Thank you. It is a real pleasure to be with you in sunny Los Angeles.

I and my husband John are enjoying our trip to the wonderful state of California. We lived in the San Francisco area for a year, and enjoyed traveling around the state.

Today, I will be talking about protecting the environment both in this beautiful area and across the country, as well as the key issues of fire and energy.

But first, let me describe the role of the Interior Department in California. California's national parks are well known: Yosemite, Sequoia, Golden Gate and others. There are also many wildlife refuges and Bureau of Land Management lands.

In fact, the Interior Department has responsibility for 22 percent of California's land. We supply water to 31 million people in the state, including much of California's irrigated agriculture.

Our responsibilities are as old as studying dinosaur fossils and ancient petroglyphs, and as futuristic as our own satellite.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) received a lot of attention yesterday with the announcement of its study on the Puente Hills fault and the consequences of a possible earthquake there.

It's not pleasant to be the bearer of bad news, but we want to encourage people to be prepared. The potential damage is devastating, but it may not happen for another 3,000 years.

USGS is the nation's premier earth science organization. It has an earthquake monitoring system that can instantly track earthquakes anywhere in the U.S. and in most of the rest of the world.

That ability was important during the terrible earthquake and subsequent tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean last December.

Expanding in the wake of that experience, we have realized how essential it is to be able to warn people when we can predict phenomena like an incoming tsunami, or to help emergency personnel respond quickly to the right locations when an earthquake occurs.

We have a new website that predicts the probability of earthquakes in the next twenty-four hours. The site predicts aftershocks, as well as increased likelihood that significant medium-sized earthquakes might be precursors to larger ones.

I am very proud of the scientists in my department who are pushing the boundaries of our understanding of the natural world.

We are looking to the future through education as well. Some 50,000 children are being educated in Bureau of Indian Affairs schools. The Interior Department also has some of the best outdoor classrooms in the country. Through our Junior Ranger program, thousands of children learn about the history and natural wonders of our national parks.

Earlier on my trip, I met with children at the first Take Pride in America school in the nation.

Getting young people involved is one aspect of developing the citizen stewardship that is at the heart of the Bush Administration's approach to environmental protection. We call it "cooperative conservation."

I saw another great example today, the Irvine Ranch Land Reserve. The ranch consists of more than 50,000 acres in Orange County, with one mountain-to-the-sea trail already completed, and two more on the way. It was made possible though an amazing gift from developer Donald Bren.

Many entities have cooperated in its establishment and care, including the Irvine Company, the Nature Conservancy, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and local communities.

The Ranch is a great habitat for wildlife, including endangered species. It is also a great resource of outdoor recreation for the 20 million people living within a 2-hour drive of the area.

Last summer, the President issued an executive order calling on Interior and other federal agencies to expand this cooperative conservation approach. I would like to explain this subtle but profound development in environmental protection, and how it is helping us improve the landscape.

I would like to take a few minutes to place cooperative conservation in its context as a significant development in environmental protection.

One hundred years ago, President Theodore Roosevelt saw that the fate of the natural world in the United States was at a critical juncture.

An avid hunter himself, President Roosevelt recognized that wildlife populations were declining. So he acted. By the time he left office, 50 federal bird reserves had been established, along with four national game preserves.

For the first few decades after Roosevelt's actions, the conservation movement focused on the creation of parks and wildlife refuges and the management of game species such as waterfowl and deer.

Roosevelt's impetus to protect the environment by setting land aside has yielded tremendous results. Today, the refuge system has grown to 95 million acres. Our national parks encompass another area of similar size. Wilderness areas total 100 million acres - an area as large as the state of California.

Over the last 35 years of the 20th Century, we entered another phase of environmental protection. Problems with the environment were dramatically visible: Our nation's symbol, the bald eagle, on the verge of extinction; the Cuyahoga River on fire; smokestacks belching fumes into our cities.

Out of this crisis period came the enactment of landmark environmental laws ranging from the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act to the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act.

Compliance with these laws and others has significantly improved our environment. Just think what Los Angeles air quality would be like today without Clean Air Act changes.

But there has been controversy along the way. Federal policies resulted in conflicts, real and perceived, between economic growth and environmental protection.

Environmental discussions triggered passionate antagonism and hostility. In political and media debates, environmentalists and businesses demonized each other.

We have learned that command and control approaches have their strengths and their limitations. The Endangered Species Act provides an example. The Act gives us an important tool to prevent and punish the wanton killing of birds and animals that caused the extinction of the passenger pigeon and other species.

But the Act's punitive aspects intimidate otherwise law-abiding citizens into fearing endangered species. Command and control methods, we have learned, enforce minimum standards of behavior.

In my prior life, I was Attorney General of Colorado. I prosecuted people criminally for the midnight dumping of hazardous chemicals. There are still people who will put drums of poison near school yards, or who will thumb their noses at pollution controls. For them, we need punishment as a tool.

But thankfully, today the vast majority of Americans tremendously enjoy a clean and healthy environment. In this new 21st Century, Americans are enthusiastic about having both a thriving economy and a spectacular natural world.

Enforcing minimum standards alone will not achieve the level of environmental quality we want to see. We need to go beyond minimum compliance, and reach out to harness innovation and enthusiasm. We need to tap into American ingenuity and the community spirit to care for our land, water, air, and wildlife.

So we are pursuing cooperative conservation. For on-the-ground conservation projects, we have sent $1.7 billion in grants to states, cities, tribes, conservation groups, farmers and ranchers, and other partners.

Wetlands are being restored through those cooperative conservation grants. Invasive species are being eradicated, native vegetation is being replanted, and the environment is being enhanced.

Let me illustrate the power of cooperative conservation by describing a major California success in environmental collaboration.

Four years ago, I traveled to the Ventana Wilderness Area in the Big Sur area, to attend the release of five California condors back into the wild.

That was an important day for me because I had been involved with the condors for a long time. When I worked for the Interior Department in the 1980's, there were only about a dozen condors left in the wild.

Then we started hearing horrifying news. First one condor died, and then another, due to various causes. That led to a debate over an agonizing decision: Whether to bring condors in from the wild or let them die with dignity. Ultimately, the seven remaining wild condors were brought in.

The Fish and Wildlife Service worked with the Los Angeles Zoo and the San Diego Wild Animal Park on elaborate ways to raise the birds in captivity, but avoid their exposure to humans that would hinder them when released back into the wild.

The day we released condors was an inspiring day. I can't forget what a thrill it was to see the birds take some tentative steps outside their enclosure - and then to soar along the valley on their huge wings.

The majestic California condor is slowly coming back from the literal brink of extinction. More than 250 California Condors are alive today. 55 condors are now flying free in this state.

The on-going comeback of the California condor would not have been possible without the amazing cooperative efforts of a number of partners, including the San Diego Wild Animal Park, the L.A. Zoo, the Peregrine Fund, the Ventana Wilderness Society, and the World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho.

Such second chances are rare. I know. I have now had the privilege of being a part of two such efforts.

Last month, I was with a group of scientists and conservationists when they announced the dramatic rediscovery of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker.

I have never seen scientists so excited. It was fun to see. Men and women who had spent most of their lives in methodical study suddenly seemed on the verge of jumping up and down. None did - at least not that I saw. But their joy was infectious. They had a reason to be excited.

The ivory-billed woodpecker is a spectacular black and white creature, with a crimson crest. It is the largest woodpecker in the United States and the second largest in the world.

The bird was believed to have gone extinct decades ago. But now we have the gift of a second chance.

To assure the bird's survival, we have begun a multi-year, multi-million dollar partnership effort. Together with the Agriculture Department, we have proposed spending $10 million in federal funds to protect the bird and its habitat. Those funds will supplement the $10 million that private sector groups and citizens have already committed toward research and habitat protection efforts.

Together with our partners, we are going to do all we can safe keep the ivory-billed woodpecker.

It is still early, but I believe the cooperative conservation approach will make a big difference for recovering the woodpecker. We could have started with a heavy-handed approach-telling local landowners that they would be prohibited from doing a laundry list of activities on their property.

That would have instantly alienated hundreds of local citizens - whose support is critical for the bird's survival. It would only take an idiot or two to kill the bird and forever destroy its second chance of survival.

Instead, we are working closely with Nature Conservancy and Department of Agriculture on acquiring easements from willing sellers. We are enrolling farmers in the conservation reserve program and buying land to expand our wildlife refuges.

We have held town hall meeting near site where bird spotted, and the local citizens are enthusiastic. Having tools to encourage voluntary conservation gives us more tools in our toolbox for achieving conservation success.

The Healthy Forests Initiative is an important tool in the fight against wildfires.

Two years ago, you saw mountains burning. Aided by drought and abetted by bark beetle infestation, the wildfires of Southern California took a terrible toll. Flames licked up to Lake Arrowhead. Smoke stole the sun from Los Angeles.

When the infernos were finally extinguished, more than 750,000 acres had been scorched, more than 3,600 homes had been consumed, and more than 20 people had lost their lives.

The tragedy was all the worse for being foreseen. The dangers were clear.

The conditions that led to the infernos of 2003 had been literally growing for 100 years. A misguided federal forest policy of putting wildfires out whenever they arose led to an unnatural buildup of fuel. All it took was a spark.

So we are working with states and local communities to design and prioritize appropriate projects. In some areas, especially close to people's homes, we are using mechanical thinning. In other areas, we use prescribed burns.

This is not a one-time job. We need to keep managing lands in an active way. We are building public-private partnerships to manage the land, through a process called stewardship contracting.

Those projects help save the lives of citizens and firefighters, they protect critical natural resources and they reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires.

We are doing what we can to prevent hills from being blackened with smoke and valleys from running red with flame.

Doing so is also important biologically. A monoculture of overly dense trees crowds out all tree species except those that do well in dense environments.

Through the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, which passed with bipartisan support, we are creating landscapes that are richer in wildlife and less prone to fire.

So far this year, Federal agencies (including the Forest Service, FWS, NPS, BLM and BIA) have treated more than 46,000 acres in California. Across the country, they have done hazardous fuels and landscape restoration work on more than 2 million acres.

Our goal is to reduce fuel loads and restore landscapes on about 4 million acres this year. I think we can do it. Last year at the Department of Interior, we exceeded our goals by nearly 20 percent.

Energy production and environmental protection can go hand-in-hand. They must. We in the administration are going to do all we can to be sure that that is done across the entire breadth of the country - from the Gulf of Mexico to ANWR.

Partners working together literally have the power to change the landscape for the better. You can see that power working here in Southern California, at the Bolsa Chica (pronounced just like it looks) wetlands restoration project on Huntington Beach.

Nearly half the birds found in the United States have been seen in Huntington Beach. At the Bolsa Chica State Ecological Reserve, a group of partners (the Bolsa Chica State Ecological Reserve, the Bola Chica Conservancy and the Amigos de Bolsa Chica) are providing environmental and interpretive exhibits for the community.

Something extraordinary is happening there right now. After 50 years as an oilfield, that wetlands ecosystem is being transformed into a wildlife haven.

The Fish and Wildlife Service, along with many other partners, broke ground for the Bolsa Chica wetland restoration project last October. It is the largest and most expensive ($63 million) coastal wetland restoration project in Southern California, and the second largest construction project ever managed by the service.

The project is going to expand, reclaim and restore the wetland areas that were degraded by urban and industrial influences decades ago. When finished, some energy production may continue on the site. But thanks to best management practices and painstaking pollution control efforts, the area will be a real sanctuary.

The project will restore almost 600 acres of tidal areas and upland habitats to support fish and shorebird populations.

The Bolsa Chica restoration effort shows that partnerships have the power to produce progress, to change today's realities into tomorrow's places of rest and refuge.

I have talked a lot about how this administration is committed to doing that with natural resources.

I hope you understand our commitment, our hopes.

What do we want for Southern California? We want the lights to stay on in Los Angeles. We want rivers that run with water, and hills that don't burn with flame. We want days so clear that you can see the San Gabriel Mountains from the high rises of Santa Monica. We want Los Angeles and Orange County to be thriving places, bursting with energy and shining with light.

With your help, we can make it happen. With your help, we can take the realities of today and transform them in to a brighter future than we ever dreamed.

Thank you.