U.S. Interior Dept. changes stance on climate

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar issued an order coordinating Interior Department efforts on climate change and forming a Climate Change Response Council to bring global warming concerns into policy making. The order represents a sharp break from the Bush years, when both science and climate change were deemphasized. In the Great Basin area, one of the results of Salazar’s order will be augmentation of federal efforts to stamp out nuisance weeds that have been choking out native plants, causing wildfires, damaging grazing land and generating carbon dioxide—cheatgrass, in particular. Centers in the eight Interior Department regions will serve as headquarters, but this will apparently not result in the creation of new bureaucracy or buildings. Centers already in place in the U.S. Geological Survey will become department-wide centers. The Salazar order states as policy that departmental action will seek to encourage on the public’s land not just traditional industries like oil and gas, ranching and agriculture, but also rising new economic activities like “environmentally responsible renewable energy development.” “Sun, wind, biomass, and geothermal energy from our public and tribal lands is creating new jobs and will power millions of American homes and electric vehicles,” the order reads. The order also directs department officials to incorporate climate change concerns into operations and policies: “Each bureau and office of the Department must consider and analyze potential climate change impacts when undertaking long-range planning exercises, setting priorities for scientific research and investigations, developing multi-year management plans, and making major decisions regarding potential use of resources under the Department’s purview.”...read more