Obama names nominee to oversee national forests

The Obama administration's pick to be the new agriculture undersecretary in charge of the U.S. Forest Service breaks a long-standing tradition of someone with a forest policy background. Homer Lee Wilkes, the Mississippi state conservationist, was named late Tuesday as the nominee for undersecretary of Agriculture for natural resources and environment. He is the first black nominee for the post. Wilkes is a 28-year veteran of the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service, which focuses on farmland conservation. The undersecretary also oversees the conservation service. Wilkes earned his bachelor's, master's of business administration and doctorate in urban conservation planning degrees from Jackson State University and lives in Madison, Miss., with his wife and three sons. "As far back as anyone cares to recall, the undersecretary position was held by a Forest Service expert," said Andy Stahl, executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics. Stahl said choosing Wilkes was "an indication of the relatively low priority the Obama administration places on the national forests." The front-runner for the job had been a more traditional candidate, Chris Wood, a former senior policy adviser to Clinton administration Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck. But Wood was dropped after vetters learned he had been registered as a lobbyist by Trout Unlimited, the conservation group for which he works as chief operating officer...AP