Good news from the Obama transition team Official Leak Channel: it looks like Colorado Senator Ken Salazar will be moving on to the Interior Department. Salazar is a much better pick than many of the others rumored to be on the list, and one that proponents of stewardship on western public lands can work with. Despite a history that includes being on the wrong side of some key environmental decisions, Salazar scored 100% on the League of Conservation Voters scorecard for the 110th Congress and was endorsed as an "environmental hero" by the LCV in 2005.
Though a moderate (and social conservative) Democrat, Salazar is the kind of guy who should be able to work with both sides on critical issues such as water, grazing, timber, mining, and recreational access on the public lands without being beholden to single industry's like some other names that have been bandied about.
As I noted earlier, we desperately need a Stuart Udall or Cecil Andrus at Interior, not only to promote sensible policies but to revive the hopes of the many Interior employees who have been fighting against a rigged, politicized system for the past eight years in vain hope of protecting some part of our natural legacy. Salazar isn't Udall, but he's much closer than I'd feared. We'll have to reach out to him quickly and hold his (and his boss's) feet to the fire to make sure he listens to voices outside the boardrooms and faux-ranches that have dominated the public land debates in the West for far too long.
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