WASHINGTON — The Senate on Friday approved the nomination of two of President Barack Obama’s top Interior Department officials to help oversee public land use policies.
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Friday approved the nomination of two of President Barack Obama’s top Interior Department officials to help oversee public land use policies. The senators, shortly before departing for their August recess, approved without dissent Bob Abbey as director of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management and Wilma Lewis as assistant secretary for land and minerals management. The BLM, which has 10,800 employees, manages 258 million acres of federal land mostly in a dozen western states. Lewis, a former U.S. attorney and from 1995-98 Interior’s inspector general, will be one of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s top advisers and oversee the BLM as well as the Minerals Management Service. The Minerals service has been mired in scandal and controversy over conflicts of interest related to its management of the offshore oil and gas leasing program. Elizabeth Birnbaum, a former Interior attorney and veteran congressional staff aide, was sworn in last month as MMS director. Abbey, a consultant from Reno, Nev., served eight years as the Nevada state director for the BLM, retiring in 2005. Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid recommended Abbey for the Interior post. Salazar praised Abbey’s 32 years of experience working with states and federal land management agencies and for his involvement in the restoration of the Great Basin, an arid region stretching from Nevada to Idaho. Lewis in 1998 became the first woman and second African-American to be appointed as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. Previously she had served as Interior inspector general where she began investigations into underpayments of royalties on federal minerals leases, the recovery of delinquent coal reclamation fees and environmental issues involving offshore oil and gas leasing. ______ Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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