Reply #4: That would be nice [View All]

[malakai2]

But then there would need to be a serious revision of agency responsibilities within DOI. The Fish & Wildlife Service is responsible for protecting the public trust in migratory birds, inland fisheries, and T&E species. The Minerals Management Service is responsible for managing lease sales and royalty payments for petroleum, gas, coal, and metal mining on Federal property. COE has certain sections of the Clean Water Act, EPA has other sections along with superfund, pesticides, and air releases. USFS has forest and grassland management, for most of its history focused on economic production (hence its location in DOA), and would maintain that with a simple move to DOI. BLM has the land that nobody (or rather, 'no white people') wanted during the land rushes in the late 19th century and parts of the 20th. BuRec is all about altering waterways in the interior west with the help of COE to benefit DOA agencies and generate power, and frequently knocks heads with FWS and NOAA Fisheries about listed species, both freshwater and anadromous. TVA does the same in the southern Appalachians.

If the Forest Service were to return to Department of Interior, they could easily combine with BLM and cut half their workforce, mostly in the already highly paid and overstocked regional and Washington offices. There is also no reason, given FWS's responsibilities, that NOAA Fisheries needs to be in charge of marine and anadromous species conservation. BuRec, COE, and some of the smaller entities like Bonneville Power and TVA have a bunch of duplicative duties, no real reason not to consolidate those as well. And since those waterworks agencies' expertise is engineering and power generation, we could strip their wildlife, contaminant, and clean water responsibilities and give those oversight authorities to FWS and EPA. Since MMS duties seem congruent with the concept of BLM duties, and since mining goes on in FS lands, it would seem that combining MMS with the already consolidated BLM/USFS would not be too far beyond the pale.

If they really want to save money and not sacrifice much, if anything, in the way of services, they have plenty of options. Or they can just keep kicking the political football.