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1 1 2 3 4 5 PUBLIC HEARING 6 NORTHWESTERN HAWAIIAN ISLANDS CORAL REEF RESERVE 7 8 9 HELD AT 10 ALA MOANA HOTEL 11 GARDEN LANAI 12 410 ATKINSON DRIVE 13 HONOLULU, HAWAII 14 15 16 ON DECEMBER 11, 2000 17 6:00 p.m. 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 RALPH ROSENBERG COURT REPORTERS, INC. (808) 524-2090 2 1 MODERATORS: 2 PETER ADLER 3 KEM LOWRY 4 5 REPRESENTATIVES FROM DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE: 6 MICHAEL WEISS 7 ROBERT SMITH 8 DOLORES CLARK 9 10 REPRESENTATIVES FROM DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR: 11 JERRY LANIKEY 12 DAVID JOHNSON 13 BARBARA MAXFIELD 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 RALPH ROSENBERG COURT REPORTERS, INC. (808) 524-2090 3 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 MR. PETER ADLER: My name is Peter Adler. 3 I want to wish you aloha and welcome to the first 4 of six meetings that are being held in Hawaii this 5 week regarding President Clinton's December 4th 6 Executive Order establishing the Northwestern 7 Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve. I 8 recognize lots of familiar faces from the public 9 visioning sessions we held some months ago. 10 This is a different sort of a session. 11 This is on the record tonight. We have a court 12 reporter here, Pat Rivera, who is going to be 13 taking your comments, and I'm going to take a few 14 minutes and walk you through the procedures that we 15 are going to be having tonight and a little bit of 16 the background. And then Kem Lowry, my colleague, 17 is also going to give you some substantive 18 background and summarize a few pieces of the 19 Federal Register -- summarizing some of the Federal 20 Register information which you should have seen and 21 then we will get into the process of taking your 22 comments. 23 These hearings are being conducted on 24 behalf of President Clinton, who has requested 25 comments on the conservation measures for the RALPH ROSENBERG COURT REPORTERS, INC. (808) 524-2090 4 1 reserve and on his proposal to make the reserve 2 preservation areas permanent. 3 The Department of Commerce will be 4 pulling together all the comments received by 5 January 8, 2001 from the hearings and from by 6 e-mail or fax and mail, and all those are going to 7 be transmitted to the executive office of the 8 President. The White House will then review them 9 and make a decision on any further action. 10 Now, this particular meeting is being 11 organized by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 12 Administration, NOAA, which is part of the U.S. 13 Department of Commerce, so it is under their 14 auspices that we're holding this meeting and this 15 meeting tonight. 16 We have present with us a number of 17 representatives from the Department of Commerce and 18 the Department of Interior, and I would like them 19 to actually introduce themselves and identify 20 themselves so later on you will also have a chance 21 to meet with them and talk with them privately, if 22 you'd like, during the later part of the meeting 23 after we break up. 24 So, Michael, if you would begin. 25 MR. MICHAEL WEISS: Good evening and RALPH ROSENBERG COURT REPORTERS, INC. (808) 524-2090 5 1 aloha. My name is Michael Weiss, and I'm with 2 NOAA. I'm the NOAA agency representative to be 3 White House Council on Environmental Quality, and I 4 glad to be here tonight and be able to hear your 5 comments on the Executive Order. 6 MR. ADLER: And we also have Robert 7 Smith. 8 MR. ROBERT SMITH: Hi, I am Robert Smith. 9 I'm the Acting Reserve Coordinator for the 10 President's new marine reserve. 11 MR. ADLER: Could I ask some of the other 12 representatives from -- who else is here from the 13 Department of Commerce? If you would raise your 14 hands. We have Dolores Clark at the registration 15 table signing you in to give testimony. 16 How about Department of Interior. We 17 have some people. I saw a few people here. Okay, 18 they are sitting over there. And why don't you 19 quickly introduce yourselves. It is going to be 20 hard to hear. 21 Jerry Lanikey from Fish and Wildlife. 22 David Johnson from -- also from Refuges. And 23 Barbara Maxfield, also from Fish and Wildlife. 24 So we have a number of people from 25 agencies here tonight. We also have, I know, State RALPH ROSENBERG COURT REPORTERS, INC. (808) 524-2090 6 1 Department of Land and Natural Resources, and they 2 are in the room as well. And we also have WESPAC. 3 We have plenty of agency people here tonight. 4 Now, again, in a few minutes Kem is going 5 to be kind of covering some of the critical 6 information off of the Federal Registration 7 announcement that brought us here. But I want to 8 first explain our procedure so that everybody 9 understands what we are doing tonight. 10 The first thing is if you have very 11 specific written testimony that you want to submit 12 tonight, we are happy to accept it and we will make 13 sure that it gets forwarded to the Department of 14 Commerce after this hearing. 15 There are also comment forms you also 16 picked up material at the registration table that 17 has Mr. Roger Griffis' address and his fax number 18 and you can send those materials to him yourself if 19 you prefer. You also have in those materials the 20 web site address to access more information on the 21 matters that we are here. 22 Again, it is very important that your 23 comments be received no later than January 8, 2001, 24 if they are to be considered. 25 We have asked you when you -- those who RALPH ROSENBERG COURT REPORTERS, INC. (808) 524-2090 7 1 want to testify to sign in and we have the sign-in 2 sheets that we are going to be taking the testimony 3 in the order in which people signed up, with a few 4 exceptions. We have a few people in the room that 5 we really want to make sure get heard early on so 6 they can go on to other meetings. These are mostly 7 kahunas and people who have been on these issues 8 for a very long time, so we are going to kind of 9 respect that. But for the most part, we are going 10 to try and track with the order that you signed in 11 on. 12 Now, we're going to ask everybody here 13 the limit your comments to three minutes. We know 14 that many people in the room have much more to say, 15 and if you do, you're most welcome to go back and 16 sign in again. If we have the time, we will do a 17 second round and even a third round. Our 18 commitment is that we will stay here until 19 everybody has had a chance to have their say. 20 But we are going to really ask everybody 21 to respect a three-minute time limit or else we 22 won't get done. We simply won't get done and 23 people won't have a chance. So if somebody takes 24 20 minutes at the front, it means that everybody 25 else is going to have to wait. So we are going to RALPH ROSENBERG COURT REPORTERS, INC. (808) 524-2090 8 1 be pretty tough on asking you to honor that 2 three-minute time limit. 3 When we speak -- when you speak we 4 encourage you to go right to the heart of your 5 comments on the two key topics President Clinton 6 has asked for public comments on. And those are 7 making the reserve preservation areas permanent and 8 conservation measures for the reserve. We will say 9 a little bit more about that in just a minute. 10 Now, we're going to try to conclude our 11 meeting by 9 o'clock and leave a little bit of time 12 for folks to talk informally afterwards. But, 13 again, we are going to rely on your help with that 14 in honoring the limits. 15 We know that people come to a meeting 16 like this with very strong views. Many people are 17 concerned about environmental preservation matters, 18 others are concerned about fishing and commercial 19 issues, some are concerned about native Hawaiian 20 rights. And many come to these meetings concerned 21 about all three. 22 So I'm going to ask you a little bit of 23 help above and beyond the formalities of the 24 three-minute time limit. And the first one is that 25 everybody's view are welcome and on the record RALPH ROSENBERG COURT REPORTERS, INC. (808) 524-2090 9 1 tonight, so we are going to get them all for the 2 court reporter, and so nobody has to feel like you 3 are going to be pressured to not participate. We 4 welcome that. 5 The second thing is I really want to ask 6 us to respect differences of opinion.