Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s decision to step down at the end of March opens up one more Cabinet position in the second Obama administration — and may present an opportunity for Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry. While Berry is most known these days for his focus on federal hiring, pensions and other personnel matters, nature issues are especially close to his heart. He was director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Zoological Park before Obama tapped him to run OPM, and prior to that, served as executive director of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. He also served as…
Browsing: Interior Department
RIK, RIP. That’s the message from the Interior Department accompanying its next-to-last annual report about the “royalty-in-kind” program tarnished by repeated scandals. The program, dating back to 1998, allows energy companies to pay royalties to the federal government with oil and gas instead of cash. After Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced last year that he was shutting it down, the program officially ends this Thursday, when the final contracts expire, the department said in a news release. For fiscal 2009, the initiative generated benefits estimated at $23 million “depending on various assumptions regarding markets and administrative costs,” the newly issued…
President Obama put a freeze on new regulation yesterday — nothing will be approved until his Cabinet secretaries have a chance to review it. The announcement came after months of frantic “midnight regulation” by federal agencies. And it’s obviously intended to block new rules left unfinished by the Bush administration. But will it affect some of the most controversial Bush-era regulations? I’ve been digging through old copies of the Federal Register — a fun way to spend the afternoon, I assure you — and the answer is a resounding “no.” Some of the most controversial rules are already in effect.…