Word: salazar
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Environmentalists have so far been ecstatic over President-elect Barack Obama's Cabinet picks, with some even calling it the green dream team. And when Obama introduced Democratic Senator Ken Salazar as his new Secretary of the Interior at a news conference in Chicago Wednesday morning, he was likely hoping for the same worshipful reaction. "It's time for a new kind of leadership in Washington that's committed to using our lands in a responsible way to benefit all our families," said Obama. "That is the kind of leadership embodied by Ken Salazar...
...greens are so sure about the Colorado Senator, and Salazar's nomination could represent Obama's first conflict with the environmental community. Although mainstream green groups like Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) were quick to praise Salazar - Dan Grossman, head of EDF's Rocky Mountain office, calls Salazar a "rare talent" - other environmentalists were far less impressed. "His environmental record is pretty mixed," says Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, based in Tucson, Ariz. "He's far from the most antienvironmental guy out there, but he's no environmental hero...
...chief complaints about Salazar - a rancher who worked as Colorado's attorney general before his election to the Senate in 2004 - center on his ties to the ranching and mining industries and some of his votes as a Senator. As attorney general, he threatened to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - which he would lead as Interior Secretary - over the listing of the black-tailed prairie dog as endangered. (In Colorado, the animal is still classified as a "pest" to ranchers...
...relatively conservative Democrat, typical of the new centrist Western wing of the party, Salazar voted in favor of President George W. Bush's Interior Secretary nominee Gale Norton, who has been roundly criticized for her mismanagement of the beleaguered department. He also supported his friend Alberto Gonzales for U.S. Attorney General, even escorting Gonzales into the U.S. Senate on the first day of his nomination hearings. Although Salazar has since said that he was wrong to support Gonzales, who eventually stepped down after being accused of politicizing the Justice Department, his critics view the votes as evidence that the Coloradoan...
...other environmentalists argue that Salazar's centrism will serve him well at Interior, where he'll need to balance protection of the land and species with legitimate development of the country's natural resources. They point to his past practice in Colorado as a water-rights lawyer as evidence that he understands one of the most important environmental issues facing the U.S., as well as to his opposition in the Senate to the destructive practice of oil shale exploration in the Rocky Mountains. Industry representatives from mining and energy reacted positively to Salazar's appointment, seeing him as a pragmatist...