If only Obama could find a cabinet or similar position for Sen. Rockefeller...

Salazar (the oldest looking 53 yr old I've seen in a long time) was also Colorado AG, which could be a good thing, since it's one of the more corrupt agencies right now.

But please, please, please, don't replace him with his Blue Dog brother. Dems have way too many appointment controversies revolving insider family members already - Caroline Kennedy, Ted Kennedy's wife (Victoria?) , Jesse Jackson Jr, Madigan (also IL), Beau Biden. If there is one thing we should have learned from W, it's that genes are not always predictive. I would argue the same of spouses, by the way.

There'd been a few rumors about likely candidates for Secretary of the Interior, but Sen. Ken Salazar's (D-Colo.) name comes as something of a surprise. He will, apparently, accept the nomination and give up his Senate seat after just two years in the chamber.

As McJoan didn't put it, though, the left, or the "left," could have done better. Salazar didn't do anything wrong environmentally as a senator, but both there and at Colorado DNR, he hasn't shown any activism or any vision on environmental affairs.

Grade on this choice? B-minus.

As for his LCV rating? Hell, LCV is a Gang Green group. Go Google it.

He's not popular with this constituent he is a horrible democrat and his voting record is despicable.

I don't know much about him, and I've never heard of him being a vocal opponent of current Interior practices. I hope he'll be a vigorous defender of public lands, national parks, and endangered species-pretty much the opposite of the Bush Interior Department the last eight years. We'll see. I've always considered this an important cabinet post, even if it's not the most glamorous.

Once again, we ignore Article I, Section 6 at peril. First decision Salazar makes at Interior (or Clinton at State) that an individual believes harms them, and that individual will have standing to challenge the action based on Salazar's (or Clinton's) constitutional incapacity to serve. The emoluments have been increased since Salazar took office in 2005. The Constitution's plain language allows no exemption for their later reduction.

Assuming confirmation, State and Interior are going to be in court and their secretaries hands tied while the issue works its way up to those strict constructionists.

To think no one will bring suit is to blithely ignore contemporary American politics.

I'm writing an article called "The Reservoir to Nowhere." It's about the Animas-La Plata project in southwestern Colorado, where the Bureau of Reclamation has constructed an off basin reservoir for around $640 million. The idea of the project is to pump water uphill, out of the Animas River, for storage in Nighthorse Reservoir. The water will then be dumped back into the Animas River. There is presently no use for the water. The project is harmful to endangered species, inundates an elk refuge, damages one of the west's last free-flowing rivers, undermines Colorado's control over its water, is the result of non-accountable back room pork barrel politicking, and was authorized without any economic analysis. It is Senator Ken Salazar's project and truly reflects change you can believe in. Ugh.

To think no one will bring suit is to blithely ignore contemporary American politics.

Congress is already reducing the pay for SoS so that Clinton is in compliance, I'm sure they'll do the same with Interior.
Any lawsuit will be dismissed, or go the same way as the suits against Obama based on his foreign born father.

anything to get rid of Senator DINO. I live in CO and worked hard for him. What did progressive dems get in return? He gave us votes for Gonzalez and Mukasey for AG, Alito and Roberts for SCOTUS, and the Gang of 14 compromise for uber conservative judges. Good Riddance. Killing the animus laplata project should be a condition of him getting the post.

Not a glamorous post? What do you call all those hookers and blow? :)

In all seriousness, I think it's an incredibly BIG post, which is it's own sort of glamor, and it necessarily triages with the sexier offices like national security/defense, energy and agriculture quite a bit.

A lot of statewide elected officials from the Mountain West in the Cabinet - Richardson, Napolitano, Salazar. The Mountain West has 6% of the population and will apparently make up 20% of the Cabinet.

Interesting that there's no southerners yet - the only cabinet posts left to fill are Agriculture, Labor, and Transportation, right? I can't imagine Labor going to a southerner, so at most two southerners in the Cabinet. That sounds lovely.

It's even more important to note that the Department of Interior is responsible for the Materials Management Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Fish and Wildlife Department.

Over the last 8 years, Interior has been responsible for nearly every environmental outrage perpetrated by the cabal of criminals known as the Bush Administration. The Materials Management Service is the one that was discovered to have its members snorting coke and sharing one night stands with the people they were supposed to be regulating. These are the bozos who decided to sell off the Chukchi Sea oil leases, to sell off oil and gas leases in the middle of the Utah national parks, etc.

BLM has been responsible for making every decision they do in such a way as to maximize profits for the private sector at the expense of the public. These are the guys who instituted the buffalo kills at Yellowstone despite the fact there is no evidence buffalo have ever given brucellosis to cattle (when the easy thing to do would have been to trade grazing leases up against the parks for other equally-good areas, thus fixing it so no buffalo came in contact with cattle). These are the guys who led the charge for de-listing the wolves of Yellowstone as threats to cattle despite again having no evidence that the wolves are killing cattle (there have been no claims for the federal fund that reimburses ranchers for losses to wolves).

The Fish and Wildlife Service has been prevented from doing its job. Asswipe Interior Secretary Kempthorne has just had the rules changed to get rid of the independent review by FWS that is required under the Endangered Species Act and replacing that with the agencies being given the power to review their own decisions which might affect endangered species, thus standing the ESA on its head.

If Salazar just goes back to enforcing the laws as written with nothing else, it would be a revolution. Of course, he'll also need to root out the Bush "sleeper agents," but that's something that's going to have to be done in every agency of government.

Nice to see NewMexiKen demonstrate the ignorance of your average wingnut. The Senate voted to drop the pay of the Secretary of State to the earlier level, to get rid of the "conflict." And it will be simple to do the same thing for Salazar.

See how easy things are when you aren't a drooling moron, Ken? I do want to compliment you though, for demonstrating that computers are so user-friendly that anthropoids of the genus homo sap, lacking frontal lobes and opposable thumbs, can use them too.

I can't imagine Labor going to a southerner, so at most two southerners in the Cabinet. That sounds lovely.

As long as Obama is appointing highly qualified people to his cabinet, I couldn't care less about geographic affirmative action.
And if Obama is appointing highly qualified people from the regions that supported him, so what? Go manufacture a better controversy.

Four years. Ken was elected in 2004.

Ken was a classmate of mine in law school and I think he'll make a fine Secretary of the Interior.

I'm automatically suspicious of any elected official from the intermountain west being in charge of Interior, as they're usually beholden to timber, grazing, ag, energy and mining interests.

I'm reasonably sure he's not James Watt-crazy, but I'd like some assurance he's not in the pockets of the extraction-nauts. We've got a LOT to fix.