Map of regions proposed by the Interior Department, as part of a department-wide reorganization effort. The agency will form the Upper Colorado Basin during a pilot phase of the prorgam.
Map of regions proposed by the Interior Department, as part of a department-wide reorganization effort. The agency will form the Upper Colorado Basin during a pilot phase of the prorgam.
A four-state region, including Colorado, will serve as a test site for reorganization of the U.S. Department of Interior.
The reorganization effort, which is led by Susan Combs, the senior adviser to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, would simplify the way the Interior Department and its agencies are organized.
Currently the nine Interior Department agencies, such as the bureaus of Land Management and Reclamation, the Fish and Wildlife Service and others, share 61 regions.
Those regions would be reduced to 13, one of which would join Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming into the Upper Colorado Basin region.
There also would be the Lower Colorado Basin region, along with several others across the nation.
Each region would have a director able to make decisions in the event of "inter-bureau conflict," Combs told about 80 people from western Colorado in a meeting sponsored by Club 20.
"We want the decisions to be made on the ground in the local area," Combs said.
The Upper Colorado Basin region will be the pilot region for proposed changes because of its roughly central location and the number of Interior Department employees who now work in those four states, more than 13,000.
The Upper Colorado region also has similar water, species and regulatory issues, Combs said.
"And besides, I like being here," she said.
Agencies still will have state directors and the number of employees will likely stay the same or slip a bit, Combs said.
One advantage of reorganizing would be to foster a system of concurrent analysis by the various agencies with stakes in a particular project, Combs said.
"We need to be kicking that door open to make sure those conversations (among agencies) happen," U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Colo., told the gathering.
Reorganization also could yield back-office benefits, such as purchasing to obtain economies of scale and the use of information technology and human resources, Combs said.
Audiences in Wyoming and New Mexico had seen the proposed reorganization chart, Combs said. She plans to show it in Utah in three weeks, she said.
The time seems appropriate because the Interior Department hasn't been reorganized in 150 years and 60 percent of its 70,000 employees will be retirement age in five years, she said.
The reorganization doesn't necessarily affect efforts to move the headquarters of the Bureau of Land Management to Grand Junction, Combs said.
The effort to move the headquarters west, closer to the 245 million acres the bureau administers, are continuing, Tipton told the gathering.
While legislation he and Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., have proposed calls only for the headquarters to be moved, "We do have a city in mind," Tipton said.
Tipton and Gardner both have said they want the headquarters located in Grand Junction.
