Department of the Interior

There is a story out today that Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is moving to suspend employees of the MMS for graft and malfeasance on the job.  This is a good thing.  The Inspector General had tagged them from an investigation that was done in the bush administration.  This should have been done long ago and points out a problem at Interior that is not being solved.  That problem is all of the bush holdovers that are still working there.  Take for instance the former BLM Utah State Director.  Seventeen months after the new administration took office she has finally been moved out of the state of Utah where she did so much damage to sensible land protection.  Her actions were continually overturned by the courts.  She was a favorite of  the oil and gas industry and was a political appointment from the beginning.  She use to work for the New Mexico republican party and republican office holders.  She had no land management experience.  Normally people like her get 'political' jobs in the departments, not career ones.  She stayed in her job way to long after the Obama administration took office.  Now she has been awarded another job after her transfer from Utah.  She is heading up the BLM Eastern Offices HQ which is another career position and not meant for a political.

Now, if she had been a Democrat and bush had come into office she would have been out of there in a heartbeat.  Democratic administrations seem to be way to accommodating to the bad guys.  The results, as shown in the Gulf of Mexico, can be devastating.  So, hopefully the bush holdovers will now get more attention and be moved out of the picture.