Maybe I can give an example to illustrate it clearly. We were just involved in a hearing for an area that has about 18 species. At the hearing, we found out that a number of these recovery strategies are going to be drafted in the next year. That type of information could impact how we propose activities, where we drill, what types of management activities we'd like to engage in, and what types of studies we could do.
We currently fund a number of studies, for example, on Ord's kangaroo rat, on burrowing owls, and on a number of other species. If you told us in advance that you're working towards getting a recovery strategy for Sprague's pipit, then maybe we'd adjust our research priorities for that time period to also improve the science that's going into....
Projects get delayed, too, when you can't figure out whether this area is going to be protected. The sage grouse, for example, is being looked at for protected critical habitat. Should we be waiting? What area is going to be active? What area can't be active? It's hard to plan your activities on a long-term basis without knowledge of what's going to be happening in the landscape.