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The Obama administration announced a federal ban Monday on new mining claims affecting a million acres near the Grand Canyon, an area known to be rich in high-grade uranium ore reserves. In doing so, the administration brushed off pressure from congressional Republicans and mining industry figures who wanted a policy change. At an early afternoon event, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a 20-year ban on new mining claims on public land surrounding the Grand Canyon. On two previous occasions the secretary had imposed temporary bans on new mining claims. On Monday, he said that while uranium remains an important part...

Under fire from gun owners concerned about draft guidelines that could limit areas for target practice on western public lands, the Interior Department today said it would make sure shooters still have access to lands long available for firearms recreation. "Our goal is to leave lands open to shooting," said an Interior official for the Bureau of Land Management, which is drafting guidelines to deal with the growing clash between skittish urbanites moving to western wilderness areas and America's tradition of letting gun owners shoot targets on public lands. [Read: Obama Pushing Shooters Off Public Lands.] "We don't want to...

With the nation’s Latino population booming and now the country’s largest minority group, the Obama administration’s top Hispanic official is concerned that the federal government is not giving enough attention to Hispanic history and culture. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in the past year has pushed the National Park Service to identify more sites or properties related to the histories of women and minorities that could be added to the National Register of Historic Places or be preserved as national parks or historic landmarks.

How could a bureaucratic bottleneck in the Gulf of Mexico cost the U.S. economy nearly $20 billion and wipe out hundreds of thousands of jobs as far away as Ohio, Pennsylvania and California? Unfortunately, with this White House administration, anything is possible. President Obama recently announced yet another jobs initiative -- knowing all the while that one very simple action on his part would indeed create new jobs, infuse federal and state budgets with billions of dollars, and make us less reliant on imports. But that didn't happen. On Oct. 12, 2010, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said, "We're open for...

Exxon Mobil Corp. is fighting with the U.S. government to keep control of one of its biggest oil discoveries ever, in a showdown where billions of dollars hang in the balance for both sides. The massive Gulf of Mexico discovery contains an estimated one billion barrels of recoverable oil, the company says. The Interior Department, which regulates offshore drilling, says Exxon's leases have expired and the company hasn't met the requirements for an extension. Exxon has sued to retain the leases. The court battle is playing out at a time in

Since day one of the Obama administration, I’ve chronicled Loathsome Cowboy Ken Salazar’s War on the West, War on Jobs, and War on Science/ Rule of Law as head of the Interior Department. His eco-radical sidekick Carol Browner is gone, yet Salazar remains in place. Federal judge after federal judge has spanked Salazar and Obama’s job-destroying eco-nitwits for lawlessly and fraudulently imposing their junk-science drilling ban . Salazar spearheaded the pulling of scores of oil leases by invoking bogus eco-claims and has presided over an expansive land grab through administrative fiat. Yesterday, yet another federal judge smacked Obama/Salazar and the...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) -- A judge on Friday threw out Obama administration rules that sought to slow down expedited environmental review of oil and gas drilling on federal land. U.S. District Judge Nancy Freudenthal ruled in favor of a petroleum industry group, the Western Energy Alliance, in its lawsuit against the federal government, including Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

Earlier this month, Capital Hill predicted that a forthcoming Interior Department study would “prove” a favorite talking point of President Obama and other Democrats: One reason why gas prices are high is because oil companies are refusing to drill on land leased from the federal government. Well, the report is out and that is pretty much what it does.

As Congress considers the Interior Department's funding levels, Salazar also said his department needs a larger budget to pick up the permitting pace. Without more funding, "we may never return to the pre-Macondo rate of permitting," Salazar said, referring to the spill at BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico last year...

Oops, they did it again. President Obama's grabby-handed environmental bureaucrats have earned yet another spanking from the federal judiciary over their "determined disregard" of the rule of law. Isn't it time to give these misbehaving government hooligans a permanent timeout? Federal judge Martin Feldman in Louisiana excoriated the Obama Interior Department Wednesday for defying his May 2010 order to lift its groundless ban on offshore oil and gas drilling in the Gulf. Nine months later, not a single permit has been issued. Several deepwater platforms have moved out of the area to take their businesses -- and an estimated 5,000...

The federal judge who struck down the Obama administration’s moratorium on deepwater drilling after the Gulf oil spill is holding the Interior Department in contempt of court.

By Tom McClintock House Chamber, Washington, D.C. January 19, 2011 M. Speaker: The Department of Interior issued an announcement yesterday that perfectly illustrates the irrationality of our current approach to water issues. California’s precipitation this season has gone off the charts. Statewide snow water content is 198 percent of normal; in the all-important Northern Sierra snowpack is 174 percent of normal. This is not only a wet year – it is one of the wettest years on record. Yet yesterday, we have this announcement from the Department of the Interior: that despite a nearly unprecedented abundance of water, the Bureau...

The Interior Department’s top drilling declined to give details on when the department will begin issuing new deepwater drilling permits for the Gulf of Mexico. “I don’t want to hazard a guess as to exactly when the first deepwater permits will be issued,” Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement Director Michael Bromwich said Wednesday. He added that he hopes new deepwater permits “will be approved before too long.” Bromwich said last week that he expects to begin issuing permits before the second half of the year. Asked by reporters for a more specific date, Bromwich

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration says 13 companies whose deepwater drilling activities were suspended last year may be able to resume drilling without detailed environmental reviews. Companies will be allowed to resume work at previously drilled wells, as long as they meet new policies and regulations. The director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, Michael Bromwich, says the new policy will accommodate companies whose operations were interrupted by the administration's five-month moratorium on deepwater drilling, while ensuring that the companies can resume previously approved activities.

The oil industry’s most powerful trade group quickly attacked the Interior Department’s new decision to greatly restrict waivers from detailed environmental review for offshore oil-and-gas projects, alleging the new requirements will delay drilling. “We’re concerned the change could add significantly to the department’s workload, stretching the timeline for approval of important energy development projects with no clear return in environmental protection,” said Erik Milito, upstream director of the American Petroleum Institute, in a statement Monday. Interior announced Monday that it is ending the use of “categorical exclusions” from environmental

Back in February, a leaked memo from the Department of the Interior showed that the Obama administration was considering designating as many as 17 new national monuments throughout the West, effectively closing off huge swaths of land to development. That this was being done without the input of Congress or local authorities angered many. Now Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, Chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus and Ranking Member on the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands has uncovered 14 more pages from the document that were previously unavailable. The new pages show a federal bureaucracy...

Concerns about a host of species for decades have prompted standoffs between border and environmental officials. Border officers have limited access to federal lands in some of the most heavily trafficked areas because of the harm the patrols could do to the environment. But pronghorn preservation is popping up more and more as a barrier to Border Patrol and catching the attention of some on Capitol Hill.

As the threat of violence stemming from illegal immigration hangs over federal lands in southern Arizona, an internal memo from 2007 reveals that refuge officers have been spending most of their time struggling to deal with border-related activities instead of protecting wildlife habitat.

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/statement-president-national-broadband-plan Home • Briefing Room • Statements & Releases The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release March 16, 2010 Statement from the President on the National Broadband Plan America today is on the verge of a broadband-driven Internet era that will unleash innovation, create new jobs and industries, provide consumers with new powerful sources of information, enhance American safety and security, and connect communities in ways that strengthen our democracy. Just as past generations of Americans met the great infrastructure challenges of the day, such as building the Transcontinental...

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday he will issue a new order imposing a moratorium on deepwater drilling after a federal judge struck down the existing one. Salazar said in a statement that the new order will contain additional information making clear why the six-month drilling pause was necessary in the wake of the Gulf oil spill. The judge in New Orleans who struck down the moratorium earlier in the day complained there wasn't enough justification for it. Salazar pointed to indications of inadequate safety precautions by industry on deepwater wells. "Based on this ever-growing evidence, I will issue a...

Immigration: The president tells a border state U.S. senator that if we beef up border protection Democrats will lose the bargaining chip for comprehensive immigration reform. Forget national sovereignty — sue Arizona! As the Obama administration prepares to sue the state of Arizona to block its copycat enforcement of federal immigration law, Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl reveals that in a private meeting President Obama put his party's agenda above the nation's sovereignty. Last Friday, Kyl told the audience at a North Tempe Tea Party town hall meeting: "I met with the president in the Oval Office (regarding securing the...

Energy Policy: The advisory board on offshore drilling says it never endorsed a moratorium, which was added later by the interior secretary. The only thing transparent about this administration is its lies. Experts brought together by the Obama administration to review offshore drilling safety were asked to review recommendations in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. They did not give their blessing to the six-month drilling moratorium announced by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and have accused him of deliberately appending their report to make it seem like they did. According to the New Orleans Times Picayune, Salazar's May 27...

The BP oil spill response is so jacked up, they are seeking the advice of a dead man. As part of its 2009 disaster response plan, BP lists biologist and former Florida Atlantic University and University of Miami professor Peter Lutz as the expert it would call on to monitor any impact crude oil was having on sea life. Lutz sounds like a good pick and his expertise would be critical right now if only he hadn't died five years ago. Lutz died of pancreatic cancer at age 65.

A leaked partial document produced by the Bureau of Land Management and obtained by Fox News suggests the Obama administration is considering a plan to lock up 13 million acres of land -- and the Department of Interior is refusing to answer questions. First, a little background: The federal government owns about one-third of the land in the United States -- most of it in western states. For example, 84 percent of Nevada is owned by Uncle Sam. But the government leases large parcels of federal land for all sorts of things -- grazing, mining, exploration, recreation. Those commercial activities...

A leaked partial document produced by the Bureau of Land Management and obtained by Fox News suggests the Obama administration is considering a plan to lock up 13 million acres of land -- and the Department of Interior is refusing to answer questions...The plan may actually be more than 13 million acres. Republican members of the House have asked for the rest of the memo, but the Department of the Interior is refusing to hand it over...

WASHINGTON – Grilled by skeptical lawmakers, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Tuesday acknowledged his agency had been lax in overseeing offshore drilling activities and that may have contributed to the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. "There will be tremendous lessons to be learned here," Salazar told a Senate panel in his first appearance before Congress since the April 20 blowout and explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig.

Yishai tells Shas daily that he has clarified this stance to the U.S., and plans to expedite construction in the capital. Interior Minister Eli Yishai declared Thursday that Israel had not agreed to freeze construction in East Jerusalem, adding that American demands to do so would never be met. "There is not and never has been a freeze on construction in Jerusalem, nor will there ever be," said Yishai, whose approval of a 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem during U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's visit in March sparked tension in U.S.-Israeli ties.

Yishai tells Shas daily that he has clarified this stance to the U.S., and plans to expedite construction in the capital. Interior Minister Eli Yishai declared Thursday that Israel had not agreed to freeze construction in East Jerusalem, adding that American demands to do so would never be met. "There is not and never has been a freeze on construction in Jerusalem, nor will there ever be," said Yishai, whose approval of a 1,600 new housing units in East Jerusalem during U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's visit in March sparked tension in U.S.-Israeli ties.

HELENA, Mont. — Recently released documents show the Obama administration was getting ideas from environmental groups about setting aside millions of acres in the West, drawing the ire of land users who said discussions were being developed behind their back. In the documents — most of which are e-mail messages — the environmental groups suggest various ways to protect land, such as by creating national monuments, buying private land or through conservation easements.

Though his agency was charged with coordinating the federal response to the major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Department of the Interior chief of staff Tom Strickland was in the Grand Canyon with his wife last week participating in activities that included white-water rafting, ABC News has learned. Other leaders of the Interior Department were focused on the Gulf, joined by other agencies and literally thousands of other employees. But Strickland’s participation in a trip that administration officials insisted was “work-focused” raised eyebrows among other Obama administration officials and even within even his own department, sources told ABC...

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar appointed 12 new members to the National Park System Advisory Board, describing them as “highly accomplished men and women whose creativity and wisdom will help us prepare for the challenges of the National Parks Service’s second hundred years.” Apparently, Salazar’s definition of “highly accomplished” includes “major Democratic donor.”

Following the suggestion of his tone-deaf advance team, President Obama went from inside the White House to inside his armored car to inside the Interior Department today to celebrate the Great Outdoors. After a short drive, the Chicagoan spoke to a Great Outdoors Conference auditorium audience of about 500 including Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, a favorite urban butt of late-night comedians.

The unknown gunman who murdered an Arizona rancher three weeks ago entered and exited the U.S. illegally in an area where border agents are widely prohibited from using motorized vehicles, constructing roads and installing surveillance structures, federal agents have confirmed. The development prompted four Republican congressmen to introduce legislation on Wednesday that will ban the Interior Department from using environmental regulations to hinder agents along the border, including at the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge, a 2,300-acre parcel near where rancher Robert Krentz was killed on March 27.

Politics: The water spigots are back on, at least temporarily, in California's Central Valley. Turned off to protect a tiny fish, they happen to be in the districts of two congressmen "undecided" on health care reform. One could chalk it up to good fortune or just good constituent service. But in the middle of a contentious health care debate marked by Cornhusker Kickbacks and Louisiana Purchases, we may be forgiven if we find an announcement by the Department of the Interior regarding California's water supply a tad too coincidental. On Tuesday, the Department of the Interior announced it was increasing...

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Wednesday vowed to work with Congress on conservation, denying accusations by western Republicans of a “secret” Interior plan to designate vast tracts of land as national monuments through executive branch power. “There’s no secret agenda,” Salazar told reporters. “We are getting the best ideas in terms of how we protect the public lands of America and how we work with local communities, the states, members of Congress.” Salazar indicated that land protection decisions will go through Capitol Hill.

Many of us appreciated the President mentioning in his State of the Union address that “tough decisions” had to be made regarding offshore drilling. People have had doubts about his seriousness in regards to domestic energy policy because our Department of the Interior dragging its feet on Virginia’s offshore oil and gas leases. Still, we’ve held out hope that America’s voice will be heard on energy. And now Vince Haley at Big Government reports this shocker: In April of 2009, during a discussion about offshore exploration in San Francisco, Salazar said that President Obama directed him to “to make sure...

Energy The administration asked for public comments on a plan to expand offshore drilling. When they came in 2-to-1 in favor, the Interior Department sat on the news. Time for a "Texas tea" party? When you ask for public comment on a major policy issue, at some point you should make the results public, not hide them until you can figure out a way to spin the public reaction to support a conclusion you've already drawn. On its last business day in office, the Bush administration published a proposed draft of a five-year plan to lease areas in the Atlantic...

After a 20-minute drive into a federally protected stretch in Arizona, retired Forest Service employee Mark South points to an aging, four-strand barbed-wire fence separating the United States from its southern neighbor. "See that fence? That's Mexico," South says. "Seriously?" asks an incredulous Rep. Rob Bishop. "That's it?" Moments later, after South opens a 3-foot-wide gate, the Utah Republican walks unimpeded onto foreign soil.

WASHINGTON – Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Wednesday announced policy changes he said will bring more scrutiny and greater public voice in how oil and gas leases are awarded on public lands. Salazar said the changes should ensure stricter environmental standards in oil and gas leasing while bringing more clarity to the process to energy companies hoping to drill on public lands, mostly in Western states.

Richmond, VA) -- Governor-elect Bob McDonnell wants Virginia to become the first state on the Atlantic seaboard to explore and drill for oil. The Republican has sent a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, asking that Virginia be allowed to move ahead on offshore energy exploration. McDonnell cites an Old Dominion University study that concluded natural gas production would create hundreds of jobs and generate millions of dollars for the state. It's believed at least 500-million barrels of oil could lie off the coast of Virginia.

The federal government's border fence has been called the Tortilla Curtain. But in the swamp of border politics, there's a more effective barrier at play, one that filters ideas rather than people. It explains why most Americans still don't fully understand the disaster on our southern border. This tortilla curtain is propped up by much of the major media, activist groups and cheap-labor-addicted businesses, big and small. They're all spinning us, for their own reasons. But the list includes the feds, too.

Shortly after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, a secret government report highlighted a way terrorists might easily enter the United States carting weapons of mass destruction. It wasn't by air or sea. The classified analysis pointed to an arid and sparsely populated stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona teeming with drug runners. "This area has become very active with smuggling and encrypted radio traffic," says the report titled "Threat Assessment for Public Lands" completed by the Interior Department in late 2002. "This would be an ideal area to smuggle a weapon of mass destruction." The report, marked...

WASHINGTON — The Department of the Interior has frozen oil and gas development on 60 of 77 contested drilling sites in Utah, saying the process of leasing the land was rushed and badly flawed. The 77 government-owned parcels, covering some 100,000 acres in eastern and southern Utah, were leased in the last weeks of the Bush administration. But the leases were immediately challenged by conservation groups, and in January a federal judge blocked drilling on the ground that the Interior Department had failed to follow its own procedures for reviewing the appropriateness of lands designated for oil and gas extraction.

Delta smelts: Preferred over humans. Environmentalism: Sen. Dianne Feinstein votes to deny water to California's drought-stricken San Joaquin Valley. Farmers, families and food are being held hostage to an endangered fish called the delta smelt.There was a time when the San Joaquin Valley was the most productive agricultural region in the world. It was a large part of what made the Golden State golden.Now it's a place where farmers no longer farm, but instead line up at food banks to feed the families of those who once fed the rest of the country and a good chunk of the...

The Justice Department investigation centers on a 2006 decision to award oil shale leases in Colorado to a Royal Dutch Shell subsidiary. Months later, the oil giant hired Norton as a legal counsel. Reporting from Washington - The Justice Department is investigating whether former Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton illegally used her position to benefit Royal Dutch Shell PLC, the company that later hired her, according to officials in federal law enforcement and the Interior Departmen The criminal investigation centers on the Interior Department's 2006 decision to award three lucrative oil shale leases on federal land in Colorado to a...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Interior Secretary Ken Salazar moved Monday to prepare the nation's parks, refuges and endangered species for the onslaught of global warming. Salazar signed an order setting up a Climate Change Response Council and eight regional response centers to study and respond to such issues as rising sea levels threatening to swamp historic structures and warmer temperatures shifting where wildlife live. The order also commits the Interior Department to develop a plan to reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions, including setting a firm target.

In a move to protect endangered species, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Thursday that his department had reversed a Bush administration decision to double the amount of logging allowed in and around old-growth forests in western Oregon. Veering between swipes at “indefensible” moves by the Bush administration and pledges to step up noncontroversial timber sales, Mr. Salazar said in a conference call with reporters that he was reinstating a compromise reached 15 years ago to limit logging with the goal of protecting watersheds, trout and salmon fisheries and endangered birds like the northern spotted owl. “Today we are taking action...

The Obama administration will make reforming the nation's 137-year-old hardrock mining law a top priority despite a full plate of higher profile issues, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday. Salazar told a Senate committee considering reform legislation that "it is time to ensure a fair return to the public for mining activities that occur on public lands and to address the cleanup of abandoned mines." The General Mining Act of 1872, which gives mining preference over other uses on much of the nation's public lands, has left a legacy of hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines that are polluting rivers...

-Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar on Monday announced measures he said would expedite solar energy projects on federal lands. Although hundreds of solar plant projects have applied for leases, none have been approved, and the fast-track effort was applauded by the industry. Salazar has made expanding renewable energy leasing on federal property a top priority, and the announcement should help to clear the bottlenecked permitting program. One of the key initiatives proposes solar energy zones on federal lands in the Western U.S. Other measures include opening new solar energy permitting offices and accelerating reviews of industry proposals. Environmental advocacy groups...

The Interior Department's Web site links to a page highlighting key officials. It's blank. ... Part of the holdup stems from a clash with Utah's two senators [...]. ... "We have a lot of work to do and some of it is on hold simply because we don't have the personnel confirmed as of this point," Salazar said. ... Sen. Bob Bennett, for one, isn't sure he wants that team in place. Bennett has placed a hold on the nomination of David Hayes to be deputy secretary out of concern about Salazar's decision to pull back on 77 leases for...