The Interior Department has announced plans to reorganize its Minerals Management Service, which is the agency charged with royalty collections on tribal and federal land. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar signed a secretarial order May 19 that will lead to restructuring of the agency, “and the division of its three conflicting missions into separate entities with independent missions,” according to a release from the department.
http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/politics/95611179.html
...Seven species of penguins in the Southern Hemisphere will receive protection under the U.S. Endangered Species Act as a result of a settlement reached in federal court in San Francisco.
U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti on Thursday signed off on a settlement reached between the U.S. Interior Department and two conservation groups.
The groups are the Center for Biological Diversity, based in Tucson, Ariz., and the Turtle Island Restoration Network, based in Olema, which sued the government earlier this year.
Catherine Kilduff, a lawyer in the center's San Francisco branch office, said, "Penguins are poster children for the devastating effects of climate change."...
http://sfappeal.com/alley/2010/06/sf-based-court-settlement-mean-new-protections-for-seven-penguin-species.php
He was right to lose the cowboy hat. Now, if he could simply 'take control' of the image of the department, its credibility and stop the petroleum industry from walking all over Americans, it would be nice.
Let’s review his tenure as a member of Obama’s cabinet.
He assumed the post in January 2009, knowing that during six of the last eight years, his department was run by Gale Norton, a political hack who fled to take a cushy job at Shell Oil.
Further, there’s a scathing 2007 report sitting on his desk that says the Minerals Mangement Service office in Denver is "a dysfunctional organization that has been riddled with conflicts of interest, unprofessional behavior and a free-for-all atmosphere" that included some of your employees doing drugs and having sex with the very people they’re supposed to be keeping an eye on.
But instead of taking a blowtorch to the infected parts of the operation, he scooted about the country doing photo opportunities in front of really groovy places run by his National Park Service.
In March 2009, he called the controversy surrounding an 11th-hour Bush administration decision to allow people to carry concealed, loaded guns in national parks a "distraction" to Americans and his department.
The folks who know better--the ones who raise money for parks and former employees--disagreed. The National Parks Conservation Association and the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees filed suit, asking that the no loaded guns policy established under the Reagan administration be restored.
Salazar hired Sylvia Vaca, a former BP executive, to be deputy administrator for land and minerals management.
Meanwhile, the MMS allowed the operators of the BP Deepwater Horizon rig to cut corners.
And even with oil erupting into the Gulf, Salazar's underlings approved other underwater drilling permits.
Last week, the Inspector General issued another MMS report that found employees in Louisiana took tickets to sports events, indulged in free lunches and other gifts from oil and gas companies. Thirteen employees had porn on their government computers and others did drugs.
Salazar called the report, "deeply disturbing."...
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/sports/outdoors/blog/2010/06/obama_should_fire_ken_salazar.html
