Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado

The government is spending $40 million in federal stimulus funds to pull water from underground aquifers in drought-stricken California, even as evidence is growing that the well-drilling boom could degrade the quality of water delivered to millions of residents. Farmers, conservationists and engineers are criticizing the Interior Department's plan to spend taxpayer money on digging more wells, saying the approach risks marring the environment. Canals buckle, aquifers collapse and drinking water turns saltier due to so much pumping, and studies show that the state's water supplies are dwindling. "We don't need any more straws going down there 'cause we're already doing a pretty good ... Read Full Story

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is calling for more manmade floods to be released from the Glen Canyon Dam into the Colorado River. The flooding will build up sandbars and beaches in the Grand Canyon to protect wildlife and keep archaeological sites from eroding. Salazar announced this week that the department would head up an effort to determine when and how high flow experiments should be conducted. Environmentalists say the high flows are meaningless without a plan for more regular flows from Glen Canyon Dam. The experiments would be similar to one in 2008 that sent torrents of water from the dam on the Arizona-Utah ... Read Full Story

A federal advisory panel was trying to decide Monday whether to back a proposal to relocate thousands of wild horses from Western rangeland because the government believes they are suffering from a lack of forage in their current habitat. The Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management has decided as many as 25,000 of the horses need to be removed from public lands, an alternative to euthanizing some of the mustangs to control their growing population. Critics argue that the motivation for ongoing roundups of the mustangs — and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's proposal to ship thousands to preserves in the Midwest and East — ... Read Full Story

The Minerals Management Service on Monday conditionally approved plans by Shell Oil Co. to drill three exploratory wells next year in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska's northwest coast. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the decision in Washington, D.C., and said a key component of reducing America's dependence on foreign oil is the environmentally responsible exploration and development of renewable and conventional resources. "By approving this exploration plan, we are taking a cautious but deliberate step toward developing additional information on the Chukchi Sea," he said in a release. Environmental groups bitterly oppose drilling. They say there has not been enough work to assess environmental ... Read Full Story

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar lashed out at the oil and gas industry Tuesday, accusing some industry trade groups of acting like an arm of the Republican Party in criticizing the Obama administration's record on energy production. Salazar made the comments as he announced 38 lease sales scheduled next year on public lands, mostly in Western states. Salazar called the lease sales a sign that the administration was moving forward with a comprehensive energy strategy that includes oil, gas and renewable energy, despite what he said were false claims that the Democratic administration was hindering domestic energy development. "We believe that our oil and gas ... Read Full Story