Word: interior
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Hickel's nomination has incensed the nation's conservationists, who instinctively distrust an Interior Secretary with a less than total commitment to preserve what is left of nature in the U.S. Though Hickel is a successful businessman and for the past two years has been a hard-driving and popular Governor of Alaska, he is regarded among conservationists as the archetype of a state that is impatient to tap its latent wealth. There is so much of Alaska for so few Alaskans that they have never seemed to care very much whether some of the state...
Looking Askance. As Secretary of the Interior, however, Hickel would be the custodian of 750 million acres of federal lands, forests and national parks-and rank as the nation's chief defender against the land-grabbing giveaways and pollution that have spoiled much of the environment in the past. Yet after his nomination in December, Hickel did not hesitate to say that he found little merit in "conservation for conservation's sake," a remark that created an even bigger furor among lovers of nature than Ronald Reagan caused when he said that seeing one redwood...
...conservationists want the Senate's Interior Committee to question Hickel closely on 14 counts. These range from a natural-gas franchise given one of his companies to charges that, while he was Governor, the state built roads for the benefit of his properties. Hickel's critics complain that he has been far too friendly with Alaska's oil operators to be given the Interior Secretary's wide regulatory powers over the entire $50 billion petroleum industry. Hickel has also alienated many Northeastern Senators by his opposition to a scheme for cutting fuel costs in New England...
Then, too, Hickel's critics look askance at the Governor's fight against a ruling by outgoing Interior Secretary Stewart Udall blocking title to 262 million acres of federal rangeland that Alaska had earmarked as its own as part of a 1958 statehood land grant. Udall has insisted on holding the ranges in escrow until there is a settlement of claims by Alaska's 55,000 Indians, Aleuts and Eskimos, who argue that the land was originally theirs. Oil companies covet leases to 58 million of the disputed acres that are part of the Arctic North Slope...
Some Heat. Many influential conservation groups, among them the Sierra Club, are waiting to learn more of Hickel's views before taking a stand on his appointment. So are conservationist members of the Senate Interior Committee: Democrats Walter Mondale of Minnesota, William Proxmire and Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, South Dakota's George McGovern and Lee Metcalf of Montana...