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Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has been pressuring the National Park Service to locate sites related to the histories of women and minorities, particularly Latinos, which could be added to the National Register of Historic Places or otherwise preserved as parks or properties. According to the Washington Post: 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. Salazar bemoaned the paucity of such locations: Less than three percent of all the national landmarks that we have...

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.

Almost a year ago to the day the Department of Interior issued a press release boasting that Secretary Ken Salazar had “approved the first large-scale solar energy plants ever to be built on public lands.” As with Obama administration renewable energy initiatives, there were the promises of massive amounts of electrical power and “green jobs. ... One of the major players was Arizona-based Stirling Energy Systems out of Scottsdale, which was to provide the technology for Tessera Solar of Texas to move forward with the massive Imperial Valley Solar Project in Imperial County, California. What a difference a year makes....

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.

Salazar said more study is needed before finalizing the withdrawal of the million acres of land around the Grand Canyon. A two-year moratorium that would have expired in weeks has been extended until December. Even if no new claims are accepted, mining companies have filed hundreds of claims in the area in recent years

WASHINGTON — The Utah men who were the first in the nation to swing a legal sledgehammer to controversial wildlands policy No. 3310 are celebrating its demise, saying it's gratifying to see how the right kind of pressure can effect such a reversal. "It's tremendous. It's the best news I have heard for a long time," said Uintah County Commissioner Mike McKee. "We are very pleased." Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Wednesday directed the Bureau of Land Management to abstain from designating any "wildlands" on public lands under its purview. Instead, he said the federal agency will work with Congress...

Washington, D.C.—Nevada Senator Harry Reid released the following statement on Republican Sen. David Vitter inappropriately pressuring Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to approve offshore drilling permits: “I have worked with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on this issue for weeks and it is wrong for Sen. Vitter to try to get something in return for moving forward on a matter that the Senate has considered routine for more than a century.   “Ken Salazar is extremely well-qualified, hard-working cabinet secretary, and deserves better than to be strong armed while trying to do an important job for the American people.”

WASHINGTON - Democrats are crying foul after a GOP senator blocked a pay raise for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in an effort to pressure him into approving more deepwater oil and gas drilling permits. At issue is a move by oil state Sen. David Vitter, R-La., to not only block the almost $20,000 raise for Salazar last week but then offer to allow the raise to go forward if the Interior Department issues six new deepwater permits a month. Salazar responded with a letter accusing Vitter of employing strong-arm tactics and of trying to coerce him into approving new drilling...

Dear Friend, I don’t know a single Louisianian who would agree that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has done a good job of making sure that drilling permits are being issued to get our energy economy up and running. And yet liberals in the U.S. Senate, led by Majority Leader Harry Reid, are trying their best to give Salazar a nearly $20,000 pay raise. That’s outrageous, and this week, I sent a letter to Salazar to explain why I’m not going to stand for it. The fact is, Secretary Salazar’s mismanagement of the permitting process is causing more Gulf energy workers...

Why would President Obama want high gas prices? It's a matter of ideology for him. He thinks it's good for the environment for gas prices to be high. The higher gas prices are, the less you will drive. Also, higher gas prices make his beloved "alternative fuels" more competitive. That is because these alternative fuels are inherently more expensive, and so can't compete with cheaper gas. Note this is not a prescription for easing the financial burden on working people. High gas prices make it more likely you will buy expensive "alternative fuels." But either way, your wallet will still...

While President Obama promotes offshore drilling in Brazil, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar now promises to revitalize America's oil and gas industry. It's like Jack "Dr. Death" Kevorkian promoting himself as a lifesaving CPR specialist. This week, Salazar announced that the administration has just approved the first deepwater-oil- and gas-exploration plan since last spring's BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Mind you: This is not a granting of permits, but a green light for Shell Offshore to seek drilling permits for three new exploratory wells off the Louisiana coast. Shell first submitted and received approval for its original exploration plan in 1985. Salazar's...

After two years of practicing unrepentant contempt for science, jobs, law and truth, why should Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's words mean anything anymore? While President Obama promotes offshore drilling overseas thousands of miles away in Brazil, Salazar now promises to revitalize America's oil and gas industry. It's like Jack "Dr. Death" Kevorkian promoting himself as a lifesaving CPR specialist. This week, Salazar announced that the administration has just approved the first deepwater oil and gas exploration plan since last spring's BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Mind you: This is not a granting of permits, but a green light for Shell Offshore...

Two weeks ago, we asked whether Interior Secretary Ken Salazar considered himself above the law by ignoring court orders to resume the permitting process for deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Now we learn that Salazar may have misled Congress and the public on the number of drilling permit applications he is ignoring. Yesterday, Senator David Vitter (R-LA) accused Salazar, along with Michael Bromwich, the director of the new Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement, of using bogus figures. During Congressional testimony on March 2, and on other occasions, Salazar and Bromwich used much lower figures...

With gas prices soaring, the pressure's on the Obama administration to increase the number of permits for deepwater oil drilling. Right now, just 16% of Likely U.S. Voters have a favorable opinion of the man who'll grant those permits, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, with a scant one percent (1%) who regard him Very Favorably. only 20% of voters have a favorable opinion of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, with two percent (2%) who view him Very Favorably. The former Iowa governor

On Feb. 28, just after Interior Secretary Salazar declared that he was not satisfied with Gulf drilling safety standards, President Obama's drilling czar, Michael Bromwich, announced that a permit had been approved to resume deep-water drilling 70 miles off the Louisiana coast. Not a new permit, mind you, but one for a project that had already begun drilling before the Deepwater Horizon accident in April 2010. In the months ahead, Bromwich hinted, there might be more approvals, even approval for a new deep-water well. Maybe so, maybe not. That's the way it works with crony socialism. Just to show how...

"Energy is the capacity to do work." That simple truth from Physics 101 has everything to do with gas prices spiking at the pump as Moammar Gadhafi's war planes bomb Libya's rebel-held oil district and the whole Middle East seethes in unrest. With shaky foreign energy supplies threatening to deepen the worst recession since World War II, why doesn't America protect its capacity to do work by drilling for more oil and gas here at home? Simple truth from Politics 101: Big Green's extreme anti-energy ideology permeates the Obama administration. Dan Kish, senior vice president for policy at the D.C.-based...

Complete title: Interior Secretary Says White House Opposes Drilling in Arctic Because It Will Not Lead to Energy Independence VIDEO 2:09 minutes (CNSNews.com) - When asked why the Obama administration opposes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) given the rising cost of gasoline, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told CNSNews.com that the “drill, baby, drill program” is not going to lead the United States to energy independence. “We don’t believe that you need to drill everywhere and we don’t believe that the 'drill, baby, drill' program is the way that’s going to get us to the energy independence that...

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...

Earlier today I accused Interior Secretary Ken Salazar of a "cynical" approach to issuing deepwater drilling permits for the Gulf of Mexico. I did not realize how right I was. According to Kristen Hays of Reuters: BP Plc, whose Macondo well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico caused the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history last year, co-owns the well that was granted the first deepwater drilling permit since the disaster. BP is Noble Energy Inc's partner in the well, holding a 46.5 percent interest, BP said. Noble operates the Santiago well that received a permit from U.S....

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar appears today before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He will hopefully answer questions about his refusal to allow deepwater drilling to resume in the Gulf of Mexico, despite a federal judge twice ruling that the moratorium is illegal. The BP oil spill was a disaster, but not as big of a disaster as the moratorium that followed. The granting of exactly one drilling permit to Noble Energy this week underscores just how cynical and politicized Salazar's response has been. Last week, Salazar said that he would not bow to "political pressure" to restart...

The Interior Department on Monday approved the first Gulf of Mexico deepwater drilling permit since imposing a freeze after the BP oil spill began. The permit — awarded to Houston-based Noble Energy — follows months of criticism from Republicans, drill-state Democrats and the oil industry, who alleged that Interior was dragging its feet. But department officials maintained they were taking needed steps to lessen the chance of another disaster. “This permit represents a significant milestone for us and for the offshore oil and gas industry, and is an important step towards safely developing deepwater energy supplies offshore,” said Michael...

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said that U.S. regulators would not bow to political pressure to restart deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico before they are certain the oil-and-gas industry is capable of containing an oil spill like the one that followed last BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster. Salazar and Michael Bromwich--the head of the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, which oversees offshore drilling--were in Houston Friday to meet with oil industry executives to assess the spill-containment systems they have developed in the wake of nation's worst-ever marine oil spill. Bromwich said he was "quite confident that...

Salazar's incompetent fumbling of the Deepwater Horizons disaster embarrassed the Obama Administration, and led to the ouster of Salazar's Chief of Staff, infamous Colorado "lawyer-lobbyist" Tom Strickland. Now it seems he’s stepped in it again. Salazar's recently unveiled “Wild Lands” decree has shown him to be nothing more than a stooge for Obama, willing to do an end-run around Congress and stop use of land through regulatory fiat. This new BLM policy will allow federal land to be managed as “wilderness” without Congressional approval, a break from the current process. Continuing his penchant for transparent mismanagement

Energy: The brightest hope for America's energy independence has been shut down by an Interior Department that says it wants to review the rules for leases. It really wants to kill off oil altogether. The game is this: Say that you want to find domestic oil and gas in a "smart" way, so you have to study things for a while. Then let enviros tie you up in court to block what you really don't want to do anyway, increase America's supply of domestic energy, keeping jobs and money here. On Tuesday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that the Obama...

A Louisiana federal judge critical of Interior Department offshore drilling restrictions on Thursday gave the department 30 days to decide whether to issue five deepwater drilling permits for Gulf of Mexico projects. Judge Martin Feldman’s order features his latest attacks on drilling restrictions imposed after the BP oil spill, alleging that permitting delays have “become increasingly unreasonable.” Interior lifted a formal ban on deepwater permits in October but has yet to resume permitting. Thursday's order mandates decisions on five permit applications in which Ensco Offshore Co. – one of the companies that has sued Interior over drilling restrictions – has...

Energy Policy: An administration that has no respect for Congress, the courts or the Constitution has been found in contempt for reissuing a drilling moratorium that a U.S. district judge found overly broad. The Obama administration's trouble with the courts has continued with a judge's ruling last week that the Interior Department's reinstating of a drilling moratorium followed by a de facto moratorium via an overly restrictive permitting process constituted contempt. The administration had issued a drilling moratorium in May in waters deeper than 500 feet after the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig off Louisiana that...

The Obama administration doesn’t hide its contempt for Congress, independent agencies, watchdog groups, the media and whistle-blowers. Now a federal judge has found the administration in contempt of court. It’s about time. The case, Hornbeck Offshore Services v. Salazar, centers on a company challenging the moratorium on deep-water drilling imposed after the BP oil spill. On June 22, U.S. District Judge Martin L.C.Feldman ordered Interior Secretary Kenneth L. Salazar not to enforce the moratorium because it appeared “arbitrary and capricious and, therefore, unlawful.” The 5thU.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the order. Mr. Salazar got around the injunction by rewording...

President Obama's environmental bureaucrats have earned yet another spanking from the federal judiciary over their "de termined disregard" of the rule of law. Federal judge Martin Feldman in Louisiana excoriated the Obama Interior Department on 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 jobs -- overseas. Billions of dollars in potential oil revenue and Gulf lease sales-related rent have...

A much anticipated meeting between Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and executives from the oil and gas industries failed to lead to much progress, as both sides expressed frustration with the outcome of Monday's meeting aimed at diffusing simmering tensions in the wake of the BP oil spill. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La) set up the meeting with Salazar, industry executives, and regional lawmakers in order to address frustrations the industry has with the Obama administration's new rules and regulations for offshore oil and natural gas drilling - rules that were put in place after the BP oil spill earlier this year....

(Washington, D.C.) – Senator David Vitter today told Interior Secretary Ken Salazar that the drilling permit logjam continues and will only end when several big picture issues are directly and concretely resolved by the Obama Administration.

Three Republican senators demanded Friday that the White House explain last-minute editing changes to an Interior Department report on the BP oil spill that falsely implied that a group of independent experts had endorsed a political decision to temporarily halt all deepwater oil drilling. The senators, members of the Environment and Public Works Committee, called for hearings into the matter, contending that the White House had manipulated science for political ends, a claim Democrats frequently made about the George W. Bush administration. The Interior Department’s inspector general issued a report this week asserting that officials in the office of Carol...

DeFazio knew about Brown’s litigating timber sales when he hired her in Washington. He also hired extremist David Dreher as legislative aide in 2000, now with the Pew-funded Campaign for America’s Wilderness. DeFazio’s office is practically an incubator for radicals. On Election Day, DeFazio beat Robinson by 9 points. That took the monkey was off his back because it was not he but Salazar who had made those logging promises that won’t be kept. Because of lawyers like Brown. Some might say DeFazio is a walking Potemkin village. And Big Green’s most important product is still unemployment.

Salazar: Altered drilling report not intentionalUpdated: Nov 10, 2010 4:08 PM EST WASHINGTON, DC (RNN) - The Obama administration said Wednesday that its decision to implement a moratorium on offshore drilling was influenced by factors separate and apart from a report that some say was altered by the White House, and that the report in question was not an intentional attempt to mislead the public. Nine Republican members of Congress asked the Inspector General's Office to investigate the "30-Day Safety Report to the President," which was used to justify the Obama administration's six-month drilling moratorium. The congressmen complained that the...

Hearing reports that the race between Republican Scott Tipton and Democratic Rep. John Salazar has been called for Tipton, who leads by 11,000 votes with 92% of precincts reported.

“Encyclicals Basis Of Salazar Plan”Socialism does not raise the proletariat: it reduces all to proletarians and makes all just robots in an inhuman State machine, crushing out personality and destroying individual liberty, said Rev. P. J. Gannon, S.J., in the course of a paper on “Salazar and His Work,” at the second session of the Catholic Social Week, in the Mansion House, Dublin, last night. Portugal, he went on, had the honour of presenting them at the moment with the most successful attempts yet made to solve the problems which were troubling all people simultaneously and menacing their very civilisation....

Look -- it's an October Mini-Surprise! It's midterm-election time, the Democrats are cratering -- and Inte rior Secretary Ken Salazar this week announced that he's lifting the moratorium that the White House imposed on deepwater offshore-oil and gas drilling after the Gulf of Mexico spill. The move came six weeks earlier than expected, and followed the promulgation of some new safety rules said to ensure against future well blowouts. "I have decided that it is now appropriate to lift the suspension," said Salazar, adding: "We are open for business." And of course it's just a coincidence that there are US...

National Park Service spokesman Bill Line has lashed out at conservative critics of the trashing of the National Mall by attendees of the leftist One Nation Working Together rally held at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on Saturday.The Park Service is part of the Interior Department which is headed up by Obama appointee, former U.S. Senator Ken Salazar (Dem.-CO).Line spoke to the Daily Caller, in an unprecedented protest of coverage by the Caller and other conservative news sites and blogs that criticized the One Nation Rally for the large amounts of trash left at the Lincoln Memorial, the World...

The National Rifle Association has endorsed Congressman John Salazar’s re-election bid, giving the Manassa Democrat an “A” rating. No word yet from the NRA on the number of other Dems the organization has endorsed this cycle and what its thoughts are on Tipton.

Having been enjoined by Judge Feldman (no relation) from trying to halt oil drilling based on inadequate scientific basis, the Administration's Secretary Salazar, tried to pull a fast one by simply issuing another moratorium. Judge Feldman has refused to play along: The federal judge who struck down the Obama administration's initial six-month moratorium on deepwater oil-drilling dealt the government another blow on Wednesday. U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman denied the government's request to throw out a suit challenging the drilling halt that had been filed by offshore-oil-service companies. Justice Department lawyers had argued the lawsuit was moot because the...

Scott Tipton’s campaign released a commissioned poll that puts the Western Slope Republican ahead of Democratic Rep. John Salazar in a rematch of their 2006 battle, which Salazar won handily: Salazar has recently been the subject of scrutiny from legislation over a proposed land deal that involves his largest donor. Yesterday, NRO Campaign Spot’s Jim Geraghty listed Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District as a 50-50 pickup probability. The Cook Political Report lists Salazar’s seat as “leans Democratic” in a R+5 PVI district. Real Clear Politics also lists the race as leaning Democratic.

Scott Tipton may have to get himself a good hunting dog if he’s going to track down John Salazar for many debates. Earlier in the week, Salazar’s camp wasn’t too sure if the congressman was going to be able to make the regular forum and debate at Club 20 here in Grand Junction, which is totally understandable since the gathering involves 20 counties in western Colorado and has only been scheduled for something like a year.... A leaked memorandum by the Bureau of Land Management indicates consideration to use the 1906 Antiquities Act to authorize executive action creating national monuments...

A western Colorado land swap sought by U.S. Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., would eliminate what National Park Service officials termed a development threat to the Curecanti National Recreation Area. Salazar’s biggest individual campaign contributor, meanwhile, would get land that would allow him to complete assembly of his ranch in Gunnison County.

A western Colorado land swap sought by U.S. Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., would eliminate what National Park Service officials termed a development threat to the Curecanti National Recreation Area. Salazar’s biggest individual campaign contributor, meanwhile, would get land that would allow him to complete assembly of his ranch in Gunnison County. At the heart of the measure is a land swap that would enlarge by 1,841 acres the Bear Ranch owned by William Koch and allow him to knit together disparate parts of his ranch tucked between Ragged Mountain and Paonia Reservoir. Koch and his family members have contributed $39,800...

AP EXCLUSIVE: Salazar Keeps Oil Drill Ban, For NowVisiting Oil Production Rigs, Salazar Says Deepwater Drilling Ban To Continue July 31, 2010 **SNIP** Salazar told the AP he believes the industry-wide moratorium imposed after BP's Gulf oil spill was the correct call. "I think we're in the right direction," he said, adding that the ultimate goal is to allow deepwater operations to resume safely. "We're not there yet," he said. "I've got a lot of questions about drilling safety," Salazar said. "I learned a lot about the different kinds of rigs out there - the different limitations in terms of...

A federal judge on Wednesday questioned Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's justification for canceling 77 drilling leases sold by the Bush administration around national parks in Utah. A U.S. Justice Department lawyer maintained Salazar had good reason to cancel the leases - and that a lease isn't a lease until Salazar decides to issue one. Until the government decides to release a parcel for leasing, even after an auction, it doesn't have to do it, Tyler Welti argued. Those arguments seemed to leave U.S. District Judge Dee Benson less than satisfied during a two-hour hearing, the first in a lawsuit brought...

Votes by U.S. Rep. John Salazar. D-Colo., on health care and the stimulus bill will get plenty of attention in the coming weeks from a squad of Grand Valley activists backed up by advertising critical of Salazar’s record. Americans for Prosperity, a non-partisan, free-enterprise, free-market organization, organized the meeting of about 80 people in the Museum of Western Colorado’s Whitman Educational Center to show them how to conduct phone banks and walk precincts in the coming weeks. The idea, Colorado Americans for Prosperity head Jeff Crank said, “is to simply educate people about John Salazar and show how he’s voted...

America’s growing antipathy to the Obama administration and its liberal policies continues to befuddle the progressive rank and file. The inherent goodness of the new nanny-state that the president is creating is so readily apparent to liberals that they are sure that the ever swelling surge of anger directed toward big government must be about something more sinister; latent racism, corporate conspiracies and Fox News are the most popular villains. Progressives don’t appear able to comprehend that conservatives and a growing number of independents aren’t just upset about what is being done, it’s the how it’s being done part that...

Energy Policy: As the job-killing deepwater drilling ban continues offshore, our interior secretary defends an onshore ban imposed in Utah. If we could drill in places like that, maybe oil wouldn't be gushing a mile under the Gulf of Mexico. The 64-million-gallon question in the Gulf oil spill is why we were drilling 5,000 feet down in the first place. The administration line, as expressed by the president in his recent Oval Office speech, is that oil resources on land and just offshore are running out. The falsity of that claim can be seen in the battle over 77 oil...

The Interior Department is on the cusp of issuing a revised moratorium on deepwater oil-and-gas drilling to replace an earlier ban that a federal judge blocked last week, according to the White House and the Interior Department. Interior in late May issued the six-month ban on exploratory drilling in waters over 500 feet deep in response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar quickly pledged to impose a revised ban after the judge’s ruling. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday that he expects the revised Interior Department drilling freeze to be issued...