Don't Let the Door Hit You on Your Way Out

Yow, some big news coming off the wire this morning: Interior Secretary Gale Norton resigning from cabinet! I fought like a tiger against her appointment, have raged against her and what she has done to our National Parks and public lands for five years, and now have to say I couldn't be happier to see her backside going out the door. And can't help but wonder what might lurk beneathe the surface of this resignation. Her department has been involved, through the BLM and the Indian casinos, with Abramoff and his crew, and has been dogged by several different ethical scandals during her watch.

The Denver Post has the article, and in case you don't read the whole thing, this snippet gives you Gale Norton in a nutshell:

... the former Colorado attorney general is to leave office at the end of the month without achieving her highest-profile political goal, opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to drilling.
{...}
Under her watch, the department stripped protection from areas previously managed as wilderness, opened up forests to increased logging, sent snowmobiles back into Yellowstone and pressed federal land managers to speed up drilling for gas on public lands. (Gale Norton Resigns from Cabinet)

Yep, that's this administration's version of protecting the national lands. Hearings for a replacement for Norton should give the Democrats an opportunity, should they choose to accept it, to make a lot of loud noise about their dissatistfaction with the Bush/Cheney administration's environmental policies. This is one news item we need to stay in close touch with as it unfolds.

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