Senate to Vote on Kempthorne Nomination for Interior Secretary

As we note on our home page today, Center for Native Ecosystems is opposing the nomination of Governor Dirk Kempthorne as the next Interior Secretary. His terrible record on endangered species conservation and other conservation issues speaks for itself. The Senate Committee of Energy and Natural Resources approved of his nomination after a hearing and voice vote that took less than 15 minutes, hardly the kind of thoughtful scrutiny one might expect of a cabinet-level department responsible for at least eight agencies (including the National Park Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Office of Surface Mining, the Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), managing 262 million acres of land (either one of every five or one of every eight acres in the U.S., depending which part of their web site you refer to), and administers the resources for nearly one-third of the nation’s energy.

The one bit of almost-good news is that two Senators signaled some resistance to supporting Kempthorne, though for different reasons. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) is pushing the White House to support coastal impact assistance to Gulf Coast states for hosting so much of the nation’s oil and gas drilling infrastructure and Senator Bill Nelson (D-LA) is unhappy with Bush Administration’s plan to sell oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico. Despite the objections, the full floor vote is expected as soon as this week.