus on three major areas during his tenure – energy and climate issues, iconic American landscapes, and connections with youth.

Calling climate change "one of the signature issues of our time," he noted that he spends up to half his days working on energy and climate-related topics before the Department. Indeed, a major portion of his two-day Alaska visit was to host public hearings in Dillingham and Anchorage on outer continental shelf oil and gas drilling proposals. He noted that many of the National Park Service projects in the still-to-be-released economic recovery act project list have energy conservation components.

In speaking about American landscapes, including parks, Salazar voiced support for more fully funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund, restoration of rivers and the preservation of farm and ranchland.

He noted that the youth agenda will begin in earnest this summer, often in support of economic recovery act projects, and said "we will see a significant growth in the number of young people working" this year.

Salazar also fielded a number of questions and comments from the Anchorage audience. He noted that the recovery act projects are expected to be announced between now and April 30th and that the list of projects is about 90 percent approved by the Office of Management and Budget. He voiced interest in issues such as the Service's ability to get OMB approval to survey park visitors, in long-pending wilderness proposals completed as a follow-up to the passage of the Alaska Lands Act, and the need for additional coordination among DOI bureaus in areas such as information technology.

The NPS-DOI videoconference system made the Secretary's comments available to a large portion of the 2,300 DOI bureau employees in Alaska. Nine NPS field locations tuned in along with eight US Fish & Wildlife Service sites and six others.