Green Options

A vocal opponent of the Bush administration’s push for oil shale development, Salazar, a former water lawyer spoke of the tremendous water and energy requirements to develop oil shale using current best practices.

Unfortunately for outgoing Interior Department Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, the $236,000 renovation of the Main Interior Building Executive Suite bathroom was finally completed just in time for Ken Salazar to move in.

Sporting his trademark cowboy hat, the denim-clad Salazar held a press conference in Denver before leaving for Washington on Sunday, saying he’d like to pass eight bills dealing mainly with wilderness and conservation issues, as soon as possible.

When I heard NPR report that environmentalists were “fuming” over the Salazar appointment as Interior Secretary, I decided to share my thoughts with the Twitterverse and sent out a message that kicked off a chain of events worthy of writing about.

As an environmentalist, I’m far more concerned about losing Salazar as a protector of Colorado’s rivers and streams, its mineral resources, and its public lands, than I am about the job the Senator will do protecting those things as the next Secretary of the Interior.

The U.S. small wind industry projects that the enactment of the credit, combined with a forthcoming equipment certification program, will provide thousands of new green collar jobs and contribute to an estimated 40% annual growth for the industry.

Two election cycles ago there were no Republican governors, today there are seven western states with Democratic governors, and if you include the plains-states of Kansas and Oklahoma, the total becomes nine Democratic governors west of the Mississippi.

Tuesday’s release of proposed rules for oil shale exploration across the Rocky Mountain West by the Bureau of Land Management was merely another shot across the bow in the political blame game over $4-per-gallon gas.