Tag: Department of the Interior

Ken Salazar's Department of the Interior has allotted $86.2 million in federal stimulus funds to Colorado so far, $14.6 million of which is going to Four Corners' Mesa Verde National Park. Mesa plans to spend the money in part on two renewable energy projects and is opening bids on those projects in June and July.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar blasted Republican senators Wednesday for voting down his pick for deputy secretary. The Senate's 57-39 vote fell three votes shy of the 60 votes required to thwart a threatened Republican filibuster against the nomination of David Hayes, an environmental lawyer who served as Interior's No. 2 for the last three years of the Clinton administration. It was the first time the Senate has blocked an Obama nomination.

A poison pill amendment to simultaneously weaken a consumer-friendly credit card reform bill and reverse a hold on a controversial Bush Administration rule to allow concealed guns in national parks won U.S. Senate approval late Tuesday. Colorado Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet and Mark Udall backed the measure introduced today by ultra-conservative Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., following a weekend compromise by Senate Banking Committee members that further watered down some consumer protections but still not to the liking of the lobbyist-heavy financial industry.

Bearing his signature bolo tie and hat, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar traded quips with Jon Stewart in a jovial but news-free interview Thursday night on The Daily Show. "We're cleaning up the mess" left by the Bush administration, the former Colorado senator told Stewart, acknowledging "maybe it's quite a mess."

Will he cowboy up or not? Interior Sec. Ken Salazar is set to appear on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" for one-on-one interview Thursday.

Now that Ken Salazar is a member of the Obama Administration, his former Republican Senate colleagues — with whom he frequently caucused — can dispatch with all that upper chamber nicey-nice. Utah Senators Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett are blocking a key Interior Dept. nominee over a grudge match instigated when Salazar pulled 77 controversial oil and gas leases on public lands in Utah.

Politicians and environmentalists alike Monday were quick to sing the praises of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, which President Obama signed into law Monday afternoon at a White House ceremony. On MSNBC, Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter told anchor Contessa Brewer that Obama was going to great lengths to highlight the importance of the law to Colorado because the White House can't allow Colorado’s other Senate seat, held by Democrat Michael Bennet, to be lost in 2010. Bennet was appointed by Gov. Bill Ritter to fill the seat of Ken Salazar, whom Obama appointed as his Interior Secretary.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked implementation of a controversial 11th-hour Bush administration rule that would allow people to carry loaded, concealed guns in national parks, wildlife refuges and historical centers, according to the Washington Post.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Tuesday afternoon that fourth-generation Colorado resident Will Shafroth, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress last summer, will be the department's...

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar invoked both President Roosevelts -- Teddy and FDR -- in a speech celebrating the department's 160th birthday at Interior headquarters in Washington Tuesday afternoon. "When faced with a crisis, Americans always build a path to progress," Salazar said, according to prepared remarks released shortly before the hoopla kicked off.