Interior Department Needs Leadership, Not Reorganization

Jamie Rappaport Clark, Former president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife, will testify before the House Natural Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations today at 10:00 a.m. The oversight hearing, “No Road Map, No Destination, No Justification: The Implementation and Impacts of the Reorganization of the Department of the Interior,” will probe the Trump administration’s costly and disruptive effort to reorganize the Department of the Interior. The hearing can be viewed live on Facebook at http://bit.ly/2ZDI6qY.

Jamie Rappaport Clark, Former president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife, issued the following statement:

“It’s not reorganization the Department of the Interior needs, it’s leadership. This reorganization effort distracts from the Interior Department’s vital mission, wastes scarce fiscal and human resources, disrupts the essential and lawful functions of Interior bureaus, taxes staff capacity and undermines employee morale.

“Interior’s new ‘unified’ regional boundaries cut through watersheds, states and even individual public land units. Rather than reducing bureaucratic structure, the new regions would require agencies to establish new regional offices where none currently exist, and at the expense of current relationships with states and other stakeholders.

“Rather than reorganization, Interior bureaus and agencies need capacity and resources to support their dedicated public servants to focus on the critical conservation and natural resource management challenges that the department faces today.”

Background:

Download President and CEO Jamie Rappaport Clark’s full testimony here.