By Mike Soraghan Denver Post Washington Bureau -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GOOD READING. I can't believe that a Federal Judge is blaming Norton for a Clinton/Gore screw up. Write your Congressman and Senators and ask them to have the judge remove the road blocks and let Norton do her job. Thanks Howard Gieger -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a great article! It shows a non biased view, and most Americans will stand behind Norton. The Clinton-Gore administration created a mess, and this article brings some of this out in plain terms, and will make people think of just how far off track our government is! It is refreshing to see someone in office that will not be influenced by green and radical $$$$$! She might not agree with all that we do, but will look at all sides and come up with an honest opinion. Robert Froton -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Norton weathers stormy 1st year Controversy swirls on several fronts Have a good weekend -- and if you have snow, ride carefully!! By Mike Soraghan Denver Post Washington Bureau Monday, January 28, 2002 - WASHINGTON - Somewhere, there's a trust account for an American Indian with less than $1 in it. And the federal government spends $400 a year to administer it. There are many such accounts, actually, money from oil and gas leases the Interior Department is INSIDE: Key moments in Gale Norton's first year.12A supposed to manage for Indians. They're examples of why the decades-old Indian trust debacle has become Gale Norton's biggest headache in her first year as Interior secretary. The case has metastasized from an obscure bookkeeping mess to a drain on Norton's entire department. The federal judge in the case has shut down the department's website, leaving workers without e-mail and preventing park visitors from reserving campsites online. And now he's threatening to hold Norton in contempt of court, which would make her the first Bush official to be sanctioned in court. "That issue has occupied more of my time and more of my top managers' time in the last six months than any other issue," she said in a recent interview, heaving an uncharacteristic sigh of frustration. But aside from the tangles of the Indian trust case, Norton has largely glided through her first year in office, which ends Thursday. As expected, she has repeatedly angered environmental groups with each new policy rolling back Clinton-era environmental decisions. But her quiet, collected demeanor has kept her out of political trouble. And her pro-production policies have kept her in the good graces of the White House and industries such as oil and gas that supported Bush in 2000. Yet some of her toughest challenges may lie ahead. She hasn't lost a vote yet on the administration's top energy priority - drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But now the issue is in the hands of the Democratic-controlled Senate. She's started to push for changes in mining laws that give federal land to mining companies for as little as $2.50 an acre, but the laws have withstood every previous effort to change them. She also faces increasing criticism from hard-core conservatives, who backed her confirmation, but now feel that she hasn't delivered enough dramatic change for property owners fighting laws such as the Endangered Species Act. And as with nearly every other federal official, her job changed after Sept. 11. Dams and historic monuments were closed in the immediate aftermath, and the department has begun an effort to coordinate its many law enforcement agencies. Fight for confirmation Norton, a former Colorado attorney general, had retired to the obscurity of lobbying and practicing law a year ago when President-elect Bush called her to Washington. She was quickly offered the job running the agency that controls about a fifth of the nation's land mass, about one-third of the West, through the National Park Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs and several other agencies. But her background in the Wise Use movement as a protege of former Interior Secretary James Watt threw her into a fierce fight for confirmation. A Sierra Club spokesman quickly crystallized the environmental community's objections to her about her by dubbing her "James Watt in a skirt," referring to the previous Interior secretary whose disputes with environmentalists were legendary. Industry groups, conservatives and congressional Republicans rallied to her side, and she was confirmed in a 75-24 vote. But her first year in office hasn't changed anyone's mind. The environmental groups that opposed her nomination say she's quietly turning the West into a resource colony for the rest of the nation, willing to despoil the environment. "We said she might be James Watt in a skirt," Sierra Club President Carl Pope said. "She may be different in approach, but she's substantively the same." Westerners and members of industry say she's simply restored balance after an administration that marched in lockstep with environmentalists, showing no concern for the mining and drilling that keep many Western communities alive. Diemer True, a Casper, Wyo., oilman and chairman of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, calls her "a breath of fresh air at Interior." "She had to kind of shift it back to the middle ground," said House Resources Committee Chairman James Hansen, R-Utah. "This department has decided to go back to multiple use, which is the best and highest use of the land." Old friends on board Cabinet secretaries often spend much of their first year creating a team of political appointees to run departments. Often, Norton turned to industry lobbyists and old friends in the conservative movement. The most prominent example is former coal industry lobbyist and fellow Watt protege Stephen Griles, who handles much of the day-to-day running of the department. She took aim at many of the environmental decisions of the Clinton era, lessening restrictions on hard-rock mining and stopping a ban on snowmobiling in Yellowstone National Park. She stopped short of rolling back the 19 monuments Clinton created across the West, but offered to change boundaries and allow new uses. And she helped deliver the administration a major victory with House passage of an energy plan including drilling in the Arctic refuge. The bill wasn't expected to make it out of the House, but a surprising alliance with labor got it passed. "She basically wrote the bill," Hansen said. "She almost lived up here for a while." Now she faces the Senate where she needs 60 votes for the measure to bypass the Democratic leadership's opposition and come up for a vote; the rosiest estimate of supporters is 57. But Norton and the administration say drilling is needed for national security, to reduce dependence on foreign oil in the wake of last year's terrorist attacks. Clearing "land mines' Norton is emphatic that it's drawing "the wrong conclusion" to say her department is stocked with industry lobbyists. She points to many former state government officials she's brought on board. Among them is Fran Maniella, the former Florida parks director chosen to run the National Park Service, who has won high marks even from environmental groups. Picking state government officials, she says, reflects the desire of President Bush to build relationships with state governments. She also accuses Clinton officials of putting a lot of environmental rules in place that were never intended to be implemented, leaving Republicans to clean them up. "We definitely had land mines awaiting us," Norton said. But after a year in office, Norton said, she couldn't be happier in her job, has no plans to leave, and no plans to use her renewed prominence to run for office again in Colorado. "I was enjoying being in the private sector before I took this job," she said. "I enjoyed having some days off once in a while." |