Assistant Secretary of the Interior Rebecca
Watson, who oversaw the Bureau of Land Management and the
Interior Department’s mining and oil and gas operations,
resigned on Oct. 28. On Watson’s watch,
the BLM dramatically increased the number of oil and gas drilling
permits it issues. But Interior Secretary Gale Norton also
commended Watson for her “noteworthy leadership role in promoting
renewable energy” (HCN, 8/22/05: Drilling leases slowed by paper
jam). Watson will return to Denver to work at a law firm; President
Bush has not yet nominated a successor for the Senate’s
consideration.
A Texas oil baron who tried to
torpedo an environmental restoration program in
Utah’s Book Cliffs has been indicted.
Federal prosecutors have accused Oscar Wyatt of paying millions of
dollars in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein in the oil-for-food program.
In the 1990s, federal and Utah agencies and conservation groups
agreed on a plan to retire grazing permits in the Book Cliffs and
restore wildlife habitat — but Wyatt, who owns a ranch in the
area, sued to stop the plan (HCN, 4/13/98: Oil clashes with elk in
the Book Cliffs). The suit was eventually thrown out and a more
limited form of the plan went forward; Wyatt’s ranch is now
for sale.
For the second year in a row, Congress
voted not to fund President Bush’s program to develop “bunker
buster” nuclear weapons (HCN, 9/1/03: Courting the Bomb).
The “baby nukes,” formally known as Robust Nuclear Earth
Penetrators and intended for use against underground targets, would
likely have been built in Carlsbad or Los Alamos, N.M., or at the
Nevada Test Site near Las Vegas.
The U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service says that a controversial ski village
proposed at Colorado’s Wolf Creek ski resort will kill a lot
of Canada lynx — and that’s OK (HCN, 2/7/05:
Developers push ahead with mammoth ski village). In October, the
agency determined that, over two to three decades, increased car
traffic around the Village at Wolf Creek could cause the deaths of
about 43 Canada lynx — approximately one-fifth of the total
lynx population in Colorado and New Mexico. Nonetheless, the agency
concluded, the project will not harm the overall survival of the
species.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The Latest Bounce.
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