Change Long Overdue: Ken Salazar Meets the Interior Department.

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Mr. Farrell,
After reeading your column about Ken Salazr I felt a need to disagree with you on his principles.
It is my opinion that Ken Salazar is making a huge mistake in continuing the Bush Administration's plan to delist 1000 wolves in the Rocky Mountain ranges. Certainly he can clean house in the Department of Interior and still attend to its business of managing our natural resources.
I am firmly behind President Obama on his plans for our country. But, I believe that whoever vetted Mr. Salazar gave President Obama some bad advice and he should rethink who he has put in charge of managing the Department of the Interior for us. To me it's rather reminiscent of Secretary Gayle Norton and everyone knows what a bad manager she was.
During recent years it has been wonderful to see the return of so many endangered species to their natural surroundings. We now have wolves, coyotes, black bears, etc. in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, elk in northern Wisconsin and that is only a drop in the bucket.
Rarely, if ever, do I agree with humans who feel they are entitled kill or chase off animals from their natural habitats to build, farm and drill. Man needs to stop interferring with Mother Nature - she did quite well before man began usurping everything and declaring it as their right. Where are the natural predators that could control the wolf population, as it was prior to humans taking over? We tend to screw up more than enhance. In the U.S. we did this not to just wildlife - but also to our Native Americans, and look at what we have wrought. Me thinks man should reconsider if they have the right to move in when it will displace or destroy wildlife, trees, lakes, on and on.
I ask your readers to please encourage Secretary Salazar to not be a follower of the Bush Administration's bad decisions and that he change the decision to delist wolves in the Rockies. Perhaps he could use a tuturial on honey bees, which are now another example of man's stupidity. They are nearly extinct and vital to our survival.
We have to put a stop the slaughter, which will occur with the delisting - too much is at stake.

JUdith Figi of IL 5:33PM March 07, 2009

Mr. Farrell says he has “no doubt that Salazar will make sound, deliberate-maybe even cautious-changes in federal stewardship of the public lands”, because the real challenge is in undoing the damage to an agency “so mismanaged, gutted, demoralized and corrupted as George W. Bush’s Department of the Interior.”
Perhaps Mr. Farrell isn’t aware of Salazar’s endorsement of Gale Norton for Secretary of Interior, when he was Attorney General. Norton was one of the first in a long line of architects of mismanagement and complacency in the Interior. Salazar has a record that shows the inability to be an unbiased steward of the land’s natural resources. As a rancher and landowner, he threatened a law suit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for listing the black-tailed prairie dog as endangered. In other words, Salazar can be counted on to make cautious, thoughtful, and responsible decisions about land use and wildlife, as long as it doesn’t have a negative impact on HIS land or the land of his deep-pocked cronies.
We are just emerging from the longest hiatus of meaningful endangered listings in the history of records. To suggest that the next four years should be spent cleaning the house of the Interior, even though the reform might not result in a single acre of habitat or species being listed under ESA protection, is asinine. There are species barely hanging on by a thread, who do not have the luxury of waiting another four years, while Salazar and Obama reform the department’s “deplorable practices”. The new Secretary of Interior needs to put aside his personal prejudices, self-interests, and politics; and be wise enough to listen to his own biologists, because time is wasting

Jean Williams of WA 12:51AM December 19, 2008

Mr. Farrell says he has “no doubt that Salazar will make sound, deliberate-maybe even cautious-changes in federal stewardship of the public lands”, because the real challenge is in undoing the damage to an agency “so mismanaged, gutted, demoralized and corrupted as George W. Bush’s Department of the Interior.”
Perhaps Mr. Farrell isn’t aware of Salazar’s endorsement of Gale Norton for Secretary of Interior, when he was Attorney General. Norton was one of the first in a long line of architects of mismanagement and complacency in the Interior. Salazar has a record that shows the inability to be an unbiased steward of the land’s natural resources. As a rancher and landowner, he threatened a law suit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for listing the black-tailed prairie dog as endangered. In other words, Salazar can be counted on to make cautious, thoughtful, and responsible decisions about land use and wildlife, as long as it doesn’t have a negative impact on HIS land or the land of his deep-pocked cronies.
We are just emerging from the longest hiatus of meaningful endangered listings in the history of records. To suggest that the next four years should be spent cleaning the house of the Interior, even though the reform might not result in a single acre of habitat or species being listed under ESA protection, is asinine. There are species barely hanging on by a thread, who do not have the luxury of waiting another four years, while Salazar and Obama reform the department’s “deplorable practices”. The new Secretary of Interior needs to put aside his personal prejudices, self-interests, and politics; and be wise enough to listen to his own biologists, because time is wasting

Jean Williams of WA 12:43AM December 19, 2008

Mr. Farrell:
I think you have it exactly right in describing Department of the Interior, and the reason it was so very difficult to bring remedy to it. I would described the archaic methods of accounting as thievery and as extortion.
When the archaic and barely functional computer systems were taken down in order to create an accounting system for Trust Accounts and to identify Trust accounts, the christmas tree of unlikely linkages promptly laid down vital agency communications.It was, of course, the fault of the court which ordered the beginning of internet accounting in an effort to settle the Cobell v. Norton controversy accoring to Gale Norton.
Interior now has no money for it, but Mr. Salazar will quickly realize an adequate computer network is necessary.
We need to be very cautious about destroying what we cannot replace. The values we currently hold will change with time.I don't agree with abandoning tree hugging.

Annie of FL 6:36PM December 18, 2008

Yes, Salazar was the "Top Cop" for a bit, and was very, very good at it. However, ask the people of Colorado today what kind of a Senator he is today. Virtually every campgain promise that he made has been broken, and his position standing on various topic seems to change from one day to the next, depending on what group he is speaking to. I can't fathom any reason that he would be appointed other than to "clean house", and if Obama lets him do any more than that, we will all be in more trouble than we already are!

Consmom of CO 1:30PM December 18, 2008

Although I don't think "moderate" is a word dogmatic and intolerant Environmentalists often use. There is a "green" landslide of public land closures, banned recreational opportunities, draconian regulations and eco-hysteria sweeping the nation - Don't see how anyone can "moderate" it... Especially not under Obama.

R.L. Schaefer of CA 11:42AM December 18, 2008

A guy who has been an attorney general AND who wears his big cowboy hat (as Salazar did) to his get-appointed-by-Obama press conference is a smart dude. Go, reform!

Muser of 11:28AM December 18, 2008