BRUCE
BABBITT47th Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt was sworn in as 47th Secretary of the interior January 22, 1993, in Washington, D.C.
Babbitt served as governor of Arizona from 1978-1987, and as Attorney General of Arizona from 1977-1978.
Born in 1938, Babbitt grew up in Flagstaff, Arizona, where his family pioneered a ranching and trading business in the 1880's. After graduating from the University of Notre Dame, he received a master's degree in geophysics from the University of Newcastle in England, attending as a Marshall Scholar. He received a law degree from Harvard Law School, graduating in 1965. At the time of his nomination, Babbitt was in private law practice, and served as national president of the non-partisan, non-profit League of Conservation Voters. Babbitt's reputation for successfully negotiating complex natural resource issues while he was governor of Arizona attracted national attention. Babbitt~s work, for example, led to passage .of a nationally acclaimed state water management code in 1980, and a water quality act in 1986, described by the Los Angeles Times as perhaps "the nation's toughest law to protect underground water." Babbitt also was named one of America's "most original governors" by the Almanac of American Politics for his ability to forge compromise and agreement among disparate parties.
Babbitt has expressed his desire to work with the Congress in a process whereby "we invite Congress to help us solve these dilemmas." He also pledged to request adequate funding for the Interior Department.
Babbitt promised to personally read all employee suggestions on how to improve and manage the Department. "Our first National Park was created over a campfire," he said. "And although there are too many of us here to gather around a campfire, I want to establish the 1993 equivalent. I invite you to join me in making this work, because I need your advice and your help, and I want to hear your ideas." Advising employees to submit ideas on one side of a standard letter sized paper, signed or unsigned, he promised to personally read every work of every submission marked "campfire" on the envelope.
Babbitt also expressed his reverence for the outdoors, and commented that he will "spend more time climbing mountains and running rivers with less quilt than anyone else."
One change in the BLM I hope to make is this, "let me give you a little example that is under discussion right now. The California Wilderness Bill has two camps of people among those who support the wilderness idea, and one is to turn as much as possible over to the Park Service, because BLM can't be trusted to be a steward of the land.
"I'd like to change that, and I weighted those arguments saying, hey, wait a minute, BLM is changing. I've watched the BLM work up and administer the San Pedro Conservation Area in Arizona, and they've done a marvelous job, and I'd like to see them do more of that. Because I think that it's unfortunate when people take the position, well, BLM is a bunch of people herding more cattle onto the land, planning larger mines, and saying, there is no piece of land that can't produce more resources at all times. That's not my view of BLM, so what I'd like to do is say to BLM, "You are a multiple use agency, and public use is something that you can handle very well." I think one testing ground for that will be the California Wilderness Bill, where I intend to speak up for the BLM and say, "Look, they're good people."
"...I want very much to bring the agencies of this Department together, in a process in which we make decisions by agreements that are for the common good. I've talked about the Park Service and the BLM in the California wilderness debate. What I want to do there is get BLM and the Park Service in and say, "We ought to be able to formulate a common view." It's not how many acres for which agency; it's how do we do this in the public interest?
".. We have to find a way to get everyone locked into that decision making process so that the Interior Department speaks with one voice when decision time comes. I don't really want four agencies quarreling in public, endlessly. The tradeoff for making that work is, what I have to do is, say to all of the agencies, 'We're going to spend a lot of time, internally, working with each other, talking things through so that everyone feels like their point of view and their responsibilities have legitimately been heard, and that the time is now at hand that we can support a common position.' It's not easy, but we'll make it work."
You mentioned on the Today Show that one of your priorities was expansion of the Park Service. How will you do that and manage the parks we have right now?