Free Republic

To save the imperiled spotted owl, the Obama administration is moving forward with a controversial plan to shoot barred owls, a rival bird that has shoved its smaller cousin aside. The plan is the latest federal attempt to protect the northern spotted owl, the passive, one-pound bird that sparked an epic battle over logging in the Pacific Northwest two decades ago. The government set aside millions of acres of forest to protect the owl, but the bird’s population continues to decline — a 40 percent slide in 25 years. A plan announced Tuesday would designate habitat considered critical for the...

A leading congressional Republican is investigating whether the National Park Service (NPS) committed “scientific misconduct” in its effort to shut down a century-old oyster farm over claims that it threatens the local seal population. Rep. Darrell Issa (R.-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is demanding that the Interior Department turn over certain documents to his panel to determine whether faulty information will close the Drakes Bay Oyster Company (DBOC), which operates in California’s Point Reyes National Seashore. “It has come to my attention that scientific misconduct by National Park Service personnel may be jeopardizing the right...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- The proposed merger of two federal agencies managing public land and mining is part of a White House effort to wipe out the U.S. coal industry, a critic said. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar called for the merger of the Bureau of Land Management and the Office of Surface Mining. U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, said he had "serious" concerns about the decision to "suddenly and dramatically" change management of coal mines and BLM lands by U.S. President Barack Obama's administration. "The Obama administration has not made...

The University of Massachusetts Amherst has been awarded a $7.5 million federal grant over five years to lead a consortium of seven universities and host the Northeast Climate Science Center. The climate center is one of eight in the country established by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar since he founded the program in 2009, according to a press release. The center at UMass includes New England and states west to Minnesota and south to Maryland. The money will support federal, state and other agencies by studying the effects of climate change on ecosystems, wildlife, water and other resources in...

The Obama administration is spending $35 million to buy 30,000 acres of private property across the U.S. this year to make permanent homes for mice, fairy shrimp, mussels, prairie bushes and beetles. Those are just some of the 70 critters and plants to benefit from the land purchases in a dozen states as part of the government’s habitat conservation plans for endangered species. “The federal government already owns more land than Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy and Poland combined,” said Rob Gordon, senior adviser for strategic outreach at The Heritage Foundation....The federal government owns more than 600 million...

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.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- Anti-nuclear activists say they will fight a proposal to create national parks at Los Alamos National Laboratory and two other sites where the world's first nuclear bombs were developed. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar released a study to Congress last week that recommends establishing a national historical park to commemorate the top-secret Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb.

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

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

The Obama administration late Friday appealed a judge's orders directing the Interior Department to act on several Gulf of Mexico deepwater drilling permits. The appeal is the latest salvo in the ongoing fight over the speed with which Interior is – or isn't – letting oil drillers get back to work after last year's BP oil spill. Gulf state lawmakers and the oil industry have accused the department of enacting a "de facto" moratorium against new drilling, while Interior says it needs to ensure safety and environmental protections are in place. Friday's appeal challenges rulings by Judge Martin Feldman of...

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar rallied Everglades restoration workers Friday at a groundbreaking ceremony for a piece of the massive effort in rural Collier County. The ceremony deep in the Picayune Strand State Forest between U.S. 41 and Interstate 75 marked the start of work on a $79 million pump station along the Faka Union Canal. The pump is the largest of three that are part of a plan to return natural water flows to 55,000 acres of the forest where developers once planned a huge subdivision. The restoration also will tear out 260 miles of roads and plug 48 miles...

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...

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The U.S. Interior Department is taking steps to eliminate conflicts of interest within its various branches in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, announcing Friday it has created a new office to collect billions of dollars in oil and gas revenue. The newly formed Office of Natural Resources Revenue will take over revenue collection from the offshore-drilling regulatory branch, known as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. That agency formerly oversaw both revenue collection and permit approvals. Last year, the bureau disbursed more than $10.6 billion of revenue to the U.S. Treasury,...

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...

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...

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...

With Interior Secretary Ken Salazar working to renew the administration’s push for a six month moratorium on deep water oil and gas drilling, media organizations now have the opportunity to balance out their coverage by reporting on job loss projections for the gulf region. Earlier this week, a federal judge in New Orleans sided with industry groups and ruled against Obama’s order. As the administration prepares to appeal this ruling, the NYT should ask Salazar and other key figures to rationalize their actions with hard economic realities described in the court ruling. The Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association and...

Nearly 150,000 jobs connected to the offshore oil drilling industry are in jeopardy over hypocrisy from the Obama administration. In the Gulf Coast alone, where the economies of the Gulf States are still recovering from devastating hurricanes, the Obama administration has made it clear that they will play politics with the livelihoods of the citizens rather than do what is right. When so many people are depending on government to do the right thing, the Obama administration says one thing and does another. Consider the unfolding episode with Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar. Salazar has come under scrutiny for falsifying...

Energy Policy: Our interior secretary plans to reinstate the offshore drilling moratorium struck down by a federal judge. But if deep-water drilling is so unsafe, why are we helping Brazil drill nearly three times as deep? Maybe Secretary Ken Salazar can explain why Britain and others can safely drill in the North Sea and no other nation has suspended its offshore drilling. Yet there he was Tuesday saying he'll reissue a reworded moratorium that will make it clear to dunces like U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman why offshore drilling is unsafe. As with health care reform and other issues, the...