Obama Picks Salazar as Interior Secretary. By Jim Tankersley and Julie Cart, LATimes, December 16, 2008. "President-elect Barack Obama plans to name Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) to lead the Interior Department -- an appointment that could put the brakes on several controversial energy development projects across the West. If confirmed, Salazar would head a department with a broad portfolio, including managing the troubled Bureau of Indian Affairs. Salazar, 53, would also oversee the nation's national parks and other large swaths of public lands, making him the country's foremost landlord. And he would be responsible for the Bureau of Land Management, which sets policy for oil and gas drilling, mining and other resource extraction on public land. Earlier this year, Salazar criticized the department for decisions to open Colorado's picturesque Roan Plateau for drilling. Salazar said the regulations to begin opening land for oil shale development would 'ell Colorado short'... Salazar was not the first choice of some environmental groups, who had favored Rep. Raul M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.). A coalition of 141 environmental groups, biologists and other scientists launched an e-mail and letter-writing campaign in support of Grijalva. Grijalva last month compiled a scathing report on what he considered President Bush's environmental legacy on public lands... Karen Schambach, the California coordinator for the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility [PEER], described Salazar as more of a centrist. Still, she expected he would be a 'sympathetic soul' in a department that had offered a cold shoulder to the environmental community.
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