Mr. VENTO. You mentioned something earlier, Mr. Horn, concerning the review of certain criteria in terms of personnel practices, and how you were directed under legislation passed in the 1970's. Now, as Assistant Secretary, you felt that it was absolutely imperative that you exercise responsibility in each one of these instances with regard to the GM-14 and-15 Superintendents, that you concur with the general Directors, you did not delegate that particular responsibility. What criteria do you use when you deal with this, with this type of decision, Mr. Horn? Did you have any criteria in writing that you are making these personal judgments about? The people intimately working for the Director, did you have any criteria that were in writing for your review? Mr. HORN. Mr. Chairman, let's make sure that we clearly separate the countersignature authority that emanates from the Secretary's Office for senior personnel appointments as opposed to the performance rating systems for senior executive service employees. There are two very distinct sets of entities. Now, under the senior executive service, which is about 20 people in the National Park Service and about 18 or 20 in the Fish and Wildlife Service, I, under the law, am the rating official. We have written performance standards that are issued at the beginning of the year, and then all employees-all of the senior executive employees are rated on those objective written criteria. We have to prepare a full, complete set of documentation that goes through a process called a Performance Review Board. That board's recommendations go to the Director, and then come to the Assistant Secretary. That is the process for the senior executive employees. Mr. VENTO. You chose to reverse that process, is that correct? Mr. VENTO. In some instances? Mr. HORN. No. In some cases I had- Mr. VENTO. You changed the rating. Mr. HORN. In some cases we had a recommendation on an individual, and it would come up that the Performance Review Board recommended one rating and the Director recommended another, and in some limited circumstances the Director and I initially came to different conclusions about how to rate these individuals. Based on subsequent consultations, we worked out and came to conclusions and agreement on every senior executive employee. Mr. VENTO. You are talking about senior executive service. You are mixing oranges and apples here. Senior executive service, you have a formal role. Do you have a formal role with regard to the GM-14 and- 15? Mr. VENTO. But did you in fact assume a role in that instance? Mr. VENTO. Did you assume a role? Yes or no. Mr. HORN. Mr. Chairman, all personnel appointments for the Department emanate from the Secretary's Office pursuant to the Truman administration reorganization. It has been traditional, the way I have inherited it or understand it Mr. VENTO. You are saying that by law you were involved in the SES. There is no disagreement. But by law, are you required as Assistant Secretary to be in-volved in the selection of these GM-14 and-15 employees? Mr. HORN. As a matter of policy, we countersign. My office-Mr. VENTO. You made a decision that you were going to be involved, correct? Mr. HORN. I countersign 14 and 15's. Everything else is delegated Mr. VENTO. Then you changed some of the recommendations of the 14's and 15's. Is that correct? Mr. HORN. Not that I am cognizant of, sir. Mr. VENTO. You didn't change any? What qualifications do you have to make judgments better than the Director's? Mr. HORN. Sir, when a person is selected for, let's say, a GS-15 position, the position is traditionally advertised. There is a board of people that meets and looks at all of the candidates, and then the Director or the regional director, whomever the appropriate employee is in the service, selects an individual from the list of certified individuals. Let's say 10 people apply for the job. The boards will certify that there are seven certified professionals who meet the specifications in the job and can be selected. The service will then recommend that one of those individuals be picked from the certification list, and then those are sent up for countersignature in my office. In my understanding, I cannot think of any off the top of my head, there have been no instances where I have not accepted the Director's recommendations. Mr. VENTO. How many National Park Service employees have been approved to receive senior executive service as compared with other agencies in the Department training? Mr. HORN. We had a problem 2 years ago in which the Director didn't recommend anybody be put into the system, and this year I sent a memorandum to both Directors of Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service, saying that the SES training program in my mind and the Secretary's mind, is very important and asked both Directors to make sure they submitted candidates for SES training. Both bureaus have done that. Routinely, each bureau puts two or three people a year through SES training so they are eligible to become part of the senior executive pool of employees. Mr. VENTO. Why has the National Park Service had fewer employees involved in the training programs? Mr. HORN. As I said, 2 years ago the Director made a decision not to put anybody in the program, which was not exactly what I would have done, but that was his decision and I concurred in it. Mr. VENTO. You concurred in it? Mr. HORN. I will tell you that this year-and it is in the recordI wrote to both Mr. Mott and Mr. Dunkle, saying I think it is an important program and I want the Directors to submit names for the programs, and they did so. Mr. VENTO. Recently, there was quite an issue over the resignation or dismissal of Mr. Howard Chapman, former Western Region al Director. The performance rating that you assigned him after overriding Director Mott. Did you ever discuss this with Mr. Howard Chapman before you made that decision? Mr. HORN. Mr. Chairman, I would commend the committee's attention to the last year's House Appropriations Committee. I spent about 2 hours on this when the chairman- Mr. VENTO. I don't intend to spend 2 hours, but if you would just answer the question, if you talked to him before or after. I can go back and look at that. Mr. HORN. There is an important caveat. The committee at that time invoked a congressional exemption to the Privacy Act, so that can be discussed on the record. Now, Mr. Chapman is no longer an employee of the Federal Government. I do not want to get into details, but I will say this. Mr. Chapman was awarded a rating of 3, which is satisfactory. I had initially indicated a preliminary rating which was one step lower. I communicated that to Mr. Mott, based on the concerns I had from review of the record. Based on discussions that the Director and I had, I changed my mind and was persuaded that that individual had performed in a satisfactory fashion, and the rating that I assigned to him in December, I think, of 1986 was a satisfactory rating of 3, based on my consultations with the Director. Mr. VENTO. I don't want you to break any laws in terms of privacy. Would it break a record if you answered whether you ever talked to Mr. Howard Chapman before you made the rating? Mr. HORN. I do the ratings basically through the chain of command with the Director. I told the Director what my concerns were. The Director's comments- Mr. VENTO. So you did not is your answer? No? Mr. HORN. I worked through the Director. Mr. VENTO. You talked through the Director and did not deal directly with Mr. Chapman? Mr. HORN. That's correct. Mr. VENTO. There was a Performance Review Board that was appointed for Mr. Chapman's review and they had other staff responsibilities as well, didn't they? Mr. HORN. Yes. As a matter of fact, the Performance Review Board is one of the review entities for all of the senior executive service employees. Mr. VENTO. It is an important group. What other professional qualifications they give these individuals the merit to judge, for instance, Chapman, or anyone else's work. Mr. HORN. They have to be the individual's professional peers. In other words, they have to be members of the senior executive service. We traditionally pick one from Fish and Wildlife Service, one from National Park Service and one from my office. Mr. VENTO. So, when you decided to lower this, you were actually going against the judgment of those individuals at that point. Mr. HORN. I did not make any final decision to lower anybody's ratings. I raised some preliminary concerns that I communicated to the Director and on consultations with the Director, the Director satisfied me that the individual was performing in a satisfactory fashion. Mr. VENTO. In 1985, your office provided criteria for natural resources and definitions for various resource conditions that are acceptable. The discussion paper that contained these descriptions stated: "Public recreational benefit is the principal reason for conserving natural features." And it stated that individual units vary in their primary purposes. It is further stated that: "We must be careful to recognize that because of differing purposes among units, an action deemed adverse in one may be acceptable in another." And that "a resource can be in good condition if it is subject to no more damage than nearby similar resources outside the unit." Does that sound familiar to you? Mr. HORN. Yes, it does, sir. Mr. VENTO. In view of the clear mandate to protect park resources and leave them unimpaired for future generations contained in the Basic Organic Act and the nondegradation requirement of the 1978 law, what was the justification for the direct contradiction of congressional intent. If it is treated the same as areas similarly situated outside the park boundary it would seem that there would be no difference between it being a park and a nonpark. Mr. HORN. The Congress has seen fit to create a whole array of park units. We have parks, we have preserves, battlefields, monuments, historical sites, recreation areas, and probably a few I've left out. Each one of those is created with a specific enabling act which lays out the primary purposes for that unit. In virtually all of these circumstances, Congress has specified different management regimes. We manage Big Cypress Natural Preserve, where we permit oil and gas, hunting and off-road vehicles ORV activities pursuant to Congress, radically different than we manage Everglades National Park right next door-again, pursuant to an act of Congress. That memorandum was merely an outline to the service reflecting what is in Mr. Mott's 12 point plan, that when we prepare management plans for the 341 units of the whole system, we need to look first and foremost to the specific enabling legislation of Congress, and to make sure that we do not manage a national recreation area, like Gateway, the same way we manage the wilderness portion- Mr. VENTO. Most of these are all amendments to the 1916 Organic Act. Whenever there is a designation of national park, the first thing we start out is with the 1916 Organic Act, and then we make modifications to it. Fundamentally, that is also the mandate in the 1978 law. Of course, with regard to degradation it absolutely applies to every park with the only exceptions written into individual legislation. That does not free you from the 1916 and 1978 laws, does it? Mr. HORN. No. The decision in concept is, for example, in a recreation area, we can accept and will accept some temporal conditions that we would absolutely not accept in a wilderness portion of Yellowstone National Park. That is as a result of the Organic Act in terms of no permanent impairment, we can accept some temporal impact. Mr. VENTO. This statement that a resource can be in good condition if it is subject to no more damage than nearby similar resources outside the unit. It seems to me that is sort of putting it on shifting sand because if outside the unit all of a sudden gets more intense use, that is suggesting that what goes on inside would be based on the lowest common denominator. Mr. HORN. No, sir. Mr. VENTO. That is what this says. Is this policy still in place? This criterion? This guideline? Mr. HORN. Those guidelines were issued from my office as part and parcel of the review of the Natural Resources Assessment Program, which is now fully in place, which was outlined in the Director's 12-point program. Mr. VENTO. Why have the criteria for establishing new National Park areas been completely removed from the proposed revisions to the service's management policies, Mr. Mott? Was that your recommendation, that they be removed? Mr. VENTO. The removal of these criteria they certainly, have been removed. That is the information I have, that the National Park Service does not intend to recommend any new areas. That would be the assumption that one might make. Is it then in the case that there are no further natural areas of historic or cultural size that deserve to be part of the National Park System? Mr. MOTT. I am not sure that I am clear on your question, Mr. Chairman. Mr. VENTO. First of all, these criteria have been removed. This is the information I have. Mr. MARLENEE. If the gentleman would yield, I'm not clear on the question either. Could the chairman rephrase it so that we can clearly understand it? Mr. VENTO. The problem is with regard to the criteria for establishing new national park areas. They have been removed from the proposed revisions to the service's management policies. Is that correct? Mr. Mott, you do not know that they have been removed? Mr. MOTT. I am not aware. We have gone over our management policies now for the last 6 or 8 months. They are now available. We published it in the Federal Register. And I am satisfied that those policies that we now have that we developed over this period of time with a lot of discussion, have brought them up to date, and that they are in good shape. I am not aware of the fact that we have changed our policies relative to the acquisition of national- Mr. VENTO. We will get the question answered for the record, since there is not a recognition of the issue. In 1986, at the National Park Science Conference, limitations were placed on the number of National Park Service attendees from each region. |