Natural Resources Research Center
Remarks
                               by
                 Deputy Secretary Rich Rominger
        Dedication of Natural Resources Research Center
            Fort Collins, Colorado   April 28, 2000

     "Thanks very much, Denver. This is a great day, and a great celebration
and I'm honored to be part of it. In the past seven years, I've had the good
fortune to participate in the dedication of several state-of-the-art research
facilities. But I can tell you that it isn't often that a research center is
also an Interior and USDA Reinvention Lab ... that its Planning Team was a
Hammer Award recipient ... that it's a model of partnership and down-to-earth
cost-savings and well-planned service to the American people.
     
     "That's a tremendous achievement. 

     There are many, many people and organizations whose support stands
behind  the Center. Senator Wayne Allard has been committed to this facility
for the past decade, since its  early concept days. Senator Ben Nighthorse
Campbell and Congressman Bob Schaffer have long been supporters. And I want to
say to Dr. Yates  ... Secretary Glickman and I appreciate the solid, constant
partnership of Colorado State University.
     
     "A special word of thanks to Station Director Denver Burns ... Project
Manager Wilbert Boyd . Chair of the Steering Committee Robert Smith, and their
many colleagues. Denver, Wilbert and Robert have been our point people, our
contacts with CSU,  industry, agencies, architects, engineers. You name it.
They're literally spearheading every aspect of this enormous undertaking.
     
     " While they're involved with cost savings, timelines, square footage,
and 
co-locations, they've also got their eye on the big picture. As Denver has
said, "The Center is the culmination of the dreams and hard work by federal
employees in Fort Collins to improve our service to the citizens of the United
States."
      
     "First and foremost, that service is about building on our capacities to
meet the needs of the 21st century. I've had the chance to view those
capacities from two different angles in the past few weeks.
     
     "On Wednesday, I was in New York for a meeting of the United Nations
Commission on Sustainable Development. We talked there about integrated
planning and managing land resources as time-tested routes to economic and
environmental sustainability. We discussed U.S. goals for sustainable
agriculture and rural development, and how these depend directly on research
that we provide. Investments in international agricultural research systems,
working with U.S. land grant universities, have meant greater productivity,
plus benefits that come in all kinds of forms   preserving land, protecting
biodiversity, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions as a result of 
improvements in yield technologies. It was stressed that the bedrock of
progress is collaboration, cooperation, and partnerships. And it was
emphasized that rapid technological advance plays a big role. New technologies
make possible a global data-sharing network on environmental developments and
the sustainable use of our resources.
     
     "Moving from a global view of sustainability to the power of one farm to
make a difference, two weeks ago I participated in a great Earth Day event on
a small farm in Maryland. The event celebrated the land. It celebrated
conservation, and demonstrated what one farm family could do to bring a full
range of conservation practices into their day-to-day farm management.  If we
are to sustain our land base and our resources for the health and betterment
of future generations, then we must make stewardship everyone's business.
      
     "That same future is what this Center is all about. It will expand on
the long record of responsibility and achievement by all its partners. In the
process, it will offer solutions to complicated challenges: Can we feed a
growing world? Can we achieve world food security? And can we do it while
preserving and protecting the world's natural resource base?
       
     "By bringing together the best of the best   the research resources of
the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture, partnered with the strength
of Colorado State   the NRRC offers world-class research applied to real
problems. There are no real limits here. This research has every capacity to
tackle issues that are regional, national, and global. Speaking for USDA, by
co-locating seven USDA agencies, this facility will provide one-stop shopping
for services that range from monitoring agricultural diseases and pests ... to
operating and conservation loans ... to sustaining the nation's forests,
public, and private lands ... to basic research. 
     
     "This Administration feels strongly that what's important as we approach
the next century is what government does outside traditional farm programs.
Investment in infrastructure   research and conservation   will give farmers,
ranchers, and landowners the foundation they need to prosper and compete in
the global market. They'll need to lean on a constantly-improving science and
research base to keep agriculture sustainable and meet increasing demands for
food and fiber.      
     
     "But what's happening here goes well beyond science.  It's a marriage of
research and the technology that will move that research and information to
the field, to the farm, the watershed, to  those who can use it to do the most
good. 
     
     "This Center also represents a rethinking of the way government does
business. It doesn't get any more basic   or more important   than that. In
the process, this user-friendly approach casts government into a whole new
light in the eyes of the American public. That's something we don't want to
underestimate.
     
     "The Hammer Award presented by Vice President Gore in 1994 to the Center
Planning Team was about things we can measure in money and time. But there's a
lot more going on here that we can't measure. There's a bigger picture about
things like trust and confidence   in the way government does business and
spends taxpayer dollars, and in the way the nation views federal employees.    
     
     "And finally, and most important, this Center is about a partnership
we're very proud of. It's a government-university commitment to science and
technology that's critical to agriculture's progress. The excellent working
relationship with CSU is a source of strength to our mission and our future. 
Dr. Yates has called the students and faculty at the University "the real
winners" in having this high-quality research facility to augment their
educations. In truth, Dr. Yates, I believe that the American public comes out
on top from this partnership -- and we look forward to everything that will be
accomplished here.

"Thank you".