Published on November 5th, 2009

Federal subsistence chair addresses criticism

By ALEX DEMARBAN

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and other federal officials announced last week that the federal subsistence program no longer meets the needs of the rural Alaska residents it's designed to serve.

This winter, the program will be reviewed with input from the stakeholders - those who live in rural areas and have priority access to fish and wildlife on federal land in Alaska.

As part of the review, Salazar will select a chair.

The chair will be someone "the secretary feels will not let this administration's subsistence policy, based on law, based on science and based on the input of the stakeholders, later be trumped by personality or politics," said Kim Elton, Salazar's senior affairs adviser for Alaska.

The board already has a chairman of course, Mike Fleagle, an Inupiaq from McGrath.

Elton spoke to reporters after the bombshell announcement at the Alaska Federation of Natives annual convention on Friday. He said anyone is free to apply for the chairmanship, including Fleagle.

Fleagle served as chair of the state Board of Game in 2006 when he was tapped by former Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to head the Federal Subsistence Board.

Complaints about the program - that the board too often ignores the regional advisory councils, makes important decisions in executive sessions and has been weakened by state influence - are longstanding, Fleagle said.

A new chair alone won't resolve the complaints, he added.

I interviewed Fleagle to get his take on the proposed review.

Are you still the chair?

I'm still the chair.

The secretary has announced through Elton that they're accepting nominations for a new chair. I serve at the pleasure of the secretary, so it's well within the secretary's right to appoint a chair.

In the past, these changes were not made when there was a new secretary, so this could be a different approach. The last chair held the position for 11 years, but there's not any hard and fast rules about how this is done.

Did anyone from the Interior Department contact you to let you know they'd be doing a review?

The secretary's office contacted me prior to it being announced.

Do you think they're going to get another chair?

I haven't been told I'm not the chair but read the writing, it's within a possibility.

One of the criticisms I've heard is that the state convinced (former) Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to appoint you so the state would have more influence over the federal board. Is that true?

I don't have any idea how that came about. I was contacted by the Secretary's office to ask if I'd consider serving as chair when I was still chair of the state Board of Game. I don't know if there were these negotiations going on. I kind of doubt it.

I would just point out that the discussions accusing the board and the federal subsistence process of moving more toward alignment with the state were complaints that were made prior to my appointment as chair.

I worked to carry out directives that were handed down. Some were prior to my involvement on the board, so I'm not sure what the genesis of all those directives were.

I've heard the complaints about me that the state went to the Secretary's office and lobbied them to make these changes. But I came on board, and these directives were handed to us to implement.

For example, the closure policy (for hunting, trapping and fishing) ... and the appointment of a state liaison, those were directives in writing from the secretary's office.

And the directive for the state liaison came from Secretary (Gail) Norton, (Kempthorne's predecessor). The state was asking our board to recognize the state as the other managing authority in the state and to cooperate with them and that's what we did and somehow that got viewed by others as though we were rolling over to the state's demands or wishes.

I just don't see that. That was not my driving guideline or doctrine.

I carried out directives as they were relayed to me, and everything else was done according to existing law.

There's a lot of concerns I'm bringing the state's process into the federal board's process, but anyone can review the track record at the Office of Subsistence Management Web site. The transcripts from meetings are recorded and they can see I acted in accordance with ANILCA (Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act).

Does the state have a nonvoting member on the board?

No. The state requested a nonvoting member on the board. The Interior Secretary granted a position of liaison.

I'm not sure why the state did not already have a liaison to the board. It was in the regulations, required, and the secretary's office sent a directive to fulfill that.

Does the liaison go into executive session?

The liaison does not go into executive session with the board. They act in the same capacity as liaisons for the federal regional advisory councils, the chairs.

They're all treated alike. They can participate in board discussions until the point we've formed that discussion into a motion. At that point the liaisons, either the RAC chair or the state chair, are allowed to comment only by request.

Another complaint I've heard is the board makes decisions in executive session when it shouldn't. Is that true?

That charge was being leveled at the board when I took over as chair.

None of these accusations are new.

I have records of these charges being made at my first AFN convention, in October 2006. I served on a subsistence panel. I went expecting to have meaningful discussions with people, and it was unpleasant. I was basically bearing the brunt of the frustrations being carried against the federal board at the time, and this whole discussion of executive sessions was happening then.

Since I took over as board chair I have curtailed those executive sessions. I feel there were instances where discussions were made in executive session that could have been made on the public record, and I moved everything that could be moved into a public session into a public session.

But we did hold executive sessions on matters that were policy in nature, such as personnel or strategic discussions, like the memorandum of understanding with the state. We discussed that in executive session because we were strategically positioning ourselves, and we were advised not to hold that in open session.

We didn't make wildlife decisions in executive session. There were discussions in the past on that. I stopped that as soon as I got on board.

I remember hearing some of these complaints at past AFNs.

Right. They had another subsistence gathering in Fairbanks in 2007 and I attended. I took notes. I was listening to the charges, and I felt they were being pretty firmly pushed by certain members of the AFN staff.

What I was saying before still applies. These issues were older than my chairmanship. I inherited them.

And some of the complaints leveled against the Federal Subsistence Board to the Interior Department and to the administration were mostly things that were well outside our authority. There were complaints about migratory birds, for example, and we don't regulate that.

So there is a growing dissatisfaction that these issues weren't being addressed quickly enough, and I think the folks carrying the complaints were hoping with a new administration changes could be made. And that might be true, but it will take more than just having a new chair on the board. They may end up with a new chair, but I'm not sure they're going to solve their problems.

But if they want a new chair, I'm all for it. I want to see this subsistence issue come to a resolution, rather than (having) further conflict between our people, and I don't just mean Native people. Alaska is a composite of all cultures, and I think as we move forward we'll find a way to see eye to eye. I think that's ultimately where it will end up, no matter the course, or destination.

Do you feel like a scapegoat?

I'm not using that word, but ... well, no comment.

What about the complaint that the board hasn't listened to the RACs?

The board always gave deference to RAC recommendations whenever it was legally possible.

Should the subsistence program be blamed for the problems on the Yukon River?

The Federal Subsistence Board doesn't have the authority to manage the whole river and any regulatory regimes it puts in place will only apply to where the river passes by or goes by federal areas.

The problems (on the Yukon) get into science that is way beyond our control. We read a really good report, from the Department of Fish and Game put out in '07 showing that a number of factors in the ocean could result in declining food stocks for salmon.

And it mentioned bycatch. In one year, 2007, there were 120,000 king salmon destined for Alaska that were scooped up by the pollock fishery.

If half that were in the river, that half would have met the treaty agreement with Canada this year and a good part of the subsistence policy.

Have we tried to make every effort of our viewpoint about that known?

Yes.

We took a position against that practice. We had the OSM director at the North Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting when they met in Anchorage here and reviewed the proposal. And I went down and testified before them.

We were trying to limit the number of fish caught to around 30,000, period.

And they adopted a sliding scale that would allow them to take up to 60,000 fish.

It's a really frustrating situation, and I know it's frustrating to people on the Yukon, but it's another issue that's out of the board's hands, again.

There is the one issue of closure that impacted state and federal users, there were fishing windows, and fishing was closed on the first pulse.

The authority (to close) was delegated to in-season state and federal managers. They have to act on information quickly, so that was the in-season manager's decision to close that fishery during those times.

And it apparently had a good effect because for the first time in recent years we reached the treaty's escapement goal into Canada. But we learned the counts may have been estimated low because of improper counting techniques, and you don't know that until it's all over.

They try to make the best decisions they can at the moment. One of our overriding goals is to protect resources as well as subsistence users.

Do you think the subsistence program should be reviewed?

As chair, I welcome a review. I think that a review is a good opportunity to look inside the process and see if it meets the legislative mandate it was given. And to see if it's helping the people it was meant to provide for. I think every government program should be under periodic review.

After three years on this board under my leadership we've made a lot of changes, and many were handed down from on high. But on the ground level, the changes were improvements to the process.

We see more respect for participants in the process and no net loss to subsistence users on the ground level.

That's a complaint I've heard, that somehow subsistence users are losing out on opportunities with the current board. If we reviewed all the transcripts of all the meetings, we'll find the board is doing a good job of passing those regulations that offer a meaningful preference in areas where it can.

What improvements would you make to the system?

If we could procure funding to return to an annual cycle, that would definitely be an improvement.

If the federal subsistence board were comprised of private citizens as opposed to public servants, I could definitely support that and be able to work with that. I'm not saying I'm endorsing that, but there are things like that that may have some benefit.

Alex DeMarban can be reached at alex@alaskanewspapers.com, or by phone at 907-348-2444 or 800-770-9830, ext. 444

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Federal subsistence chair addresses criticism