Secretary Dirk Kempthorne

A scandal involving sex, drugs and -- uh, offshore oil drilling. It's a strange mix, and it couldn't have come at a worse time for those in Congress pressing to expand oil and gas development off America's beaches while trying to stave off an election-year rush by Democrats to impose new taxes and royalties on the oil industry. An Interior Department investigation describing a "culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" by workers at the agency that issues offshore drilling leases and... Read Full Story

The U.S. Secretary of Interior, Dirk Kempthorne, spoke today at ESRI’s Senior Executive Seminar. Kempthorne expressed an understanding and appreciation of the role of geospatial technology that was extremely encouraging, including details about the role that geospatial technology played in his decision to protect the polar bear. The secretary referred to the triumph of the geospatial era where geospatial technology is used to manage climate change, biodiversity, population pressures, natural... Read Full Story

In April 2006, Park Service Director Mary Bomar ordered an internal investigation into claims that the planned Flight 93 Memorial is actually a terrorist memorial mosque, built abound a giant Mecca-oriented crescent. Bomar's investigation was a total fraud, concluding, for instance, that it isn't possible to calculate the orientation of the crescent because the site-plan has not been geo-referenced. (Page 2, PP2 of September 2006 summary report. Page 1 here.) In fact, the original... Read Full Story

California Democrat Barbara Boxer blasted Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne for failing to show up Wednesday at a hearing on polar bears and global warming. Read Full Story

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service intends to remove the gray wolf from protected status of the Endangered Species Act perhaps by spring. A group of five from the House Natural Resources Committee sent a letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne asking him to postpone that decision.Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso had a few choice words […] More: continued here Read Full Story