The Department of the Interior

Welcome to Civil Discourse. This podcast will use government documents to illuminate the workings of the American Government and offer contexts around the effects of government agencies in your everyday life. Now your hosts, Nia Rodgers, Public Affairs Librarian and Dr. John Aughenbaugh, Political Science Professor. N. Rodgers: Hey Aughie. J. Aughenbaugh: Good morning, Nia. How are you? N. Rodgers: I'm excellent. How are you? J. Aughenbaugh: Well, of course, I'm great because one, I get to talk to you. But two, we are listeners continuing our series on the cabinet departments of the United States federal government. N. Rodgers: Yes. We're up to the kitchen drawer, like the department of everything else. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. What Nia is referencing. N. Rodgers: You know that kitchen drawer that you have where you're like, what's this weird spatula thing? I don't know. Put it in that drawer. J. Aughenbaugh: Well, see, because I have a child we actually have an entire room in my house. N. Rodgers: The room of everything else. You actually sympathize with the poor interior department. Sorry, folks. What we're talking about here is the interior department. J. Aughenbaugh: Because in doing my research, listeners, a number of sources actually made reference to the Department of the Interior as the department of everything else. N. Rodgers: I like it. What are you the secretary of? Everything else. J. Aughenbaugh: Everything else. N. Rodgers: What do you what do you mean? Well, if it's not under state and it's not under defense. J. Aughenbaugh: We're just going to stick it in the Department of the Interior. N. Rodgers: That's right. It looks like there's something that can, when was it founded or created rather? J. Aughenbaugh: Listeners, we are moving on from the original cabinet departments. There's the first episodes we looked at state war/defense, Treasury, the Attorney General which eventually moved into the Department of Justice, and also the Postmaster General. We went a number of years without any new cabinet departments in the United States. N. Rodgers: Yeah. Like a bunch of years like 50 something? J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Easily half a century. N. Rodgers: We were like, we'll get by, and then I guess it started to be, we can't really get by? J. Aughenbaugh: Well, the Department of the Interior was created by Congress in 1849. It definitely, again, this is one of the themes listeners to our episodes on cabinet departments. N. Rodgers: You know what we need? We need a cabinet for that. We need a department for that. J. Aughenbaugh: But it reflects other changes or politics and movements going on in the United States. I could give you a quiz, Nia. N. Rodgers: Please don't. Mornings are hard enough without quizzes. J. Aughenbaugh: I'm no longer a student of yours. Your chance to quiz me. N. Rodgers: Has passed. J. Aughenbaugh: It has come and gone. N. Rodgers: Well, if we were in a pub and there was a reward, maybe but. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, bar trivia. But if you think about what was going on in the United States in the 1830s, 40s, and 50s, this is one of the most significant eras in regards to the United States. westward expansion. N. Rodgers: That's what I was going to say, oh I guess this is about the time when we start adding land to the United States, and then somebody's like, we ought to manage that. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Manifest Destiny. It is the Manifest Destiny that God created for this nation. It was justified by members of congress in numerous presidential administrations. N. Rodgers: Yes. Let's be clear on that for our beloved listeners who we adore, this Manifest Destiny applied to, generally speaking, white males. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: This was not a, as we will discuss in near future, meaning in the next few minutes, Native Americans shoved out of the way. J. Aughenbaugh: Slaves no. N. Rodgers: Shoved out of the way. Mexican American, shoved out of the way. J. Aughenbaugh: No women. N. Rodgers: No women in charge of stuff. Women could come along in the covered wagons for the ride. J. Aughenbaugh: Though, interestingly enough, when we start getting into the late 1800s, many of the territories that were created, that eventually became states actually gave prominent political roles and political rights to women. N. Rodgers: Well, yeah, some of the earliest voting was actually at West for women. J. Aughenbaugh: It was at West because let's face it. Women had a prominent role in the settling of Western territories that became western states, because life was harsh. They may have come along for the ride. N. Rodgers: But then they got there and started building stuff. J. Aughenbaugh: They started building stuff and their husbands and sons and uncles and brothers did not live long. N. Rodgers: That was a fair point. Even today, women outlive men. I'm sure in the West where it was a little bit rougher, not a little rougher, where it was a lot rougher than that. 1849 we get the Department of the Interior and somebody says, "It shall control all the lands," is that pretty much? J. Aughenbaugh: Basically, it is responsible for the management and conservation of most federal lands and natural resources as we will talk about in much greater depth. It administers all federal government programs related to Native Americans, Alaskan natives, Native Hawaiians, territories, and insular areas of the United States. Basically, those parts of the world that we have conquered in our various wars. N. Rodgers: Puerto Rico, Guam they all fall under interior in terms of management. J. Aughenbaugh: That's right. Yes. Seventy-five percent Nia of the federal government's public land is managed by this department. N. Rodgers: Yes. But 25 percent is not. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: What is that you ask? Trees. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: Apparently interior is anti-tree and sells them off to someone else. J. Aughenbaugh: No. N. Rodgers: We don't want trees. We don't like trees. You take care of trees. J. Aughenbaugh: As we will discuss with a future cabinet department, the Department of Agriculture. It's not that the Department of Interior doesn't like trees, though, depending on who has been the Cabinet Secretary. N. Rodgers: Some of them have not liked trees. We'll get to that later. J. Aughenbaugh: Some of them were in favor of logging. N. Rodgers: Logging. Who cares about your stupid spotted owl. J. Aughenbaugh: But a good chunk of the remaining 25 percent is actually controlled by the Department of Agriculture's forest service. We will look at the Department of Agriculture in a future podcast episode. Nia is going to get us in trouble for getting with a whole bunch of people who work for the Department of the Interior. They said we are anti-tree, no. N. Rodgers: We are not anti-tree. It was a tree fight act 1. J. Aughenbaugh: Now, I do want to go ahead and note this because we have, with some regularity, Nia, made comparisons of Cabinet departments in United States to similar named departments in other Western democracies. N. Rodgers: Like the Treasury in the United States and the treasury in England do pretty much the same thing. They monitor fiscal policy. J. Aughenbaugh: They may have different names. It might be the Ministry of the Exchequer, which by the way, I just love saying. N. Rodgers: Well yeah, who doesn't like the word exchequer? J. Aughenbaugh: Listeners slip that into your conversations with friends and family members. I consulted with my exchequer. N. Rodgers: That's right. That'd be the person in my house who writes the bills. J. Aughenbaugh: But the Department of the Interior in many other Western democracies is usually concerned about police and internal security. But here in the United States, as we've already discussed, national security is the province of the Department of Defense and the DOJ. But Homeland Security and Immigration functions today, as we will discuss much later on, resides with the Department of Homeland Security. N. Rodgers: Or as we like to call it the baby department because it's the youngest. J. Aughenbaugh: When we have immigrants from other Western democracies and they come to the United States, they are sometimes confused because we say the Department of the Interior and they're like, so we're talking about cops. N. Rodgers: Aughie can see me shaking my head. The reason he can see me shaking my head is because it's not just immigrants that are confused by the American system of who is in charge of what because I was born in this country. I am not an immigrant and I sometimes I'm confused about who does what in this country and why. J. Aughenbaugh: That is a fair point. N. Rodgers: I am going to argue that it's a Byzantine system, in part because of sheer will of wanting it to be a Byzantine system. The United States system could be simpler, but it just isn't. J. Aughenbaugh: Well, it also reflects the fact that the United States Congress in our Constitution has the authority to create executive branch departments and agencies. But the logic, and again, this is one of the themes of this series of podcast episodes, the logic is almost inscrutable, with regards to figuring out why, when, what they created, and what they put in it. N. Rodgers: Well, and Americans, I love Americans, I love America. I am proud to be an American. But we have a terrible tendency to solve a problem right now, like this problem. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: We lurch from problem to problem. Like nobody sat down at the beginning and said, what we probably need are, I don't know, 15 or 16. That's not how that worked. We got state because we needed state, we've got treasury because we owed people money, you know what I mean? We were solving problems and now with interior, we're solving another problem, which is we've suddenly added a huge amount of property to the United States portfolio by American's saying, I bet there's an ocean over there somewhere. I'm going to go find it, right, and walking or riding across the United States. Somebody had to manage all that. J. Aughenbaugh: To your point, remember listeners when we discussed the Department of State in its original conception, the Department of State was not the nation's chief diplomatic core. It was focused on internal issues. N. Rodgers: Because right after the constitution, we cared more about that than we did foreign wars and foreign enemies. J. Aughenbaugh: We talked about this in the podcast episode with the Department of State. Early presidents, if they wanted to go ahead and conduct foreign policy, they would create diplomatic missions with specific well-known politicians in United States that they would send over to Great Britain or France or Spain to negotiate stuff. Initially, a lot of the management of federal government property fell to State Department. But it's when you get into the 1840s, the Mexican American War. N. Rodgers: I was going say suddenly we have a war on our southern border. J. Aughenbaugh: We end up accumulating a huge chunk of Mexico as a result of that war. N. Rodgers: Texas we're looking at you. J. Aughenbaugh: I mean California. N. Rodgers: Now it's humongous and we have to deal with, oh, and states are like, yeah, we don't want to do this anymore. Isn't there somebody else who could do this? One of the like Madison or Polk or one of those guys are like, we probably need a new department. That's how we get all of our departments after the first five, is we get them piecemeal. J. Aughenbaugh: This really does reflect your most recent comment, Nia. Presidents from James Madison all the way to James Polk wanted Congress to create an interior department of some sort or the other. But Congress was very responsive to states rights. Because again, this is one of those battles, one of those tensions. N. Rodgers: You can see the pressure. We want to control our own land, we want to control within our borders. J. Aughenbaugh: That's right. N. Rodgers: We don't want the federal government deciding what we can and can't do. Because interior as Aughie is going to talk about, when he talks about what they actually like, can we just jump to that? You're talking about in part. Now, remember, the National Park Service works for interior. All of the national parks and what happens with the national parks, and correct me if I'm wrong, I'm trying to remember exactly what Eric said but you have a much better memory than I do, you can't just build stuff in a national park. You can't just put up an oil well, you can't just do that. You have to get leasing and permission. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. United States Congress has given the Department of the Interior, the unit within the Department of Interior, the National Park Service, almost unilateral authority to decide who gets a lease to drill an oil well, or to fall a bunch of timber for logging purposes or who gets to go ahead and use the national park for recreational vehicles, or whether or not tours will be allowed. N. Rodgers: Or even within that, what part of a park. You can go to certain parts and not to other parts. You can put oil in certain places, but not in other places. It can be very nuanced. J. Aughenbaugh: Listeners to give you a sense of the scope of what the Department of the Interior manages. The department manages over 500 million acres of surface land. That's about 20 percent of all the land in the United States. N. Rodgers: I was about to ask you what the percentage is, 20 percent, United States is a huge country. It's Russia, Canada, China, and The United States. I can't remember which one is third and which you one is fourth but like we're up there,. J. Aughenbaugh: We're in the top five in landmass. N. Rodgers: They're managing an enormous amount of property. J. Aughenbaugh: Here are some other I think are just to give you a sense of how broad the Department of the Interior remission is. It manages 476 dams, most of which aren't just for looking at, they actually produce significant power and energy for the United States. N. Rodgers: They reservoir water for people's continued survival and they dam rivers to keep them from flooding and destroying homes and 476 dams is about how many times you say damn in a day. Just putting it out there. J. Aughenbaugh: Well, according to the sheer amount of money in my daughter's wear jar Yes. N. Rodgers: Can I side note and tell a very quick story? J. Aughenbaugh: Go ahead. N. Rodgers: I went to a thing held by Judyth Twigg and she'd invited the former ambassador to Russia, to speak at this thing. Then Aughie was on the panel. There were a couple of other people and was a senator on the panel who I can't remember. Isn't that terrible? Or maybe it was Council Member McClellan anyway. I was sitting next to Dr. Tony, the just-retired president of VCU, and his wife, and behind us were a whole bunch of Aughie students. The ambassador finished speaking and the senator finished speaking and then Aughie spoke and they had a pool going on how long before Aughie cursed. In his third sentence of his speech, he just dropped a mild curse. It wasn't like the F bomb or anything, a mild curse word. They all started handing money to each other. Find me at the table. I was like what are you all doing. They're like we had a pool and I'm like, fortunately, Dr. Tony did not know this, but anyway, it was one of the best. I was like, guys, can you pay attention to what's actually being said now? But anyway, that was just a little side note. But there's way more stuff than that. There's dams, but there's other stuff. J. Aughenbaugh: Nearly 350 reservoirs. You just mentioned that and again as we've discussed in previous podcast episodes, reservoirs are huge right now in the United States, in various parts of the country. N. Rodgers: Because a lot of them are empty. Turns out that's a terrible thing. J. Aughenbaugh: That's a terrible thing. As we discussed in the podcast episode with Eric, there are 410 national parks, monuments, and seashore sites. For a lot of you, beach lovers. N. Rodgers: That's right. They are not controlled. They preserve the beaches. J. Aughenbaugh: They preserve the beaches, 544 National Wildlife Refuge. I'm going to mispronounce the word. N. Rodgers: I think it's refugees. Animal refuge sites. That does sound weird, doesn't it? J. Aughenbaugh: Well, because we usually say refugee. Which is a different concept or contexts. But that's managed through the Fish and Wildlife Service, which is a unit of the Department of the Interior. N. Rodgers: The Department of Interior, we've talked about this with other agencies, has a bunch of bureaus within it, like remember how in state and injustice we talked about the various departments within the department. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: Department of Interior is the same thing Because it has the Bureau of Reclamation and it has the National Park Service and it has the Fish and Wildlife Service. Then it has other stuff which Aughie is going to get into it a little bit about humans. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: Like there's all these bureaus and agencies within the Department of Interior and the everything else designation? J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Mind you listeners, the precursor to the Environmental Protection Agency was housed in the Department of the Interior. N. Rodgers: They kept the water clean and the air clean and all that. J. Aughenbaugh: But eventually, in the late 1960s, early 1970s, the EPA was created. N. Rodgers: Under Nixon, right? J. Aughenbaugh: Under the Nixon administration. In addition to land in natural resource management, as we have been dropping numerous hints, the Department of Interior also has a bureau of American Indian Affairs and it has been tasked with managing, if you will, tribal lands. Again, that isn't authority given to the Congress in Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution. But this bureau has been very controversial and has been widely criticized throughout the existence of the Department of the Interior. N. Rodgers: Well, first of all, it's Bureau of Indian Affairs as opposed to Native American Affairs? J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: I feel certain that that's one of the just straight-up problems is the naming of it. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: Correct me if I'm wrong, I'll give it. Hasn't there been discussion, at least in our lifetime, in the last few years about needing a separate department for Native American Affairs so that it would become like the Department of Veteran Affairs, it would become a separate group of people who were protected and/or self-managed and stuff like that? J. Aughenbaugh: Nia you are correct. In my research, I found evidence that at least two dozen different times members of Congress proposed that the Bureau of Indian Affairs be pulled out of the Department of the Interior and be a standalone cabinet department, and the most recent proposals would actually rename it to the Department of Native American Affairs N. Rodgers: Maybe we'll get another department at some point. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: When there's sufficient support in Congress and presidency. J. Aughenbaugh: The most recent controversy in regards to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, concerns the fact that that particular bureau, early on in the Department of the Interior's creation or history, was given the responsibility of managing the income in distribution of monies that are generated by natural resource development on Native American lands. N. Rodgers: Pick me, I have an example. J. Aughenbaugh: Go ahead. N. Rodgers: There's a certain amount of money that is given to Native Alaskans each year. That is the dividend from the oil sales from underneath Alaska. J. Aughenbaugh: That's correct. N. Rodgers: That money is distributed to those folks and families and I don't remember how much. It's not like they're making zillions or anything like that. Oil companies, I'm looking at you with side eye, but anyway, is that the money that you're talking about? J. Aughenbaugh: Yes N. Rodgers: Is that money from the leases and all that other? J. Aughenbaugh: Because when the federal government displaced Native Americans from their homelands,. N. Rodgers: Trail of Tears. J. Aughenbaugh: Trail of Tears would be a prominent example of that displacement. The original thought was, we will go ahead and displace them into lands that Caucasian Americans were not interested in settling. But then we come to find out that many of those tribal lands where the locations of significant natural resources. But because we didn't trust and were often condescending to Native Americans. In the United States Congress gave the Department of Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs, the authority to manage all of the money generated from the development and sale of these natural resources. Of course, one of the great ironies, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, has been found by various federal courts to have mismanaged. N. Rodgers: No? I'm shocked. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: I tell you, shocked. J. Aughenbaugh: Okay. N. Rodgers: That there has been mismanagement. By the way, I keep saying oil and Aughie is right to keep saying natural resource because the minerals found in the United States are also part of this and we're a relatively mineral-rich nation. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, we are. Okay. N. Rodgers: Also found on Native American lands a great deal of the time. Then there's the whole question of archaeological finds on Native American lands and who should be preserving those and how. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: There's questions about that too, but I'm sorry, I interrupted. J. Aughenbaugh: No. The current, if you will controversy, is that there has been a 15-year lawsuit which the DC Circuit Court of Appeals has rolled numerous times, that the Bureau of Indian Affairs, at one point the Bureau of Indian Affairs during the Bush 43 administration acknowledged in open federal court that they didn't know for sure how much money should be in the Native American trust fund. N. Rodgers: That's terrifying. J. Aughenbaugh: This was just spanning omission when the United States federal government acknowledges in federal court that the records had been so poorly maintained. Some of it was with evil intent, but some of it was just bureaucratic and aptness, because it wasn't a priority. N. Rodgers: Never ascribe to malevolence where you can ascribe to inaptness. J. Aughenbaugh: That's right. But it eventually led Congress in 2010, Nia, to pass a separate Claims Settlement Act setting aside 3.4 billion dollars to settle the class action Native American trust case. N. Rodgers: Can I just say 3.4 billion is probably not enough? J. Aughenbaugh: Probably not enough. No. N. Rodgers: Considering how much all of that stuff is worth and how much it's made for Shell and BP and then all the mineral companies whose names I don't know, but there's a reason that Native Americans in this country are angry about the way they've been treated and still angry about the way they're being treated. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: We don't treat our communities of color very well at all in the United States, obviously. I'll make a generalized understatement there, but we have continuously kept money from our communities of color and that is a wealth building tool they simply have not had. Which is why you see that a lot of Native Americans in this country have lived below the poverty line. J. Aughenbaugh: That's right. N. Rodgers: They shouldn't have been because they're on some of the wealthiest land in the world. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, not just the United States, listeners, the world. This is just the latest indignity, right? N. Rodgers: Right. J. Aughenbaugh: Because again, the reason why the trust fund was created in the first place was that members of Congress in various presidential administrations concluded that Native Americans were not smart enough, not wise enough to manage all of the money that may have been generated by the development and sale of these natural resources. N. Rodgers: Right. It's the assumption that white men are smarter than everybody else. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: That held true until 1963. It may still be holding true in some people's minds today. J. Aughenbaugh: Okay. N. Rodgers: There's this weird thing where the racism of all that is something that we could talk about for days and it doesn't solve the problem. But I do think it's pretty awful, but it's not the only one. It's not the only time when somebody has just walked off with the power or with the money from leases or anything like that. J. Aughenbaugh: No, you are correct. It's not the only time. Again, listeners, think about this. Because the Department of the Interior manages 20 percent of the surface land of the United States. N. Rodgers: That's a lot of money. We're talking about a lot of money. J. Aughenbaugh: A lot of opportunities for people in the Department of the Interior to get rich. N. Rodgers: The scheme. J. Aughenbaugh: Okay. Probably. N. Rodgers: Scheme a little bit off the top here and there, nobody will notice. J. Aughenbaugh: For our native born Americans. The example I'm going to give, you probably encountered at some point in middle school or in high school The infamous Tea Pot Dome Scandal of 1921. The Secretary of the Interior at that time was Albert Fall. Basically, what Fall did was he had the transfer of oil leases that were controlled by the Department of the Navy, transferred to the Department of the Interior and then Fall went ahead and sold those leases off the books. He distributed the money to not only his bank account but also to a bunch of his friends. He was convicted of bribery in 1929, but he only served one year in prison because it was considered a "White-collar crime." N. Rodgers: He probably didn't go to a hardcore prison, he probably went to a prison where he got to have meals catered in and do whatever he wanted. You know what I mean? J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: There are prisons which aren't really prisony. They have white-collar crime, especially Wall Street crime, they end up in these club med prisons where they're like, I'll talk to you after I've come off the 19th tea. You're like, okay, you know what? Just stop. Why are you even pretending to be in prison? J. Aughenbaugh: It's minimum security. Usually they have robust job release programs. N. Rodgers: Right. I can't remember who went to his office. Jeffrey Epstein went to his office every day for like 12 hours, and then went back to prison at night. He basically just slept at prison. J. Aughenbaugh: It was part of his work release programs. N. Rodgers: Yeah. Just stop. J. Aughenbaugh: To re-integrate him into American society. How is this like? N. Rodgers: Yeah. Martha Stewart held cooking classes at her prison. J. Aughenbaugh: If we had such programs in the maximum security prisons, perhaps we would not have the recidivism rate that we do in the United States. N. Rodgers: And the mental health prop. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: If what we want to do is torture people, then prison seems to be working out fine. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: But if what we want to do is actually help people not feel like they need to commit those crimes again, I'm with you on that. Yeah, I'm sure even if he served a year, it was like the way you and I would go "year" because it's not really. J. Aughenbaugh: In quotes, yeah, right. Good. The other infamous example, I know this is one of your favorite. N. Rodgers: Steve, you're going to bring him up now and I'm not sure he belongs now because there's also other interior secretaries that have done interesting things. But I say go for it and we'll just Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, full speed ahead. N. Rodgers: You're going to bring up Mr. Watt, aren't you? J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Because I want to give the listeners the full chronological historical malfeasance that we have seen in the Department of the Interior. N. Rodgers: Yeah, but I'm not sure anybody tops James Watt. Just for sheer offensive no. J. Aughenbaugh: Well, okay. N. Rodgers: Anyway. J. Aughenbaugh: James G. Watt was appointed the head of the Department of the Interior by President Ronald Reagan. The fact that even got confirmed by the United States Senate was shocking because during his confirmation hearings, he basically indicated that he didn't think the Department of the Interior had any environmental duties, or responsibilities. N. Rodgers: Right. From the beginning he was like, I'm not paid to care about the environment. The rest of us were like no, no, you are paid to care about the environment. He was like no, not really. J. Aughenbaugh: Because from Watts perspective, it was redundant for the Department of the Interior to focus on the environment when we also had an Environmental Protection Agency. He takes office and he basically just opens up federal lands for sale. N. Rodgers: Oh, you got a herd of cattle? Here, put them over here on our land. J. Aughenbaugh: He basically put a for sale sign up on the Department of the Interior. N. Rodgers: Yeah. We don't usually vilify individuals all that much on this. We do occasionally on this podcast because we've had some supreme court justices that we've had some pretty strong opinions about. We have some pretty strong opinions about the presidency and folks who have served in that, but generally speaking, we try to be relatively balanced. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. N. Rodgers: When we say something about somebody we all say, but they also did this. Like Nixon had Watergate, but he also created the EPA. There's nuance to every human except James Watt. He was just bad. J. Aughenbaugh: He was just evil. He was bad. N. Rodgers: From the moment it started. He started by picking on the freaking Beach Boys. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. That was my next example in regards to Watt. For any of you who've ever gone to the 4th of July celebration on the National Mall, you know that they always ask prominent singers, musicians. N. Rodgers: Of the day. J. Aughenbaugh: Of the day to play for a concert. N. Rodgers: They always have a couple of throwback bands for the old stars in the crowd who are like, who is this Beyonce person, I don't know who she is, or whatever. Then they're like, Oh, but they're playing the Eagles too. Okay. Well, I can handle it. It's that stuff. J. Aughenbaugh: They have the older acts earlier in the day when the old people are more likely to go ahead and come out. Then they have the more recent acts. N. Rodgers: In the evening. J. Aughenbaugh: In the evening. N. Rodgers: Then right before their fireworks is the whoever's considered the biggest name. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. N. Rodgers: In this instance, in my example, Beyonce would be the biggest thing. I don't know who else you would pick that would be bigger. He would be right before the fireworks and manage her show ended. The fireworks would start. The fireworks show on the National Mall is unbelievable. J. Aughenbaugh: Believable. N. Rodgers: If you've never been to it you should go at least once just because it's magical. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Even if you're not a fan of fireworks, it is an absolutely fabulous setting for a firework show. N. Rodgers: Exactly. J. Aughenbaugh: Because when you see fireworks shoot up over the capital of a gate. N. Rodgers: Exactly. It's very inspiring, romantic, not even in the person-to-person sense. J. Aughenbaugh: [inaudible]. N. Rodgers: Right. In the patriotic sense of this. It's like, I love this country. J. Aughenbaugh: The Star-Spangled Banner ask. N. Rodgers: Yeah. Then you got to get into traffic and then you forget all that feeling. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. But in 1983, some of his underlings, went ahead and hired the Beach Boys to perform in chains. N. Rodgers: Just as a side note, the Beach Boys were just five guys. J. Aughenbaugh: This is 1983. N. Rodgers: They were old at that point. J. Aughenbaugh: Their drug using days we're well over. N. Rodgers: They were in their 60s, maybe 50s, but still. J. Aughenbaugh: He goes ahead and rejects them on the grounds that they would attract, "undesirable elements". N. Rodgers: I'm like, what do you mean, the baby boomers? They're going to attract the baby boomers? It's not like we're talking about a grunge band, or a heavy metal band where you might get crowds that want to have a mosh pit, or crowds that want to throw stuff. The Beach Boys, because it's going to happen, and hear me say this in the nicest possible way, the worst that's going to happen is people might smoke weed during a Beach Boys concert. Maybe. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Which by the way in the 1980s, and I went to a few Fourth of July celebrations on the National Mall in the 1980s. Smoking weed would have been the least of my concerns. N. Rodgers: Like calm down. I think of him whenever anybody says the word to me plaque. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: Or somebody who's just got a little bit of a stake in part of the body nobody sees. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, you're anatomy. N. Rodgers: That's who comes to mind. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. N. Rodgers: That he was a joy killer from moment to moment. Like, wait, you're having fun or how can I stop that? I don't know. But this was also my formative years of late high school and early college, where I was like, 'Damn with that guy. He's terrible". J. Aughenbaugh: By the way, those two events is not what led him to resign. N. Rodgers: To his resignation. No, kids, he talked it. This way, he talked it. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, okay. N. Rodgers: After saying the beach boys are basically will bring in undesirable element. He was like, "Wait, I can do better". J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. It's one of the favorite expressions, Nia, you've used because you were born and raised in South. Wait, hold my beer. N. Rodgers: Exactly. J. Aughenbaugh: Okay. N. Rodgers: Oh, you thought that was bad? No, hang on just a second. J. Aughenbaugh: Or from the part of the country where I come from, where we would go ahead and say, "I can top that". He later on in 1983, when he was asked in a press interview. N. Rodgers: Yeah. J. Aughenbaugh: You look great to the interview. He knew the questions ahead of time. He was asked what he thought about the quality of the people working for the department of the interior and his response was, "I have a black, a woman, two Jews, and a cripple period and we have talent." N. Rodgers: Nobody knows whether he meant those people are talented or in addition to those people, we also have talent, but it doesn't matter. J. Aughenbaugh: Matter. N. Rodgers: It doesn't matter what he meant. You're like, "What? Why on earth would you say these things?" J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. Either way that you interpret those [inaudible] N. Rodgers: Its offensive. It's wildly offensive. J. Aughenbaugh: It's wildly offensive. N. Rodgers: It doesn't matter. Like he tried to walk it back, and you're like, "No. There's no way to make that better". J. Aughenbaugh: Okay. N. Rodgers: Then he followed it up where he said, "I have apologized to the one member of the commission who was handicapped." Oh, well, that makes everything better. J. Aughenbaugh: Okay. N. Rodgers: But you do realize that naming people out as some check box. J. Aughenbaugh: Box diversity. N. Rodgers: Like are you bananas? What is wrong with you? Then to follow it up with, "Well, I apologize to the handicapped person." J. Aughenbaugh: Right. N. Rodgers: Did you apologize for calling him a cripple? Did you apologize for calling them somebody who doesn't have any talent? How did that apology go? You know what I mean? When he resigned, even at the time with my very little political knowledge in high school, I was glad to see him gone. J. Aughenbaugh: Listeners, Nia. N. Rodgers: Good gravy. J. Aughenbaugh: When I got my PhD in Public Administration and Policy, and we were required to take a class on organizational behavior and leadership, he was used as what not to do. N. Rodgers: I'm sure. J. Aughenbaugh: Because I don't know about you Nia. In some of your graduate classes, there were like bulks of exemplars, people to model your behavior on. He was used as an example of don't do this. N. Rodgers: Don't be this public servant. Don't be Albert Fall. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: Don't be James Watt. J. Aughenbaugh: Watt. N. Rodgers: James Watt was also the one, if I might be wrong, but I think I'm right that he was the one who was like, "We don't care about the spotted owl with the logging go forward." Like, dude, some people do care about the spotted owl. J. Aughenbaugh: I'm glad you went ahead and brought up that comment by secretary Watt because there has been a long-standing conflict or tension in the department of the interior. You'll see this with the interior departments authorizing legislation from congress. Because on one hand, congress wants interior to manage the federal government's lands and they want them to make money doing so. N. Rodgers: Right. J. Aughenbaugh: On the other hand, the department of interior is authorizing legislation, requires it to do a cost-benefit analysis on the impact of its activities on the environment. N. Rodgers: It's competing interests. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. The Endangered Species Act, which was passed in the 1970s, and is managed in large part by the EPA, has a huge impact on the work of the department of the interior. The department of the interior doesn't get a pass on the Endangered Species Act. It doesn't get a pass [inaudible] era. N. Rodgers: Well, this thing is endangered except where you want to sell oil leases, then it's okay. Like that's not how that works. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes, we're concerned about birds, until we have to go ahead and fall a whole bunch of timber that is desired by various industries. They have these requirements, but there's a fundamental tension there. They get pushed and pulled and their policies, their regulations swing like a pendulum depending on which president is in office. N. Rodgers: Right. J. Aughenbaugh: Okay. N. Rodgers: It's not the only department that suffers from that. Aughie suffers from that. There's other departments where you're supposed to encourage agriculture, but you're also supposed to protect agricultural lands and so how do you do it right? The tension in the interior has always been well, we want to protect, let me backup. The National Park Service, the whole point is to protect those lands from overuse, poor use because what we're trying to do is preserve property for future generations. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah, there you go. N. Rodgers: We're trying to say that we want to leave at least some part of Yellowstone for our children's children's children, that thing. Yet, there are like people like James Watt when he was like graze, graze anywhere you want. There were people who were like no. That's a special grassland that we can't get back if we overgraze it like. Yeah, there's that whole tension. J. Aughenbaugh: Another problem with the department of interior, before we get to our usual concluding discussion of who have been some of the more prominent secretaries of the department of interior. This is an observation that both critics and supporters of the department of the interior have made four years, Nia, I found this all over my research. It is considered one of the most top-heavy federal government departments. I'm just going to go ahead and read rather quickly listeners the organizational breakdown of the department of the interior. You have the secretary and underneath the secretary, you have the assistant secretary for administration. Under that assistant secretary, there are six deputy assistant secretary. N. Rodgers: I'm the deputy assistant secretary to the secretary for administration underneath the secretary of the department. By the way what? J. Aughenbaugh: By the way, what? In almost all of them all of these positions that I'm reading have to be confirmed by the Senate. N. Rodgers: At least some of the time they're empty because they're still fighting.That's cost savings. I suppose. J. Aughenbaugh: We have the assistant secretary for fish, wildlife, and parks. N. Rodgers: I want to do that. It's your job. J. Aughenbaugh: We have the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, which also has two deputy assistant secretaries. We have the assistant secretary for land and minerals management, which James Watt was a huge fan of this particular unit. N. Rodgers: I'm sure they bring in money like there's no tomorrow. J. Aughenbaugh: Right. Hand over fist. N. Rodgers: Yeah. Minerals management, especially. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. assistant secretary for water and science. Assistant secretary for insular in international affairs. N. Rodgers: Canada, Mexico, the parts where our interior touches other peoples interior. J. Aughenbaugh: That plus all those territories you mentioned. N. Rodgers: Right. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah [inaudible]. N. Rodgers: Sorry, I forgot those guys. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Right? N. Rodgers: The Bikini atoll, all those places where we're just like it's ours now because we're here. J. Aughenbaugh: By the way, they have a legal office. N. Rodgers: Always. J. Aughenbaugh: This was one of the first cabinet departments with a stand alone legal office. N. Rodgers: I'm not surprised because I bet they get sued a lot. J. Aughenbaugh: I guess they do. N. Rodgers: I'll bet that this is one. It's not in Aughie's notes, but I would be willing to bet this is probably, if not, the most litigious sued. If not, I was going to say litigitized, the most sued agency, I would be surprised. J. Aughenbaugh: Nia, can I give you I think a somewhat interesting anecdotes to support the point you just made? N. Rodgers: Yes please. J. Aughenbaugh: Real quick. A few years ago, I had a former student, former MPA student from Virginia Tech, who went to work for the department of the interior? He worked in the fish, wildlife, and parks unit. I had him come in to talk about how they actually did rulemaking. He blew my mind when he went ahead and said that for the first year and a half, he was on a job his unit did not propose any new regulations. I said, excuse me. He said, "Well, we came to the conclusion that it was a waste of our time to research and propose new regulations because it didn't matter which regulations we proposed they we're going to be challenged in federal court. We basically just waited for either environmental groups or business groups to file lawsuits challenging our current regulation and we just waited for federal court rulings to basically tell us how to enforce our existing regulations." I said, "That would suggest your legal office handle quite a bit of work," and he goes, our legal office is, his words, robustly staffed. N. Rodgers: I'm not surprised. J. Aughenbaugh: Rule making by lawsuit. N. Rodgers: It makes sense to me when you consider that what you're talking about are the commons. This is the stuff we all think we all own. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: People get prickly about their right to it? Whatever it is. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. You want to talk about some prominent secretaries of the interior? N. Rodgers: Yes. J. Aughenbaugh: All right. The first one was Thomas Ewing. Rather nondescript, if you will, nameless, faceless bureaucrat. N. Rodgers: I'm the guy, it's fine. J. Aughenbaugh: Lucius Lamar, I put him actually on this list Nia. Because I thought you would like his first name. N. Rodgers: Well, yeah. J. Aughenbaugh: Lucius. N. Rodgers: I like that he's also alliterative. Lucius Lamar? J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: He sounds a little bit like an evil character in Harry Potter. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. N. Rodgers: I know that that's probably because of Lucius Malfoy, but also just because it's, because it's alliterative which a lot of her characters are alliterative. J. Aughenbaugh: He was appointed by president Cleveland. But he later served on the United States Supreme Court. N. Rodgers: That also makes him interesting to me because, I love when you're like, this person served on the Supreme Court and this person served on a jury because I guess because once you get to a certain level of government, you enter a narrowed group of people to choose from for things like Ambassador ships, Scotus positions. J. Aughenbaugh: What we discussed in a previous podcast episode about the career path of Supreme Court justices. N. Rodgers: Right. That they serve as a clerk, but then they go on to either go to a big firm or they serve in an agency. J. Aughenbaugh: But this reflects in the 1800s how many Supreme Court justices were not judges before they became justices. N. Rodgers: That's right. They served in administrative positions. J. Aughenbaugh: They had more, if you will, diverse career experiences- N. Rodgers: Than we do now. J. Aughenbaugh: Before they got in the Supreme Court than they do now, which is one of the criticisms of the current Supreme Court. N. Rodgers: Right. J. Aughenbaugh: But anyways, we already mentioned Albert Fall of the infamous Teapot Dome Scandal. Harold Ickes, according to my research, he was the longest serving secretary of the interior. He served for both the FDR in Truman administrations, nearly 13 years. N. Rodgers: Well, if you've served with FDR, you would by nature serve 12 years. N. Rodgers: That's a long time ago? J. Aughenbaugh: That's a long time. N. Rodgers: In charge. You know what I mean? I would just be tired, after I'd be like, I just want to retire. J. Aughenbaugh: We started this podcast, Nia, talking about how taxing it is to be a cabinet secretary. N. Rodgers: Right. That was our first set of episodes. Special person. J. Aughenbaugh: When I saw that I was just like, good [inaudible] . N. Rodgers: That is a long time of a contentious department maybe. But one thing, if you were in charge of a department that nobody really. J. Aughenbaugh: Pays attention to? N. Rodgers: Right or that wasn't particularly contentious, like the admiral of the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard is not particularly contentious for the most part in immigration policy, but that's neither here nor there. But something where you're very breathing is going to annoy some people. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: That's got to be tough. Least it wasn't James Watt. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Stewart Udall, he was appointed by JFK. For our listeners who are electoral politics junkies, if the name Udall sounds familiar, he was one of the original founding members of the Udall political dynasty in the Southwest. N. Rodgers: I was going to say senator or congressman, haven't they had both? J. Aughenbaugh: Oh yeah. There's Senators, Congressmen, Governors. N. Rodgers: They're big into the environment. They do a lot of Environment Protection work even now through foundations and stuff like that. The Udall brothers, the most recent brothers that were in the '50s and '60s, not most recent, but the '50s and '60s brothers I think founded foundations. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: About teaching young people about the environment. I want to say there's a scholarship, a Udall Scholarship. J. Aughenbaugh: There is. N. Rodgers: Okay. J. Aughenbaugh: By the way, Udall represents a particular data point or trend line in the nomination of interior department secretaries. Since 1949, only one interior department secretary was not either native or had ancestors west of the Mississippi River. N. Rodgers: Usually folks from out west? J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. Folks from out West. That's been a trend. Manuel Lujan, he was the secretary of the Interior in the Bush 41 administration. He's actually one of the named parties in one of the most infamous Supreme Court standing cases, Lujan versus Defenders of the wildlife. N. Rodgers: Can you brief that case for us? J. Aughenbaugh: Real quickly, the United States Supreme Court made it more difficult to get standing in this case. It's had a huge impact on environmental lawsuits because you can't go ahead and claim that because I'm a citizen of the earth, that environmental damage caused by government caused me personal injury. You have to show how you were personally injured, not because you are a citizen of the earth. N. Rodgers: Not because I love spotted owls personally, but because my spotted owl was murdered by a logger and I have been damaged. I see, so that made it more complicated for environmentalist groups to- J. Aughenbaugh: Get standing to sue the government. N. Rodgers: Or to stop projects. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeap. By the way, the average tenure of interior secretaries less than 3.5 years. N. Rodgers: Wow, not even a full administration. J. Aughenbaugh: Interior secretary since the department has been created- N. Rodgers: Thinking [inaudible] got quick. J. Aughenbaugh: They have some of the shortest shelf lives of all cabinet department secretaries. N. Rodgers: Which makes Harold Pincus look even- J. Aughenbaugh: More impressive. N. Rodgers: Yeah. If everybody else fails before the presidency is even finished. J. Aughenbaugh: Finished, yes. N. Rodgers: Presidents generally then have at least two- J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: Secretaries of the Interior. I guess, well, if I were responsible for 20 percent of the land of the United States, that's a huge level of responsibility. J. Aughenbaugh: Yes. N. Rodgers: I'm probably in terms of what your responsibilities cover second only to the president, in the sense of immenseness. Maybe not necessarily in the sense of geopolitical importance because I would argue that the Secretary of State just stood up and slapped the president of North Korea. That would be a nuclear war, we would be in trouble. Interior doesn't get that opportunity. But when you think in terms of what affects Americans day to day, 20 percent of the property of the United States is a lot. That's big. J. Aughenbaugh: Again, when you go back to the fundamental tension that underlies the Department of the Interior, it's probably not a huge shock to know that many of them are thinking about pulling the parachute cord. N. Rodgers: They get in, then they realize how involved is in the nuances and how much fighting there is and how much suing there is and they're like, yeah, I need to find another job, and it takes 2.5 years to find another job and then they bail. J. Aughenbaugh: Yeah. N. Rodgers: Or they try to stick it out as long as they can. That's the other thing is, but that does make Harold because as we have agreed, basically a federal government saint. Somebody who just stuck in there. J. Aughenbaugh: He's more of a superhero, West. N. Rodgers: He's agent Carlsen. He just keeps it all together. J. Aughenbaugh: You're right. N. Rodgers: I think this has been a really good episode. I don't think people realize how involved the Department of Interior is, and it's quiet the department in the sense that it doesn't make the news a lot unless something- J. Aughenbaugh: Bad has happened. N. Rodgers: Nobody ever says, gee, the parks are great today. What ends up in the news is when you get ranchers who decide they're going to use guns to have their herd on federal property. J. Aughenbaugh: Or a bunch of tourists go to a national park. N. Rodgers: Get hurt in some way. J. Aughenbaugh: Or there's a bunch of garbage, and then they take photos, and then they post the photos on TikTok and Instagram. The next thing you know, the press is, what's going on in the Department of the Interior. N. Rodgers: Why aren't they cleaning up yet? Exactly. Oh my goodness, or in case of Yellowstone, a massive flood washes away a bunch of stuff and buildings and all stuff and now they have to fix it. J. Aughenbaugh: Well, in earlier this summer- N. Rodgers: Yosemite, sorry, not Yellowstone. J. Aughenbaugh: You know first they have fires. N. Rodgers: Then they have floods. They're like, are we just reenacting the Bible here? What's going on? Oh my goodness. J. Aughenbaugh: Where's Noah and the ark,? N. Rodgers: Exactly. Or I'm thinking where are the locusts? Thanks Aughie. J. Aughenbaugh: Thank you, Nia. You've been listening to civil discourse brought to you by VCU Libraries. Opinions expressed are solely the speaker's own and do not reflect the views or opinions of VCU or VCU Libraries. Special thanks to the Workshop for technical assistance. Music by Isaak Hopson. Find more information at guides.library.vcu.edu/discourse. As always, no documents were harmed in the making of this podcast.