Word: salazar
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President Barack Obama had promised to review those last-minute Bush Administration changes to the ESA. And green groups were hopeful that the new Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, would restore full protections for the polar bear. But they came away disappointed on May 8, when Salazar announced that he would keep the Bush rule in place, claiming that the ESA wasn't meant to be used to cap carbon emissions. "When the ESA was passed, it was not contemplated it would be a tool to address the issue of climate change," he said. "It seems to me that using...
Though he coupled his announcement with a call for comprehensive climate legislation, Salazar essentially made the same argument that his predecessors had: that the ESA was meant to deal with local threats to species, not global ones. It would be impossible, for example, to directly link the increase in carbon emissions caused by a new coal plant to the polar bears' melting habitat. But environmental groups, several of which had fought in the courts for years to force the Bush Administration to list the polar bear, found Salazar's logic faulty. "From a scientific standpoint they're wrong," says John...
Environmental groups were already less than enthusiastic about Salazar heading the Interior Department. A Democratic senator from Colorado, Salazar was a rancher more attuned to the idea of using nature rather than protecting it, and he angered greens early by removing the Western gray wolf from the endangered species list. As the head of Interior, he'll be making decisions on whether to open up new land to oil and gas development, and the polar bear ruling has some environmentalists worried. "This does raise a red flag," says Noah Greenwald, program director for the Center for Biological Diversity, which...
...Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has indicated that he will review oil and gas leases for Arctic waters, and for now, the sudden drop in the price of oil has blunted some of the impetus to drill. Although Salazar is in no rush to go fishing for petroleum, as soon as the world economy recovers, so will demand for oil and the pressure to drill offshore in Alaska. And that pressure will surely only grow as climate change causes the Arctic ice to recede. But that is precisely the lesson that must be remembered from the Exxon Valdez: that...
...Regrettably, a similar Hollywood ending to the recent Senate appointment saga proved elusive. Following Election Day, President Obama, Vice President Biden, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton all resigned their Senate seats. Nepotism, political power plays, and outright corruption sullied the search for their replacements. This should come as no surprise, since gubernatorial appointments to Senate seats are fundamentally undemocratic. They reward famous names, connections, and fundraising ability while denying the citizens of a state the chance to decide who their senator will be. Instead of relying on this outdated process for selecting interim...