Ken Salazar’s job is a difficult one. As Secretary of the Interior, he must answer to environmental and conversation groups that seek to protect environmentally sensitive areas of the United States, and he must manage energy and mining companies that make money by extracting natural resources from federal lands.
On October 5, Ken Salazar will join Monitor Breakfast journalists to discuss the department’s latest effort to strike a balance between land conservation and energy exploration.
In a visit to several Western states last week, Salazar remarked that companies must be able to meet local communities and conservationists halfway. “You can’t do oil and gas development everywhere. There are some protected areas that should be off-limits,” Salazar said. “But in places where the Department of the Interior will allow natural resource development, oil and gas companies need to know we are going to insist on them using the best practices in order to protect surrounding lands.”
Secretary Salazar at the Statue of Liberty in 2009
The balance between allowing industry to explore and placating conservationists has always been a difficult task for every Secretary of the Interior, and Salazar is no exception. Recently, the Department of the Interior approved a plan by Royal Dutch Shell to drill for oil off Alaska’s coast, raising the ire of environmental and native groups.
Coming from resource-rich Colorado, Salazar inherited the job from Bush administration officials who were often criticized for mismanaging the department. He served in the Colorado State Cabinet as Director of the Colorado Natural Resources Department and was lauded for creating land conservation programs and expanding environmental education in public schools. However, as a US Senator he voted against fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks, and against the repeal of tax breaks for large petroleum companies like ExxonMobil. Because of these votes, his appointment as Interior Secretary was criticized by environmentalists who saw him too closely aligned to the natural resources industry.
Watch Ken Salazar at the Monitor Breakfast on-demand at FORA.tv.