Obama To Name Salazar Interior Secretary

Today President-elect Obama will name Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) as the new U.S. Secretary of the Interior. “Dwayne Meadows, a field representative for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, which focuses on the inner Mountain West, said Salazar’s moderate approach should produce concrete policy results in an Obama administration. ‘He’s been supportive of public lands energy development, but he thinks it needs to be done responsibly and protect the other uses out there,’ Meadows said. ‘He didn’t say, “Don’t drill the Roan Plateau,” but, “Make sure you protect hunting and fishing recreational uses as well.”‘ ” Juliet Eilperin in The Washington Post.
Salazar’s biggest task — other than purging the anti-science advocates — will certainly be cleaning up departmental corruption. “‘Short of a crime,’ [Interior Department Inspector General Earl] Devaney said, ‘anything goes at the Department of the Interior.'”