event hosted by the atlantic council. this is one hour. >> good afternoon. welcome to the atlantic council. my name is david livingston livd i am the deputy director of the center responsible for the advanced energy and climate portfolio. as we work to build a robust set of programming and technologies can the policie,policies and thf tomorrow, it is a great pleasure to be hosting him here today for an exciting event in the

advanced energy future. it's also a pleasure to be hosting this event with so many familiar faces in the audience had such a distinguished set of guests. i would like to thank the department of interior for its cooperation with today's event and also our terrific staff at the atlantic council for putting this event together today. the department of interior is an often overlooked pillar of the architecture that manages one fifth of the land in the united states, 35,000 miles of coastline, 1.7 billion acres of the outer continenta outer contd also overseas 700 million acres of subsurface minerals. it is responsible not only for managing this natural capital if you will but also overseeing the conditions for which some of this is responsibly and

sustainably transformed into income in the form of energy production. indeed the department of interior is the second-largest source of government revenue after the irs while the majority of the revenues have traditionally been generated from fossil fuel production there is a significant opportunity to harness the potential on public land from offshore wind to large-scale solar power to the wave energy to the geothermal power the land and waters are replete with opportunities to produce clean modern and affordable energy for american citizens. against this backdrop is a great pleasure to welcome to the atlantic council today counselor to the secretary of the department of the interior. he is responsible for coordinating energy polic policf the department of many individual bureaus as well as with other government agencies and has been an advocate for the role that advanced energy can

and should play into previously held several leadership roles at the department of energy and many state energy offices. following his address, he will be joined on stage for an armchair conversation with a distinguished fellow at the global energy center. serving key leadership roles in the department of transportation and the department of the interior including serving as the former director of the management service in the clinton administration. i can think of no one better to lead a pragmatic and frank conversation on the role of advanced energy across american land and water so without further ado it is a pleasure to welcome to the podium mr. vincent devito. [applause] >> that is an outstanding

introduction i appreciate it. thank you everybody for coming today and hopefully you have good takeaways to share thank you from the atlantic council to put this together and everybody i love that you started with the stats, but i never use them. one of the things i've learned being the interior is the enormity of the department and its responsibilities. one of the things that wasn't mentioned as w is the second-lat producer of hydroelectricity in the nation which is remarkable and i was excited to learn that because the background was focused on the energy space.

i've been able to bring some of that background to bear as well. the department also spans 12 time zones believe it or not we have about 70,000 employees and about 2600 operations by some measures at least with the scientists we managed the largest holdings of energy resources. before i started saying that publicly. for quite some time i do call them holdings because what we are doing is managing these assets not on behalf of the government, but on behalf of the

taxpayers which gets a little bit to the point of why i'm doing what i'm doing and why the position was created. for context it may be helpful to know i've done the secretary for quite some time, so we were for in before we started to work together and i'm pleased to report we are still friends even though we are working together which is a nice thing to do but the reality is the department of interior has had the best energy

there is no better friend than any of us could have in regards to conservation and environmental stewardship and secretary ryan zinke. in addition to those questions this administration has added a management, corporate management, and the business sense of the energy portfolio. the secretary when looking at this decided that it would be functionally smart to have someone there that could coordinate the policy of management of all the energy portfolio which permeates all aspects that we used as a nine out of the ten agencies was in the department but really it's ten out of the ten agencies. we could have harmonized energy policy across the board and the purpose for that is what was mentioned earlier is it does have a strong revenue function within the department of interior for the federal

government. what we notice when we began was that revenue was way, way down. offshore alone in 2006 was about $18 million of revenue coming into the federal government through the department of interior and by 2016 it was down to about 2.8 billion and so that is about a loss of 15 billion over the course of time and on average that's $10 million a year. why does that happen? i was fortunate enough to be invited into this position to examine that and look at the way to remedy that. when the first things i learned through due diligence in the corporate sense looking at the numbers was that in the energy economy which is something that was close to there was a lot of

investment going on in growth going on. however, no growth going on in the federal lands. you had investment in private lands, state lands and other countries going like this and investment going into federal holdings going down like this. that is a problem because as fiduciaries on behalf of the taxpayers to manage these assets we've got to figure out a better return on our equity. going out in talking to folks in looking at policies and examining how the dollars are flowing it became apparent that the cost of compliance in the lack of regulatory certainty and stability and the duration of time that it was taken to do business with the federal government was really driving dollars to a different

direction. i'm in the fortunate position to be able to examine as other places for energy investment dollars to flow as places of competition. one of the first things we did is address the cultural change and you probably saw that developing strongly not only politically but economically over the past two years. inside interior recognizing across all the agencies that the energy portfolio is not something that we should not be promoting and in fact, it is the opposite. we should be promoting our energy assets and rhythm probably on her sleeve. the reason for that is the energy economy in this country is important as any other aspect of our economy and as you

noticed i said earlier it is growing. the concept is promoting our energy economy and bring part of it is not a new notion. other countries do it. canada does it, mexico does it, brazil, you can go down across the maps and picked on the countries. here in united states i think a little bit because we grow up as a woe is me consuming nation reliant on the winds of opec that we have not quite realized but now is everything has shifted in record production mode we need to start wearing our energy economy on her sleeve and are responsibly in interior is to make sure that everyone is also happening but without displacing the focus as well, which by the way, his hand in

hand. a lot of the controversial programs that we have are funded by the revenues that we receive from bids, leases and royalty rates. that's a component of money that flows out into space even to protect parks as well. all of this works together. as we start looking at reducing the cost of compliance, how would we do that? one way is to make sure that we could shorten time in terms of permitting consultation and things of that nature. if you looked at the federal government was doing it took seven years to get through a process and it's not all across the board incidentally but way too long. especially the offshore guys when they are investing in energy they understand it takes

a certain amount of time to get to production but in order to drive dollars back to the federal government we had to lower, as i said before, the cost of compliance. one of the ways to do that -- and bike cost of compliance and talking more money to do business with the federal government than it does with other folks and that is because in order to drive those dollars back to the federal holdings the federal government has to be a better business partner and more reliable business partner just like folks do in everyday transactions. might transactional background is a lot to this to help the department and achieve the secretaries commitment of focusing on the. bringing down the cost of compliance shortening the time it takes for investors and those that want to invest in federal assets , too receive their parents and the function that we can do procedurally. we have issues to achieve just

that and the reality is this is nothing new for the federal government. one of the other things i have in my background is being a federally energy regulatory lawyer not that i ever worked but i have are presented folks on the outside and [inaudible] it has a one year free application phase and another year for the formal application and within that working the staff and working through litigation matters you can genuinely predict as a project proponent as an investor what your permitting timeline will be. first does not have to do with any other federal agency.

we all operate under the same and none of us can change that by the way. that will take congress. we are not changing but it is how we process the required and by mental protocols. what i don't take what we do is streamline. streamlining, at least to me, and many stakeholders means you are certain elements that need to be considered. we're not doing any of that. expediting is different. it's making smart, reasonable, well-thought-out decisions in a quicker time frame and holding folks to it. you may have noticed and i'm surprised that a lot of people have not but in this room you may have a few weeks ago a bunch of agencies got together and signed a memorandum of understanding that is called the one federal decision. you will see that it mirrors the two-year process and the president even mentioned it in his state of the union earlier this year but the reality is it has interesting elements in it in the mou provision.

one is if you have jurisdiction you need to be a cooperating agency. i'm a huge brand of cooperating agencies. i promoted that for many years now and i would encourage state agencies to be a cooperating agency with the federal energy regulatory because it gives you does not give you decision-making power but a seat at the table is more efficient way to do business. there are arguments against it which i won't get into now but it is part of our one federal decision mou and the reality is if you do have jurisdiction on the environmental review or major project you have to be a cooperating agency which is key because that is something else we have to mere inside the department of interior. it used to be that all the agencies would operate independently within interior so

park service, blm, they weren't necessarily cooperating and they weren't necessarily communicating the early on we would do comments from the park service against the blm record of decision and it did not make sense but in the interior your different decisions across the line for a single project. more importantly [inaudible] when you are a project proponent you have to deal with several different agencies across the board, inside interior. do you know what that means? several different staff, different field biologist, different biological opinions and everything is different if they don't operate together so we are changing that as well and that is part of the cultural shift. the cultural shift is important because as was mentioned earlier part of interior is a management

organization which makes it a fun place to work for everyone there. this is what i have learned there to is some type of serious management function. add experience to the department of energy and where there seems to be more of a program agency where they distribute out various r&d programs in the lab besides the nuclear portfolio and interior and political appointees are managing so it seems to be we make these cultural shifts in terms of priorities or adding priorities what has been in the first place is there is an element of excitement about it. to memorialize that with the secretary has initiated is a reorganization plan. it is important for him

perspective and this is ministration perspective that if you are going to be a better business partner and if you're going to be making decisions that are focused on environmental stewardship and if you are going make decisions that put conservation as a top priority a lot of those decisions don't need to be made here inside the beltway because most of what we manage outside of offshore wings is way out west. the secretary and his reorganization has been encouraging a lot of these decisions to be made by senior executives throughout the department closer to where the impact the communities. you for the secretary talk about it from the beginning and the form interior needs to be a better neighbor in the way of achieving that is to do reorganization review shift personnel and decisions out west and another way to do that is to

change the way the department of interior makes the decisions and does business. his proposal which you may have seen includes 13 regions so that when a particular decision is made for a specific product or specific policy those within the region across all the agencies has been talked about the joint command type of structure so that there is a -- you see this sometimes of the corporate world but you must see it in another world where you see a shifting of leadership over those regions so that everybody has an equal opportunity to be a leader and learn and communicate and share. this reorganization is something that is going to have longevity to it and as i believe we will

find that these type of cultural shifts and organizational shifts are going to achieve efficiencies when you achieve efficiencies and achieve better decisions quicker those policy changes seem to outlast it years of president trump and beyond because good common sense government because it is creating better documents and making better documented decisions. we saw early on that the amount of judicial review in a negative way was pretty painful. it's from prior administrations with decisions that end up going to the court and the judge would say oh my god, [inaudible] one of the agencies didn't do their jobs to go back and do your job and that's a problem because the

documents weren't sufficient we have examined that and one of the reasons why documents were defective according to the judges is that there seem to be a lot of cutting and pasting going on between projects and in the consulting world and i'm not particularly any particular group but it was information and record of a decision that was completely irrelevant to the project at hand so clearly it had come from someplace. in the business world and a law firm i didn't cut and paste from client to client or project to project. it did make sense for each product was different and each transaction was different and the most documents are created so we paid a closer eye to creating better documents so that they have a better chance of withstanding judicial scrutiny and that is another way you have longevity in some of these policy shifts so we are

happy and i do believe the career professionals agency are happy with the way we have been prioritizing and reorganizing and managing the department of interior in clearly we have done an awful lot in a short amount of time. that is okay. we like to operate as the phrase say at the speed of decision. we like the decisions being made in the field and a lot of times we think the thought process is if i don't make a decision then i'm not going to get in trouble but that is not our philosophy. secretary explicitly told the career executives in the political leadership at the department of interior we are all accountable for jobs and all performance metrics but most

importantly you have to do your job to make a decision. he understands and not every decision made throughout the department is going to be aligned with his thinking but at least if you are making the decision in moving the ball further down the field and eventually if it does need that secretary's attention it will happen. a lot of that has occurred specifically with objects, small projects, large projects that have been stuck in the mud for several years and once he gave that cultural message out, please make a decision, and we can always examine and things started to move quicker and better and there have been projects literally that have been languishing on someone's desk for seven years that we have been able to move within seven months. that is good government and no politics or anything else behind that. that is common sense and government has adopted. sometimes, by the way, our philosophy is sometimes the

government does not have a job to do. right? one of the best things government to do is even though we have the ability to regulate in a certain sector or discussion to exercise oversight doesn't mean that you have to regulate for the sake of regulating. we are addressing that culture as well. being an old agency since 1849 which mirrors are addressed gives us -- we don't have a strongly defined parallel to operate in more recent agencies more relatively agencies like the epa or doe. we were formed a time when cameras had discussion and secretary ryan zinke exercise that discretion and we are doing it in a way that is motivating not only the career professionals because of been able to make decisions but also a longer term policy of the

department and part of my job is to go back to beginning and help the department achieve more revenue by bringing down the cost of compliance and the way we measure that is through actual analytics. we have an economic office primarily able to look at production and revenue numbers and we have reversed the trends, i am happy to say. we are getting mother reports now on what that looks like and when i first started talking about bringing business concepts to the government. we asked for the monday reports and we were told they don't exist. we are trying to be nimble, efficient and do a lot in a short amount of time and how can you change in real time the policy decisions if they're not having an effect and if they don't have the numbers to back up for our due diligence. lo and behold, i went to

exercise six months figures and quarterly and monthly and that is all very helpful. it is remarkable what one administration can change in years and on the energy portfolio and the metric side managing assets that are so important to this country's economy and so important to the taxpayers and i want to address this before i get yourself off the hook because i was only given ten minutes i was there right now but that we are not -- i think there is this wrong thought out there that we at the interior and this administration is drill, baby, drill personified but we are not. we are all of the above and everything we have done so far has been basically unlocking the tools that have been shed for

the best decade or so. what i mean by that is we have not opened up any new areas yet that have not been designated for the purposes by prior administrations or by congress and i think that is key to understand. we have all of the above we are definitely for multiple use and we always implement best practices in the science in all of our decisions. thank you for having me here today. [applause] >> thank you, counselor for those opening remarks. it's interesting to hear what you are thinking about the

department. one of the things that both you and david mentioned and i learned when i was at the interior department is how very important it is to the energy industry and a lot of people think the department of energy has the portfolio to cover energy for the federal government when in fact much of the resources on federal lands are being developed and i want to go back to your explanation because it is a new one in this administration and what is it that you will be doing that is different from past administrations and how will you coordinate with the other bureaus within the administration for land and minerals, for example, the white house, other department and how does it work together? >> it has been working well and working great for the past 14 months or so. one of the tools that the

secretary used to establish his position was a secretarial order which is key. it's one thing to be the secretary's office and have the [inaudible] of the secretary. it's another thing to have a secretarial order behind your position which assign specific responsible these two no one else in the department so that folks understand where those decisions are going to be made and to your point of coordination in operation is going to continue. let's start with the secretary order was great tool to have. the other components that we established in terms of communication throughout the various agencies at that ui was establishing an energy liaison

group. from the very beginning i asked every director and it did not have to be but it could be anyone who wanted to appoint someone who could participate in this energy liaison group that i chair and we started off with that and it was primarily medication channel and i was surprised and skeptical that it would work but they continue to participate that and uncommon skull and it's been a remarkable channel and not only to discuss the secretary's priorities but to receive feedback initially -- i receive so much information from the field as was called that it was overwhelming. you were able to triage and address a lot of issues under project side that were more important to those and didn't feel they were able to channel effectively through the hallways. the hallways are the different, you know, what we call a slm or

blm et cetera and it's their main offices are so they thought going through -- we encourage people in respective holidays always but it seemed to be a slower process and all we do essentially is were given information that brings certain questions and we just ask for additional information we have conversation and if the decision needs to be made one way or another the secretary agrees with it, it happens quicker that way. >> the decision-making process is still within the bureau or is it the secretarial level or your level? or does it depend on the decision? >> not a thing rises to the level of the secretary's office. overall the message and the departmentwide message of what

comes from the secretary certainly resonates but each decision doesn't come to our office and at the beginning a lot of decisions were being made in washington. it seemed to be in that is no way to run a railroad. that's not the secretary wants to see things shake out. the decision should be made out in the field closer to where the community that are impacted by these decisions. however we found at the beginning that there was in things whether it was dealing with big issues or big projects that were languishing we certainly got these involved and i'm a deal lawyer and i don't mind getting into wings of a deal and it's something i enjoy doing so we are able to do

examine what the opportunity or examine the challenge whether or not we want to be directly engaged. >> past presidents have talked about energy independence and i think president trump is the first to use the term energy dominance when talking about his goals for the united states. i am curious and most people in the here that and listen to the president in two secretary zinke they think about oil, gas and coal know well as days. how do the renewable energies fit into that of energy dominance? >> energy dominance is something that we talk about and it's an energy dominance strategy is really what it is and we are all the above and i can give specific examples to that. a little context, i think, when i was at the department of energy we would talk about the

energy interdependence and we would talk about energy independence. here and now we talk about energy dominance and one of my recent meetings with the state department and they have been talking there about the united states as an energy superpower which ultimately may be the best place to describe exactly who we are and what were doing perhaps by our energy dominant strategy. one of the fun things about this administration comparing back to my prior experience is that the negative is that this administration among its agencies is remarkable in its communications with each other. there's a lot more based on my past experience discussion with state department, formative energy, epa, commerce, defense,

you name it and in fact which i don't think has been done before this administrations through the nac and sec we have weekly meetings, standing meetings in our calendar with myself and the chief of staff and other energy-related energies and we don't meet every week but it is in our calendar. we get together and communicate in a priorities so we are fully functioning and there's a lot of teamwork in this demonstration which is not necessarily recognize because it's only recognize if you're on the inside and i bring up because of the coordination aspect and trigger a thought in my mind that one of the pleasures of this demonstration is the level of operation and the reality is along with that we are aware with what they're doing on advanced technology front and there are aware of what we are in one of the things that we are promoting in terms of the energy

dominant strategy is domestically produced and offshore so the renewables economy that is coming online in the united states is a new part of the energy economy and something that secretary zinke and myself and others are focused on at the department of interior and it's interesting to be on the ground floor of a new energy sector in the united states so there is certain [inaudible] but were starting to come in. to my point is how can we maximize the return on that investment for the taxpayers because the first sale was $200,000 and they made plenty of money and the one after that was in new york was $40 million and we will do interest in it but i can't wait to see how much money

the taxpayers will be making of these blocks that we put up for bidding because this whole component of the offshore wind industry hasn't really been fully explored before in the united states and it is a thrilling in part of this advanced technology these are 9-megawatt turbines totally macro which -- i thought that was prototype or the concept but know they are producing them and so this is the technology that is being brought stateside so our role in all that is to encourage that technology by greeting pipeline and supply chain because that will end up being these are generation units that are too large to shift so that means jobs in norfolk or wherever the end of doing it

that is all part of energy dominance and domestic supply insecurity and economically drivers that are helpful to us all. >> the last administration spent time at the interior to permit talking about advanced technologies and that sort of thing. have you made any changes to the existing regulation or policies or had to make plan to make changes or are you happy with where you are now? >> we made a lot of changes in a short amount of time but the primary focus of not displacing any of our environmental stewardship mission and maintaining our conservation but also at the same time examining technical aspects of the regulation that may not achieve the desired outcome and disable part of our economy that drives. a lot of our changes up front

were just modulating prior regulations to ensure that the energy economy on federal lands would be equitable with that on the state lands, as well. again, one of the federal things the federal government has to deal with as the states do not is [inaudible] and we are okay with that but it's how we process [inaudible] and it's one of the big changes that we are using that now and it's online and you can see the desperate for projects with offshore wind and were allowing for multiple designs to be smitten for certain farm which is a new change we adopted from europe so there's a lot of tools in the shed that we are unlocking and at the same time we're trying to be innovative by best practices for sectors we don't have immediate experience with from places that do have it.

>> i know he went to denmark and saw their technology and they were real leaders in the offshore wind area. what did you take from them to bring back to the united states and how will you put that into regulatory law here? >> i took out a lot. i'm a reluctant traveler. we all do a lot of traveling and several stakeholders insisted that i have to go to copenhagen and check this out. i was like oh my gosh, i've got to go to denmark and you know the drill. anyway, i was convinced and i was so glad we did. i got so much more from that trip and we have busy lives and family lives and we condense a lot and we do a lot in the short amount of time. i extracted so much knowledge

and information that you could see when we came back there was a shift and it's been traditionally been on the offshore wind program to developing the pipelines we can see jobs in the future and in that sector but my take away is the one stop shop that their energy ministry has. one of the reasons we are doing that at interior is because of what came with the other agencies. that is one of the takers. primarily to go over there and you see that manufacturing so we shift the site so [inaudible]

there's a lot of white hats going around so you can see the opportunity for real jobs that we do not have in this country yet that could come over here. that came back and it may be a skeptic but my law practice was built on renewable energy starting in around 2008 and the offshore wind stuff having been in boston and is seeing the cape wind that played out i was a skeptic as anybody which may have been my reluctant to travel to denmark but i'm glad that i did because everything has changed in my head in that sector. >> it's funny that you should make a tent mentioned [inaudible] wind because they came in and we had no idea had authority over offshore wind in the offshore program. i'm going to ask you one more question generally about advanced technologies i think we need to open it up to the floor for questions. that is you hear about ocean

wave, ocean current, perhaps offshore solar and is any of that near to happening now? >> i think the closest thing happening in terms of next generation is going to be the floating turbine because california wants to meet its rps and i don't think in my opinion that they will be able to do it all by solar. even though there is a lot of land it's sometimes a difficult pill to swallow because once you put a solar way up that is all it is good for. the other aspect of solar especially with with the csp it gets hot in birds get affected by that and they get zapped for

better lack of a word in the birds, and insects from and they have a few pickups that need to be regaled out but floating turbines you have to look into this not so much the title but also aspects from my perspective to interior in regards to advanced technology and also the hydro portfolio. we are examining how the maintenance back laws and all of that stuff that they want to address that with these new revenues we're making but i think bringing some of the better hydro, more efficient i don't turn on generating dams will be a key aspect as well. >> let's it open to the group

here. >> hello. jeff with [inaudible]. how does the ministration view energy development on tribal lands? is it a focus? >> absolutely. we have a bureau of indian affairs and i also chair the royalty policy committee where we have academic tribal industry and public sector representation and we are focused on helping energy development on tribal lands and it was raised in one of the meetings that was participating in with the president and over trying if you talk to the leadership they don't have federal government involved at all. generally that is the message we

received. we believe that there has to be a certain element of oversight in cooperation, as well. the secretary -- i am unique. most senior executives at the department of interior are from out west. i happen to be from the northeast and from massachusetts, of all places. historically i have not dealt those issues however, the secretary has. no one knows those issues or dies more deeply into them than him. it is a focus and we were at a meeting with him this morning when these issues came up and he deals with them personally. >> any other question in the front?

>> i'm bob with the consultants. can you tell us we deal with the trade-offs of energy environment and cost? >> sure. from our perspective there aren't any trade-offs but it's all up up. for instance, it is important to note that even though we are focused o increasing production revenue were not increasing the footprint. the directional drilling is a bunch of other issues that can be resolved there. the trade-off from our perspective is that in creating and doing better and more mental reviews creating better records of decision you're looking at both the environmental benefits and in bimetal impact and the economic impact of specific

projects and that is what the president issued early out of his administration. the result of that is a more thoughtful, thorough examination of all projects, and governmental and other documents to go into a record of decision. i don't think it's a trade-off but a net benefit that is being thought through which is helpful to not only the energy economy and making sure that were focused on it and proud on it because the reality is any production here is going to displace production elsewhere. that is part of the global market and nobody does energy production better than the us. we are cleaner and more responsible and we meet with these executives and the folks working in the field and in alaska if they are smoking a cigarette they don't put it in

the snow or grass but in their coke can and take it off site. the secretary says he has the boy scout motto which is great because i enjoy that program as well but you leave your site as good or better than when he found it and in the field that are doing this have that same mentality. >> can i follow up on that question? there are those on one side to say that you have to spend a lot of time working on that and it so important and the other siz e says that limited it to the least amount of time as possible. i'll we say that it is process rich. you don't decide what is going to happen based on [inaudible] but it's a process that you have to follow and i am wondering when you cut down the time for the regular decision if you have a two-year process do you perhaps shoot yourself in the foot by not having gone through

the process thoroughly enough to defend against those judicial suits that will probably come up as a result of the decision-making. >> right. part of the expedited process is also being project specific. some of the policy choices that can be made is how big an examination has to be done for a particular project. do we have to require a project proponent to do a study on deciphered impacts in 30 or 40 or years out and we limit that to the five years. to have to create new information or information re: this or and do we have to ask for information that is not necessarily relevant. that is one of the ways we can address the process which is something which we cannot tinker

with and we can address the process to meet the requiremen requirements. >> any other questions in the audience? >> [inaudible] with the canadian embassy. counselor, thank you for your remarks. i wonder if i could get your views on how actions on steel tariffs and quotas could affect the structure construction that is needed to advance your energy dominant strategy. thank you. >> you welcome. the tariffs and trade discussion is part of a larger conversation which is not necessarily in the purview of the department of interior but i will say so far i have not seen and we get lobbied or advocated before on all these issues which is great because

one of the other from things about this administration is because of the medication people will come to pass on issues that are directly within our purview to express their interest and see how we could be helpful if it's a reasonable thing to do or simply to see what information we may be able to share with them if that is an appropriate thing to do as well but at large i have not and i'm close obviously with -- there's no significant or have not even registered on the scale of any impact from those thoughts at all other then we all read about it in the trade but up close and personal to these project components and stakeholders i -- >> what about the big wind turbines and the wind project and you don't think those will be affected? >> they also apply for exemptions as well and since we have dumped off that bridge yet so to speak it's hypothetical to where will be at that point in

time is unsure but no, all i can tell you is from experience from the meetings i've had that it has not been impactful yet. >> i think we have time for a couple more questions. >> hello, thank you for coming. i'm alex stapleton with the british embassy. after merely curious on offshore wind but there may be other industries that you might have thoughts on and you talk about one federal decision and even bringing in some state authorities and to hear their perspective. what about local communities and these projects have local consenting issues and i'd be curious to hear your thoughts. >> one of the things i'm doing with regard to -- i don't do offshore wind but oil and gas, too. a lot of this is relevant there as well. one of the things i'm doing on offshore wind because it is so localized and these stakeholder impact can be literally at the

beachfront is we are directly coordinating with the states in new york and massachusetts in virginia and new jersey and others we have a direct communication. i personally going with the governor had lead a master issue so that they understand that one of the things that i am doing is early on is educating that this is part of our portfolio and something we are working aggressively on. that is a fun part to make sure there is focus but also to open my navigation but more broadly to your point is when it does come to do an actual permitting that there can be a level of reciprocation between state and federal government which i am a big believer.

part of opening that dialogue in the discussions i have are all about that type of cooperation on the permitting site. however, we also are sensitive to and the secretary is focused on this fishing industry and the shellfish and fisherman and those are all important components of this feature part of our economy and they have a seat at the table at this administration just as everyone else does. >> one more question over here. >> hello. my name is george from the george washington university. i was wondering to the extent of [inaudible] >> yeah, because i will throw this out there because one of the great things about this job and i think the secretary does a fabulous job is advocating or advertising that the department of interior does manage an enormous, largest in the world, energy portfolio.

because of that i was invited to speak at the us chamber of commerce and they in by the to an elegy, so we talked. in terms of the larger energy dominant strategy but also pipelines are important to because it also goes toward infrastructure and some of it crosses federal lands and state lands and indian lands so how do you deal with all of that. we did these regions and part of that is water boundaries and they are not done -- well, we were going to do restructure blm but the governor was like for every state and that did not change much but we did at the water boundaries to get the systems were normalized until we have reformation as well but to get one decision for one project from all the agencies and

interior and a more reasonable fashion so that the project proponents and the project opponents don't have to run around the department of interior so so we will not issue a permit [inaudible] we want to make that process go smoothly. there's just common sense government and it's just a better way to deal with the government. >> any final words from any of the other energy issues at the interior and i know waiting to see what will happen there and there's the offshore program which causes any things -- >> how much time do i have?

[laughter] perfect. the gulf of mexico and the basin and a lot of that is very much focused on making sure that our energy economy is something that we are proud of and something we are managing at a responsible way and we are continually we are definitely all of the above and i like pinpointing this new sector of the energy economy that is online very soon which is remarkable and we are multiple use and the secretary is excellent steward of the environment and i'm happy to be his friend. they keep having me. >> thank you for coming. we really appreciate it. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]