Interior may get hand in climate rules The Interior Department could play an unprecedented role in shaping the new administration’s attempts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Some environmentalists say President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team is eyeing the Endangered Species Act, a 1973 law largely overseen by the Interior Department, as a backdoor vehicle to help jump-start the regulation of global warming emissions.If Obama officially recognizes the connection and pushes for action, it would draw a definitive link between industrial emissions and the threat to a declining species, likely necessitating new emission regulations and pressuring Congress to move ahead with cap-and-trade legislation. The quandary is drawing attention to two key appointments: those of the secretary of the interior and the director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, who’ll play an integral role in how aggressively the policy is applied. If Obama clarifies the global warming link, environmentalists say he would be jump-starting a process that should have happened years ago....