CONTENTS      

                                                                                          

 

Chapter 1-Executive Summary

Chapter 2-The Initial Days of the Acts in Concert

Chapter 3-Keeping the Concerted Activity Secret

Chapter 4-Concerted Activity Unravelling

Chapter 5-Brushing Aside Lorraine Mintzmyer

Appendix A-Subcommittee Documents

     Documents 1-99        (in Adobe Acrobat PDF Format)

     Documents 100-178  (in Adobe Acrobat PDF Format)

     Documents 179-end  (in Adobe Acrobat PDF Format)

Appendix B-Subcommittee Correspondence

     1st Half of Committee Corres. (in Acrobat PDF Format)

     2nd Half of Committee Corres. (in Acrobat PDF Format)

 

[Note: Original Report Images in PDF]

 

  __________________________________________________________V_________________________________________________________

 

INTERFERENCE IN ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAMS

BY POLITICAL APPOINTEES:

THE IMPROPER TREATMENT

OF A SENIOR EXECUTIVE SERVICE OFFICIAL

 

 

CHAPTER 1 - EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

 

On September 24, 1991, the Subcommittee on the Civil Service, Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, held a hearing regarding alleged improprieties in the directed reassignments of two high-ranking career Senior Executive Service (SES) level civil servants, Ms. Lorraine Mintzmyer (National Park Service, Department of Interior) and Mr. John Mumma (Forest Service, Department of Agriculture).[ [1] ]  That hearing was the first step in the Subcommittee's investigation to determine whether the directed reassignments of these two SES individuals were contrary to law or warranted additional legislative action by the Subcommittee.

At the time she was reassigned, Ms. Mintzmyer was the first and only woman to serve as a National Park Service (NPS) regional director and the most decorated female employee in its history. Mr. Mumma was the first and only wildlife biologist to become a Forest Service regional forester. The Subcommittee had received information that both individuals were subjected to strong political and special interest pressures to deviate from environmental laws and guidelines. When they refused to give in, Ms. Mintzmyer and Mr. Mumma received directed reassignments which substantially altered and effectively crippled their careers, harmed their families, and led them both into accepting forced retirements in the ensuing year.

The Subcommittee viewed those allegations with the utmost seriousness and concern, launching a bipartisan investigation in September of 1991. In the past fifteen months, the Subcommittee has interviewed more than 45 witnesses and reviewed over 6,000 documents in connection with this investigation. In addition, the Subcommittee has identified significant missing documents [ [2] ] and evidence that the Department of Interior (DOI) has failed to provide. This staff report transmits the results of the Subcommittees investigation to date into alleged improprieties in the directed reassignment of Ms. Mintzmyer.

Ms. Mintzmyer's account of her directed reassignment centered around the wholly political revision of a joint National Park Service and Forest Service environmental document, referred to as the "Vision document." The preparation of this document was inspired by Congress, and Congress directed that the document should facilitate protecting the Greater Yellowstone Area's ecosystem by developing coordination guidelines between the National Park Service and the Forest Service. This document was intended as a prototype for protecting the National Parks from the Federal government misusing the public lands surrounding the parks.

The Subcommittee's investigation has revealed an improper concerted activity by powerful commodity [ [3] ] and special interest groups and the Bush Administration to eviscerate the DRAFT [ [4] ] Vision document because the commodity and special interest groups perceived it as a threat. The Department of Interior and special interest groups first destroyed the sixty page scientific document, turning it into a ten page "brochure." They then developed a story that would explain the revisions and keep their actions a secret. Finally, to protect their acts and in apparent retaliation against Ms. Mintzmyer, the Department of Interior effectuated a directed reassignment which moved Ms. Mintzmyer out of the Rocky Mountain Region and away from the Vision document process.

The plan to revise the DRAFT Vision document began to unravel, however, when the Subcommittee launched its investigation into the matter. The Department of Interior's explanation for the events leading up to the revision of the DRAFT Vision document are contradictory and unsubstantiated. Further, Ms. Mintzmyer was subjected to retaliatory acts after she was transferred to the Mid-Atlantic region, thus weakening the Department's position.

 

The Subcommittee's Conclusions

The Subcommittee concludes that the Department of Interior engaged in a politically motivated, underhanded operation to destroy the DRAFT Vision document because it was unacceptable to powerful and mooned commodity and special interest groups. This operation resulted in the improper directed reassignment and subsequent retaliation against Ms. Mintzmyer. The Subcommittee's conclusions are substantiated by the following evidence:

• An unusual, closed meeting was held on October 4, 1990, between high-ranking Department of Interior and Agriculture officials, a western U.S. Congressional delegation, and commodity and special interest groups. The sole purpose of this undocumented meeting appears to have been to deal with the DRAFT Vision document. (Chapter 2, 3 and 4)

• Mr. S. Scott Sewell, then Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks at the Department of Interior, effectuated the destruction of the DRAFT Vision document by revising and taking control of the DRAFT document in October of 1990 at the behest of John Sununu, former Chief of Staff for the White House. (Chapter 2 and 4)

• At the Department of Interior, Mr. Sewell and his staff revised the DRAFT Vision document outside of the public review process to accommodate special interest requests during the fall and winter of 1990, despite Mr. Sewell's denial, under oath, of revising or even reviewing the DRAFT document prior to June 1991. (Chapters 2, 3, and 4)

• Mr. Sewell tried to complete the operation by further neutralizing Ms. Mintzmyer in February of 1991 by demanding she be reprimanded for allegedly lobbying the U.S. Congress. His intent appears to have been to silence her or provide a basis for her directed reassignment. (Chapters 2 and 4)

• Following the false lobbying charge against Ms. Mintzmyer, the Department developed an explanation for how the DRAFT Vision document went from a sixty page scientific document to a ten page "brochure" and why the original drafting process for the DRAFT document was altered. They accomplished this by utilizing the following tactics: 1) closing previously planned national hearings to avoid anticipated positive public comment; 2) assisting outside groups to "rig' the appearance of negative public opinion at a few, select, local public meetings; 3) maneuvering the scientific interdisciplinary team, who had originally been responsible for drafting the document, out of the revision process; and 4) using the manufactured, negative, public comment to explain why the special interest revisions were necessary. (Chapter 3)

 

Glaring Inconsistencies in the Department's Story

The inconsistencies in the Department's story were revealed on a number of fronts:

The participants at the October 4, 1990 meeting gave several contradictory explanations for the purpose of the meeting and could not substantiate those explanations with any documents. (Chapter 3 and 4)

Mr. Sewell originally denied, under oath, that he and his office revised the DRAFT Vision document. Document # 122, written by Mr. Sewell's staffer, directly contradicted that assertion by stating that Mr. Sewell's office was revising the DRAFT Vision document in line with special interest desires and Mr. Sewell was personally reviewing those changes. (Chapter 4)

Well after document # 122 was brought to his attention, Mr. Sewell changed his story in an unsworn statement and asserted that he had instead formed a "working group" in his office to review the DRAFT document, not to revise it. However, Mr. Sewell and members of the working group gave four separate, conflicting accounts of the group's mission. (Chapter 4)

The baseless attack on Ms. Mintzmyer for illegally lobbying Congress evaporated when Ms. Mintzmyer challenged the lobbying charge and the charge then disappeared. (Chapter 4)

The numerous shifting reasons for Ms. Mintzmyer's directed reassignment and the fact that Ms. Mintzmyer had announced her plans for retirement prior to her directed reassignment crippled the effectiveness of the Department's reasons for her transfer. (Chapter 5)

After the directed reassignment, the Department further retaliated against Ms. Mintzmyer by denying her a bonus and an SES step increase. Additionally, her subordinates in the Mid-Atlantic region were denied promotions and similar benefits and falsely told that Ms. Mintzmyer was to blame for them not receiving those benefits. (Chapter 5)

 

CHAPTER 2-THE INITIAL DAYS OF THE ACTS IN CONCERT

Genesis of the Vision Document

The Yellowstone Vision document story began in the fall of 1985 when the House Subcommittee on Public Lands and National Parks and Recreation held a joint subcommittee hearing on the Greater Yellowstone Area (GYA). As a result of that hearing, the National Park Service and the Forest Service were directed to produce a document that 1) studied the present conditions of the greater Yellowstone area, 2) developed goals to protect the ecosystem of the GYA, and 3) formalized coordinating principles between the Forest Service, the National Park Service, and other federal agencies to provide protection of the Yellowstone area for future generations. An interagency document, "A Framework for Coordination of National Parks and National Forests in the Greater Yellowstone Area," commonly referred to as the "Vision document," was the product of this multi-agency project.

The Vision document project was coordinated through the Greater Yellowstone Coordinating Committee (GYCC). The GYCC was created in the early 1960s and was comprised of National Park Service and Forest Service managers.[ [5] ]

In her capacity as Regional Director for the National Park Service for the Rocky Mountain Region, Ms. Lorraine Mintzmyer was assigned to the position of co-chair of the GYCC and was to oversee the development of the Vision document, along with her counterpart in the Forest Service, Mr. Gary Cargill, then the former Regional Forester, Region 2.

To facilitate the development and coordination of the Vision document, in 1988 a joint GYCC project office was opened in Billings, Montana. Each agency named a team leader for the Billings office who had the daily responsibility for running the office and guiding a team of scientific professionals from the Forest Service and the National Park Service in their development of the Vision document. This group of scientific professionals was referred to as the interdisciplinary, or "ID," team. Ms. Sandra Key was the team leader for the National Park Service and her counterpart in the Forest Service was Mr. Jack Troyer.

The ID team was first tasked with the project of developing a set of goals for preserving and managing Yellowstone's ecosystem. Once those goals were developed and released in December 1989, the public was invited to comment on them. The GYCC received 590 letters and 4,850 specific comments on the proposed goals. The ID team then used that public comment to revise the goals in March through July of 1990 and those revised goals became the foundation of the Vision document.

A 60 page DRAFT of the Vision document, entitled "Vision for the Future: A Framework for the Coordination in the Greater Yellowstone Area," was released on August 14, 1990 for public response.

 

The Acts in Concert

After the release of the DRAFT Vision document, an operation to eviscerate the DRAFT document began to take shape. On August 22, 1990, members of a western U.S. Congressional delegation wrote to Secretary Lujan requesting a meeting with him to discuss their concerns regarding the DRAFT Vision document.[ [6] ]

While the Subcommittee has not been able to determine if a meeting between Secretary Lujan and the U.S. Congressional delegation occurred, on October 4, 1990, a meeting did take place between high-ranking representatives of the Departments of Interior and Agriculture, U.S. Senators and Representatives, and members of various commodity and special interest groups. According to witnesses, the following individuals attended: then Deputy Principal Assistant Secretary Scott Sewell, Department of Interior, then Assistant Secretary Moseley, Department of Agriculture, Mr. Jack Morehead, Associate Director for Park Operations, NPS, Mr. Cy Jamison, Director of the Bureau of Land Management, Mr. T.S. Ary, Director of the Bureau of Mines, Mr. George Leonard, Associate Chief of the Forest Service, Mr. Gary Cargill, Regional Forester for the Forest Service, Senator Simpson, Senator Wallop, Rep. Thomas, an aide to Senator Simpson, an aide to Representative Thomas, Ms. Carolyn Paseneaux, Wyoming Woolgrowers Association, Mr. Dave Flinter, Wyoming Farm Bureau, and Mr. Warren Martin, Wyoming Heritage Society.[ [7] ]

On the day immediately following the October 4, 1990 meeting, Ms. Mintzmyer, who was also in Washington, D.C. at the time, was summoned to the office of Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, S. Scott g well. During this meeting, Mr. Sewell began to effectuate the destruction of the DRAFT Vision document. In sworn testimony before the Subcommittee, Ms. Mintzmyer stated the following:

[I] sat across from Mr. Sewell with my notebook and some other papers on my lap. He began a lecture on the fact that significant political contacts and pressures had been made to the White House and the Secretary regarding the Vision document by political delegations. He then stated that Mr. Sununu had personally spoken to him about this issue. He stated that Mr. Sununu told him that, from a political perspective, the existing draft of the Vision document was a disaster and must be rewritten ....

 

Mr. Sewell made it clear that he had been delegated by the Department to retain the appearance that the document was the product of professional and scientific efforts by the agency involved but the reality would be that the document would be revised based on these political concerns, some of which he shared with me at the time. He also made it very clear that he was upset with me personally because of the draft and that he had, therefore, taken over control of the writing and content of that document. He was emphatic as to that point, stating that I should proceed but that it was he who would ultimately control and revise all contents.[ [8] ] (Emphasis added.)

 

After Ms. Mintzmyer was told that the DRAFT Vision document was a political disaster and was to be "politically" redrafted, the DRAFT document ceased to be an internal National Park Service and Forest Service project. The Department of Interior acted after the October 4 meeting to revise the DRAFT Vision document to meet the needs of commodity and special interest groups. Circumstantial evidence also suggests that the Department of Agriculture (USDA) was involved in the operation. According to evidence the Subcommittee has obtained, Mr. Scott Sewell, DOI, was the principal force behind the activities to destroy the DRAFT Vision document.

Immediately thereafter, during the week of October 14, 1990, Mr. Barry Davis, Supervisor of the Shoshone National Forest, and Mr. Brian Stout, Supervisor of the Bridger-Teton National Forest, met with several commodity and special interest groups hostile to the DRAFT Vision document and other individuals to discuss the DRAFT document. In a December 4, 1990 memo, the results of the meetings with the various commodity and special interest groups and individuals were relayed to the GYCC. These solicitations were peculiar because they began just ten days after the October 4, 1990 meeting and opinions from these groups and individuals were suddenly and inexplicably gathered outside of the process set forth in the Federal Register [ [9] ] for obtaining public comment.

The Department of Interior moved further into the operation on October 23, 1990 when Mr. Sewell began his firsthand alteration of the DRAFT Vision document by directing Ms. Mary Bradford, his subordinate, to go through the DRAFT document and focus on the tone of the document and Department of Interior issues.[ [10] ] On October 25, 1990, staffers for Mr. Sewell-Ms. Bradford, Mr. Jim Loach, Mr. Joe Doddridge, and Ms. Meredith Kimbro--were directed to "[b]egin review of YELL-Vision document...." [ [11] ] This review continued through the month of October and into November of 1990. [ [12] ]

Once Mr. Sewell's staffers were through with their preliminary revisions, they passed a briefing copy of their efforts on to Ms. Constance Harriman, then Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, DOI. Ms. Bradford wrote in a November 14, 1990 revised Vision document transmittal memo [ [13] ] to Ms. Harriman that "Loach, Kimbro, Doddridge and I met to incorporate comments received so far, and in response to Scott's meeting with Senators Simpson, Wallop and commodities groups." Ms. Bradford's transmittal memo specifically noted that "Scott is now reviewing this." The transmittal memo also stated that the USDA/Forest Service was pursuing concurrent review of the DRAFT document. Thus, changes were definitely being made pursuant to Mr. Sewell's input from special interests.

Pressure to change the DRAFT Vision document also was felt by the Department of Agriculture: On December 10, 1990, a U.S. Senator sent a letter to Assistant Secretary Moseley (DOA) thanking him for his time at the October 4, 1990 meeting. In his letter, the Senator cautioned Mr. Moseley to give his full personal attention and review to the DRAFT Vision document before it became final. [ [14] ] 

On January 31, 1991 the joint coordination between the Departments of Interior and Agriculture for watering down the DRAFT Vision document was cemented when Deputy Assistant Secretary Beuter (USDA) and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Sewell (DOI) met for a one-on-one meeting to discuss the DRAFT Vision document. Mr. Sewell set up the meeting originally with Assistant Secretary Moseley, but Mr. Moseley did not attend. Instead, Deputy Assistant Secretary Beuter acted for USDA on this issue. [ [15] ]

The next day, on February 1, 1991, a meeting of the managers of the GYCC in Billings, Montana concluded the active concerted action-knowingly or perhaps unknowingly. At this meeting, Forest Supervisor Brian Stout unexpectedly presented a previously unseen 15 page revised DRAFT Vision document for the managers to consider. This rewrite became the basis of the managers' subsequent rewrite of the DRAFT Vision document, despite the fact that the public comment period had not yet closed and that the ID team was originally tasked with the responsibility for rewriting the DRAFT document after the public comment period had concluded.[ [16] ] Thus, Mr. Stout's draft appeared out of nowhere-public comment was not incorporated into the Stout draft and the professional scientific ID team was cut out of the rewrite process. It is also unexplained why a single employee's draft replaced several years of prior effort by a group of employees specifically chosen for the task.

On February 11, 1991, Assistant Secretary Moseley sent a letter to Senator Simpson indicating that he would review the DRAFT Vision document prior to the final publication.[ [17] ] Mr. Moseley assured Senator Simpson that the entire DRAFT Vision document process was sensitive and that he would give the effort his personal attention.

Mr. Sewell continued his behind the scenes influence over the DRAFT Vision document at the Department of Interior well into 1991. Document #78 indicates that Sewell made changes to the draft Vision document personally as late as March 20, 1991.

Mr. Sewell attempted to complete the objective of the concerted action when he demanded on March 21, 1991, that Ms. Mintzmyer be reprimanded for illegally lobbying Members of Congress. Ms. Mintzmyer defended herself against this charge in a memo to the Director of the National Park Service. Mr. Sewell's efforts failed, however. Neither the Department of Interior nor the National Park Service ever responded to her memo nor was she disciplined for this alleged activity.

Thus, the operation pursued the following course:

1. An unusual meeting on October 4, 1990 between high-ranking Department of Interior and Agriculture officials, a western U.S. Congressional delegation, and commodity and special interest groups occurred to deal with the DRAFT Vision document.

2. Mr. Scott Sewell, then Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks at the Department of Interior, effectuated the destruction of the DRAFT Vision document by revising and taking control of the DRAFT document in October of 1990 and by suppressing Ms. Mintzmyer's participation on October 5, 1990.

3. The Forest Service skirted the process for gathering public comment delineated in a November 22, 1989 Federal Register notice by soliciting comments from commodity and special interest groups outside of the officially scheduled public meetings.

4. At the Department of Interior, Mr. Sewell and his staff revised the DRAFT Vision document during the fall and winter of 1990.

5. The DRAFT document was effectively politically rewritten when Mr. Brian Stout, Forest Supervisor for the Bridger-Teton National Forest, unexpectedly produced a greatly reduced, 15 page revised DRAFT Vision document at the February 1, 1991 GYCC meeting.

6. Mr. Sewell continued to revise the DRAFT Vision document as late as March 20, 1991.

7. Finally, Mr. Sewell tried to achieve the objectives of the concerted action by demanding that on March 21, 1991 Ms. Mintzmyer be reprimanded for allegedly lobbying Congress. That charge was never substantiated and no action was taken after Ms. Mintzmyer contested it.

 

CHAPTER 3-KEEPING THE CONCERTED ACTIVITY SECRET

The next phase of the operation to revise the DRAFT Vision document centered on obscuring the fact that an improper concerted action was forcing changes to the DRAFT document. The Department of Interior was faced with the challenge of explaining how the DRAFT Vision document went from a sixty page scientific document down to a ten page "brochure." The Department, in concert with others, needed to develop a plausible reason for explaining why radical changes in content were occurring and why the original drafting process was being altered. They accomplished these goals by utilizing the following tactics: 1) closing previously planned national hearings to avoid anticipated positive public comment; 2) employing outside groups to "rig" the appearance of negative public opinion at a few, select, local public meetings; 3) maneuvering the scientific interdisciplinary team out of the revision process, and 4) using the manufactured, negative, public comment to explain why the revisions were allegedly necessary.

Thus, in this phase opponents of the DRAFT document needed to be able to argue that it was negative public comment that required and explained their changes to the DRAFT Vision document. Influencing the public comment, however, was not an easy task because the National Park Service had designed an explicit process for soliciting balanced public comment on the DRAFT document.

In the Federal Register on November 22, 1989, the National Park Service published a formal process that the Forest Service and the National Park Service would follow for gathering public comment on the DRAFT Vision document.[ [18] ] According to the notice in the Federal Register, obtaining and incorporating the public's comment into the Vision document was expected in all of the DRAFT document's developmental phases. This was evident in the first phase of the document.

 

Developing the Vision Document

In preparing the Vision document, a series of preliminary goals for managing the greater Yellowstone area's ecosystem were developed by the ID team and those goals were used as the basis for the DRAFT Vision document. Before these goals were formalized, however, agencies, organizations, and other interested parties were invited to comment.[ [19] ] A significant level of comment was received.

Once public input was received on the preliminary goals, that input was incorporated into the preliminary goals by the ID team. The ID team synthesized the results and created a draft goal booklet-the precursor to the DRAFT Vision document. The public was then asked to comment on the draft goal booklet in a second round of public discussion using a more structured public participation process. After this public comment was received, the GYCC continued to work with interested parties where differences existed as to the content of the goal booklet. Where resolution was not possible, the agencies decided how to resolve the conflicts.

Due to overwhelming response, obtaining the public's thoughts on the goal booklet was successful in the steps prior to the release of DRAFT Vision document. The GYCC received 590 letters and 4,850 specific comments on the goal booklet.[ [20] ] The majority of these comments were favorable.[ [21] ]

After this extensive public comment was incorporated into the goal booklet, the ID team used this booklet as the basis for preparing the first DRAFT of the Vision document, which was released on July 17, 1990. The DRAFT Vision document emphasized a sense of naturalness and maintenance of the integrity of the GYA's ecosystem. A term used for this concept was ' biodiversity." This emphasis was derived from scientific studies [ [22] ] and an analysis of the public's comments received on the draft goal booklet. The release of the DRAFT Vision document also marked the beginning of the third and final round of public comment.[ [23] ]

Once the DRAFT Vision document was released, the National Park Service and Forest Service managers of the GYCC met August 13 and 14, 1990 to discuss the process for incorporating the public's comment into the DRAFT document. The managers decided that comment would be acquired through letters and workshops and that after the final round of public comment was completed, the ID team would interpret and incorporate that comment into the initial draft of the final Vision document. Once the ID team had completed its task of incorporating the public's comments, the GYCC managers would then review the document and finish the final edits.[ [24] ]

 

Gathering Public Comment

To seek actual public comment on the DRAFT Vision document--within the confines of the notice published in the Federal Register-a series of eight GYCC public comment workshops were scheduled within the states of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho and several national workshops were scheduled in major cities. The sessions were developed around a workshop format, which split participants into small groups and each group met with a member of the GYCC to discuss their concerns and comments. This format was chosen because it provided an opportunity for the GYCC to get in depth comments from the public on the DRAFT Vision document and it gave the National Park Service and the Forest Service an opportunity to explain the various initiatives contained in the DRAFT document.

Using a hearing format as an additional method for gathering public comment was specifically rejected by the GYCC at that time. The GYCC felt this was an undesirable option because hearings would not give every person the opportunity to speak fully, the hearing format would be too formal, and the hearings might become a vehicle for groups in favor of and opposed to the Vision document to "grandstand."

 

Acts by the Participants in the Concerted Activity

The GYCC's extensive plans for gathering public comment and revising the DRAFT Vision document quickly unraveled when those plans conflicted with the operation to alter the DRAFT Vision document. It appears the operation originated in the period from August to October of 1990. During this period, three events occurred. First, the Department of Interior and others decided that the DRAFT document was unacceptable due to pressure from commodity groups. Second, changes to the document began to take place outside of the normal revision process. Third, DOI and others devised a plan to explain these revisions by attributing them to artificially produced negative public comment on the DRAFT Vision document. To rely on this negative public comment as the explanation for the extensive changes in the DRAFT document, a plan that involved several simultaneous efforts was launched.

 

The Concerted Activity Unfolding

This plan appears to have been precipitated by a letter [ [25] ] from Mr. David Rovig, President of Crown Butte Mining, to Secretary Lujan on August 3, 1990.[ [26] ] In the letter, Mr. Rovig requested that Secretary Lujan delay the release of the DRAFT Vision document.

Mr. Rovig's letter did not languish within the Department of Interior. The letter received the immediate attention of the Deputy Principal Assistant Secretary for Fish Wildlife and Parks, Scott Sewell. Further, the DOI response was expedited, requiring an answer within four days of receipt of the letter.[ [27] ] The Department's attention to the mining interest's displeasure with the DRAFT Vision document was indicative of the Department's willingness to accommodate commodity and special interest groups' concerns regarding the DRAFT Vision document.

A western U.S. Congressional delegation also expressed concern about the DRAFT document. On August 22, 1990, the delegation sent a letter to Secretary Lujan expressing their view that the DRAFT document "[m]ay be quite disruptive to communities and private landowners in the Greater Yellowstone area." [ [28] ] The letter also sought a personal meeting between the Secretary and the Wyoming Congressional delegation.

Again, the Department's response was noteworthy. The Congressional delegation's letter received the personal attention of the Assistant Secretary for Fish Wildlife and Parks and her Principal Deputy. In addition, that letter was important enough to have been included in a briefing book for Secretary Lujan.[ [29] ]

On September 10, 1990, the first attempt to pressure the public comment process occurred when the western Congressional delegation sent Ms. Mintzmyer a letter requesting that the public comment period for the DRAFT Vision document be extended to January 1991.[ [30] ] The delegation suddenly wanted the public comment period lengthened to ensure a more thorough review even though extensive public comment on the precursor to the DRAFT Vision document, the goals and the goal booklet, had already been through at least a six month public comment process. Extending the public comment period also provided the DRAFT Vision document's opponents more time to mobilize their forces.

October 4, 1990 marked a critical day in the rewrite of the DRAFT Vision document. A number of the participants in the concerted activity were present on October 4, 1990 in Washington, D.C. to discuss potential changes to the DRAFT Vision document. These changes were aimed at making the DRAFT document conform to the desires of the commodity and special interest groups. Several characteristics of this meeting indicate that a concerted activity was in progress.

First, the meeting was scheduled in a decidedly nonpublic. The representatives from the commodity and special interest groups were primarily located in the western part of the United States, not Washington, D.C. Even though this meeting was held in Washington, D.C., the Subcommittee never has received any documents indicating invitations to this meeting or confirmations of attendance at this meeting. Further, Ms. Mintzmyer was not invited to the meeting. The location of the meeting indicates that extensive planning would have had to have occurred if all parties were to meet in Washington. It is logical to conclude that the Department would have had time to contact Ms. Mintzmyer in advance of the meeting to request her attendance. In fact, that very process occurred with Gary Cargill, the other co-chair. He was contacted at least a week or two in advance of the meeting and told to plan to attend.[ [31] ]

The absence of certain attendees also indicates that there was something unusual about the meeting. The most obvious omission was the National Park Service's chief architect and advocate of the DRAFT Vision document, Lorraine Mintzmyer. Also missing from the meeting was another key player, the Director of the National Park Service, James Ridenour. In a sworn statement before investigator Davis Schaff on Monday, March 23, 1992, Director Ridenour stated the following concerning the October 4, 1990 meeting,

 

A:  [Director Ridenour] Well, there was a meeting, as I understand. I do not recall why I was not in the meeting, whether I was on the road or what. And again, I do not know whose office it was in. But it was my understanding that some of the western Congressmen went into a discussion. And there have been also people who had come in from the West. They went into a discussion over their concern over the document. I think that Mr. Sewell attended that meeting. It was not a meeting that I attended.[ [32] ]

 

Thus, neither the National Park Service's co-chair for the Vision project, nor her boss, Director Ridenour, attended this meeting critical of the DRAFT document.

Further doubt is cast on the October 4, 1990 meeting because participants from the commodity and special interest groups and the western Congressional delegation were opposed to the DRAFT document. According to his actions and comments, the Department of Interior representative, Mr. Sewell, was also opposed to the DRAFT document. His opposition was notable for what he did not do. Mr. Sewell did not discuss the meeting with the Director of the National Park Service-the individual ultimately responsible for the DRAFT Vision document. The Director noted in his sworn statement,

Q:  [Mr. Schaff] So he [Scott Sewell] did not talk to you about that meeting [October 4, 1990]?

 

A:  No.[ [33] ]

 

Mr. Sewell did voice his opposition to the DRAFT document to Ms. Mintzmyer, however. In a meeting in his office on October 5, 1990, Ms. Mintzmyer testified under oath that Mr. Sewell expressed the following sentiments regarding the DRAFT Vision document:

He began a lecture on the fact that significant political contacts and pressures had been made to the White House and the Secretary regarding the Vision document by political delegations. He then stated that Mr. Sununu had personally spoken to him about this issue. He stated that Mr. Sununu told him that, from a political perspective, the existing draft of the Vision document was a disaster and must be rewritten....

 

Mr. Sewell made it clear that he had been delegated by the Department to retain the appearance that the document was the product of professional and scientific efforts by the agency involved but the reality would be that the document would be revised based on these political concerns, some of which he shared with me at the time.[ [34] ]

Finally, the third event that cast doubt on the legitimacy of the meeting was the fact that the meeting's existence was not publicly revealed until much later. As best Subcommittee investigators can discern, the October 4, 1990 meeting was not revealed until after Ms. Mintzmyer's testimony before the Subcommittee in September of 1991.

In mid-October, the Forest Service acted outside of the public comment process published in the Federal Register by conducting several meetings closed to the general public with various special interest groups hostile to the DRAFT Vision document.[ [35] ] There was no question that these meetings were scheduled pursuant to the October 4, 1990 meeting. As a memo written by members of the Multiple Use Coalition [ [36] ] noted,

As you know, several members of the Multiple Use Coalition met with the Wyoming Congressional Delegation and representatives from the Forest Service and Park Service in Washington last week to discuss the Vision document. As a result of that meeting, Brian Stout has asked individual members of the Coalition to meet with him on a one-to-one basis. [ [37] ]

 

The Vision document process was further tampered with on November 6, 1990 when a staffer for a western U.S. Representative insisted that the GYCC change the format of the public comment meetings. The Representative's office wanted the GYCC to conduct the meetings in a hearing format, instead of following the previously agreed upon workshop format. In response to the Representative's insistence, the GYCC acquiesced by instituting a combination of workshops and hearings. In the afternoons, designated GYCC members were available to meet with the public in workshops to discuss the DRAFT Vision document. In the evenings, the GYCC held hearings on the DRAFT document.

The hearing format mandated by the Representative's office gave the DRAFT Vision document's critics a means for generating artificially negative public comment. The individuals and groups involved in the concerted activity demonstrated the effectiveness of this plan in Montana. All three of the public meetings held in the Big Sky State were contentious. A so-called grass roots organization, People for the West!, [ [38] ] had organized a coalition of multiple use [ [39] ] supporters to oppose the document in the State of Montana. As Mr. Troyer noted in a December 17, 1990 summary of the public comment hearings, the fifth public comment meeting held on December 10, 1990 in Billings, Montana went as follows:

Most spoke against the document as is. An emerging group "People for the West' dominated the meeting and handed out yellow arm ribbons and lapel pins to supporters of multiple use." Kurt Christensen from Congressman Marlenee's staff began the input with a letter from the Congressman critical of the process and document.[ [40] ] (Emphasis added.)

 

Upon questioning the participants, very few had actually read the document and were testifying solely on what they had been led to believe the impact the DRAFT document would be, rather than what the effect of the DRAFT document actually would have.

This trend continued at the other two Montana public meetings. The sixth meeting on December 12, 1990 in Ennis, Montana was also contentious. Ms. Key stated in a memo to Jerry Tays regarding the meeting: "This was a completely staged event ...."[ [41] ]

The eighth, and final meeting, in Bozeman, Montana on January 24, 1991, was the most antagonistic meeting of the eight hearings. In an interview with Subcommittee investigators, Ms. Key stated that this meeting was "totally out of control" and very polarized. She summed up the meeting by noting that from then on, the Bozeman meeting was used to typify the public's perception of the DRAFT document, despite the previous positive or balanced meetings.[ [42] ]

Mr. Troyer endorsed Ms. Key's perception when he wrote about the meeting on January 25, 1991:

It was indeed the grand finale the interest groups wanted to create.... The comment began with Senator Burns staffer Denny Rehberg reading a statement .... He then, however, asked the audience to stand up FOR and Against.... Betty did make a point of explaining our public comment process and that it was not simply vote counting.[ [43] ]

 

This analysis of the true nature of the limited attack on the Vision document which was carried out solely in Montana was addressed by Representative Williams during the Subcommittee's September 24, 1991 hearing:

MR. WILLIAMS. How did your people define that session [the public meetings in Montana on the DRAFT Vision document]? Any different than the others?

 

MS. MINTZMYER. The Montana situation was characterized-and I have telephone call records of that and also actual reports that they characterized it in terms like "witch hunt," "a roust." There were people there at the Montana session who were accusing us of taking food out of their mouths. I mean it was an incredible kind of demonstration when, if one read the document, one could only conclude that-that there had been a lot of effort to perhaps raise undue expectations about what the document was going to do and what it could do.

 

MR. WILLIAMS. Was the crowd in Montana [at the public hearings on the DRAFT Vision document] any larger than the attendance at other sessions, do you know?

 

MS. MINTZMYER. It was much, much higher attendance at the Montana meetings than there were in other States.

 

MR. WILLIAMS. Well, that's probably what happens when Members of Congress turn their staff over to try to generate a crowd of people, because some Members of Congress did precisely that, turned their staff over into doing things like being sure that large numbers of people showed up, ordering buses, helping to park the buses in the parking lots outside of the meeting.[ [44] ]

 

While it is not within the purview of Subcommittee investigators to examine the acts of Congressional delegations and their staff, it suffices to say that extraordinary outside pressure was brought under the guise of populist comment, and that the perception of substantial public comment hostile to the DRAFT document was, in reality, almost entirely manufactured. This analysis is substantiated by the fact that only the meetings held in Montana engendered such overwhelming negative comment. All of the meetings held in Wyoming produced public comment that was either balanced or in favor of the document. In fact, in a meeting held in Idaho Falls, Idaho on January 10, 1991, public comment on the DRAFT document was balanced, despite the fact that the meeting was sandwiched in between the three overwhelmingly negative Montana meetings.

Oddly, the destruction of the DRAFT Vision document was anticipated by Mr. Troyer in January, 1991. Prior to the final Bozeman, Montana public meeting, Jack Troyer mysteriously described, in a January 22, 1991 memo, what the final Vision document would look like, even though the evidence for drawing this conclusion was not yet available. To the contrary, the evidence that had been collected at that time suggested an opposite conclusion--that the public was in favor of the DRAFT document as it stood. Yet, Mr. Troyer seemed to know how the document would be rewritten despite the facts: 1) that the public meetings had not been completed, 2) that only two of the seven public comment meetings were overwhelmingly opposed to the document, and 3) that the public comment period for submitting written comment had not ended.[ [45] ]

In his memo describing the revised DRAFT Vision document, Mr. Troyer correctly stated that the final Vision document would be no longer than 15 pages, it would clearly state the separateness of the Forest Service and National Park Service agency missions, it would disclaim the relationship to private lands, and it would replace the words "sense of naturalness." Ironically, in the same memo Mr. Troyer stated,

The publication of the goal booklet and now this document in draft form has hopefully allowed ample time for a thorough airing of this important process. It is important to note that this is indeed a draft designed to seek public participation before completion.[ [46] ]

 

Mr. Troyer's sudden emphasis of the critical importance of negative public comment seems to explain his prescience with regard to the content of the final Vision document.

On January 25, 1991, Mr. Troyer allowed opponents of the DRAFT Vision document more time to generate negative public comment by recommending, in response to a Congressional request, the extension of the public comment period from January 31, 1991 to early February, 1991.[ [47] ]

On February 1, 1991, Forest Supervisor Brian Stout suddenly introduced a reduced, fifteen page DRAFT Vision document for consideration during a meeting of the GYCC's Forest Service supervisors and the National Park Service superintendents manager's meeting. At this time, public comment had not yet concluded. At this meeting, the managers decided to rewrite the DRAFT Vision document themselves based on this suddenly appearing draft, instead of having the ID team review and rewrite the DRAFT Vision document as was previously decided in August of 1990.[ [48] ]

At this point, the prognosis for retaining a scientific document, responsive to public comment, was not favorable. Mary Ann Grasser, an ID team member, told Subcommittee investigators that she knew the DRAFT Vision document was dead when the mysterious Stout draft appeared. Ms. Grasser noted that in all of her 17 years with the National Park Service she had never seen managers take over a document.[ [49] ]

Finally, in a wrap-up article on the Vision document, Yellowstone's Superintendent Bob Barbee, Environmental Specialist Paul Schullery, and Chief Research Biologist John Varley knew that it wasn't public comment that ruined the process, but rather it was pressure from special interests that sank the DRAFT Vision document. The trio wrote,

It would be nice and neat to simply say that we outran public sentiment with the Vision. But we don't believe that is what happened. Public sentiment did not have a great deal to do with the process. The American public, the owners of the parks and forests of the greater Yellowstone area, played virtually no role at all. What we failed to do, in fact was engage public sentiment in the first place. Attempts to hold hearings on the Vision in other parts of the country-far from the intense local pressures-failed; some within the two agencies were gun shy, for some reason, about going that far afield, and money was short. So we were faced with a powerful regional campaign, superbly engineered by special interest groups and featuring stunning inflammatory rhetoric against the Vision. We failed to convincingly invite the pro-Vision interests to mobilize adequately. We failed to foresee the sort of opposition the Vision-which we saw as a mild-mannered and obviously sensible, conservative document-could generate. And we failed, in the face of that opposition, to keep hold of as much as possible in the draft.[ [50] ] (Emphasis added.)

 

This engineering by special interests to which these National Park Service employees referred clearly stemmed from both the special interests' possession of their opponents' playbook, and from the cooperation of several of the Administration s key players.

In summing up the attempts to keep the concerted activity a secret, the following scenario emerged:

1. The individuals and groups involved in the concerted activity artificially manufactured the appearance of negative public opinion at a few, select, local public meetings.

2. Mr. Sewell closed down previously scheduled national hearings to avoid anticipated positive comment.

3. The scientific interdisciplinary (ID) team was maneuvered out of the revision process.

4. The participants used the manufactured, negative, public comment to explain why the revisions were allegedly necessary.

 

CHAPTER 4-CONCERTED ACTIVITY UNRAVELLING

Many elements of the acts of the participants in the concerted activity have been revealed in the Subcommittee's investigation of the Mintzmyer directed reassignment. Many of the statements and positions of these participants are either contradictory and contrary to the overwhelming documentary evidence, or the participants have provided multiple explanations to describe a single event.

October 4, 1990 meeting

A major blow to any assertion of legitimacy to the October 4, 1990 meeting is illustrated by the inconsistent statement made by former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, Scott Sewell. His statement directly contradicts other testimony and evidence the Subcommittee gathered regarding the discussions and actions in and around the October 4, 1990 meeting.

In an August 12, 1992 letter to the Subcommittee on the Civil Service, Mr. Sewell sought to characterize the October 4, 1990 meeting in the following manner:

The purpose of the October 4, meeting was simply to ask for a fair public review; the constituents believed they had been excluded from full review of the document to that time. (Emphasis added.)

 

Mr. Jack Morehead, then Associate Director of Operations, National Park Service, recently attempted to support Mr. Sewell's position in a July 31, 1992 unsworn, written statement. In the absence of any contemporaneous supporting documentation, Mr. Morehead stated,

The main topic of discussion centered around the feeling by the special interest groups that they had not been allowed to participate fully enough in the preparation of the Vision Document and, when they did make comments through the public input process, their input had not been adequately reflected in the draft document.

 

These statements are an inaccurate representation of what occurred at the meeting for a number of reasons. First, the timing of these statements and the lack of corroborating evidence casts doubt on Mr. Sewell's version of the events. For example, neither the Department of Interior, the National Park Service, Mr. Sewell nor Mr. Morehead provided the Subcommittee with any written notes, correspondence, planning materials, or other documents from the period surrounding the October 4, 1990 meeting to substantiate their recollection of what happened. [ [51] ] Instead, both participants only gave unsworn statements almost a year after Ms. Mintzmyer testified under oath before the Subcommittee and after additional evidence supporting Ms. Mintzmyer's view had been released.[ [52] ] Also, they both relied on their memories to reconstruct an event which took place almost two years earlier.

Next, Mr. Morehead's and Mr. Sewell's views are in direct conflict with the account and contemporaneous October 4, 1990 meeting notes Mr. Gary Cargill, former Regional Forester for the Forest Service, provided to the Subcommittee. In a February 24, 1992 meeting with Subcommittee investigators, Mr. Cargill stated that during the October 4, 1990 meeting the commodity and special interest groups were critical of the substance of the DRAFT document; he did not say the groups were critical of the process for developing the DRAFT document.

Notes Mr. Cargill took during the October 4, 1990 meeting substantiate the view that discussions during the meeting centered on the substantive content of the DRAFT document, not on the public comment process. For example, Mr. Cargill's notes reflected the following discussions: Ms. Paseneaux, a representative for the Wyoming Woolgrowers Association, complained about principal terms in the DRAFT document like "biodiversity." [ [53] ]  Mr. Warren Martin, a representative of Wyoming Oil and Gas, stated that the DRAFT document was "no advantage to Wyoming" and if the DRAFT were "torn up, no tears [would be shed] except in Jackson County." [ [54] ]

The only time Mr. Cargill's notes mentioned the alleged public process as the basis for the meeting, that reference clashed with Mr. Sewell's and Mr. Morehead's assertion that the meeting's participants felt the public process was insufficient. To the contrary, Senator Wallop indicated that the DRAFT document process was more formal than it warranted, referring to the hearings on the DRAFT document and the Federal Register notice as proof that the process was too formal.[ [55] ]

Finally, Mr. Cargill's statement of the events of the October 4, 1990 meeting were supported by a conversation between Mr. Sewell and Director Ridenour. In a sworn statement given on March 23, 1992, Director Ridenour made it clear that substance, not process, was the focus of the meeting:

He [Mr. Sewell] talked to me about a concern that primarily the western states delegations that were primarily affected by the Vision document would be or were upset, and that they were concerned that it was a document that was going to turn the entire Yellowstone area into more like a park-like philosophy, rather than having the continuing multiple use philosophy that surrounds the park and the National Forest. (Emphasis added.) [ [56] ]

Director Ridenour did not testify that Mr. Sewell had concerns about the review process the DRAFT document underwent in the agency and the Department, instead, Mr. Sewell talked to the Director about the criticisms of the principal substantive points of the document. Mr. Sewell's shifting explanation of the intent behind the October 4, 1990 meeting and evidence contradicting his August 12, 1992 explanation about the meeting make it clear that the conspiracy to destroy the DRAFT Vision document was either formulated during or contemporaneous to the October 4, 1990 meeting.

 

October 5, 1990 meeting

The next indication that an improper concerted activity was underway occurred during a meeting between Ms. Mintzmyer and Mr. Sewell on October 5, 1990. Again, Mr. Sewell's account of the meeting differed sharply with the sworn testimony of Ms. Mintzmyer and interviews with other witnesses.

In his August 12, 1992 letter, Mr. Sewell states he told Ms. Mintzmyer on October 5, 1990 that he and the western U.S. Congressional delegation were concerned that there was not a fair public review of the DRAFT Vision document prior to its release.

[A] meeting took place between Ms. Mintzmyer and me [Mr. Sewell] at which time I expressed my disappointment over her handling of the Vision document from a procedural standpoint. I pointed out that if the document had received proper National Park Service and Departmental review before it was signed, the Congressional meeting would probably never have had to occur. I then told her what process we would follow in allowing a more full and fair airing of the issue.[ [57] ] (Emphasis added.)

 

Again, in the absence of even a single supporting memo or meeting note, Mr. Sewell relied on his memory to reconstruct a two year old event. Further, he provided his version of the events to the Subcommittee in an unsworn statement. Finally, Mr. Sewell did not submit any contemporaneous evidence regarding October 5, 1990 meeting to support his recollection.

 

Ms. Mintzmyer, on the other hand, testified under oath from contemporaneous notes that on October 5, 1990 Mr. Sewell told her that the White House and Mr. Sununu said the DRAFT document was a "political disaster" and that it had to be completely rewritten at the direction of Mr. Sununu, then White House Chief of Staff. Mr. Sewell went on to direct Ms. Mintzmyer that he would take control of the writing and content of the document.[ [58] ]

Two witnesses, Ms. Sandra Key and Mr. Jack Morehead, also confirmed Ms. Mintzmyer's recollection of the meeting's events. Immediately after leaving Mr. Sewell's office following the October 5, 1990 meeting, Ms. Mintzmyer told Ms. Key in detail about Mr. Sewell's plan to rewrite and take control of the DRAFT document due to political pressure. Ms. Key noted for the Subcommittee that

Ms. Mintzmyer was visibly distraught and that her face was "ashen" following that meeting.[ [59] ]

Mr. Jack Morehead also confirmed Mr. Sewell's directions. According to Ms. Mintzmyer's contemporaneous notes of the October 5, 1990 conversation, Mr. Morehead told her that the DRAFT Vision document had to be rewritten and that Mr. Sewell had made a commitment to rewrite the DRAFT Vision document.

Finally, Mr. Sununu's concern about the DRAFT Vision document filtered its way down to the Forest Service. In a memo prepared on April 25, 1991, Mr. David Behler, a Department of Interior Manager Development Program participant, wrote the following:

He Jack Troyer] also mentioned that there is some word that John Sununu has contacted Agriculture Secretary Edward Madigan and told him to keep close hands on the Forest Service, most likely regarding the Spotted Owl, but perhaps the Vision document as well. [ [60] ]

 

Special Interest Revision

Additional evidence of an improper concerted action appeared when Mr. Sewell asserted in a sworn statement and in an August 12, 1992 letter to the Subcommittee that he and his staff did not revise or take control of the DRAFT Vision document. In his sworn statement, Mr. Sewell stated that during a June 7, 1991 briefing on the DRAFT Vision document attended by Ms. Mintzmyer, Ms. Key, Director Ridenour, Mr. Jim Loach, Ms. Mary Bradford, and Mr. Behler, Mr. Sewell saw the revised DRAFT Vision document for the first time. He further asserted that all the changes to the revised DRAFT Vision document had taken place prior to his review of the revised DRAFT document on June 7, 1991.

The only change that came out of that June 7, 1991 meeting, there was only one change, and that was my clean air recommendation. Everything else had taken place before I ever saw the document.

 

So, to say, first of all that our office had done it is not true, or to even infer that we pressured that it be changed the way it was is not true, it's a falsehood. And if I had done it, I would tell you right now because I had the authority to do it, and I could have done it over her objections if I had wanted to. All I had to do was rewrite the document and sign my name to it, and I had that authority... [ [61] ] (Emphasis added.)

 

In addition to the air quality change, Mr. Sewell noted another change he made to the document.[ [62] ]

The second was that Ms. Mintzmyer had planned to have public relations-public meetings on the document, public review .... She had planned on having them in Seattle, Washington; Chicago; New York; Atlanta; Washington, D.C.

 

My comment was if you want to do this, have one in Washington, if you want, but have them in Billings, Cody, Jackson Hole, where people are that live in that area that would be impacted by the document, and I think that was totally appropriate [ [63] ]

 

Mr. Sewell continued,

So, those are the only two substantive comments I made to anyone ever about the entire document. Anyone who alleges or states otherwise has lied.

 

Q. [Mr. Schaff] Okay. She [Mintzmyer] stated

 

A. [Mr. Sewell] Or even infers has lied.[ [64] ]

 

Thus, Mr. Sewell was adamant in his protests that, with the exception of the improved air quality standard, all other changes to the document took place prior to his review on June 7, 1991, and without Mr. Sewell's or his staffs' involvement.

In an August 12, 1992 letter to the Subcommittee, Mr. Sewell was even more emphatic about his alleged lack of involvement with the DRAFT document: "During that period [following the October 4, 1990 meeting] my role was to gather comments, not to revise the document."

But the Subcommittee has uncovered evidence to the contrary. Mr. Sewell's office clearly was making substantive revisions to the document well before June 1991 and Mr. Sewell had reviewed those changes prior to June of 1991. Document #122 indicates that Mr. Sewell's involvement and his office's involvement extended well past the two comments he testified to under oath and his assertions in the August 1992 letter to the Subcommittee. Document #122 shows that Mr. Sewell's staff was changing the DRAFT Vision document after the October 4, 1990 meeting and that Mr. Sewell was personally reviewing those changes as early as November of 1990.

Ms. Mary Bradford, then staff assistant for the Office of Fish and Wildlife and Parks, Department of Interior, wrote in a November 14, 1990 revised DRAFT Vision document transmittal memo [ [65] ] to Ms. Constance Harriman, then Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, that changes were being made to the Vision document pursuant to Mr. Sewell's meeting with "Sens. Simpson, Wallop and commodities groups." Ms. Bradford's transmittal memo also contradicts Mr. Sewell's sworn assertion that he first reviewed the revised Vision document on June 7, 1991; Ms. Bradford specifically noted on November 14, 1990 that "Scott is now reviewing this."

Ms. Bradford's DRAFT Vision document transmittal memo is not the only document to conflict with Mr. Sewell's assertion that June 7, 1991 was the first time he made a change to the DRAFT Vision document. Document #78, a revised copy of the DRAFT Vision document, has a notation that reads, "Annotated-Preliminary Review 10/90. Returned with Sewell changes 3/20/91." This annotation indicates that Mr. Sewell had made changes to the DRAFT Vision document almost three months prior to the date he claims to have first made a change to the text of the document, in June of 1991.

Finally, document #57, a computer message written by Jack Troyer to Gary Cargill on May 28, 1991, stated, "NPS is trying to get their briefing ASAP because Scott Sewell has been their Department contact and he'll be leaving soon. . . ." (Emphasis added.) Mr. Cargill also confirmed that Mr. Sewell was the Department of Interior contact as early as April 1991.[ [66] ] This document and Mr. Cargill's assertion directly conflict with Mr. Sewell's denial of being in control of the DRAFT Vision document or even having had contact with the DRAFT document before June 1991.

 

The Working Group

Once Mr. Sewell became aware of the above mentioned documents, he developed an alternative explanation for them in his August 1992 letter to the Subcommittee. Instead of maintaining his original story of not having any involvement with the DRAFT document-other than two comments regarding strengthening the air quality section and stopping national public meetings-Mr. Sewell instead asserted that he had established a working group to gather comments:

During that period my role was to gather comments, not to revise the document. To expedite the process, I established a working group consisting of Mary Bradford, James Loach, Joseph Doddridge and Mary Kimbro. To my knowledge, the working group met no more than four or five times. The working group's role was twofold: (1) to review the document for policy consistency, and (2) to compile the lists of the comments received from other offices or parties.[ [67] ]

First, this statement conflicts with both document #122, which states that the working group did revise the DRAFT Vision document and Mr. Sewell did review those changes, and it conflicts with Mr. Sewell's sworn statement, which quoted him as saying: "So, to say, first of all, that our office had done it [revised the DRAFT Vision document] is not true." [ [68] ]

Next, Mr. Sewell's August 12, 1992 statement is contradictory on its face. First, Mr. Sewell asserts he was just compiling comments, not revising the document. If this were true, Mr. Sewell should not have had a reason to form a four person working group that reviewed the DRAFT document for policy consistency. In addition, a working group meeting four or five times [ [69] ] within a one month period is an intensive review for a document Mr. Sewell characterized as "not a policy priority." [ [70] ]

An additional inconsistency in Mr. Sewell's explanation is reflected in the behavior of the leader of the working group, Ms. Bradford. Ms. Bradford tried to present a different story of the working group's revisions to the DRAFT Vision document after documents detailing the working group's involvement in the DRAFT document's revision were released.

Prior to Ms. Bradford's and Mr. Sewell's August 1992 explanations, documents obtained by the Subcommittee captured the following story: On October 23, 1990, Ms. Bradford was given the following instructions for the working group to follow from Mr. Sewell: "SSS wants us to go through the document-don't deal with inside park boundaries. TONE of document needs to be addressed. Focus on DOI issues." [ [71] ] Another member of the working group, Meredith Kimbro, left no mistake as to the meaning of Mr. Sewell's instructions: "[M]r. Sewell indicated he wanted us to review it [DRAFT Vision document] for tone and overall Departmental concerns." [ [72] ] After following Mr. Sewell's October 23, 1990 instructions, on November 14, 1990 Ms. Bradford acknowledged the working group's revisions to the DRAFT Vision document and Mr. Sewell's review of those revisions in a memo to then Assistant Secretary Harriman.[ [73] ]

After release of the Subcommittee's documents, however, Ms. Bradford, in a July 22, 1992 unsworn statement submitted to the Subcommittee on August 12, 1992, attempted to indicate a different task for the working group:

[The] group's work ... was merely to look at the document and try to incorporate views received from other Departmental agencies, as received from the Office of Environmental Affairs

 

This statement is problematic for two reasons: first, documents #122 and #130 show that Ms. Bradford's group was revising the document--despite Mr. Sewell's various denials--in accordance with the Wyoming Congressional delegation's and commodity and special interest groups' requests. Second, that statement also contradicts Mr. Sewell's assertion that the working group merely "compiled the lists of the various Department's comments." Instead, even Ms. Bradford's latest statement shows the group definitely was doing more than compiling comments-it was revising the DRAFT document in accordance with the views received from other Departmental agencies-something Mr. Sewell said, under oath, did not happen.

While Mr. Sewell and Ms. Bradford gave three different explanations for the working group's activities, Mr. Jim Loach added a fourth explanation: "Our objectives as I understood them were to clarify its [DRAFT Vision document] definitions, assure other appropriate bureaus currently omitted by the document were involved as necessary in the verbiage of the document, and edit where necessary." [ [74] ]

In a final blow to Mr. Sewell's characterization of the working group's purpose, Mr. Troyer told the Subcommittee investigators that Ms. Bradford sent a revised DRAFT Vision document to the Forest Service in the winter of 1990.[ [75] ] Mr. Troyer's story was independently confirmed by Ms. Mintzmyer. In a documented phone conversation between Ms. Key and Ms. Mintzmyer, Ms. Key told Ms. Mintzmyer on December 4, 1990 that Ms. Bradford had sent a rewrite of the DRAFT Vision document to the Forest Service.

Thus, the four shifting explanations for the working group's activities coupled with the fact that all of the explanations were in conflict with the contemporaneous documentation of the working group's activities and Mr. Troyer's confirmation that Ms. Bradford sent a revised DRAFT Vision document to the Forest Service in December of 1990, shows that Mr. Sewell's denial of his office revising the DRAFT document is false.

Finally, the Subcommittee again notes the absence of the above mentioned intermediate Vision document drafts, transmission memos, and contemporaneous documents from the working group, Mr. Sewell, Ms. Bradford, or the Department of Interior.[ [76] ]

 

Lobbying

Another compelling piece of evidence revealing an operation to destroy the DRAFT Vision document occurred when Ms. Mintzmyer was accused of lobbying Congress immediately after protesting Mr. Sewell's gutting of the DRAFT Vision document. Ms. Mintzmyer testified to the following scenario:

During the period of February 14 to 22, 1991.... I had occasion to brief people on the Hill prior to appropriation and legislative hearings. This was a standard practice. A copy of my schedule, names and times, was furnished to the Washington office, Legislative Affairs Division, of the National Park Service.

 

Immediately after these briefings, something quite unusual occurred. I was informed that an undisclosed Member of Congress had told Secretary Lujan I was lobbying. In a baffling turn of events, I was mysteriously facing a demand for a letter of reprimand and discipline at the insistence of Mr. Sewell.... [T]he message to me was clear. I felt threatened by the allegation and particularly the call for a letter of reprimand.

 

On March 21, 1991, the issue of Mr. Sewell's demand that I be reprimanded was raised in a meeting with the Director and members of his staff. I noted that this was a groundless attack. Though I sent a memo to the Director of this charge, I have never received any word of response. To this day, the matter has never been formally explained to me, nor has the role of officials involved with the Vision document.

 

I submit to the Committee that it appears clear that, had I not flatly rejected this issue and had I not been lucky enough to clear my efforts with both the Washington office and the Director, this could have served as a basis for explaining a subsequent directed reassignment.[ [77] ]

 

In his sworn statement, Mr. Sewell described the lobbying charge in a contrary manner:

The whole lobbying thing concerned me greatly. It is unheard of for somebody to spend two weeks in Washington without ever coming by the department, visiting with members of Congress, senior and junior appropriations staffers, and then passing out policy documents which do not reflect departmental positions, and a number of them are the exact opposite of what officially established Park policy is. That is what is considered inappropriate.

 

I told the Director to tell her to stop illegally lobbying Congress which is what, in my opinion, she was doing.[ [78] ]

 

Mr. Sewell's accusations of lobbying are unsubstantiated. First, Ms. Mintzmyer's memo requesting a response to the charge of lobbying was never answered. In fact, the charges were never documented and Ms. Mintzmyer was never reprimanded for her activities. Once she provided proof that the charges were groundless, the whole matter faded.

Next, unbeknownst to Mr. Sewell, Ms. Mintzmyer had a management trainee, Bill Sontag, accompany her to her meetings with Congressional Representatives and their staff. Mr. Sontag was training to become a National Park Service superintendent and he went with Ms. Mintzmyer to learn exactly how to conduct such meetings.

Finally, Ms. Mintzmyer took detailed notes of her conversations with the various Congressional offices. Nothing in the memo she prepared summarizing her meetings indicated any illegal activities. In fact, the memo discussed the various concerns and requests the Congressional offices had made.[ [79] ]

It is clear from the evidence that this was another attempt to move Ms. Mintzmyer out of her position as Director of the Rocky Mountain region.

 

The June 7, 1991 Meeting

The final element of the operation fell apart when the Subcommittee examined a conflict that appeared between a memo Ms. Mintzmyer circulated summarizing a June 7, 1991 meeting and a subsequent memo written by Mr. Sewell contradicting Ms. Mintzmyer's earlier memo. Witnesses told Subcommittee investigators on June 7, 1991 that Ms. Mintzmyer and Ms. Key briefed Mr. Sewell, Director Ridenour, Mr. Loach, Ms. Bradford, and Mr. Behler regarding the status of the revised DRAFT Vision document. In a June 14, 1991 memo [ [80] ] summarizing that meeting, Ms. Mintzmyer noted that Mr. Sewell would check to see if further review was required within the Department of Interior; that Mr. Sewell had already received input from other agencies within DOI and it was unnecessary to repeat that step; that Mr. Sewell would contact the Department of Agriculture to communicate DOI's changes; and that the air quality standards in the DRAFT document would be enhanced.[ [81] ]

Subsequent to Ms. Mintzmyer's memo, Mr. Sewell responded with a memo on June 28, 1991 [ [82] ] denying his involvement with the DRAFT Vision document, claiming it was an internal National Park Service document, and criticizing Ms. Mintzmyer's performance.

Mr. Sewell's denial of the June 14, 1991 document is disingenuous. Documents and interviews with Subcommittee investigators reveal that Ms. Mintzmyer's characterization of the events of June 7, 1991 were accurate.

In an interview by Subcommittee investigators with Ms. Key on October 29, 1991, Ms. Key confirmed the contents of the June 14, 1991 memo. Ms. Key said she drafted the memo for Ms. Mintzmyer's signature, recapping the meeting's events [ [83] ] . Document #51a, notes taken by Mr. Behler during the June 14, 1991 meeting, confirm Ms. Mintzmyer's June 14, 1991 memo and throw Mr. Sewell's subsequent memo into doubt [ [84] ] .

Finally, Ms. Mintzmyer became aware of Mr. Sewell's June 28, 1991 memo only after she testified under oath before the Subcommittee. This chain of events leads to the conclusion that Mr. Sewell's June 28, 1991 memo was not an accurate account of the events.

Thus, the concerted activity to eviscerate the DRAFT Vision document unraveled on a number of fronts:

1. The October 4, 1990 meeting was the first element to unravel when participants to the meeting gave several explanations for the purpose of the meeting and could not substantiate those explanations with any documents, contemporaneous or otherwise.

2. The next element unraveled when Mr. Sewell could not back up his claim that he never told Ms. Mintzmyer that the DRAFT Vision document was a political disaster and had to be completely rewritten. On the other hand, Ms. Mintzmyer's account was proven by documents and witnesses.

3. The third element fell apart when Mr. Sewell and the working group Mr. Sewell assembled to revise the DRAFT Vision document gave four separate, conflicting accounts of the group's mission.

4. Documents detailing Mr. Sewell's and his office's involvement in revising the DRAFT Vision document in November of 1990 unraveled the fourth element of the operation-that Mr. Sewell and his office had no part in revising the DRAFT Vision document until June 7, 1991.

5. The fifth element of the operation, attacking Ms. Mintzmyer for lobbying, came undone when Ms. Mintzmyer countered the lobbying charge and the charge evaporated.

6. The final cover up activity of the operation, Mr. Sewell's inaccurate June 28, 1991 memo portraying the events of the June 7, 1991 meeting, became suspect when witnesses and documents sustained Ms. Mintzmyer's account the meeting.

 

CHAPTER 5-BRUSHING ASIDE LORRAINE MINTZMYER

Following her opposition to Mr. Sewell's directions for the DRAFT Vision document in the late fall of 1990 and the attempt to frame her for lobbying in February of 1991, Ms. Mintzmyer heard that someone "high up in Interior" had prompted the Executive Review Board [ [85] ] (ERB) to propose a reassignment of three regional directors as a means of neutralizing Ms. Mintzmyer. When Ms. Mintzmyer did receive her directed reassignment, she was initially told that the reason for the directed reassignment was due to a newly created policy requiring reassignments of upper level managers who had been in one position for 10 years or more.

At first, Ms. Mintzmyer did not believe this rumor because SES guidelines specifically prohibit reassignments triggered by specific time periods. Senior Executive Service regulation S5-1(d)(6) provides for the following:

Mobility is not required or expected of all executives, and agencies should not impose arbitrary time-in-job limits to trigger moves. (Emphasis added)

 

Further, Ms. Mintzmyer had informed the Director that she would be retiring in 1993. This meant that she would be in the new region only two years and it would cost the government tens of thousands of dollars to move her to Philadelphia and then return her to her home in Denver at the end of the two year period. Finally, she had already moved five times in seven years for the National Park Service in the course of her 32 year career.

On June 25, 1991, rumor became a reality. Ms. Mintzmyer, Mr. Coleman and Mr. Baker all received letters announcing their directed reassignments.[ [86] ]  Although the stories as to where the ten year rule originated shifted several times, it is clear from reviewing the evidence that it was Department of Interior officials who had suddenly imposed the ten year trigger rule. The Department of Interior took the following steps in developing the ten year trigger rule: 1) DOI examined the personnel files-including Ms. Mintzmyer's-of SES employees in the National Park Service, 2) DOI officials approached the Director of the National Park Service and other officials regarding the proposed rule, and 3) DOI's Executive Review Board suggested a move of SES regional directors who had occupied their position for ten years or more.

Director Ridenour confirmed, under oath, that the ERB within the Department of Interior developed the ten year rotation rule.

A. [Director Ridenour] [T]here was talk in meeting with the ERB that philosophically we should not have our management people in long term assignments, that they should have a rotation.

 

Q. [Schaff] And who in the ERB told you that?

 

A. [I]t would have been Mr. Kay, John Schrote, Tom Weimer.[ [87] ]

 

A. [t]hey noted in looking at the records that we had three regional directors who had been in their positions approximately ten years.... So there were three that obviously stood out from the rest in terms of how long they had been at their assignment.[ [88] ]

 

Over the course of the next few months, as this position was challenged as a pretextual reason for reassigning Ms. Mintzmyer, both the National Park Service and the Department of Interior offered as many as twelve shifting stories as to who ordered the reassignment, why it was ordered, and what documentation was generated in making the decision.

One of the first stories appeared in a newspaper article on July 6, 1991. The National Park Service was quoted in this article as indicating that it was the NPS which adopted the ten year trigger rule based on recommendations from an undisclosed source. Mr. George Berklacy, Chief of the Office of Public Affairs for the National Park Service, responded, "The Park Service, responding to recommendations ... to implement the mobility features of that SES program, identified individuals who have 10 or more years in their present positions." [ [89] ]

Twenty days later, the National Park Service changed its story slightly. On July 26, 1991 Mr. Berklacy said it was the National Park Service who developed and instituted the ten year trigger rule on its own initiative. "Berklacy said Park Service Director James M. Ridenour had decided that all senior executives with more than 10 years in the same post should be transferred; Coleman, Baker and Mintzmyer fit the bill." [ [90] ] No mention was made that the Director based his decision on "recommendations" from an undisclosed source.

Less than a week later after the initial story was questioned by Ms. Mintzmyer, on August 1, 1991, the National Park Services story changed once again. First, NPS said its ten year trigger rule was adopted pursuant to outside "recommendations." Then the National Park Service said that it was the Director who developed and instituted the 10 year rule. On August 1, 1991 Mr. Berklacy ascribed the rule to a totally different source, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

Berklacy said the Office of Personnel Management (former Civil Service Administration), decided many had not been mobile and directed policy shifts of SES officials with more than ten years in a place; Coleman, Baker and Mintzmyer all fit the description." [ [91] ]

On that same day, August 1, 1991, Mr. Edward Davis, Associate Director for Budget and Administration for the National Park Service, sent Ms. Mintzmyer a contradictory memo stating that the Director of the National Park Service instituted the 10 year trigger rule and further, that there weren't any documents related to this decision. Mr. Davis did not attribute the rule to OPM.

In response to your request, there are no documents, studies or other materials related to the decision to reassign Regional Directors with experience in excess of 10 years. The decision including the amount of time Regional Directors had been in their current positions . . . . [ [92] ]

 

By this time Ms. Mintzmyer was seriously challenging this story. Eleven days later, however, Mr. Davis told an EEO investigator that the 10 year trigger rule wasn't the reason for Ms. Mintzmyer's directed reassignment.

Mr. Davis proffered that there is no official regulation requiring 10-year rotations of SES employees and that it was the Director's determination that the complainant's reassignment is in the best interest of the Service.[ [93] ]

In an amazing turn around, Mr. Davis did not deny the existence of a ten year rule and wrote a constituent on August 29, 1991,

[T]he National Park Service's policy is that Senior Executive Service (SES) employees will rotate after 10 years in a given position. Ms. Mintzmyer has been in the Denver post for 11 years and her reassignment coordinates well with the reassignment of two of our other Regional Directors.[ [94] ]

 

By this time the source and documentation for the improper rule was being vigorously questioned. On September 14, 1991, the Department of Interior, not the National Park Service, claimed that the ten year rule was ordinary business, undertaken by the Secretary-again without any documentation.

"None of the actions are based on retribution," said Steve Goldstein, spokesman for Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan, who oversees the Park Service. Goldstein said Mintzmyer's transfer was part of a three-way reassignment.

 

Goldstein said Lujan inaugurated a policy of moving senior executives who have been on the job for more than 10 years so "a fresh perspective can be brought to bear." [ [95] ]

 

On the morning of March 23, 1992, Mr. S. Scott Sewell, Department of Interior, attempted to disavow the ten year rule in a sworn statement before EEO investigator Davis Schaff.

A [Mr. Sewell] [I] don't recall there being a 10-year trigger, so-called trigger. It was just at some point it's good to rotate people. That was kind of the gist of it.

And then the only time that the 10 year thing came up was much later, to my knowledge, when somebody made a reference that the three of them had all been there over 10 years, but that wasn't the basis for the decision.

 

Q [Mr. Schaff] Oh, so the length of time that the person was at their position was not taken into consideration in the reassignments?

 

A Not the whole group-well, I'm sure with the reassignments, not as a group, not as a policy, the fact that they had been there quite awhile, yes, that had been, and each one probably was looked at individually.[ [96] ]

 

On the same day in the afternoon of March 23, 1992, Director Ridenour flatly contradicted Mr. Sewell when he stated under oath to Mr. Schaff,

A. [Director Ridenour] [T]here was talk in meeting with the ERB that philosophically we should not have our management people in long term assignments, that they should have a rotation.... [T]hey [the ERB] noted in looking at the records that we had three regional directors who had been in their positions approximately ten years.... So there were three that obviously stood out from the rest in terms of how long they had been at their assignment.[ [97] ]

 

Two months later on May 6, 1992, Director Ridenour confirmed that the National Park Service did have a policy of rotating SES employees who had retained the same position in excess of 10 years.

Ridenour had called the "directed transfers" of three regional directors last fall-the individuals had to accept the moves, take lower-paying jobs or leave the agency-part of a policy to rotate those highly experienced members of the agency's Senior Executive Service who had more than 10 years in one job.[ [98] ]

Despite Mr. Goldstein's denial that the ten year trigger rule was not a Department of Interior creation, on June 2, 1992, the Department of Interior again claimed responsibility for the ten year rule.

But Walker [Interior Department official] said Mintzmyer was part of a "three-way rotation" carried out because Interior

officials wanted to "revitalize leadership in places where people have been in place for more than 10 years." [ [99] ]

 

Finally, on June 20, 1992, the Director again confirmed the existence of a ten year trigger rule, despite Mr. Sewell's assertion that there had never been a ten year trigger rule.

Ridenour said Friday that Mintzmyer was one of three regional directors who were transferred because they had been in their posts for 10 years.

 

In summing up these different reasons for Ms. Mintzmyer's directed reassignment, the following facts are known beyond question:

1. Although various stories stated that the National Park Service developed the 10 year rotation rule, the Subcommittee has not received one single document, study, memorandum, or other item of evidence which suggests that the National Park Service ever considered this option in the normal course of the policy-making process.[ [100] ]

2. The action directly violated the applicable SES regulation.

3. Ms. Mintzmyer had indicated her desire to retire in 1993 approximately one month prior to receiving her directed reassignment, making it a costly transfer in terms of relocation money.

4. An almost identical directed reassignment was applied to Mr. Mumma within days of the action against Ms. Mintzmyer.

After demonstrating that the reasons for Ms. Mintzmyer's directed reassignment shifted twelve times, the evidence shows that the ten year trigger rule was used as a pretext for reassigning Ms. Mintzmyer.

Retaliating against Ms. Mintzmyer and covering up the improper concerted activity did not end when Ms. Mintzmyer received notice of her reassignment. On June 24, 1991, Ms. Mintzmyer was told that she would receive a letter ordering her compliance with a directed reassignment. While this letter was pending, agency personnel and spokesmen made false statements to the effect that Ms. Mintzmyer was not being involuntarily transferred, but rather she had an option as to whether or not to accept the transfer.

The statements by agency personnel soon proved to be false. On June 25, 1991, Ms. Mintzmyer received a letter [ [101] ] which threatened her with removal if she did anything other than accept the reassignment. This move was retaliatory because the Department did not furnish any evidence that a similar letter was ever used in any prior personnel action involving someone of Ms. Mintzmyer's level.

The retaliation against Ms. Mintzmyer became more severe as time progressed. In August of 1991, a congressional staffer was approached by Mr. Herb Cables, Deputy Director for the National Park Service, regarding Ms. Mintzmyer's directed reassignment. During this meeting, Mr. Cables disclosed confidential information regarding the Equal Employment Opportunity position of Ms. Mintzmyer and presented a highly irregular offer for the congressional staffer to pass along to Ms. Mintzmyer, warning that this offer could not be conveyed to Ms. Mintzmyer's attorney. The staffer wrote the following:

He ['Mr. Cables] asked me to convey to Ms. Mintzmyer the following message: The Director wants to talk to you, wants to work out [your staying in] Denver but off the record. [He] doesn't want a transcript with the lawyer [after the conversation]. Mr. Cables also said that they [he and the Director] were quite certain that they could get Ms. Mintzmyer a SES position [in Denver] in another 6 months. I understood my role was to pass on the message for a discussion between the Director and Ms. Mintzmyer.

 

He said he didn't want to see a transcript [of any conversation between Ms. Mintzmyer and the Director] from Ms. Mintzmyer's lawyer and that she wasn't to discuss it with her lawyer. [ [102] ]

Again, the only conclusion which can be reached regarding such behavior by the National Park Service and its officials and is consistent with all of the eyewitnesses and documentary evidence is that officials of the Department of Interior had targeted Ms. Mintzmyer for removal from the Denver position. She was removed from this position so she would not be able to protect the Vision document. In addition, the Department was including the National Park Service in the cover-up.

In the end, despite the personal hardships, Ms. Mintzmyer accepted the ultimatum and transferred to Philadelphia.[ [103] ]  In Philadelphia, Ms. Mintzmyer was still subjected to retaliation for disclosing Mr. Sewell's attempts to destroy the DRAFT Vision document. The National Park Service hounded Ms. Mintzmyer by repeatedly denying a personnel action to a subordinate Ms. Mintzmyer clearly felt was deserved. This personnel action was an inherited situation, but Ms. Mintzmyer's was unable to get closure for her employee and was repeatedly stopped in every effort she underwent to obtain a resolution. Ms. Mintzmyer eventually resigned rather than be placed in a position where her employees were being adversely affected because of her situation. [ [104] ]

Finally, Ms. Mintzmyer was retaliated against when the Executive Review Board denied her a year-end bonus. On August 8, 1991 the Director of the Park Service recommended Ms. Mintzmyer for a bonus. Additionally, the Director felt Ms. Mintzmyer had qualified for and was due an SES step increase and he recommended a step increase for Ms. Mintzmyer to the Executive Review Board.

Subsequently, Ms. Mintzmyer discovered that the ERB had denied her raise and step increase. These denials can be construed as retaliatory because previous to this denial, Ms. Mintzmyer had been recommended for such bonuses, and had always been awarded the bonuses.

Ms. Mintzmyer's denial of a step increase was also retaliatory. Ms. Mintzmyer was an exemplary civil servant. She received the two highest awards offered in the Department during the course of her career. That public service, coupled with her ten year responsibility for the "crown jewels" of the National Park Service, made her a likely candidate for a step increase. Both the denial of the bonus and the step increase were likely in retaliation for Ms. Mintzmyer's protection of the DRAFT Vision document.

In conclusion, the actions of the agency from March of 1991 to March of 1992 reveal the following picture:

1. Ms. Mintzmyer opposed destroying the DRAFT Vision document.

2. Ms. Mintzmyer made her reservations known to the Director, who in turn discussed her problems with changing the DRAFT document with Mr. Sewell.

3. Mr. Sewell, acting in concert with others, attempted to frame Ms. Mintzmyer with a lobbying charge either to force her to accept the changes to the DRAFT Vision document or to remove her.

4. When the lobbying attack failed, Department of Interior officials analyzed National Park Service personnel records and formulated a plan to transfer her in direct violation of SES regulations.

5. The Department officials ordered NPS to implement the plan under the guise of an ordinary three-way personnel move, even though there was no documentation, studies, or evidence to suggest that this plan was an ordinary procedure.

6. When caught in the various stories, and under the pressure of the reassignments being totally unusual and violative of regulations, the National Park Service, the Department of Interior, and Mr. Sewell invented a number of conflicting explanations as to where and why Ms. Mintzmyer was reassigned.

7. When Ms. Mintzmyer resisted the changes in the DRAFT document and filed an EEO claim, extremely unfortunate methods-including an attempt to stop Ms. Mintzmyer from consulting her attorney--were used.