Word: interior
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
More storms from the Interior...
Watch my record, not my rhetoric," James Watt told conservationists who were skeptical, even downright panicked, when he was appointed Secretary of the Interior. So they did. Now the Cabinet's most controversial member is under attack not only by environmental groups but also by the state of California, staffers in his own department's Office of Surface Mining, and even Congress. Said California Democrat Alan Cranston, in an impassioned speech to the Senate: "The clamor for his removal grows more persistent every day. I want Mr. Watt stopped...
...House last week made one striking attempt to stop Watt. By a 358-46 margin (including 142 Republicans), it passed a version of the $11.2 billion Interior Department appropriation bill containing provisions that would forbid some of the Secretary's proposals. Among them is Watt's plan to streamline the Office of Surface Mining, which has already led to intradepartmental mutiny. In May Watt decided to shut down the Denver office of OSM, which supervises strip-mining operations in eight Western states, and ordered 113 of its 133 employees to move, most of them to somewhat less cosmopolitan...
...time of his appointment, Watt was head of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, a Denver-based "public interest" law firm that took a prodevelopment stance in various environmental disputes. Conservationists thought then that he was a poor choice to head Interior, and still do. The Environmental Defense Fund, a legal action group, announced last week that it will sue Watt for delaying the addition of 44 species, most of them Hawaiian snails, to the endangered species list. The San Francisco-based Sierra Club, one of Watt's most vocal opponents, is continuing to circulate impeachment petitions. And Friends...
Then there was Albert Fall from Kentucky. When he was named Secretary of the Interior, Fall was more than $140,000 in debt and eight years behind in paying his taxes. He worked hard and successfully to get federal oil-reserve lands transferred to his own department, then had no trouble finding private drillers who were ready to deal. One of the tracts Fall exchanged for private favors was a spot in Wyoming called Teapot Dome. Meanwhile, Charlie Forbes, head of the Veterans' Bureau, was traveling about the country, letting contracts for federal hospitals. He was generous with...