Obama's pick for public lands chief lauded

President-elect Barack Obama's choice for interior secretary is receiving widespread praise from environmentalists and politicos.

Senate Energy Committee member Ken Salazar, D-Colo., was picked Wednesday to replace Dirk Kempthorne as head of the Interior Department. Salazar's experience includes leading Colorado's Department of Natural Resources.

"He has a lifelong understanding and involvement in the West's public lands issues, and as senator, has demonstrated time and again that protecting Colorado's natural features is a priority for him," said William Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society.

Meadows and Kempthorne called Salazar an "excellent" pick by Obama.

"He recognizes the importance that America's federal lands must play in reducing our dependence on foreign energy; he supports our national parks; he has positive relationships with American Indian tribes; he understands the complexities of Western water issues," Kempthorne said in a statement.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said Salazar will be taking over during tough times in the country's economic history. Rahall said Salazar will restore the vigor and vitality of the nation's natural and cultural heritage.

One challenge Salazar may inherit will be the possible fallout of an oil- and gas-lease sale taking place Friday in Salt Lake City. Critics of that sale accuse the Bush administration of selling off land for development that is too close to two national parks, a national monument and other sensitive wilderness areas in Utah.

If a federal lawsuit filed this week isn't successful in stopping the lease sale, Salazar will be pressured to wield his power to protect the parks and monument from oil and gas encroachment, according to critics of the sale who spoke at a news conference Wednesday.

Pressure has come recently from the Government Accountability Office, which criticized the Interior Department for not doing enough to develop its existing cache of oil and gas leases, as the Bureau of Land Management continues to offer more land in ongoing lease sales.

In October, Kempthorne announced the opening of 118 million acres of BLM land and 79 million acres of National Forest Service land for geothermal development in the West. The impact of that announcement in Utah affects 9.5 million acres of BLM land and more than 2.7 million acres of Forest Service property.

Last month, the Interior Department said it will give energy companies a break on royalty costs as they go after an estimated 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil locked in a shale formation that spans Utah, Colorado and Wyoming. A company would only pay a 5 percent royalty, half of which goes to the state, over the first five years of commercial development of an oil-shale deposit. The rate would rise 1 percentage point each year after that, up to the current going rate of 12.5 percent for conventional methods of onshore drilling for oil.

Despite what critics have recently described as an Interior Department bowing to oil and gas interests, National Trust for Historic Preservation President Richard Moe is confident Salazar will bring a balanced approach to the job.

"Senator Salazar has demonstrated an outstanding record of preserving historic and cultural resources on public lands as the co-leader of the National Landscape Conservation System Act," Moe said.

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E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com