Salazar Says His Post in Obama’s Cabinet Safe After BP’s Spill

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, once criticized by President Barack Obama for taking too long to toughen regulation of offshore oil and natural-gas drilling, said he expects to keep his job after the mid-term elections. “I absolutely believe that I will stay on,” Salazar said today in a phone interview. “The president and I talk about what I do here at Interior. I think he’s pleased with the work I’ve done. He’s told me so.” Salazar’s performance drew criticism in the months after a BP Plc well blew out in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, setting off the worst U.S. oil spill. The Interior secretary has been among Obama Cabinet secretaries expected to depart after the Nov. 2 elections, according to Michael McKenna, president of MWR Strategies, an oil-industry consulting firm in Washington. “The perception is the administration didn’t handle the BP spill terribly well and Salazar’s going to be the guy who pays the price for that,” McKenna said in a phone interview today. “He, for better or for worse, is going to be the fall guy.”...more

Maybe. Maybe not. I'm trying to track down a rumor...more later.