January 15, 2009 6:54 AM
LIVE COVERAGE: Salazar confirmation hearing
Sen. Ken Salazar faces a confirmation hearing today to become Interior Secretary in President-elect Barack Obama's cabinet.The grilling will be done by Salazar's colleagues on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, where Salazar has served during his four years in the U.S. Senate.
Observers, including both Democrats and Republicans, say they're expecting few fireworks, although Salazar is likely to face questions about his past stands on commercial oil shale leases, energy exploration, the endangered species act and a series of scandals that plagued the Interior Department over the past eight years.
The Rocky Mountain News is providing live coverage here, starting at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time (7:30 a.m. in Colorado).
Watch below for live updates.
Newer items will be at the top.
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11:40 a.m. - Senators are continuing non-confrontational rounds of questioning on various bureaus and agencies within the vast Department of Interior.
Salazar's former colleagues have asked several times about his position on whether to allow people to carry concealed weapons on federal lands, such as in national parks.
Without taking a specific stand, Salazar has told the stories of learning to use a gun from a very young age in the rural San Luis Valley, where he sometimes stood guard over the family's sheep herds.
"I grew up learning how to shoot a gun, probably since I was 3 years old. I probably shouldn't have been doing it at that age," Salazar said. "So I have a healthy respect for guns and I know how to use a gun."
He said he had a "healthy respect" for the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and gun rights in general, and he said he'd study the public lands gun issue when he's confirmed.
On another issue, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., cited a list of woes in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, or BIA, and then boiled down his point.
"Fix the BIA," Dorgan said. After a pause he added: "You'll do that, right?" prompting an outburst of laughter in the committee room.
The laughter typified the tone of the last hour of the hearing: friendly.
10:40 a.m. - Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., pressed Salazar on the issue of oil shale, alluding to Salazar's outspoken role last year in pushing for a more cautious approach to commercial leasing regulations that the Bush administration advanced.
"My view has been that we need to look at it as part of a comprehensive energy plan," Salazar said, but he stressed that he did not want to move forward with developing oil shale technology in a "reckless" way before more is known about how much energy and precious western water it will take to extract oil from rock buried under the Rocky Mountain region.
"It is rock, rock, rock, and we don't have some answers to some very important questions," Salazar said.
In a cordial exchange, Burr cautioned Salazar to remember that better technology might not advance unless industry has more certainty about the federal policies.
10:30 a.m. -- The early grilling was the opposite of intense, typified by the close of Republican Sen. Mel Martinez's five minutes of so-called grilling, which ended with "I have no questions. I just want to tell you how much we're going to miss you."
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., tried to break the mood, saying the hearing was "on its way to becoming a full-fledged bouquet-tossing contest."
Wyden pressed Salazar on his commitment to reversing "politically-tainted judgments" made in the name of science during the Bush administration, and he pressed Salazar to "drain the swamp" and fix the scandal-plagued Minerals Management Service.
10 a.m. -- In setting out his priorities as Interior Secretary, Salazar began by saying that for too long the department has been viewed as something that oversees the lands of the West, even though it has jurisdiction over a vast portfolio of issues covering every corner of the nation.
"I want this department to be America's department," Salazar said.
Turning to issues, he cited an Inspector General's report that cited the long list of scandals that have occurred within the department, and said it's clear what he needs to tackle first: our first and foremost task is to restore the integrity of the Department of Interior."
Salazar also spoke of the department's role in helping the new administration take "a moon shot," on the scale of the Apollo missions, to launch the country on the way to energy independence.
9:46 a.m. -- After emotional introductions from the nominee's brother, Rep. John Salazar, and Sen. Mark Udall, Salazar has been sworn-in, and has thanked family members in attendance, including his wife, Hope, and daughters Melinda and Andrea.
And he is thanking his late father, Henry, and his mother, Emma, saying, "They instilled in us the values I have brought to the U.S. Senate and to my public life."
9:40 a.m. -- The hearing is underway.
In opening remarks, committee chairman Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said that Obama "could not have chosen a better nominee" than Salazar.
"Clearly Sen. Salazar understands the West and the special needs of the public lands states," said Bingaman, who offered his "enthusiastic support."
And, as if there was any doubt about the fate of Salazar's nomination, even the committee's highest-ranking Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, praised Salazar "as a consensus builder and centrist" and used the phrase "if confirmed, as I certainly expect that you will be..."
9:30 a.m. -- Salazar has entered the room, greeted guests, posed for pictures and now awaits his grilling.
9:28 a.m. -- Audience members and special guests are now filling most of the committee hearing room. Among them are the two Coloradans who will introduce Sen. Salazar: his brother, Rep. John Salazar, and Sen. Mark Udall, who is poised to become Colorado's senior U.S. Senator if his colleague is confirmed to Obama's cabinet.
Still awaiting Salazar's arrival, the committee has just distributed copies of Salazar's prepared remarks, in which he tells his now-familiar family story before getting into issues.
"If confirmed, I will remain committed to helping our nation reduce its dangerous dependence on foreign oil," Salazar says in the prepared remarks. "President-elect Obama believes, as I do, that our foreign oil dependence is a grave threat to our national security, our planet and our economy."
January 15, 2009
10:22 AM
SASQUATCH writes:
This guy is such a lightweight and empty-suit that he is a living insult to all "imbecile" and clothes hangers.
All-hat and no plan, his uneconomic, inefficient and unreliable windmills, solar machines and biofuel distilleries are irrelevant to the 250 million cars and trucks on American roads. No wonder why they are all filing for Chapter II.
He is an eco-hysterical, enviro-phobe bought, paid-for and owned by the greenies. This energy obstructionist is bad for America.
Big hat...no plan.
January 15, 2009
10:50 AM
LCDR Mandingo writes:
Enuff already with Sally Mae. Bring on Eric Holder. I wanna rip US Sen. Spector. This Bozo is GOP "swifitizing" Holder, with his Jim Crow fangs. Spector (NAM draftdodgfer/commie-sider)in the same bigot that confirmed SCOTUS in-Justice Sam Alito. Didn't President Carter (GOP-BFF)PARDON Spector? GWB and Alito are UCMJ felonious clones. Both are UCMJ felons; AWOLees, deserters and guilty of illegal separation. Alito joined the US Army's ROTC program, where he pimped and exploited taxpayers for 7 years FREE college education (JD and undergrad degrees). Like Ray-Gun (WWII draftdodger), Alito FORGOT to report for his "11" years of active military duty, a payback to taxpayers. BHO should have Alito impeached, just like GHWB had former Black federal judge Alcee Hastings impeached. BHO! The plantation gates are dangling, "wide-open".
January 15, 2009
2:38 PM
charles writes:
Mr. Salazar is all talk and no energy. The Great Green Delusion he is in believes $130 dollar OPEX for renewable liquid fuels is our saviour. The delusion continues dreaming and praying that wind can blow its way into a cost effective industry. For every sagebrush he thinks is damaged by fossil fuels extraction, and for everytime he claims sage grouse needs protection, we will find a sage brush full of grouse in danger of windmills, power lines, algae farms, solar farms and strip farming for biofuels.
Good luck getting us off of foreign oil.