Interior post will expand Salazar's influence

Reports that U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., was about to be named to President-elect Barack Obama's Cabinet set tongues awagging Tuesday as they weighed Salazar's impact on the Interior Department and handicapped the race for an open Senate seat in Colorado. Obama announced today that Salazar indeed will take the post.

Salazar is the second Interior secretary from Colorado in this young century. Gale Norton, now a lawyer for Shell Oil in Denver, held the post under President Bush from 2001 to 2006.

Salazar's influence may be felt on a number of local issues. The Interior secretary oversees the Bureau of Reclamation, which recently issued a crucial environmental impact statement supporting Colorado Springs Utilities' bid to build a water pipeline from Pueblo Reservoir. The Southern Delivery System project has pitted Colorado Springs against Pueblo, which has raised concerns about the pipeline's impact on water quality in the Fountain Creek watershed, which includes all of Colorado Springs and drains via Fountain Creek into downtown Pueblo.

In a visit to The Gazette on Dec. 3, Salazar said the technical issues were essentially resolved and all that stood in the way of the SDS project was a political accord between the two cities.

Salazar said he would use his office to help forge a consensus. His influence will presumably be greater in the Interior Department.

Salazar has been critical of the Bureau of Land Management, an Interior agency, for granting thousands of leases for oil and gas exploration on federal lands on Colorado's Western Slope. Though drilling activity is slumping because of plunging energy prices and the economic recession, a united front on this issue presented by Salazar, Sen.-elect Mark Udall and Gov. Bill Ritter portends a go-slow approach to drilling in Colorado when the economy recovers.

But Marc Smith, executive director of the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States, praised Salazar, saying, "we are confident that he views natural gas development in the Intermountain West as an important long-term element in national and regional energy supply."

The Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity issued a statement strongly critical of Salazar, saying the Interior Department was riven by "corrupt bureaucrats overturning and squelching agency scientists as they attempted to protect endangered species and natural resources from exploitation by developers, loggers, and oil and gas development."

"The Department of the Interior desperately needs a strong, forward-looking, reform-minded secretary," said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the private environmental group.

"Unfortunately, Ken Salazar is not that man. He endorsed George Bush's selection of Gale Norton as secretary of Interior, the very woman who initiated and encouraged the scandals that have rocked the Department of Interior."

Salazar could play a role with the Fish and Wildlife Service, which has authority over the Endangered Species Act. The agency has restricted development in northern El Paso County because of the presence of Preble's meadow jumping mouse, and is considering whether to list the black-tailed prairie dog, which would make most of eastern El Paso County endangered species habitat.

Salazar could also play a key role in the BLM's decision on whether to grant permits to the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude for "Over the River," a huge installation planned for the Arkansas River west of Cañon City in 2011.

The appointment of a Senate successor to Salazar falls to Ritter, who already has one fairly senior appointment to make: secretary of state, the state's chief elections official, which became vacant in November when Mike Coffman was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

The governor had named three finalists for Coffman's old post: Andrew Romanoff, the term-limited speaker of the state House of Representatives; Bernie Buescher of Grand Junction, who was in place to succeed Romanoff as speaker but was defeated for re-election, and Ken Gordon of Denver, the state Senate majority leader.

But with Salazar being named to the Interior Department today, the list of hopefuls grows. Some names being mentioned:

• U.S. Rep. John Salazar of Manassa. Ken's older brother. Re-elected to a third term in Congress. Represents the southern and western parts of the state, and would bring geographic balance to the Senate delegation, since Udall's from the north.

• U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette of Denver. Re-elected to a seventh term in Congress, she's the senior member of the Colorado delegation.

• Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, who is also being mentioned as a candidate for Transportation secretary. A high-visibility Democrat with strong ties to business, he would be a powerful candidate in 2010.

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Gazette reporter R. Scott Rappold contributed to this report.