Free Republic

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...