GOP Firebrands in House Ready Assault on Interior

Committee Republicans, hoping to hold the gavel next session, are planning to bring Salazar and other top department officials to their turf for a host of oversight hearings. In the past two years, Republicans have accused Interior of instituting a de facto moratorium on shallow and deepwater offshore drilling, conspiring to unilaterally block development on millions of acres of public lands by creating "secret monuments" and weakening national security by subjecting U.S. Border Patrol agents to overly onerous restrictions on Southwestern wilderness. If Republicans control the committee, they hope to turn those accusations into hearings, and lots of them. Leading the GOP charge is ranking Republican Doc Hastings of Washington. In an interview with E&E Daily, Hastings pledged that his party -- whether Republicans win the House or not -- would continue to advocate an "all of the above" energy plan, including a push for oil and gas drilling, coal and uranium mining, biofuels, hydroelectric power and new exploration off Alaska's coastline. Hastings is backed by a gang of subcommittee ranking members, each of whom has a bone to pick with the Obama team. Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) -- ranking member of the National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee -- has been fuming since Salazar canceled planned oil and gas lease sales in Utah in 2009. Bishop, whose district is ranked by the Cook Political Report as the 13th most Republican in the country, has also accused Interior of planning to designate more than 10 million acres of federal land as new national monuments and bypassing Congress to do it. The administration has repeatedly promised to confer with Congress and local stakeholders before moving on any monuments, but Bishop has done his best to keep the issue in the news since his office uncovered an internal Interior document discussing possible new monuments in February...more