President-elect Barack Obama on Monday officially announced his environmental and natural resources team, adding Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO) to the list of names that was unofficially released last week.
Salazar will head the Interior Department–an agency responsible for setting policy on oil and gas drilling and mining on public lands, as well as oversight for national parks.
Salazar comes from five generations of Colorado ranchers and has been openly critical of the Bush Administration’s plans to sell oil shale development rights in Colorado.
That stance has earned the respect of environmentalists, though he was perhaps not their first choice for the position. A coalition of 141 environmental groups, biologists and other scientists launched an e-mail and letter-writing campaign in recent weeks to support the nomination of Representative Raul M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) to the post.
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