About

Background

The Western Regional Partnership was established in 2007 when the Department of Defense partnered together with representatives of Federal agencies and State and Tribal leadership in the States of Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. The WRP was expanded in 2015 to include the State of Colorado. 

WRP Region

The WRP Region has significant amounts of Federally managed land, Indian Trust lands, and state trust landholdings. Federal land ranges from 34.1% to 84.9% of total state land in WRP states. Additionally the region has extensive training ranges, premier testing facilities, unmatched military air space. The WRP region contains the following:

 

The six states in the WRP region are home to 18% of the U.S. population and constitute 19% of the total land mass.

Click states in the WRP region map and segments in the pie chart to view land statistics. Multiple states and pie segments may be selected at once to view aggregate values. Clicking again on selected state or selected pie segment will deselect it. The shading of the states is based on the percentage of any particular land management category that is clicked on, the darker the color, the greater the quantity for that category. For example, California has the largest percentage of privately owned land in the region.

 

Leadership Structure

The WRP is Co-Chaired by the Governor of Utah; Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, U.S. Department of the Interior; and the Deputy Assistant Secretary of War for Environmental Management and Restoration, U.S. DOW. WRP Principals are executive level leaders from Federal and State agencies and Tribal governments in the region and are responsible for providing leadership and direction to the efforts undertaken by the WRP. The membership of the Steering Committee is composed of senior staff members representing WRP Principals and coordinates with WRP Committee Co-Chairs. The Partnership also has committees that provide a forum for information exchange, issue identification, problem solving and recommendations across the WRP region. The committees are:

More details on the structure and function of the WRP can be found in the charter.

WRP Principal Organizations

Leadership

WRP Leadership Structure

   

WRP Principals

WRP Principals are executive level leaders from Federal and State agencies and Tribal governments in the States of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. The initial Principal organizations are identified in the WRP Charter in Appendix A. Principals are those executives responsible for providing leadership and direction to the efforts undertaken by the WRP. Such efforts would include identifying regional issues or needs which should be addressed and developing strategies to address those issues and/or needs.

WRP Steering Committee

The membership of the Steering Committee (SC) is composed of senior staff members representing their respective Principal organizations. Membership includes representatives of the Governors’ offices in the WRP States, the major federal Agencies within the WRP region, Native American leadership and the WGA. The SC ongoing responsibilities include:

  • Staff their respective WRP Principals and conduct outreach internally within each WRP SC member organization
  • Bring any relevant issues from their organization to WRP for awareness and potential action
  • Conduct WRP outreach with an emphasis on:
    • Encouraging State, Federal and Tribal participation in WRP Committees
    • Enhancing working relationships with other entities to support leveraging of efforts and reducing redundancies
  • Review WRP Committee actions and provide input to WRP Committee Chairs as appropriate
  • Serve as a resource to ensure WRP effectiveness
  • Work with WRP Committees, WRP Deep Dives, WRP Working Group, and GIS Support Group to develop the Report titled, “Enhancing Resilience to Avoid Cascading Disasters.”
  • Advance efforts for the annual Principals’ meeting.