Salazar strikes back at critics of ‘wild lands’ policy, hopes for ‘common ground’

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Thursday struck back at critics of his “Wild Lands” conservation initiative, comments that come days after the House approved GOP legislation to block funding for the program. “I think there are people who have made more of this issue than they should have, including people who are doing it for whatever political agenda they want to serve,” Salazar said during wide-ranging remarks on conservation at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. The federal spending package the House approved last week would prevent Interior from using fiscal year 2011 funds to implement the program. But Salazar noted that a slew of House Republicans have introduced bills in this Congress to protect areas in their states, including House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who leads the Appropriations Committee panel that controls Interior’s spending. “Wilderness is not a bad thing and they recognize it,” Salazar noted, and said there is a need to “tone down the rhetoric.”...more

“I think there are people who have made more of this issue than they should have, including people who are doing it for whatever political agenda they want to serve,” Salazar said...

Amazing. Does he think we don't understand his issuing of the Wild Lands policy, including both the contents and the timing, were a political payoff to the enviros?

Nice try Mr. Secretary, but it won't hold water.

Salazar says he wants to find some "common ground".  That's the problem with his policy - the criteria he proposes is so loose that it's apparent they want to take common ground and designate it as Wild Lands.