[Senate Hearing 117-127]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                       S. Hrg. 117-127

                       ANDERSON, ESTENOZ, AND TRUJILLO 
                                   NOMINATIONS

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                              COMMITTEE ON
                      ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                                   to

 CONSIDER THE NOMINATIONS OF ROBERT T. ANDERSON TO BE SOLICITOR OF THE 
    DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, SHANNON A. ESTENOZ TO BE ASSISTANT 
SECRETARY FOR FISH AND WILDLIFE AND PARKS, AND TANYA M. TRUJILLO TO BE 
       AN ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR (WATER AND SCIENCE)

                               __________

                              MAY 18, 2021

                               __________

[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                       Printed for the use of the
               Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
        
                              __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
44-733                     WASHINGTON : 2022                     
          
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               COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES

                JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia, Chairman
RON WYDEN, Oregon                    JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
MARIA CANTWELL, Washington           JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont             MIKE LEE, Utah
MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico          STEVE DAINES, Montana
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii              LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
ANGUS S. KING, JR., Maine            JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada       JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
MARK KELLY, Arizona                  BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana
JOHN W. HICKENLOOPER, Colorado       CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi
                                     ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas

                      Renae Black, Staff Director
                      Sam E. Fowler, Chief Counsel
             Richard M. Russell, Republican Staff Director
              Matthew H. Leggett, Republican Chief Counsel
                     Darla Ripchensky, Chief Clerk
                            
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                   Page
Manchin III, Hon. Joe, Chairman and a U.S. Senator from West 
  Virginia.......................................................     1
Barrasso, Hon. John, Ranking Member and a U.S. Senator from 
  Wyoming........................................................     6
Cantwell, Hon. Maria, a U.S. Senator from Washington.............     7
Heinrich, Hon. Martin, a U.S. Senator from New Mexico............     8

                               WITNESSES

Anderson, Robert T., nominated to be Solicitor of the Department 
  of the Interior................................................     9
Estenoz, Shannon A., nominated to be Assistant Secretary for Fish 
  and Wildlife and Parks.........................................    15
Trujillo, Tanya M., nominated to be an Assistant Secretary of the 
  Interior (Water and Science)...................................    20

          ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED

Alaska Wilderness League et al.:
    Letter for the Record........................................   126
Angler Action Foundation et al.:
    Letter for the Record........................................    52
Anderson, Robert T.:
    Opening Statement............................................     9
    Written Testimony............................................    12
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................    74
Association of California Water Agencies:
    Letter for the Record........................................    54
Barrasso, Hon. John:
    Opening Statement............................................     6
Bingaman, Hon. Jeff:
    Letter for the Record........................................     5
Buschatzke, Thomas et al.:
    Letter for the Record........................................    55
Cantwell, Hon. Maria:
    Opening Statement............................................     7
Captains for Clean Water:
    Letter for the Record........................................    58
Environmental Defense Fund:
    Letter for the Record........................................   128
Estenoz, Shannon A.:
    Opening Statement............................................    15
    Written Testimony............................................    17
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................    91
Family Farm Alliance:
    Letter for the Record........................................    60
Heinrich, Hon. Martin:
    Opening Statement............................................     8
Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe:
    Letter for the Record........................................   129
Manchin III, Hon. Joe:
    Opening Statement............................................     1
(The) Minnesota Chippewa Tribe--Tribal Executive Committee:
    Letter for the Record........................................   131
National Association of State Outdoor Recreation Liaison 
  Officers:
    Letter for the Record........................................    62
National Audubon Society:
    Letter for the Record........................................    63
National Audubon Society et al.:
    Letter for the Record........................................    64
National Parks Conservation Association:
    Letter for the Record........................................   134
National Recreation and Park Association:
    Letter for the Record........................................    65
Outdoor Recreation Roundtable Association:
    Letter for the Record........................................    66
Rubio, Hon. Marco:
    Letter for the Record........................................     3
South Valley Water Association:
    Letter for the Record........................................    68
Southern Ute Indian Tribe:
    Letter for the Record........................................   136
Tehama-Colusa Canal Authority:
    Letter for the Record........................................    70
Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership:
    Letter for the Record........................................    72
Trujillo, Tanya M.:
    Opening Statement............................................    20
    Written Testimony............................................    22
    Responses to Questions for the Record........................   111
Wallace, Hon. Robert:
    Letter for the Record........................................   138

 
              ANDERSON, ESTENOZ, AND TRUJILLO NOMINATIONS

                              ----------                              


                         TUESDAY, MAY 18, 2021

                                       U.S. Senate,
                 Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m. in 
Room SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joe Manchin 
III, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.

 OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOE MANCHIN III, U.S. SENATOR FROM 
                         WEST VIRGINIA

    The Chairman. The Committee will come to order. We meet 
today to consider three nominations for senior positions in the 
Department of the Interior. The three nominees are: Mr. Robert 
Anderson for Solicitor, Ms. Shannon Estenoz for Assistant 
Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, and Ms. Tanya 
Trujillo for Assistant Secretary for Water and Science. Did I 
get that right? Close? Good.
    Welcome to all three of you. We appreciate it very much and 
also your desire to serve. We want to thank you for being here 
this morning and for your willingness to serve in these 
important positions. We also want to welcome each of your 
family members that may be with you. We are glad to have them 
with us today.
    The offices that the three of you have been nominated to 
fill carry with them responsibility for many of the oldest, 
most significant missions entrusted to the Department.
    Mr. Anderson, let me begin with you. When Secretary Harold 
Ickes asked the Senate to pass legislation that established the 
current Office of Solicitor 75 years ago, he noted that because 
of the highly diversified range of activities entrusted to the 
Department of the Interior, the duties of the Solicitor extend 
into almost every branch of law and almost every type of legal 
practice. The complexity of the issues facing the Department 
and the demands they place upon the Solicitor have only 
increased in the 75 years since. He concluded by saying that 
the necessity for sound legal counsel in connection with the 
mirrored legal aspects of these activities makes the position 
of Solicitor an office calling for a lawyer of great capability 
and intellectual integrity, of proven administrative ability, 
and of experience and wisdom. I believe President Biden found 
such a lawyer in you, sir, and you have shown you can handle 
the job because you have been serving as Acting Solicitor for 
the past four months. You worked in the Department during the 
late 1990s, and began this job with five years of prior 
experience--two of them as Assistant Solicitor and three as a 
Counselor to Secretary Babbitt--and you spent 20 years as a law 
professor teaching American Indian law, natural resources law, 
and water law at the University of Washington Law School and 
Harvard Law School. I believe, Mr. Anderson, that you have the 
broad legal knowledge and experience that Secretary Ickes said 
the job requires.
    Next we have the Office of Assistant Secretary for Fish and 
Wildlife and Parks and, as we know, it was first established 
later in 1965 by Tom Udall's father, Secretary Stewart Udall. 
When he gave the Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife 
responsibility for both the Fish and Wildlife Service and the 
National Park Service, the merger of these two important 
services under one Assistant Secretary gave her the 
responsibility for more than 400 national parks and over 500 
national wildlife refuges which are enjoyed by over 355 million 
people a year.
    Like Mr. Anderson, Ms. Estenoz will bring to the Department 
a wealth of professional experience. She is currently serving 
as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and 
Wildlife and Parks. You have spent over two decades helping to 
restore the Everglades at the Department of the Interior under 
Secretary Salazar as Vice President and Chief Operating Officer 
of the Everglades Foundation at the National Parks Conservation 
Association and the World Wildlife Fund and on boards and 
commissions in Florida under both Democratic and Republican 
governors. At this point, I ask unanimous consent to enter into 
the record a letter from our colleague, Senator Marco Rubio, in 
strong support of Ms. Estenoz's nomination.
    Hearing no objections, that will be the order.
    [Letter of support from Senator Rubio follows:]
    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    The Chairman. Senator Rubio writes of Ms. Estenoz's 
``unwavering commitment to pragmatic environmental stewardship, 
her ability to understand complex problems, her willingness to 
work collaboratively to reach consensus on contentious issues, 
and of her disposition for acting in good faith.'' I trust that 
these attributes will serve you well in this role and enable 
you to make a lasting contribution to our national parks and 
wildlife refuges.
    Next we have Ms. Tanya Trujillo.
    Senator Heinrich. Trujillo.
    The Chairman. Trujillo, okay.
    For Water and Science. Our third nominee is no stranger to 
this Committee, having served as a valued member of the 
Committee staff under Chairman Bingaman from 2009 to 2011. 
Senator Bingaman has written a strong letter of support for 
Tanya's nomination, attesting to her competence and 
professionalism. I ask unanimous consent that this letter be 
made part of the record.
    Hearing no objection, that will be the order.
    [Letter of support from former Chairman Bingaman follows:]
    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    The Chairman. The Office of Assistant Secretary for Water 
and Science is not nearly so old as the Solicitor or Assistant 
Secretary of Fish and Wildlife and Parks, but it oversees two 
of the oldest bureaus within the Department, the Geological 
Survey and the Bureau of Reclamation. The Geological Survey is 
the preeminent source of scientific information about the earth 
and our natural resources. The Bureau of Reclamation manages, 
develops, and safeguards our water supplies on which millions 
of Americans in 17 Western states depend on for their 
residential needs to irrigate their farms and to generate their 
electricity. These two agencies are vitally important to meet 
our need for science-based information about critical minerals, 
energy supplies, and natural hazards and to meet our water 
needs in changing climate. Tanya has been immersed in these 
issues for over 20 years, most recently as Principal Deputy 
Assistant Secretary for Water and Science. Western water issues 
are complex and contentious, and Tanya has demonstrated her 
ability to work with all sides to find acceptable solutions to 
these difficult challenges.
    I think we have three supremely well-qualified nominees for 
these important positions, and I strongly support all three of 
you.
    With that, I want to recognize my colleague, Senator 
Barrasso.

                STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO,
                   U.S. SENATOR FROM WYOMING

    Senator Barrasso. Well, thanks so much, Mr. Chairman and I 
would also like to add my welcome to Robert Anderson, to 
Shannon Estenoz, and to Tanya Trujillo, to the Senate Energy 
and Natural Resources Committee. Congratulations to each and 
every one of you on your nomination.
    Mr. Anderson has been nominated to serve as Solicitor of 
the Department of the Interior. If confirmed, he will serve as 
the Chief Attorney for the Department and the Principal Legal 
Advisor to Secretary Haaland. He will oversee more than 430 
attorneys and staff within six legal divisions. He will be 
designated as the Department's Chief Freedom of Information 
Officer and will preside over the Ethics Office and the Indian 
Trust Litigation Office. He will be responsible for ensuring 
that government business is conducted at Interior in a 
transparent manner and that ethical standards required by the 
law are upheld. During his more than 25-year career, Mr. 
Anderson has both taught and practiced law. His work is 
primarily related to Native American law and almost exclusively 
in support of Native American tribes. While very important, I 
am concerned that Mr. Anderson's narrow focus has come at the 
expense of a broad range of additional legal matters and 
perspectives that will need to be considered in the Solicitor's 
Office. Since President Biden's inauguration, he has served as 
the Principal Deputy Solicitor. His actions in this role 
suggest that he may not fully appreciate the priorities and 
concerns of many other stakeholder groups in my home State of 
Wyoming and throughout our nation.
    Ms. Estenoz has been nominated to serve as the Assistant 
Secretary of Fish and Wildlife and Parks in the Department of 
the Interior. If confirmed, she is going to direct and 
supervise the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park 
Service, both of which are crucial to my home State of Wyoming. 
Her more than 25-year career has focused on restoration of the 
Everglades in Florida. She has demonstrated an ability to work 
across party lines and a willingness to find common ground 
among stakeholders from across the political spectrum. Three 
different Florida Governors, one Democrat, two Republicans, 
have entrusted her with prominent leadership positions on state 
boards and commissions. In this role, she should use her 
consensus-building skills to build bipartisan coalitions 
focused on all of the important issues of our national park and 
fish and wildlife services. These include enhancing access to 
public lands, delisting fully recovered species from threatened 
and endangered species list.
    Ms. Trujillo has been nominated to serve as Assistant 
Secretary for Water and Science at the Department of the 
Interior. If confirmed, she will oversee the Bureau of 
Reclamation and the U.S. Geological Survey. She is a water 
lawyer with more than two decades of experience focusing on 
natural resource management, interstate and transboundary water 
agreements in the Colorado River Basin. In Wyoming and across 
the West, there is no more important resource than water. Ms. 
Trujillo will have an opportunity to work together to improve, 
we will have the opportunity to work together to improve the 
Department of the Interior's management of water resources. The 
President's infrastructure proposal discusses water resiliency 
but does not have a more direct reference to repair and 
construction of water storage and conveyance systems. So I 
believe we must build more water storage facilities and 
maintain the ones we have to protect rural economies. So I look 
forward to discussing with you the water supply needs of 
farmers and ranchers who are the lifeblood of the West and, as 
we discussed coming in, you are just coming in from New Mexico 
and you certainly are well aware of the water needs in the 
West.
    Congratulations, again, to each of the nominees. I look 
forward to your testimony.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Barrasso.
    If you all will please rise. Committee rules require that 
all nominees be sworn in in connection with their testimony.
    Please stand and raise your right hand.
    Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to 
give to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources 
shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, 
so help you God?
    [Witnesses respond in the affirmative.]
    The Chairman. Be seated.
    I would now like to recognize Senator Cantwell for an 
introduction.

               STATEMENT OF HON. MARIA CANTWELL,
                  U.S. SENATOR FROM WASHINGTON

    Senator Cantwell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you and 
the Ranking Member for this important hearing on all the 
nominees, but I would like to especially welcome and give 
comments on the nomination of Robert Anderson for his position 
as the Solicitor for the Department of the Interior.
    Good morning, it is good to see you here. It seems not that 
long ago that you were before any number of Senate committees 
at the beck and call of Senator Inouye to explain many of the 
policies of past administrations on important issues related to 
the Department of the Interior, but you are here today 
nominated by President Biden to be the Solicitor General for 
the Department of the Interior. I believe that you have an 
unbelievable amount of experience in your past positions and 
through the University of Washington where you have dedicated 
the last 20 years to educating the next generation of Native 
American law experts.
    As I said, Mr. Anderson formally served as the Associate 
Solicitor for Indian Affairs and Counselor to then-Interior 
Secretary Bruce Babbitt during the Clinton Administration. Many 
of you had experience working with him, from testimony on an 
oversight hearing on wildlife management under the Alaska 
National Interest Lands Act and the Alaska Native Claims 
Settlement Act and, going further back, as I said, various 
hearings and comments on the impacts of court rulings on tribal 
sovereignty. So I am so glad to see you here today and for your 
willingness to serve in another administration as Interior 
Solicitor. These are the frontline battles of equity on 
important tribal rights for Native Americans, Alaska natives, 
and many others. You have a lot of experience on the economic 
benefits and hardship, on resource extractions, and on 
opportunities for outdoor recreation and what it provides to 
the public.
    So given all your experience, I so appreciate your 
willingness to come back to public service, to bring that 
knowledge and expertise to these important decisions as the 
Department's top legal advisor. I know that you will work with 
all of us in working through these many important issues and 
the resources of our federal lands. Again, thank you for your 
willingness to serve, and I am so glad to participate in 
introducing you before the Committee today.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
    Now we have Senator Heinrich for an introduction.

               STATEMENT OF HON. MARTIN HEINRICH,
                  U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW MEXICO

    Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Chairman. I am very pleased to 
introduce a native New Mexican to the Committee. Tanya Trujillo 
is a water lawyer with more than 20 years of experience working 
on some of the toughest water problems facing New Mexico and 
the West. As anyone from a Western state can tell you, solving 
water conflicts requires creativity, it requires perseverance, 
and a willingness to work with people from all walks of life. 
Ms. Trujillo excels at all of these.
    Some of you may remember Ms. Trujillo from her time on the 
staff of this Committee working for my mentor and predecessor, 
Senator Jeff Bingaman. While on the Committee staff, she was 
known for her ability to work across the aisle and to solve 
hard problems in a bipartisan way. Since her time here, she has 
worked as Executive Director of the Colorado River Board of 
California, as Project Director with the Colorado River 
Sustainability Campaign, and as a Commissioner on New Mexico's 
Interstate Stream Commission. Once confirmed as Assistant 
Secretary of Water and Science, I know Ms. Trujillo will be an 
invaluable partner to this Committee in charting a sustainable 
water future for the West and ensuring that all of our 
communities have the best available science to inform their 
natural resource decisions.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to introduce 
her this morning.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
    And Ms. Estenoz, not to be left out, Senator Rubio wanted 
me to read his letter. Okay?
    ``I write in support of the nomination of Shannon Estenoz 
to be Assistant Secretary of Fish and Wildlife and Parks at the 
Department of the Interior, and ask for the Committee to 
favorably consider her nomination. Over the course of her 
public service career and as a private citizen, Ms. Estenoz has 
demonstrated unwavering commitment to pragmatic environmental 
stewardship. In her previous role with the U.S. Department of 
the Interior as Director of the Everglades Restoration 
Initiative and Executive Director of the South Florida 
Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, Ms. Estenoz effectively 
coordinated the policy of three Interior agencies, the Fish and 
Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, and the U.S. 
Geological Survey, to align the Department's Everglades 
restoration efforts. As a fellow Floridian, I have witnessed 
Ms. Estenoz's ability to fundamentally understand the complex 
problems and her willingness to work collaboratively to reach 
consensus on contentious issues. I am confident that Ms. 
Estenoz will be able to translate her effectiveness and her 
disposition for acting in good faith into her role with the 
Department of the Interior.''
    With that, we will begin our questions. I am sorry. I am so 
sorry. You are able to give your testimony. We are going to ask 
all three. So at this time we will ask Mr. Anderson, if you 
have your statement to be given?

 STATEMENT OF ROBERT T. ANDERSON, NOMINATED TO BE SOLICITOR OF 
                 THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

    Mr. Anderson. Thank you, Chairman Manchin, Ranking Member 
Barrasso, and members of the Committee. I'm honored to be with 
you as President Biden's nominee to be the Solicitor of the 
Department of the Interior. I'm joined this morning by my 
daughter, Sydney, who is behind me here, but regret that my 
wonderful wife, Marilyn Heiman, was unable to join me due to 
the COVID restrictions, but I know she's watching online.
    I'd like to talk about my values and my commitment to 
public service. I was born in a rural area of Northeastern 
Minnesota in the midst of some of the most beautiful, wild 
public lands in the Lower 48 states. My family lived in the 
Town of Ely, adjacent to what is now the Boundary Waters Canoe 
Area Wilderness. My parents, John and Eleanor, raised me and my 
four older brothers in Ely. We spent the summers living and 
helping my widowed grandmother operate a rustic family resort 
composed of seven drafty cabins on the shores of Burntside 
Lake. My grandfather, who had served in World War I, used his 
bonus money for the down payment on the property which remains 
in the family to this day. This is in the aboriginal territory 
of the Ojibwe people, and I am proud to be a Tribal Citizen of 
the Bois Forte Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. I'm really 
grateful for growing up in a rural area where I still spent 
significant amounts of time.
    I took for granted the joy and wonder of being in a forest 
where I could play, hunt, and enjoy clean lakes for swimming 
and fishing. My time in large cities has made me acutely aware 
of the importance of public lands to all Americans. At the same 
time, my rural roots exposed me to the struggle to balance 
conservation with economic development from extractive 
industries. My dad worked in an underground iron mine when I 
was a young child, but we also depended on the tourist industry 
for part of our livelihood. The intense local debates were part 
of my growing up over the appropriate balance of conservation 
and development, a dialog that continues to this day. I'm proud 
of the fact that my four older brothers and I all graduated as 
first-generation college students in our family. I attended 
local public schools, graduated from a small state university 
and the University of Minnesota Law School. I received an 
outstanding education that was also affordable. I regret deeply 
that my parents and my older brother, Mark, who, like me, was a 
lawyer and a mentor to me, have passed away. I think they would 
have been pleased to see where I sit today.
    My first job was as a staff attorney at the Native American 
Rights Fund in Boulder, Colorado. In 1984, I moved to 
Anchorage, Alaska, as one of two attorneys who opened an office 
for that law firm to work on matters related to tribal status, 
tribal jurisdiction, hunting and fishing rights, and amendments 
to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act that were important 
to protection of the native corporation land base in Alaska. I 
had the gratifying experience of representing a revered Alaska 
Native elder named Katie John and her successful battle to 
secure her subsistence fishing rights guaranteed under federal 
law. I was able to represent Alaska Native Tribes and 
organizations throughout the state on matters related to self-
determination, protection of subsistence rights, and 
relationship of public lands to the Native community. In the 
course of this work, I came to know Secretary Babbitt and 
Solicitor John Leshy as I sought to persuade the government to 
join the Alaska Native side of some of the litigation I was 
involved in which was a successful after that--effort. After 
that, I was appointed Associate Solicitor for Indian Affairs 
which I held for 2 years. After that, I was Counselor to the 
Secretary. In that position as Counselor, my portfolio crossed 
all bureaus in the Department, exposing me to the breadth of 
the Department's important missions, experience that will serve 
me well should I be confirmed as Solicitor.
    Upon leaving DOI in 2000, I entered academia and for 20 
years I've been a law professor at the University of Washington 
and also at Harvard Law School where I've been a visiting 
professor for one semester per year. I've worked on many issues 
and taught classes, not just in American Indian law, but also 
in Water Law which emphasizes state water law and Bureau of 
Reclamation laws, natural resources law, public lands, grazing, 
mining law, and oil and gas development. If confirmed, I would 
be honored and humbled to work with Secretary Haaland to 
achieve her and the President's goals to protect our 
environment, fulfill the federal trust responsibility, and act 
as a steward of our natural resources for future generations. I 
commit to high ethical standards in all aspects of the Interior 
Department's operations. I look forward to the opportunity to 
serve as the leader of over 400 tremendous attorneys who have 
dedicated their careers to public service.
    Thank you. I'm ready to answer any questions you may have.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Anderson follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Anderson.
    Now we have Ms. Estenoz for her statement.

  STATEMENT OF SHANNON A. ESTENOZ, NOMINATED TO BE ASSISTANT 
           SECRETARY FOR FISH AND WILDLIFE AND PARKS

    Ms. Estenoz. Thank you, Chairman Manchin, Ranking Member 
Barrasso, and members of the Senate Energy and Natural 
Resources Committee. It is an honor to appear before you as 
President Biden's nominee to be Assistant Secretary of the 
Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks. I'm joined today by 
my husband, Richard. I also want to say hello to our sons, Nick 
and Spencer, to my mother, to my friends and family who I know 
are watching today.
    I am a fifth-generation Floridian. Born, like all of my 
grandparents, in Key West. We call ourselves ``Conchs'' after 
the beautiful mollusk once plentiful in the Florida Keys. My 
father was a civil engineer and for the first 10 years of my 
life his career took us to oil platforms off the coast of 
Louisiana, the Tennessee Valley Authority in Knoxville, and the 
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Kansas City. Before my father 
passed away in 1979, we returned to Key West where his last job 
was as an engineer for Monroe County where he worked to replace 
the old Seven Mile Bridge, perhaps the most famous section of 
the Overseas Highway. To grow up in Key West is to grow up on 
the water. Swimming, fishing, snorkeling, boating, and whether 
you know it or not, the water and its wildlife shape you. One 
of my earliest memories on the boat with my grandfather fishing 
was the day he caught me setting free the bait fish in his live 
well. He didn't scold me because he knew there's no conflict 
between harvesting fish and wanting to protect them because 
when your family has been in a place for many generations, 
there's an instinct to conserve that has nothing to do with 
science or regulations, it has to do with a connection to place 
and to a way of life.
    My own career path includes many echoes of my father's. I 
too, pursued civil engineering. As a student, I returned to 
Eastern Tennessee to intern at Eastman Chemical Company. And of 
course, I dedicated 24 years of my career to an infrastructure 
modernization program led by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 
to restore the Everglades. I guess I never lost my childhood 
instinct to help fish and birds and mammals and people by 
helping to restore the land and the ecosystem that sustains 
them all. My father was a bridge builder and as part of my work 
on Everglades' restoration I was proud to play a part in 
building new bridges across the Everglades. Today, water flows 
under those bridges into Everglades National Park.
    I know that jobs, infrastructure, conservation, and 
restoration can and should go hand in hand. My work involving 
the Everglades was ideal training for the role of Assistant 
Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks. I've spent more than 
two decades in the trenches of collaborative conservation, land 
and ecosystem restoration, species recovery, water management, 
invasive species response, and national park stewardship. I 
spent 7 years at the Department of the Interior as its Director 
of Everglades Restoration reporting directly to the position to 
which I have been nominated. I was a colleague and leader of 
the dedicated career staff in both bureaus that this Assistant 
Secretary manages. As a state official, I have been a customer 
of the Fish and Wildlife Services Regulatory programs and I 
know firsthand what it's like to be in the shoes of states 
trying to work with the Federal Government. As a stakeholder, 
I've participated in the government's efforts to engage the 
public and I have put in the hard work to build coalitions and 
consensus to get things done.
    I've been in my current role at Interior now for 118 days. 
Every day I learn more about the fish, wildlife, and parks 
issues facing your states and the nation. I will draw on my 
long state and federal experience as I work on water management 
and predator recovery in the West, protecting resources central 
to the cultural and economic well-being of tribes, combating 
invasive species, and collaborating on conservation of the sage 
brush ecosystem. The National Park Service and the Fish and 
Wildlife Service play crucial roles in the challenges before 
us, recovering species and conserving habitat, supporting 
recreation and restoration jobs on public lands, stewarding our 
most treasured landscapes and imperiled species through threats 
like wildfire and droughts that are intensifying as a result of 
climate change. The Fish and Wildlife Service is on the front 
lines of wildlife disease, including preventing those diseases 
from spreading to human populations. And the Park Service will 
play a key role in recommitting to our government-to-government 
relationships with tribal nations and to telling the story of 
all Americans.
    If I am confirmed, I will bring with me the tools that have 
served me best in my career: communication, transparency, and 
intellectual honesty. I will approach this role with a passion 
for collaboration and for meeting big challenges in 
partnership. I look forward to celebrating together the results 
we achieve together. I hope that today will be the first of 
many conversations with this Committee. Thank you, and I look 
forward to answering your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Estenoz follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Estenoz.
    Now we will recognize Ms. Trujillo for her opening 
statement.

 STATEMENT OF TANYA M. TRUJILLO, NOMINATED TO BE AN ASSISTANT 
         SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR (WATER AND SCIENCE)

    Ms. Trujillo. Thank you.
    Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Barrasso and 
members of the Committee. I appreciate the introduction from 
Senator Heinrich. As a fellow New Mexican, I am among many who 
are grateful for your service.
    I previously had the honor of working here on the Committee 
with Senator Bingaman when he was Chairman. He exemplified the 
bipartisan spirit that I experienced while I was working with 
Senator Murkowski's staff on water and power issues. I want to 
acknowledge the long service of Sam Fowler and David Brooks who 
I was able to work with on the Committee as well. I also 
appreciate the support that I have received from Tim Petty, who 
is a staff member with Senator Risch, as I transition into my 
new role. I am honored to appear here today as President 
Biden's nominee to serve as the Assistant Secretary for Water 
and Science.
    With me is my niece, Morgan Trujillo. She is a high school 
student from Minneapolis, and I also would like to say hello to 
her sister, Mia, who was not able to attend as well because of 
the restrictions. I am very grateful for the support of family, 
friends, and colleagues who have enabled me to be here today. I 
have always worked closely with technical experts from a 
variety of backgrounds, and I have learned to apply my skills 
as a lawyer to work with them to solve complex problems. I look 
forward to utilizing that same approach at the Department of 
the Interior.
    My career began in private practice in Santa Fe, and I 
transitioned to public service as General Counsel for the New 
Mexico Interstate Stream Commission. In addition to working 
here at the Committee, I also served as Counselor to the 
Assistant Secretary for Water and Science at Interior where I 
was able to begin to learn about some of the topics I am 
working on today. My work on Colorado River issues continued to 
expand when I served as the Executive Director for the Colorado 
River Board of California. There I was able to work with some 
of the largest agricultural and municipal water users in the 
Colorado River Basin. I am proud to be, to have been able to 
help develop some of the innovative agreements that the Basin 
is famous for. Those agreements are based on voluntary, 
proactive measures that involved a broad range of input. I am 
very grateful for the, to have received a letter of support 
from all of the seven Basin states and the Governor's 
representatives. I look forward to working with them on issues 
over the next years, if I am confirmed.
    I have always been interested in hearing from perspectives 
that represent a variety of interests; those include farmers 
and ranchers, tribes, states, local agencies, nonprofit 
organizations, and others. I appreciate the role that 
organizations such as the Western States Water Counsel and the 
Family Farm Alliance play with respect to our--that respected 
the challenges that we face. I plan to continue to rely on 
their input and seek their advice. I have a deep respect for 
the dedicated scientists, engineers, and technical 
professionals at the Department of the Interior. I look forward 
to continuing to work with them as we implement the Biden 
Administration's goals and priorities.
    One of the examples will be for me to provide strong 
support for the Department's scientists at the U.S. Geological 
Survey on their efforts to address climate change and to 
advance the nation's research, assessment, and prediction 
capabilities. In addition, I will support the Bureau of 
Reclamation's important role as a water provider and I will 
work closely with Reclamation and other agencies to ensure that 
hydropower resources can continue to provide an important 
component of our nation's renewable energy portfolio. Working 
on Indian water rights settlements and ensuring that rural 
communities have access to clean, reliable supplies of water 
will also be priorities for me. I will be forever grateful for 
have been able to work on New Mexico's water settlements, and I 
understand why it is important to implement those settlements 
and other projects in other states.
    The water and science work at Interior relies on 
coordination within the Department, coordination with other 
federal agencies, and with states, tribes, and a variety of 
local interests. If confirmed, I commit to working with those 
entities. I commit to working with members of this Committee 
and others in Congress. Thank you for allowing me to be here 
today, and I look forward to answering your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Trujillo follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    The Chairman. Thanks to all three of you.
    Before we begin our questions, I will ask three questions 
to be addressed to each nominee before this Committee, and we 
do it every time.
    Will you be available to appear before this Committee and 
other Congressional committees to represent departmental 
positions and respond to issues of concern to the Congress?
    [All witnesses respond, yes.]
    The Chairman. Are you aware of any personal holdings, 
investments, or interests that could constitute a conflict of 
interest or create the appearance of such a conflict should you 
be confirmed and assume the office to which you have been 
nominated by the President?
    [All witnesses respond, no.]
    The Chairman. Are you involved or do you have any assets 
held in a blind trust?
    [All witnesses respond, no.]
    The Chairman. Thank you. We will begin our questions.
    My first question will be to Mr. Anderson. To paraphrase 
John Marshall, it is a peculiar duty of Solicitors to say what 
the law is, at least within the Department of the Interior. 
Congress writes the laws, which are administered by the 
Interior Department, but the Solicitor interprets them in the 
first instance. You do that, in part, by issuing legal opinions 
which are binding on all of the bureaus and offices, at least 
until the courts say otherwise. Two years ago, this Committee 
held a similar hearing on your predecessor's nomination, at 
which I questioned him about the large number of his 
predecessors' legal opinions he had overturned. In fairness, I 
am going to ask you the same question. I recognize that a new 
administration is entitled to reassess and reverse the policies 
of its predecessors within the limits of discretion afforded by 
the law. But what standard of review do you apply in deciding 
whether to overturn a prior interpretation of the law?
    Mr. Anderson. Thank you, Senator Manchin.
    I think I've carefully considered, you know, the role of 
the Solicitor based on my experience within the Department, 
both working for John Leshy and as an observer, as an academic 
and since my four months as the Acting Solicitor and, you know, 
the number one rule is that we have to follow the laws as 
written by Congress. And so, when there is a Solicitor's 
opinion written by a predecessor, whether he or she is a 
Democrat or a Republican, they need to be reversed when they're 
plainly inconsistent with existing law.
    And an example of one opinion that I reversed was an 
interpretation by Solicitor Jorjani involving the Migratory 
Bird Treaty Act that was struck down by a Federal District 
Court in New York. And so, we have reversed that opinion in 
accordance with the court decree. Second, we look at these 
opinions, sort of in the same way that we look at regulations. 
We evaluate whether or not they are consistent with the 
overriding law and regulations and/or arbitrary and capricious. 
So we give some deference, but we look very searchingly at the 
rational for a particular opinion. We also look at whether or 
not a particular opinion is based on and intended to facilitate 
policies that have now been rejected. And I've got an example 
of that involving a Solicitor's opinion from Solicitor Jorjani 
that involved implementation of the energy dominance Executive 
Order adopted by President Trump that's been reversed by 
President Biden and so we got rid of that order and/or that 
Solicitor's opinion and we'll substitute new advice based on 
implementation of the policy.
    The Chairman. Let me say thank you, because I feel that you 
are going to be pretty precise and use the law rather than just 
your own opinion. Thank you very much.
    Ms. Estenoz, during the last Congress, we achieved what I 
believe is one of the great conservation success stories, first 
by permanently reauthorizing the Land and Water Conservation 
Fund as part of the Public Lands package signed into law in 
2019, and then by providing permanent mandatory funding for 
LWCF in the Great American Outdoors Act. Enactment of those 
bills was only made possible because of strong, truly strong, 
bipartisan support in both the House and Senate, and I think it 
is important to maintain that bipartisan support. I was 
disappointed that the previous Secretary was initially less 
than forthcoming about which projects would be funded, and 
imposed new conditions and restrictions on the program without 
any Congressional input. I was glad to see that President 
Biden's Administration has revoked those Secretarial Orders so 
that the program would manage as it has been in the past. So, 
if confirmed--I know you will be--will you commit to working 
with the Congress to ensure that the criteria of the Great 
American Outdoors Act is developed in an open, public process 
that recognizes priority funding needs of all states?
    Ms. Estenoz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and I, like so many 
Americans, am so grateful for the action of the Congress last 
year. LWCF full funding truly is a game changer and if I am 
confirmed, implementing that program, squeezing the maximum 
value out of every single dollar and getting those dollars to 
work on the landscape will be a top priority.
    The Chairman. Well, we just want to make sure that we are 
involved in that because all of us have projects, and we want 
to make sure everyone is treated fairly.
    Ms. Estenoz. Absolutely, Senator. I agree.
    The Chairman. Ms. Trujillo, if confirmed, you will oversee 
the Bureau of Reclamation. Reclamation manages nearly 500 dams 
and over 300 reservoirs in 17 Western states. It provides water 
to one out of every five Western farmers and more than 31 
million people across the West. It irrigates more than 10 
million acres of land and generates over 40 billion kilowatt 
hours of electricity each year. The Bureau of Reclamation runs 
on water, and our water supplies are increasingly at risk 
throughout the West as temperatures rise. Precipitation 
declines, droughts lengthen, snow packs decrease and melt 
earlier, and catastrophic wildfires increase runoff.
    My question would be, the Bureau of Reclamation published a 
climate change adaptation strategy in 2014 but has not reported 
on its progress since 2016. Is enough progress being made to 
confront these challenges, and how do you plan to address the 
challenges if you are confirmed?
    Ms. Trujillo. Thank you, Senator Manchin, for recognizing 
the importance with respect to the Bureau of Reclamation's 
management authority of water in the West. The approach to 
climate change is part of the priority actions that we are 
undertaking and I have strong respect for the engineers and 
scientists and managers at Reclamation who are developing those 
plans. They are--they have tools available through the 
WaterSMART program and other drought relief programs, but we 
are continuing to look for additional resources and additional 
input from Members of Congress, members of the public, and our 
strong foundation of stakeholders to improve upon our existing 
resources.
    We look forward to working with you on those issues.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Now we will turn to Senator Barrasso for his questions.
    Senator Barrasso. Well, thanks so much, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Anderson, if confirmed as Solicitor you are going to be 
responsible for ensuring the Department of the Interior's 
business is carried out in an open and a transparent way. You 
have served as a Principal Deputy Solicitor since President 
Biden's inauguration in January and have been fulfilling the 
responsibilities of the Solicitor's Office since that time. 
Since January, I have heard reports of the Biden Administration 
officials using encrypted messaging applications such as Signal 
while conducting official government business. I recently sent 
a letter to Secretary Haaland asking if encrypted messaging is 
being used by employees within the Department of the Interior 
in the course of their official duties. Are you aware of the 
use of any of the encrypted messaging apps for official 
business communications by any Department of the Interior 
official or employee or either on any personal or department-
issued equipment?
    Mr. Anderson. Senator Barrasso, I am not aware of that. I 
did hear about this concern of the Committee, and I thought 
back to, you know, the great mandatory training we received in 
our first week in office from the ethics and government records 
officials in the Department. And they informed us of the 
importance of keeping government records as government records. 
And if people who we knew before emailed us or sent us messages 
on our personal emails, I was, I made clear to my colleagues 
that those records need to be made part of the official 
government record. And I rely on the career Ethics Office which 
is tremendous and is part of my office and our career personnel 
who administer the Government Records Act to provide us with 
advice, and we take it extremely serious because we know that 
we need to keep these things available for the public through 
FOIA and for other matters, whether it's litigation or 
otherwise. So thank you for the question.
    Senator Barrasso. Well, no, and I agree in terms of 
accountability and transparency, we need to make sure that this 
is available long-term in terms of the history within the 
organization of government. What does the Department do to 
ensure that encrypted messages are archived and made available 
to the public?
    Mr. Anderson. Well, Senator, I'm not aware that any of the 
employees at the Department are using encrypted messaging apps 
or devices, if that's the proper term, to conduct government 
business, but the mere fact that you raised this question with 
me is going to cause me to make some inquiries at the 
Department and let folks know that this is not a permissible 
way to do business. But I have no inkling and no reason to 
believe that anyone, political or career wise, is using any 
encrypted messaging to attempt to do government business for 
any illicit purpose or any purpose at all.
    Senator Barrasso. Well, thank you, because I did send a 
letter to the Secretary so I am looking forward to receiving a 
reply, and I am sure you will be involved in the response to 
that letter. So thank you so very much.
    Ms. Estenoz, the Moose-Wilson Corridor is a 7.1-mile 
stretch of road in Grand Teton National Park. Public access to 
the corridor is highly valued for the unique opportunity that 
it provides to view wildlife and to enjoy the natural setting 
and the beauty of the park. In December 2016 the Park Service 
issued a record of decision for the management of the road that 
severely limits public access to the park. Among other things, 
the Park Service has decided to put an arbitrary limit on 
automobile access to the corridor and to eliminate a multiuse 
pathway that would prevent vehicle/cyclist collisions. Will you 
commit to working with me to find a way to resolve the 
deficiencies of that 2016 record of decision?
    Ms. Estenoz. Thank you, Senator Barrasso.
    And if I am confirmed, I will work with you on the Moose-
Wilson Road and addressing the larger issues of visitor use and 
those increasing numbers. I am so grateful to, for the time 
that your team has already spent with me and we are making 
plans to reconnect again to talk a little bit more about, for 
example, grizzly bear use of the area. I know the Park Service 
is implementing phase one and phase two of some of the 
infrastructure improvements and is also initiating a traffic 
study so that visitor use management can be informed by actual 
data. So I look forward, if I'm confirmed, sir, to working with 
you on this issue.
    Senator Barrasso. Yes, thank you.
    And Ms. Trujillo, first, in regard to Jeff Bingaman, 30 
years in the Senate. You served up here with Sam and others, at 
the final prayer breakfast before he left the Senate, he said 
he was leaving after 30 years and he avoided the three Ds which 
he described as defeat, death, and disgrace.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Barrasso. And he relayed that and it is something 
that all of us, as Senators, hope to be able to have a career 
like that and left with such distinction. So, if he is watching 
today, I know he is very proud of you.
    I want to just ask a quick question. Details from the 
House, the White House Infrastructure Plan includes references 
to resilience, drought, water recycling. Many Western water 
users were, I think, disappointed not to see more direct 
reference to repair and construction of water storage and 
conveyance systems. The Bureau of Reclamation has projects 
across the West that are aging and are in need of major 
repairs. New water storage projects need to be built across the 
West to address the threat of drought. Will you work with this 
Committee in ensuring that the Biden Administration supports 
adequate funding for Western water infrastructure in an 
infrastructure initiative and make building more water 
infrastructure projects a higher priority for Reclamation as 
part of his central mission?
    Ms. Trujillo. Thank you, Senator Barrasso, and thank you 
for acknowledging the long service of Senator Bingaman. It was 
an honor to work here with him.
    The question of infrastructure is very important to the 
Bureau of Reclamation and to myself. We will be working with 
Members of Congress and with members of the Administration on 
developing that package. I was encouraged to hear you say you 
were meeting with President Biden recently, and I know that 
there are many discussions going on about how, exactly how, to 
craft the pieces of that puzzle. Infrastructure is important to 
us. We need to modernize and repair aging infrastructure. We 
need to be able to develop new programs such as environmental 
infrastructure, and all of that will be part of what we are 
working on, if I am confirmed. Thank you.
    Senator Barrasso. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Senator Heinrich.
    Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Chairman.
    Ms. Trujillo, you know a lot about the Navajo-Gallup Water 
Supply Project, but for the benefit of my colleagues, this is 
one of the most important pieces of water delivery 
infrastructure built in the West in many years. It is already 
serving communities that were desperately in need of clean 
water, and it is slated to provide a reliable water supply as 
well to the city of Gallup, which has seen its groundwater 
really retreat dramatically and very quickly in the last few 
years. My concern is that the project is fantastic, but it is 
over budget, and it is behind schedule. We have seen increased 
costs that you have seen across the board in construction, 
obviously, but this is a life line for these communities, 
incredibly important. So, if confirmed, I just want to ask, 
will you work to make sure that the Navajo-Gallup pipeline 
stays on track moving forward and is really a focus for the 
Administration?
    Ms. Trujillo. Thank you, Senator Heinrich.
    Absolutely, I will. I have been working on the Navajo-
Gallup Project for many years. I remember sitting in the corner 
of this hearing room crafting the legislation that was moved 
forward to authorize the construction of the project. I worked 
as a Committee staff member here on obtaining additional 
funding so that we were able to complete or at least initiate 
the construction of the project. I have met with Navajo 
residents and folks in the city of Gallup, and I understand 
very well the concerns and the importance of this project. The 
engineers at Reclamation know I'm keeping close tabs on their 
progress, and we will carefully monitor the construction 
schedules and make sure that we work with you to ensure that 
the project is fully funded and completed.
    Thank you very much.
    Senator Heinrich. No, thank you. I look forward to working 
with you on this because it really is, you know--we are having 
this conversation about infrastructure, and the thing that I 
continually bring up to folks who do not live and work in 
Indian country on a regular basis is that, as we talk about 
replacing infrastructure, there are communities who have never 
had that infrastructure in the first place. And this project is 
a big part of how we right that historical wrong.
    Ms. Estenoz, thank you so much for the time you took with 
me last week. You heard a little bit about the Land and Water 
Conservation Fund achievements that we have secured in the last 
couple of years here, and one of my concerns that I am 
realizing is an issue is the lack of capacity to move quickly 
if you have a property where you have a family who wants to see 
that property become part of the public estate, whether it is 
the park service, an inholding, or and they are patient and 
they have a conservation ethic. You can, sort of, phase in a 
Land and Water Conservation project over a number of years. But 
the reality is, you are talking about, in many cases, if a 
property is of any size, a 5-year project, a 3-year project at 
best. And some of these properties are in circumstances where 
owners have leveraged the purchase and are under pressure to 
sell, and you can see some of the best opportunities for those 
LWCF dollars evaporate because of those pressures.
    I guess I am asking what tools do you think we need to be 
able to, sort of, seize opportunities like that when they come 
up and not miss out on some of the best opportunities to really 
protect some of the iconic landscapes of this country because 
of the pace of a long-term LWCF acquisition?
    Ms. Estenoz. Senator, that's a very good question, and I 
think that in implementing a fully funded LWCF it's important 
to, when we think about the implementation of it, to look at 
where the, sort of, the practical implementation problems lie 
and then get creative about how to address those. We already 
will sometimes use partner organizations who can maybe move 
faster in acquiring a piece of property that a willing seller 
needs to move a little bit more quickly, and then the 
government can, kind of, come in and transfer that property 
from that partner organization. That's an example of the kind 
of tool that we have been using for a very long time and that 
can be used, but I look forward to working with you and others 
who have creative ideas. My mind is wide open when it comes to 
putting this money to work for the American people, and, 
certainly, if we have land owners who want to participate and 
want to put their land in conservation, then we should be 
looking for ways to do that efficiently in ways that work for 
them financially as well.
    Senator Heinrich. Yes, I would just say, Mr. Chairman, that 
in working some of these projects on the ground recently, I 
think some of the capacity that was there with NGOs, 
historically----
    Ms. Estenoz. Yes.
    Senator Heinrich [continuing]. That a number of those NGOs 
have, sort of, gotten out of that business. And so we are now 
bringing these resources online on our side of the ledger but 
we may have to, sort of, reinvigorate some of the muscles that 
exist in other places to make sure that we have the 
partnerships in place to be able to move quickly on these kinds 
of projects.
    Thanks again, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. Senator Lee. Senator Lee?
    Mike, can you hear me?
    Senator Lee. Yes.
    The Chairman. Okay, you are up, buddy.
    Senator Lee. Okay, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Anderson, let's start with you. Can you tell me a 
little bit about why the moratorium on oil and gas leasing and 
suspension of delegated authorities was necessary to conduct a 
review of the Department's leasing program?
    Mr. Anderson. Thank you, Senator Lee. I'm ready to answer 
your question. You know, the primary reason we have undertaken 
this pause, when we don't have a moratorium in place on oil and 
gas leasing. We've got a pause on leases pending this review 
that was ordered by President Biden in his Executive Order on 
January 27th. Our review is required to look at all aspects of 
oil and gas leasing, including ensuring that we achieve a fair 
return to the American taxpayer, that oil and gas leasing is 
done in an environmentally protective manner. And the pause 
that's in effect has precluded sales during the second quarter 
here. The review is due to be delivered to the White House in 
early summer which I take to be June and as part of that 
review, the White House will provide us further direction and 
the review from the Secretary will provide options to the 
President as he makes decisions about how to proceed.
    Senator Lee. No, thank you, thank you for your answer on 
that note. To be clear, there is a letter in which you 
clarified that the suspension of delegated authorities did not 
apply, would not apply, does not apply on tribal land, but it 
is my understanding that the fracking and other extractive 
activities were, themselves, the target of this and you know, 
the reason they were a target of this action was out of 
concerns relating to the protection of human health and the 
environment.
    And so, if your desire is to suspend these delegated 
authorities, if they truly were rooted in concerns for public 
health and welfare, why was that not reflected in your 
obligations to managing lands as the Trustee of Tribes?
    Mr. Anderson. Thank you again, Senator Lee. The suspension 
of delegated authority was put in place on January 20th, and 
that suspension is wholly different from the pause pending the 
oil and gas review, and that suspension of delegated authority 
was designed to allow the new political appointees time to 
assess all activities that were taking place in the field. And 
our jurisdiction over oil and gas activities in the field, in 
the regional offices of the BLM, for example, extends to the 
public lands. Indian lands are different. We don't have the 
authority to pause or reverse delegations on those Indian lands 
without engaging in consultation with the tribes pursuant to 
executive orders that have been in place since the Reagan 
Administration.
    And so, the reverse, or the suspension of delegated 
authority ended in 45 days after that original suspension went 
in place on January 20th, and now we're back to the situation 
we were before where on the public lands, the Federal lands the 
business is being carried out pursuant to the standard 
delegations to regional directors and other delegees in the 
field offices of the relevant bureaus. And to sum up our----
    Senator Lee. Thank you.
    Mr. Anderson [continuing]. Our jurisdiction is just 
different with respect to Indian lands.
    Senator Lee. Okay, thank you, Mr. Anderson.
    Ms. Estenoz, what can you tell me about how the Department 
might weigh the potential impacts of inaction versus action, 
for example, inaction manifesting itself in the form of not 
logging or otherwise clearing in the habitat of a vulnerable 
species versus the potential for catastrophic wildfire in the 
same habitat?
    Ms. Estenoz. Thank you, Senator, that's a very good 
question and thank you for asking it.
    I think that the key for us is to find the right balance in 
managing our public lands which clearly sound well-managed, for 
example, forests provide tremendous conservation benefits and 
habitat benefits. They, as you mentioned, mitigate wildfire, 
for example. And so, it's finding that balance between our 
management activities and then our responsibilities to say, 
protect listed species, for example. And if I'm confirmed, 
finding that balance, as I've done the hard work in my career 
of finding a balance between sometimes competing 
responsibilities and interests, and I would do the same thing 
if I were confirmed in this position.
    Senator Lee. Okay.
    Mr. Chairman, can I ask one more question?
    The Chairman. Absolutely.
    Senator Lee. It is a brief one.
    The Chairman. Yes, sir.
    Senator Lee. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    This year the Biden Administration revoked an order that 
had been issued under the previous administration, one that 
required a written expression of support from governors and 
local governments prior to lands being acquired through the 
Land and Water Conservation Fund. Do you think it is necessary 
or at least good practice to gain local support before there is 
a federal acquisition of land?
    Ms. Estenoz. I do, Senator. I think that it always, it 
always, you know, it always helps to build consensus around 
conservation efforts and projects and certainly, if I'm 
confirmed, that I will seek to build consensus around projects 
that we're implementing on the ground.
    Senator Lee. Thank you, Ms. Estenoz.
    Mr. Chairman, thank you as well.
    The Chairman. Thank you.
    Senator King.
    Senator King. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Welcome to all of you and congratulations and thank you for 
your willingness to take on these responsibilities.
    First, Ms. Estenoz.
    Ms. Estenoz. Yes?
    Senator King. We need a Park Director. We have gone almost 
five years without a Director of the National Park Service. I 
hope that will be among your highest priorities. Any 
organization needs a leader, and at this particular moment, we 
will talk about it, I hope that is something you can take back 
to the Administration.
    Ms. Estenoz. Thank you, Senator and I can assure you, a 
National Park Service Director is a high priority for the 
Administration and for me.
    Senator King. Thank you.
    Second, I would like to invite you to Maine. We have two 
gems, Acadia National Park and Katahdin Woods and Waters 
National Monument. I would love to have you come up and see 
those facilities. By the way, I have suggested in the past that 
I thought the proper way to administer the Restore Our Parks 
Act was alphabetical. You start with Acadia and go to Zion.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator King. But my friends in the West do not necessarily 
agree.
    Senator Heinrich. No, no, Bandolier is right there.
    Senator King. Bandolier would be right up there. 
Absolutely. So that is a consensus as you see.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator King. This is going to be, I think, a record year 
for the parks. There are two things that you cannot buy 
apparently, coming out of the pandemic: an RV and a bicycle. 
That tells you that people want to get outdoors. And one of the 
things that we have been frustrated with, after the passage of 
the Great American Outdoors Act, is a lack of transparency in 
the Administration. And I know you talked about this with the 
Chairman, but I think it is incredibly important to share with 
the Committee and the Congress how you are approaching the 
distribution of LWCF funds and the Restore Our Parks Act. What 
are the criteria and what are the results? It was a huge 
accomplishment to get that bill through, and I think it would 
be very advantageous to the Administration to be as clear as 
possible with us as to how you intend to approach the 
administration and distribution of those funds.
    Ms. Estenoz. Thank you, Senator, and if you noticed me 
grinning when you invited me to Maine and I'm sure my husband 
behind me was, too. We spent a wonderful family vacation in 
Acadia several years ago and would love the opportunity to 
return. It is a magnificent state.
    You are making an excellent point, and if I am confirmed, I 
will be absolutely committed to transparency in the 
implementation of the Great American Outdoors Act, the 
selection of projects under LWCF. The Park Service and the Fish 
and Wildlife Service have developed very robust criteria for 
project selection, and those both reflect the missions of the 
agency. And so, while they differ from each other, they are 
both consistent with the specific missions of both services, 
and I welcome the opportunity to communicate with this 
Committee and really dive into that process. Our recommended 
project selections will be released with the President's budget 
request for the Congress to consider.
    So the implementation of Great American Outdoors Act, I 
can't stress enough, if I'm confirmed, will be a very high 
priority for me. This is, I recognize this as a moment that the 
Congress has teed up for the nation, and it is our job now to 
implement it and to do so with the kind of collaboration and 
bipartisan support and approach that the Act was passed. So I 
very much appreciate the question.
    Senator King. Well, and one thing that might help would 
be--you mentioned that there are criteria. If you could put 
together a short report for us, not, you know, 50 pages, but 
five pages on what the criteria are and the nominees that will 
be coming with the President's budget, just to outline the 
approach that you will be taking. That would be helpful to us, 
I think. Thank you.
    Ms. Estenoz. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator King. Mr. Anderson, I think you really touched on 
this with Chairman Manchin, but one concern I have is the 
engagement of your office with FOIA requests. I hope we are 
going to have a clear-cut position from the Department that, 
yes, we will obey the law when it comes to the Freedom of 
Information Act. Is that your position as Solicitor, and what 
will your engagement be in the FOIA process?
    Mr. Anderson. Thank you, Senator.
    And yes, I am committed to full compliance with FOIA, with 
transparency, and I am the Chief FOIA Officer for the 
Department. The FOIA Office was moved by the last 
administration into the Solicitor's Office. I've got a Chief, a 
career person, who's incredibly competent, running that office. 
I meet with her on a biweekly basis to review the status of our 
compliance with the backlog that we've got. Fortunately for us, 
Congress has provided additional funds for staffing to deal 
with the backlog. And I have my hands on the FOIA process and 
am committed to ensuring that the resources provided by 
Congress are utilized to get rid of the backlog and fully 
comply as we go forward with the important FOIA issues that 
come before the Department.
    Senator King. And Mr. Anderson, Ms. Trujillo, I do not want 
to leave you out. You are invited to Maine as well.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Anderson. Thank you.
    Senator King. Thank you all very much for appearing. Thank 
you, Mr.----
    Ms. Trujillo. I was going to ask, I was going to say yes to 
that.
    Senator King. Good, thank you.
    The Chairman. Senator Daines.
    Senator Daines. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    You are invited to Montana as well, by the way. So, 
speaking of Montana, a University of Montana report found that 
30 percent of all environmental impact statements in Region 1 
in the Forest Service are litigated, one out of three. As I 
speak 400 million board feet are tied up in litigation. Part of 
the reason for this is the precedent set in the Ninth Circuit 
by the 2015 Cottonwood Decision which actually contradicted 
other circuit courts. Litigation based on the Cottonwood 
Decision has jeopardized or halted hundreds of projects across 
dozens of forests. A time-sensitive hazardous fuels project in 
Montana burned while it languished in the court and in some 
cases, litigation has stopped all activities in the forest. 
Thankfully, a draft rule to address this issue was published 
last January by the Fish and Wildlife Service.
    Ms. Estenoz, do you share the position of the Obama 
Administration that the 2015 Cottonwood Decision would cripple 
forest management, and, if confirmed, will you commit to 
address this issue?
    Ms. Estenoz. Senator, thank you so much, and I want to say 
how much I appreciate the time that your team spent with me 
talking about this and other issues this week. I very much 
appreciate that. So I understand how important this issue is in 
Montana and increasingly in other states. And if I am 
confirmed, I pledge to work with you and others who have been 
giving this a lot of thought and who are, you know, are engaged 
in the issue to find a way forward. Let me say that the Fish 
and Wildlife Service, NOAA, and the Forest Service have come 
together in recent weeks to begin talking through the proposed 
rule. There is some disagreement among the agencies about the 
appropriate way to move forward.
    If I am confirmed, I commit to you, Senator, that I will 
encourage that dialog to continue until a resolution is found.
    Senator Daines. I appreciate that, you know, if you looked 
at it, over 80 percent of the comments received by the agencies 
support the draft rule. If confirmed, how would you weigh that 
public input as you determine how to move forward with this and 
other rules?
    Ms. Estenoz. It's a very good point. We received, I 
believe, more than 40,000 comments on this proposed rule, and 
you're right a large percentage of them supported the rule. We 
always take into account the voices that, of folks who take the 
time to weigh in on what we're proposing, and we will do that, 
again, in this case as well.
    Senator Daines. Under the proposed remedies to the 
Cottonwood Decision, project-level consultation would still 
occur.
    Ms. Estenoz. Yes.
    Senator Daines. How might wildlife conservation benefit 
from reducing these duplicative consultation requirements?
    Ms. Estenoz. So a similar point I made earlier which is 
that, you know, to the--for example, well-managed forests are 
important to conservation. They're important to wildlife. They 
provide improved habitat, and, as I mentioned before, they 
mitigate wildfire. To the extent that the regulatory processes 
surrounding and promoting well-managed forests can be both 
effective and efficient, that should be our goal. And if I'm 
confirmed, I'll certainly work toward that goal.
    Senator Daines. Thank you. You have a thoughtful answer, 
and I appreciate that.
    I want to shift gears to talk about grizzly bears. The 
recovery of the grizzly bear in Montana is one of the few 
endangered species success stories.
    Ms. Estenoz. Yes.
    Senator Daines. The recent species status review, once 
again, found that the bear had biologically recovered in two 
population segments in Montana. But to the dismay of Montanans, 
I will say we are exasperated, no direction was given for 
delisting the bear. This is not about skirting wildlife 
protections. This is about celebrating a recovery story, the 
quantitative data, the science tells us that, it is investing 
federal resources where they are most needed in managing 
wildlife appropriately.
    My question is, if confirmed, will you commit to reviewing 
the status of the grizzly bear in Montana to determine the best 
path forward to transition conservation back to the state?
    Ms. Estenoz. Senator, thank you so much and I know, I know 
that this is such an important issue, and I want to 
congratulate everyone who has worked so hard to recover the 
grizzly in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and the Northern 
Continental Divide ecosystem. And we agree, it is doing really, 
really well. The species, of course, is listed as a Lower 48 
species, but if I am confirmed, I want to acknowledge, and I've 
said this before, I want to acknowledge the challenges that 
come with predator recovery. I know how hard it is for folks to 
share the landscape with a recovered predator species. If I am 
confirmed, I commit to working with the state, to working with 
the Association of Wildlife Management agencies, to work within 
the huge community of folk out West who are working on grizzly 
bears to figure out a path forward that helps folks on the 
ground feel like they can share the landscape with this species 
as it recovers.
    Senator Daines. And we have a great case today called the 
wolf, and we are doing that in Montana, where it recovered. We 
transitioned back to the state. The Federal minimum was 150. We 
doubled to 300 in Montana. We have over 1,000 wolves right now. 
So we are doing a great job, and the state is managing the 
population. Thank you.
    I know I am out of time. I want to make a quick mention 
that we are also the home, in Montana, to several crown jewel 
national parks. Our national parks are treasured by all 
Montanans and help sustain, certainly, our recreation economy. 
They are going to be having a lot of visitors this summer, I 
know that. You have a great team, by the way, in Montana. I 
truly enjoyed worked with Cam Sholly out of Yellowstone and the 
rest of his team. I am hopeful he will stick around in Montana 
for many years to come.
    Ms. Estenoz. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator Daines. Thank you, I appreciate it.
    Ms. Estenoz. Thank you.
    Senator Heinrich [presiding]. Next up we have Senator 
Hirono.
    Senator Hirono. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    I welcome the panelists, and for Mr. Anderson, Ms. Estenoz, 
and Ms. Trujillo, I ask the following two questions, 
preliminary questions, of every nominee who appears before any 
of the committees on which I sit. First question, since you 
became a legal adult, have you ever made unwanted requests for 
sexual favors or committed any verbal or physical harassment or 
assault of a sexual nature?
    Let's just go down the line, please, with your answers.
    Mr. Anderson. No.
    Ms. Estenoz. No.
    Ms. Trujillo. No.
    Senator Hirono. Have you ever faced discipline or entered 
into a settlement related to this kind of conduct?
    Mr. Anderson. No.
    Ms. Estenoz. No.
    Ms. Trujillo. No.
    Senator Hirono. Thank you.
    For Ms. Estenoz, I, too, join all my colleagues in inviting 
you to Hawaii because, if you have ever been to Hawaii, you 
will know that it is a very unique place. We are in the middle 
of the Pacific, the farthest place of any of our states, of 
course. So Hawaii has benefited from a good working 
relationship with the Fish and Wildlife Service throughout the 
years. As the endangered species capital of the world, we have 
worked collaboratively on many projects critical to protecting 
our native species, including the Island Forests at Risk 
Collaborative Landscape Project Proposal through the Land and 
Water Conservation Fund, as well as projects made possible 
through Section 6 grants, to name a few.
    As our endangered species in Hawaii face increasing threats 
from invasive species and climate change, it will be imperative 
that the Fish and Wildlife Service continues this strong 
relationship with Hawaii. So, of course, I would like you to 
come to Hawaii and see firsthand the challenges we face in 
Hawaii.
    Ms. Estenoz. Thank you, thank you, Senator, so much for 
that invitation. And let me just say, just very briefly, that 
as a native of Florida I think we may be second or third behind 
Hawaii for invasive species, and so I understand the peril that 
they represent and, if I'm confirmed, I look forward to working 
with you to make sure that we're addressing Hawaii's 
challenges.
    Senator Hirono. Yes, because what happens is, usually, 
native species are overcome by the invasive species.
    For Ms. Trujillo, I have been a long-time supporter of the 
USGS national and regional Climate Adaptation Science Centers, 
or CASCs. They play a critical role in working with local 
resource managers and communities to help wildlife and natural 
resources adapt to climate change. The Pacific Island CASC is 
front and center in seeing climate change impacts and provides 
important guidance and resources to the Pacific region as we 
adjust to a new normal.
    If confirmed, I would like to work with you to ensure that 
the USGS CASCs have the resources necessary to continue their 
critical service to communities in Hawaii, the Pacific, and all 
across the country and of course, I would also very much 
appreciate the regular updates that I receive from USGS on the 
reconstruction of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, which was 
destroyed in the recent eruptions. I am hopeful that it will 
result in greater synergies and collaboration with other 
federal agencies as well as the community, and I look forward 
to keeping in touch with you regarding the rebuilding of that 
facility. So I invite you to come to Hawaii also.
    Ms. Trujillo. Thank you.
    Senator Hirono. For Mr. Anderson----
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Hirono. I have not had the opportunity to mention 
the importance of the Department in working with the Native 
Hawaiian community with Secretary Haaland and Deputy Secretary 
Nominee Tommy Beaudreau. If confirmed, I also look forward to 
working with you in your capacity as Solicitor to support this 
community. Additionally, the last administration issued a 
Solicitor's opinion, and later a final rule, on the Migratory 
Bird Treaty Act that let businesses off the hook for killing 
migratory birds. I strongly disagree with their interpretation 
and am glad to see that the Department, with you as Deputy 
Solicitor, has been working to reverse those damaging actions. 
If confirmed, I look forward to working with you and the 
Department to make sure that the Migratory Bird Treaty Act 
works in the way that it was intended, to protect migratory 
birds.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator Lankford.
    Senator Lankford. Chair, thank you very much.
    To all the witnesses, thanks for going through this 
process. It is not a really fun process to be able to go 
through to be able to answer so many questions, so much 
background information, so few Americans that are willing to be 
able to step up and go through the process. We do appreciate 
it. We will have differences of opinion as we walk through it, 
but thanks for stepping into the process on it.
    Mr. Anderson, you and I had the opportunity to be able to 
visit through a Zoom call, and it is good to be able to see you 
face to face at this point, to be able to talk through a couple 
things. I do want to be able to drill down a little bit more on 
the McGirt decision from the Supreme Court that, obviously, has 
pretty dramatic effects in Oklahoma. A couple things I want to 
be able to ask about, we did not talk about yesterday. One is 
Department of the Interior, we are going to need some 
engagement with our tribes, especially the five tribes that are 
affected by the McGirt decision in trying to be able to walk 
through that process.
    Can I get the commitment from your legal team to be able to 
work through the legal teams of the state and of our five 
tribes to be able to work through the McGirt decision?
    Mr. Anderson. Senator Lankford, yes. It was great to see 
you online yesterday, and it's great to see you in person 
today. And yes, I mean, you've got my commitment should I be 
confirmed to work closely with your office, with the tribes in 
the state, with the Attorney General's Office, with the U.S. 
attorneys and the other stakeholders involved in, you know, 
implementing this complicated legal decision, and this is what 
we do, and I look forward to the opportunity to do that.
    Senator Lankford. What affect do you think the McGirt 
decision has with other tribes and how that would be applied in 
other places, and do you have an initial thought on that from 
Interior?
    Mr. Anderson. Well, I think that the McGirt decision has 
been cited by in other jurisdictions, in the Eighth Circuit, 
for example, in cases involving whether or not reservation 
boundaries have been diminished on reservations there. So I 
think that, you know, it's an important Supreme Court decision 
that shifts the inquiry from the, sort of, unclear focus that 
it had before. So I think it's going to have some nationwide 
impact and of course, in Oklahoma, for tribes that are 
similarly situated with respect to the treaty language like the 
Creek Nation has, it's inevitable that those questions will 
come before the court and before my Department. And I look 
forward to examining them and working with folks on those 
issues.
    Senator Lankford. As you and I discussed, the McGirt 
decision is a criminal decision, and the court made it very 
clear they were speaking on criminal issues. How far would this 
expand into civil issues, noncriminal issues, on the expansion 
of federal regulations and of civil issues in other areas and 
states?
    Mr. Anderson. Well, as we discussed in the context of SMCRA 
yesterday morning, you know, SMCRA has a definition of Indian 
lands that is very similar, in fact, identical to that, that 
issue in the criminal conviction in the McGirt case. And 
similarly, the Supreme Court has ruled that the definition of 
Indian country is identical to the, for civil purposes, is 
identical to the criminal provision. So it brings to bear all 
of the legal analysis that's, you know, been the subject of a 
number of Supreme Court hearings over the years regarding the 
relative balance of state, tribal, and federal jurisdiction 
within Indian country. And I've always been a fan of not of 
litigation, but of working, having tribes work together with 
the Federal Government, state governments, and local 
governments on cooperative jurisdictional arrangements that 
make sense for local governments and do not put the courts in 
the position of being arbiters of who has jurisdiction----
    Senator Lankford. Right.
    Mr. Anderson. They're just ill equipped to do that.
    Senator Lankford. Obviously, for that decision coming out 
of DOI that predates your time there, obviously, since you are 
not even in that position. This was a case of the Office of 
Surface Mines made a decision and sent out a letter to the 
state without any warning, without any advance to be able to 
say we just reinterpreted things. McGirt said criminal. We now 
believe also that this is including, though the court did not 
speak to that. That obviously opens up a situation for 
litigations. One of the things that we are going to count on 
here is that your office is working to be able to provide 
clarity to say we do not have clarity, this is going to cause 
court cases and millions of dollars in legal fees over the days 
ahead to be able to put good legal decisions out there and good 
advice to the Secretary and all the folks that are in the 
agency on it.
    I do want to ask a couple other questions, if I can, 
quickly on this. Again, going to the legal issues, Department 
of the Interior provided guidance to the field offices recently 
directing them to run permitting rights-of-way, other 
decisions, to the Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals. 
This takes it out of the regional offices to be able to make 
permitting rights-of-way decisions and moves it up to a 
political appointee office to be able to make that decision. 
Obviously that is going to also cause a lot of challenges where 
people are going to have legal challenges. They are saying why 
aren't their career local folks doing this? Why are political 
appointees doing this? Do you have an opinion about that shift?
    Mr. Anderson. Senator, I'm not familiar with that precise 
shift and why it was done, but I'm committed to, you know, 
working with your office and looking into that matter with the 
folks over at the BLM regarding how these approvals take place, 
and we want to ensure that they take place in the most 
efficient manner. So I'll look into that and look forward to 
getting back to you with information about that.
    Senator Lankford. Thank you.
    Ms. Estenoz, quickly, I am going to give you a question for 
the record dealing with endangered species which has already 
been brought up by multiple folks here. We have a little bug 
called the American Burrowing Beetle which has reached all of 
its population targets that were set at the very beginning. It 
has been originally thought it was in two states, now it has 
been discovered it is in eight states, yet we are still 
fighting through the process of delisting this because there is 
a potential in the future that if climate changes, that it 
could endanger the bug.
    So the challenge that we have is how do we delist anything 
if they reach the targets of population, they reach the 
diversity of locations for it, but there is always a threat in 
the future to try to deal with this issue. And so, it is an 
issue that we have in my state to be able to determine, okay, 
if we do everything we are supposed to do, yet at the end of it 
the rug gets pulled out from under us, saying, yes, but in the 
future, there could be a threat so we are not going to delist 
it. We do not know how we ever have any kind of incentive to 
ever deal with anything on any threatened species list. So we 
do want to be able to recover threatened species, but we also 
want to know what the rules of the game are as we go. So I will 
follow through with a question for the record on that.
    Thank you.
    Ms. Estenoz. Thank you, Senator.
    The Chairman [presiding]. Senator Cortez Masto.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman 
and Ranking Member. Congratulations to all the nominees. 
Welcome. Welcome to your families, who are there in person and 
virtually.
    Ms. Estenoz, let me start with you.
    I am from Nevada. I have worked very hard with my 
colleagues from the State of Nevada, along with impacted 
communities within Nevada industries, on alternative proposals 
to the Department of Defense's modernization and expansion 
proposals to Nellis and Fallon Training Ranges in my state. In 
both instances, the expanded operations would have substantive 
impact on the lands and cultural resources managed by the 
Interior Department. It is imperative that the Department of 
the Interior be actively engaged in discussions with the 
military to find reasonable, workable, and collaborative 
solutions to these land management conflicts.
    In the fiscal year 2021 NDAA, I included an amendment 
creating intergovernmental executive committees between the 
military and Interior Department to allow our local, state, and 
tribal governments a public forum to collaborate with the 
military in providing advice and exchanging information on the 
management of our natural and local resources on federal lands 
in Nevada that are currently used for military purposes.
    So my question to you is, will you commit to expeditiously 
establishing and participating in these committees, and commit 
to working with all of the engaged stakeholders as part of 
finding a solution, a workable solution, for everyone involved?
    Ms. Estenoz. Thank you for the question, Senator and the 
answer is, yes. If I am confirmed, I will commit to involving 
myself in this capacity that you helped to create and to give 
us the ability to work through these issues collaboratively and 
I commit to also working with your office, too, as we work 
through that process as well.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you, thank you so much.
    Ms. Trujillo, for purposes of Nevada, let me just say that, 
and I say this all the time, so my colleagues know. Of all of 
the states, Nevada has an important working relationship with 
the Federal Government. Over 80 percent of the land in Nevada 
is owned by the Federal Government, and 60 percent of that is 
managed by the BLM. It is important at all levels to sustain so 
much that we do in Nevada that we have a really good working 
relationship at all levels with the Department of the Interior.
    In 2018, I worked with my colleagues to extend the 
authorization of the System Conservation Pilot Program, which 
was a collective effort by water districts and the Federal 
Government to fund voluntary water-saving efforts and water 
conservation projects that, in turn, create water for the 
entire Colorado River system. It helped reimburse farmers and 
ranchers in the Colorado River Basin who entered into 
voluntary, temporary agreements to conserve water. I also 
worked to implement the Seven Basin States Drought Conservation 
Plans to help improve water conservation measures in the face 
of the water shortage declarations. If confirmed, what more 
would you recommend the Federal Government be doing to address 
the drought-related issues across the West that we are dealing 
with now?
    Ms. Trujillo. Thank you very much, Senator, for the 
question and thank you for your commitment to Colorado River 
issues. You are in a state that is in the middle of the Upper 
Basin and the Lower Basin and serves an important role in 
trying to help bring programs together such as the System 
Conservation Program and the Drought Contingency Plan that you 
referenced earlier. I was--I've been personally involved in 
those issues and in other issues in the Colorado River Basin 
for many years. I am very pleased again to have received the 
support from the Colorado River Basin states to be confirmed in 
my position as Assistant Secretary for Water and Science. I 
think we probably need to all roll up our sleeves. This is a 
wake-up call, the current drought situation that we have now, 
we need to develop additional programs that can utilize the 
same type of creative, innovative programs that you referenced 
as well. We need something along the lines of a Great American 
Drought Program to try to work on those. The Federal Government 
will be an essential partner in the Colorado River discussions, 
but we look forward to having input from folks in Nevada, folks 
in the other states, from tribes, from Members of Congress, as 
we try to get through the next few years and then the next few 
decades after that.
    Thank you.
    Senator Cortez Masto. Yes, I agree. It is essential that we 
address this issue. So please, for purposes of us at the 
federal level, let us know what you need. Please do not 
hesitate to reach out. This is so crucial to the Western 
states.
    So thank you. Congratulations to all three of you again.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
    Now we have Senator Cassidy.
    Senator Cassidy, you are on mute.
    Senator Cassidy, you are still muted. I know you are 
working on it.
    We need a good IT person right now in Senator Cassidy's 
office.
    [Laughter.]
    The Chairman. You have a good picture.
    [Laughter.]
    The Chairman. He is smiling at us right now. Can you hear 
me, Bill?
    Bill, I am going to--if you cannot get your mic unmuted, I 
am going to go to Senator Murkowski right now and I will come 
right back to you. You are still muted, Bill.
    Senator Murkowski.
    Senator Murkowski. I am not muted, sir, but----
    The Chairman. You are never muted, Senator Murkowski.
    Senator Murkowski. If my friend, Bill, comes back online, I 
will gladly defer to him.
    So thank you to our witnesses for being here. I have had an 
opportunity to speak with several of you in just the past 
couple days. So I am going to start with you, Ms. Estenoz. This 
is not going to be a surprise because these are both issues 
that I raised on our phone call. The first is the Polar Bear 
ITR. We have been, we have heard productive reports that there 
have been cooperative discussions going on with the Fish and 
Wildlife Service, but as I mentioned, the anxiety that we have 
here is this deadline. In order for this to be processed in 
time that the draft regulations need to be in the Federal 
Register by June 1--that is exactly two weeks from today. So it 
is absolutely imperative that we not miss this deadline. What I 
would ask from you today is your commitment that the Draft ITR 
will be published by June 1 and the new regulation issued by 
August.
    Ms. Estenoz. Thank you, Senator and thank you for all the 
time that you have spent with me over the last two weeks. I 
really, very much appreciate it. And the good news is, is that 
Fish and Wildlife Service and the Solicitor's Office are 
working very closely. We're expecting it to make it out of the 
Solicitor's Office any day now, and then it will go through the 
review process which we think will be an efficient process. And 
so, our goal is to get it into the Federal Register on time. 
And we share, you know, your concern and your awareness of the 
importance of making sure that we don't have a gap in coverage 
in this ITR. And so, I, as I said to you during our 
conversations and I'll say to you today for the record, I am 
committed to meeting those time goals, the interim ones and the 
final time goal.
    Senator Murkowski. I appreciate that, because it is 
absolutely imperative. So I thank you for that.
    King Cove, a continuing area of frustration, as you know. 
The people of King Cove are still waiting for Secretary Haaland 
to make good on her commitment to them to have a meeting before 
she actually goes out to the region. I understand she is 
looking at travel later in the summer, but we do want to help 
facilitate that meeting. On King Cove, it is not, there are 
other areas of frustration and again, I have outlined some of 
those to you. One is the 11-10B inholding determination that 
Secretary Bernhardt had signed, also under review. Fish and 
Wildlife has already delayed the issuance of the special use 
permits to the state for survey work, but that permit process 
is starting again. So again, these are positive signs, but I 
guess today I would ask you to commit to issuing a special use 
permit to the state so that they can participate in this 
summer's field season.
    Ms. Estenoz. Thank you, thank you, Senator. And as you 
know, Fish and Wildlife Service is processing that special use 
permit. I think that there's every intention to issue it. It's 
a matter of getting the permit, you know, the technical parts 
of the permit lined up so that they can, so that it can be 
issued. So if I'm confirmed, Senator, you have my commitment to 
work with Fish and Wildlife Service on the special use permit 
as well.
    Senator Murkowski. Good. We need, again, very, very tight 
timelines that we are dealing with, with all of these.
    Let me turn to you, Mr. Anderson. We had an opportunity to 
discuss the public land orders and land entitlements in the 
state. The headline in the Anchorage paper today is, ``Interior 
confirms Alaska Native Veterans can receive land allotments 
during Biden Administration review.'' And the BLM quote is 
that, ``The Bureau will expedite and process veterans' 
allotment applications across the area addressed by these 
orders,'' which, of course, is great news for our Alaska Native 
Veterans who have just been rattled to the core. They thought 
that they were making some progress with these PLOs being 
withdrawn and an opportunity to have access to greater areas 
for selection. I am still not certain how the Administration 
makes good on this statement with these PLOs in a pause status 
for the next 2 years. I understand the commitment from the 
Secretary to say we want to prioritize our Alaska Native 
Veteran allottees. We agree with that. Otherwise we would not 
have pushed so aggressively to get that legislation moved 
through and into law. But I am still not certain how you are 
able to facilitate that transfer when you have these 
withdrawals still in place.
    Mr. Anderson. Thank you very much for the question, 
Senator. And yes, it was nice to talk to you the other day. As 
I mentioned in our phone call, I mean, I've got a tremendous 
group of attorneys who work for me in Alaska and in the central 
office here that cover BLM matters and the NEPA analysis that 
we have to undertake, and that's going to be necessary to 
release any lands from withdrawn status that those PLOs affect. 
And so, my career staff and one of my political deputies are 
working vigorously to come up with a system that's transparent 
and legal to authorize a partial lifting of the PLOs for Native 
allotments that are selected. And you have my commitment that 
I'm going to see that process through, and we have to do it in 
a way that's legal, and my staff has confidence that can be 
done. And so, we're going to look at it.
    Senator Murkowski. Well, and I'd ask you to keep us plugged 
in with how you are planning to do this. I'm going to be 
submitting several questions, additionally, to you, Mr. 
Anderson. I appreciate that. One is on navigable waters and how 
you would plan to facilitate Interior issuing title to the 
lands to the state pursuant to the actions that Governor 
Dunleavy has filed. Then, to you, Ms. Trujillo, I am also going 
to be submitting questions for the record specifically 
regarding USGS and the priority for mapping programs as well as 
natural hazards.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator Kelly.
    Senator Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Ms. Trujillo, Arizona is bracing to lose about 18 percent 
of its Colorado River water beginning in 2022, and this is 
under the Interstate Route Contingency Plan. Low snow melt, 
climate change, and population growth have reduced water in 
Lake Mead to its lowest levels since the Hoover Dam first 
filled the reservoir. Now fortunately Arizona is prepared for 
these initial Tier 1 cutbacks because of its conservation and 
mitigation efforts. But drought is still a challenge and, for 
example, farms in Central Arizona which produce about 40 
percent of the cotton and dairy cattle in my state, anticipate 
losing about 100,000-acre feet of water beginning in 2023.
    Would you agree that any major infrastructure package 
passed by Congress should include investments in hard 
infrastructure for water, not just natural infrastructure, 
including irrigation, groundwater, and storage systems in the 
West?
    Ms. Trujillo. Thank you, Senator Kelly. I appreciate that 
question, and you're raising a common theme here today with 
respect to the drought conditions around the West, and I have 
been very fortunate to have worked on Colorado River issues for 
some time, and I especially applaud the efforts within Arizona 
to address some very challenging situations.
    As you mentioned, we have been thinking proactively and 
thinking ahead about how to address things, depending on what 
we see in the hydrology coming forward. With respect to your 
specific question on infrastructure, that was also a theme that 
we've heard from today, and I agree that we need to have a 
broad portfolio of infrastructure work that we have in place. 
We need to modernize. We need to repair. We need to develop 
new, creative solutions to these issues. And you will have our 
support, and I look forward to working with you to be able to 
help address the conditions there in Arizona.
    Senator Kelly. Yes, thank you. We have short-term, as you 
know, and long-term issues here. Pinal County farmers are going 
to face a serious cutback on their water usage. It is going to 
have a negative effect on them. They are going to start pumping 
groundwater to compensate for that. That is not an ideal 
situation. We will eventually wind up with subsidence issues in 
the area. So we know we have to sort this out as we get closer 
to the 2026 Colorado River guidelines.
    So in light of all that, I understand that the White House 
recently launched an Interagency Drought Relief Working Group 
to address these Western state water issues. If confirmed, do I 
have your commitment that the task force will meet with Arizona 
stakeholders which means, in particular, our tribal leaders and 
our farmers?
    Ms. Trujillo. Thank you, Senator. The short answer is, 
absolutely. I look forward to working with our other sister 
agencies, with our department, department bureaus on these 
issues. I believe I'm actually speaking with a group of 
Arizonans later this week, and I will definitely be attentive 
to the issues that are there, and I know our other members of 
the task force will as well.
    Senator Kelly. Well, thank you. You know, in some areas of 
our state, we have been dealing with this for a long time. Yuma 
is a perfect example. And they, now today, grow more crops with 
significantly less water because of mitigation efforts that 
they have taken over the last decade. So there are ways that we 
can navigate this, but with Lake Mead and Lake Powell dropping 
to record low levels, and when we get to, you know, Lake Powell 
or Lake Mead below--it has about another five or 10 feet to 
drop, and we are going to be in this next stage of our drought 
contingency. Our state has some serious choices that it has to 
make. So I look forward to working with you and your agency, 
the White House, and the task force, to come up with some 
solutions to this so we have a positive future in our state, a 
positive water future.
    Thank you. I yield back.
    The Chairman. Senator Marshall.
    Senator Marshall. Thank you, Chairman and again, welcome 
everybody. It is great to meet you all in person and welcome to 
your families as well. We had some wonderful discussions on the 
phone. You all have solid resumes, and I am excited about that. 
Your knowledge base, your experiences, should add much to your 
opportunities here.
    I think that you know from our conversations that I am as 
committed as anybody is to our environment, that I want to 
leave this world cleaner, healthier, safer, than we found it, 
as all of you do. My first question for all three of you has to 
deal with this constant conflict that you have to deal with in 
your previous positions, and it is going to be amplified now, 
this challenge between the environmental impact and the 
economic impact and whether it is a farmer or rancher in 
Western Kansas who is trying to figure out how to graze the 
land and still have a lesser population--lesser prairie chicken 
populations grow or how does the getting new tourists at Key 
West on cruise ships impact the water and the reef there, but 
you have all had to deal with that.
    You could each talk for 10 minutes on this, just give me a 
30-45-second snippet on how you play that interaction? What 
lessons have you learned to try to balance those? And Mr. 
Anderson, why don't we start with you?
    Mr. Anderson. Thank you, Senator.
    You know, I've done a great deal of work on water rights 
settlements throughout the West over my career, and I have 
found that those settlements are successful when all of the 
stakeholders are at the table, including Indian nations, the 
Federal Government, the state government, irrigators, 
municipalities, and other water users and you know, to have the 
Federal Government there as a productive part of that team 
effort, to come up with an approach that sometimes needs to be 
brought to Congress for authorization and some funding, but 
that, sort of, approach that includes all the relevant 
stakeholders is my preference for all matter of dispute 
resolution instead of relying on the court system.
    Senator Marshall. Thank you.
    Ms. Estenoz.
    Ms. Estenoz. Yes, thank you, Senator.
    So my secret ingredient is communication, listen, listen, 
and listen again. Somebody told me years ago when I was much 
younger, God gave you, God gave us two ears and one mouth. It's 
because you're supposed to listen more than you talk. And I 
think that is an important part of tackling big problems like 
this where you've got conflict and you've got competing 
interests. It's about truly listening and understanding what it 
is that everyone really needs and then being willing to put in 
the hard work of finding a way forward. And you know, most of 
the time when you put in the effort and you are intellectually 
honest and you're committed to a solution, I have found, in my 
experience, you get to a solution. It's not 100 percent. It 
doesn't happen a 100 percent of the time, but it happens the 
majority of the time in my experience.
    Senator Marshall. Thank you.
    Ms. Trujillo.
    Ms. Trujillo. Thank you, Senator. It was nice to speak with 
you on the phone the other day, and I would echo some of the 
comments of my colleagues as well. I am from New Mexico. I 
appreciate the value of rural economies. I appreciate the value 
of limited resources and having to work to balance a lot of 
different things at the same time. I'm committed to trying to 
have an open mind and trying to work with Congress and 
stakeholders and tribes and farmers and cities, all of those 
elements is something that I've done before, and I look forward 
to doing as well.
    Senator Marshall. Great. And I will, kind of, go in reverse 
order now with my second question.
    You want to get the dander's of people up back home, you 
mention 30 by 30. And we do not really know what it is, and it 
is a concept that is thrown out there, but what we have heard 
is the possibility of the government taking 30 percent of our 
land and waters, taking it out of production. That would be 
devastating to the State of Kansas to take 30 percent of our 
agriculture land out of production, whether it is corn crops or 
pasturing land that certainly, I think, that conservation can 
be practiced when the land is still controlled by private 
people. I just want to know what your vision of 30/30 might be 
and just where is that going, even though I know you all do not 
know exactly what the plan is either, but just my commitment to 
protecting private land is really important.
    So Tanya, why don't you go ahead?
    Ms. Trujillo. Thank you, Senator. I agree with you that the 
value of working lands will be an important component of the 30 
by 30 program. Within the Department there are several of us 
that are working together, we're working with other agencies 
and seek input from a wide variety of folks. I agree with your 
views about the private land contributions.
    Senator Marshall. Thank you.
    Ms. Estenoz.
    Ms. Estenoz. And Senator, my answer is similar. I think 
that the role of privately held, working lands, the 
conservation values that they already bring to the table, I 
think, are very big and very significant and often, 
undercounted and discounted. And so, I think our farmers, 
ranchers, and foresters are going to play a really big role in 
helping us implement the tools on the ground that work for them 
and work for conservation. And I think it's also important, an 
important principle to work with our tribal partners as well 
and work with them on, sort of, their vision and tribally led 
initiatives for conservation as well.
    Senator Marshall. Mr. Anderson, I am out of time, so give a 
short answer before the Chairman takes it away from me here.
    Mr. Anderson. Well, Senator, I'll just say that it's 
voluntary. It doesn't involve the use of eminent domain or 
confiscation of private lands. We're talking about voluntary 
agreements under existing law to accomplish these 30 by 30 
goals. Thank you.
    Senator Marshall. Thank you so much, Chairman.
    The Chairman. Senator Cantwell.
    Senator Cantwell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, 
congratulations to all the nominees.
    Mr. Anderson, I wanted to start with you. The last 
administration, I do not think, did enough on consultation with 
Indian country. So we obviously want to improve that. I cannot 
think of a better person, but I just wanted to ask, will you 
ensure that the Department thoroughly consults with tribes, 
maintains the effective government-to-government relationships, 
and promotes tribal sovereignty and self-determination?
    Mr. Anderson. Senator Cantwell, thank you and thank you for 
your nice introduction this morning. I really appreciate it. 
It's wonderful to see you again. And yes, President Biden in 
his first day issued a new consultation order to reaffirm the 
government's obligation. We have tremendous personnel from the 
Secretary on down and we're very committed to engaging with the 
tribal community on all the issues you mentioned.
    Senator Cantwell. Thank you.
    Ms. Trujillo, Senator Risch and I have a very big priority, 
as all our Western colleagues probably do, on the Columbia 
River Treaty, which will be a big obligation to get that treaty 
updated. So I want to know that you are going to make the 
Columbia River Treaty a priority for the Department of the 
Interior.
    Ms. Trujillo. Thank you, Senator Cantwell.
    I appreciate the support from you and Senator Risch with 
respect to this important issue and, yes, it will be a 
priority. The discussions will be continuing and we'll work 
closely with our counterparts in the State Department and 
others to make sure that we address the needs of our country.
    Senator Cantwell. Thank you.
    On the Yakima Basin Integrated Plan, this was a big 
breakthrough on getting a lot of people who had not previously 
agreed on what to do about water management to agree. So we 
view it as a heralding of other things to come for much of the 
West, actually. There are 37 different components of the 
project that are shovel ready, so I want to know if you will be 
proposing support for Yakima Basin Integrated Plan in your 
Interior budget.
    Ms. Trujillo. Thank you, Senator and thank you for your 
support of that important program. It is a role model for other 
areas around the West and, yes, we will be continuing to 
support the implementation of that. I have been there 
firsthand. I've seen some of the components. I've met with some 
of the constituents in the tribal and agricultural communities, 
and it's something that I feel strongly about, and I appreciate 
working with you on it.
    Senator Cantwell. So you will support future funding for 
that?
    Ms. Trujillo. Yes, we will support that project. Thank you.
    Senator Cantwell. Thank you. And will you commit to working 
and looking for opportunities with the Bureau of Reclamation to 
work on water conservation projects that facilitate salmon 
recovery?
    Ms. Trujillo. Thank you very much, Senator. Yes, 
absolutely, that is important work for us throughout the 
Department.
    Senator Cantwell. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator Hoeven.
    Senator Hoeven. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Anderson, you have written about the Dakota Access 
Pipeline. Should you be confirmed, do you believe that you 
would be able to be objective regarding the EIS that is being 
done?
    Mr. Anderson. Absolutely. I've consulted with my Ethics 
Office about all matters that I've worked on previously or 
written about, and I feel I've got no conflict of interest. 
This is primarily an Army Corps of Engineers EIS, and we have a 
very limited role in it, but, yes, I strive to be impartial in 
all my decisionmaking.
    Senator Hoeven. And you understand its importance to the 
Three Affiliated Tribes--Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation?
    Mr. Anderson. Yes, I understand it's important to the 
tribes up on that reservation.
    Senator Hoeven. Ms. Estenoz, thanks for visiting yesterday. 
I really appreciate it very much. I found it very interesting 
and instructive.
    Will you commit to work with us to restore the scenic loop 
in Theodore Roosevelt National Park which is underway, but we 
would like to get it done expeditiously, be beautiful and then 
have you come out and see it.
    Ms. Estenoz. Well, I would be delighted to come out and see 
it and, yes, Senator, if I am confirmed, I will commit to 
working with you to ensure that project is finished.
    Senator Hoeven. Also, another project in Theodore Roosevelt 
National Park is Theodore Roosevelt Library, $200-million 
project that is also underway and obviously, it would be a huge 
complement to the park. We want to make sure that the work is 
done in the park to highlight the library as well. Will you 
commit to that?
    Ms. Estenoz. I will, Senator. I look forward to working 
with you on that and too, I want to congratulate you and the 
folks who are working very hard to establish the library, so 
thank you.
    Senator Hoeven. Well, it is a great group. Our Governor has 
really led the charge on that.
    Ms. Estenoz. Yes.
    Senator Hoeven. We are a big farm state. And so, as you 
work on fish and wildlife issues, certainly wetlands and 
wetland easements are an issue where our farmers need 
consideration, help, and support on this. Will you commit to 
make sure that you are listening to our farmers and 
understanding the challenges they face in terms of how these 
wetlands are managed?
    Ms. Estenoz. Yes, Senator. I do commit to listening and to 
trying to understand what the ramifications on the ground are 
for, you know, the way we delineate wetlands and the way we 
issue easements and the conditions that those easements are 
issued under. So I do, if I'm confirmed, commit to working with 
you and with the farmers on this issue.
    Senator Hoeven. And the same consideration for our 
ranchers, who particularly are on the grasslands, so they have 
their ranches, but then they also lease grasslands and ranch 
those as well. Same kind of issues, you know, multiple use, 
they need consideration. Obviously, they operate under very 
challenging conditions too and they are good stewards of the 
land. Same commitment for our ranchers in the grasslands?
    Ms. Estenoz. Yes, Senator. I look forward to learning a lot 
more about how things operate on the ground.
    Senator Hoeven. Thank you.
    Ms. Estenoz. Thank you.
    Senator Hoeven. Ms. Trujillo, will you support providing 
project power rates to help improve irrigated agriculture in 
North Dakota? We irrigate off a number of rivers, but one of 
the main ones now, of course, is the Missouri River. And so, 
are you willing to support those, the project power rates to do 
that?
    Ms. Trujillo. Thank you, Senator. I spoke with attorneys 
for the project that I think you were asking about yesterday, 
and I told them that I would be happy to work with the Bureau 
of Reclamation to try to look into the exact specifics. I 
think, in general, I am from New Mexico, I appreciate the value 
of rural projects such as that, and I look forward to working 
with you on it.
    Senator Hoeven. Are you willing to better understand the 
Dakota Water Resources Act so that we can fulfill the 
commitments that are in that legislation for our farmers?
    Ms. Trujillo. Absolutely, sir. I was able to understand a 
little bit of the background yesterday and look forward to 
digging in more details to understand what the exact situation 
is.
    Senator Hoeven. Thank you, I appreciate it.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    The Chairman. Senator Hickenlooper.
    Senator Hickenlooper. Thank you for letting me squeeze in 
here.
    I wanted to ask a question of Mr. Anderson. President 
Biden's Executive Order on tackling the climate crisis at home 
and abroad put a pause on oil and gas leases, or the new 
leases, on federal lands, and during this pause the Department 
of the Interior is reviewing the federal leasing program's 
potential impacts on climate change. How do you think Interior 
needs to consider the climate impacts relative to allowing new 
oil and gas leases on federal lands? Do you see a pathway for 
taking climate into account while still allowing some oil and 
gas leases to go forward?
    Mr. Anderson. Yes, Senator, thanks for the question. And I 
think, yes, that, you know, the greenhouse gas issues, the 
climate change issues must be part of any NEPA analysis that we 
undertake as we move forward with federal actions, and that 
would include oil and gas leases. It doesn't mean that future 
development is prohibited. It means that the agency has to 
gather information as it lays out its options and considers its 
effect on long-term issues such as climate change. And you 
know, we are committed to undertaking that analysis as we go 
forward.
    Senator Hickenlooper. Great, thank you, I appreciate that.
    Also, Ms. Shannon Estenoz, Rocky Mountain National Park out 
in Colorado, where I come from, is one of the most heavily 
visited national parks in the entire system. And this year it 
announced that they were going to go to a reservation system, 
an entry system, and I think it is now going to be a permanent 
reservation system. What are the other effective strategies for 
facilitating more people to take advantage of our parks, 
because I think that obviously this past year with the COVID 
pandemic, a lot of people were pushed out into our parks. But 
even going forward, we are going to see more and more stress on 
our national park systems. What are some ways of mitigating 
that stress?
    Ms. Estenoz. Thank you for the question, Senator, and it's 
a very good one. And in fact, the summer that we are, that is 
ahead of us, could be one of the largest in the history of the 
park service in terms of visitation as Americans and others re-
explore and rediscover public lands as we come out of the COVID 
epidemic. Certainly reservations and other timed-entry kinds of 
tools are something that the Park Service has been 
experimenting with. I think there's also a lot to be talked 
about and thought about in terms of introducing Americans to a 
lot more of our parks. So for example, most of our visitation 
happens in about, just over 50 of our parks. And yet, we have 
more than 420 park units that we need to figure out how we can 
introduce those to visitors and make sure that we're creating 
visitor experience to not only to, sort of, give the public a 
wider variety of choices in their visitation, but also to bring 
the benefits of having a national park unit in your gateway 
community or in your state to those states where visitation is 
not as high as it possibly could be.
    Senator Hickenlooper. Right, I appreciate that, and on that 
same note, clearly too many urban children are not having 
access to parks and to green spaces. Nationwide, I think, there 
are statistics that suggest up to three-quarters of kids of 
color live in nature-deprived circumstances, nature-deprived 
communities. How can we work to ensure that some of these more 
historically underserved and, you know, in many cases, rural 
and indigenous communities can access quality green spaces and 
natural areas?
    Ms. Estenoz. Thank you, Senator. You know, equal access to 
nature and giving more opportunities for access to underserved 
communities is a very big priority for the Administration. It's 
a priority for the Secretary. If I am confirmed, it will be a 
priority for me. Just last week, we unveiled the competitive 
grant program, the Outdoor Restoration Legacy--Recreation 
Legacy program, $150 million we're making available on a 
competitive basis to do exactly that. We also have existing 
programs like the Urban Refuge Program, for example, that can 
leverage our existing public lands that our national wildlife 
refuges, every single major metropolitan area is within a 1-
hour drive to a national wildlife refuge in this country. 
That's a lot of potential. And so, we need to be creative in 
unlocking that potential and helping folks get to those public 
lands and developing that sense of ownership and connection to 
their national wildlife refuge and other public lands.
    Senator Hickenlooper. I could not agree more. Thank you. 
And thank you, thank all of you on the panel, what a wonderful, 
smart panel--thank you.
    Thank you, Chair.
    The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
    Senator Cassidy.
    Oh no, not again. Bill, I cannot hear you, buddy.
    Senator Cassidy. Now you have me?
    The Chairman. Oh, man, you are in. Go for it. Go for it. 
Take a little extra time.
    Senator Cassidy. Yes, thank you.
    There is a process on your side, Mr. Chairman that when I 
am unmuted here, but you are still not hearing me there, so 
just to say that.
    The Chairman. Our technical people are shaking their heads. 
It is not our problem, but you know we will take it----
    [Laughter.]
    Senator Cassidy. First, Ms. Estenoz, again, thank you all 
for your willingness to serve.
    Ms. Estenoz, last Congress, we passed the Great American 
Outdoors Act which, in part, funds deferred maintenance at 
national wildlife refuges and national parks from royalties 
from oil and gas development on federal lands which is 
principally offshore, at least that is where the revenue comes 
from. Next year, the current 2017 through 2022 OCS oil and gas 
leasing program expires. So far, there is no indication when it 
will move forward with the next 5-year plan. Knowing that in 
the short-term that may not be an issue, but what implications 
does that have in the long-term for funding the Great American 
Outdoors Act? Have you given thought to that?
    Ms. Estenoz. Thank you, Senator, for the question and you 
know, the long-term funding of LWCF and the Great American 
Outdoors Plan is, you know, I think something that has broad 
support in the country and certainly is viewed by the two 
bureaus that I would be managing as, kind of, a game-changing 
opportunity to really change the landscape. And I think that 
maintaining----
    Senator Cassidy. But to the point, but to the point, if 
that funding is, I agree with everything you said, if the 
funding is endangered because we do not renew the leasing 
program, have you thought through about how the impact will 
have upon this maintenance program which does have broad 
national support as you just mentioned.
    Ms. Estenoz. Thank you, Senator. And I think keeping that 
program funded is something that, you know, I think the 
Administration and the Congress would work together on and----
    Senator Cassidy. Okay, so let me stop you there because 
clearly, it is important that it maintain funding.
    Mr. Anderson, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) 
says that subject to environmental safeguards, it is national 
policy, per Congress, that there be an expeditious and orderly 
development of our nation's resource reserve. The current 
moratorium clearly, kind of, goes against that. On April the 
16th, you withdrew a Solicitor's opinion issued by your 
predecessor which focused on the administration of the OCSLA 
and your predecessor's view that an implementation of 
expeditious and orderly would be at least two lease sales. What 
was your legal analysis and justification for withdrawing that 
position?
    Mr. Anderson. Thank you, Senator Cassidy.
    You know, that opinion was withdrawn pending further 
review, as part of our study directed by Executive Order by the 
President, to evaluate all oil and gas lease sales. I consulted 
carefully with my career attorneys about that opinion and, you 
know, whether or not that opinion or some other variation will 
get reinstated is something that I've got under advisement with 
my career staff and with the Secretary as we undertake this 
Presidentially ordered review of our oil and gas policies.
    Senator Cassidy. So let me stop you there. Congress has 
established by Congressional, you know, law that the OCS, the 
Outer Continental Shelf, shall be used to meet the nation's 
need for energy. So with that said, how should we interpret, 
how should your Department interpret the words which are in the 
OCSLA to prepare, periodically revise, and maintain a leasing 
program because frankly, there is question as to whether or not 
the leasing program will be maintained, even though Congress 
has directed that it be maintained? So are you suggesting that 
the lease program will be maintained, or are you suggesting 
that the career attorneys may override the clear direction of 
Congress?
    Mr. Anderson. Well, Senator, we have to follow the laws 
that are passed by Congress, and there is a leasing program in 
effect, and we're required to have a leasing program that 
remains in effect, and we've got massive areas that are under 
lease now and leases that have been available but haven't been 
utilized yet.
    Senator Cassidy. But to maintain means, to my mind at 
least, to lease some more, not just, you know, maintain the 
leases that we have already leased but to continue leasing. Is 
that not your interpretation?
    Mr. Anderson. Well, I understand your point and that is one 
of the questions that we're analyzing as we develop this report 
for the President.
    Senator Cassidy. I yield back. That is kind of an 
unsatisfactory legalese answer, Mr. Anderson, but that is okay, 
not okay, but I yield back.
    The Chairman. Mr. Anderson, do you have a better answer you 
want to give him?
    Mr. Anderson. Well, you know, this is a statute that we're 
obliged to follow, and you know, we're looking at it, carefully 
considering what is mandated under that statute, and we're 
going to provide an answer as we produce this report to the 
White House.
    Thank you, sir.
    The Chairman. Senator Cassidy.
    Senator Cassidy. Thank you.
    The Chairman. You are welcome.
    First of all, let me just thank all of you and your 
families for being here today. We appreciate you making the 
effort to be here, and we appreciate your willingness to serve.
    Members will have until 6:00 p.m. tomorrow to submit 
additional questions for the record.
    I have letters of recommendation for the record which I 
will submit, without any objections.
    [The letters of recommendation follow:]
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    The Chairman. With that, we are adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:09 p.m. the committee adjourned.]

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