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<br />B-9 <br /> <br /> <br />002751 <br /> <br />California Desert that had never been happening before. The then <br />State Director, Russel Penny, came on the scene, State Director of <br />the Bureau of Land Management. Made some trips to the desert, saw <br />what was happening, initiated some studies internally in the Bureau <br />to determine the scope of what was happening and began talking about <br />the need for a regional plan and an approach to better manage the <br />public lands in recognition of this greater public use. During that <br />time interest was aroused on the part of legislators from Southern <br />California in particular. Several bills were introduced. As I <br />mentioned to Phil, several of those bills did initially call for <br />these studies in the desert beyond the California Stateline. In <br />fact, Congressman introduced a bill, I <br />believe, set the boundaries of the study for the Colorado River Water- <br />shed, There were several other bills that called for that, I think <br />Senator Cranston's bill, if I recall correctly, went beyond State <br />boundaries. This made the consideration of special legislation <br />even more difficult. In the meantime, conditions continued to <br />worsen in the desert, in terms of public use, without adequate <br />management and planning. So it became necessary for the Bureau to <br />initiate some kind of internal reorganizing in order to accommodate <br />this, without Legislation and that was done. The Bureau redirected <br />funds within their own appropriations. Set up initially a planning <br />staff under the State Director, to begin these studies in 1972 with- <br />out special legislation. The practicality of doing this within the <br />Bureau made it necessary to limit the study to the California Desert <br />Boundary that you see on these maps. It was not practical at that <br />time to get internal support for initiating such a study beyond the <br />stateline. In fact, it was difficult enough within the State of <br />California to cause a special planning study to be started with a <br />special task force such as the Desert Planning Staff that crossed <br />District Boundaries. The California Desert Planning Area does cross <br />and include most of the Riverside District and a major portion of <br />the Bakersfield District. Traditionally within the Bureau the <br />planning function had been carried out with responsibility in the <br />District Managers and the Area Managers. In setting up a special <br />task force to do this kind of a study naturally then became an <br />internal problem and was overcome at that time by the State Director <br />and the District Offices. In recognition of the special demands, <br />that had to be met, in view of the public pressure on the desert <br />and the ongoing increasing demands on the District Managers and <br />Area Managers to simply cope with the increased public use. There <br />wasn't time to do both, So the special task force was set up. The <br />Desert Planning Staff is a Division of the State Office. In a field <br />location is Riverside. Up until recently we were in the same <br />building with the District Manager and his staff. But recently <br />because of the expansion on his staff and ours we had to move into <br />a separate office. The main point I want to make here in response <br />to Phil is, there was at the time this study started, the same kind <br />