Not sure what this will mean for BLMs programs, if anything–
Bob Abbey, director of the Bureau of Land Management to take over running MMS. Huffington Post.
Bob Abbey, director of the Bureau of Land Management, to take over running MMS
by
Author
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
Comments
They pick someone who is retired from the BLM and has been a “consultant” involved in ranching and grazing issues? Is there no one else in this country qualified to run this corrupt organization? Please.
As far as I can tell, it’s a bad idea. He ran Nevada BLM 2001(?) – 05, retired to become a consultant on public land issues, then took the BLM job — in other words, a revolving door person. However, I’d like to hear from others on this blog.
RLMiller – I guess everyone is off for the Memorial Day weekend. Here, in Cody, the wind is blowing like crazy and it is supposed to be about 50 tomorrow – not good camping weather!
Virginia,
I don’t think there is any “Bench” to choose from within Ken Salazar’s Interior.
Total Bushies remain embedded everywhere, and Salazar whole-heartedly has kept them on, while purposefully not appointing or elevating any one with a twinge of environmental concern.
I actually think Salazar is much worse then Abbey, and for any positive to change to happen – Salazar needs to go away! Maybe be investigated, to boot. As long as Salazar remains the ultimate head of Interior, under which MMS is housed, nothing good will come of any of this.
Read THIS about BP’s gal Sylvia Baca, put in place by Salazar:
http://www.thecloudfoundation.org/index.php/news-events-a-media/press-releases/371-another-salazar-disaster-52810
And I know of at least two meetings with BLM in DC with the more “unwashed” conservation groups where Ms. Baca was sitting in. Seems BP/Big Oil and Gas has its eyes on a whole lot of things.
The wildlife and wild places we all care about are impediments to their unfettered destruction of public lands with oil wells and gas pipelines.
kt: thank you for that link with the explanation of Baca and Salazar. I hope what the article stated is true – that Salazar may be going down the road. He is a disgrace! We do have a couple of herds of wild horses within an hour’s drive of Cody – and I have observed them out on McCullough Peaks. They are amazing! One of the BLM employees (I consider her a friend since I worked there a few years ago) here at the Cody office is a true wild horse advocate and she is very involved in the survival of this herd and has adopted one of the horses herself. We can only hope that Baca (who truly sounds like a dipsh_t to me) will leave with Salazar.
Please read RLMiller’s story on DailyKos ” Mr. Abbey goes to Washington” – no not Edward – we could only wish!
I put up Miller’s story as a post.
If anyone could rise from his resting place, Ed Abbey would…along with Muir, TR, Pinchot, Brower….could be quite the reformist group.
Look, I’m as pessimistic or more pessimistic than anyone; but, you have to be realistic in banking your success, even small success, where you can. I’d love to have Ed Abbey, Muir, TR, Brower, or the like to choose from (whoever put Pinchot in that group doesn’t know either his history or that Pinchot would make Bob Abbey look like a saint); but, we don’t have them to choose from. Even if could find such a visionary, they probably wouldn’t be that good at running a modern bureaucracy and, if they were that good and had those skills, they wouldn’t take the job. I accept that Bob Abbey is no great thinker or visionary and he’s not that strong as a pure environmentalist; but, the truth is that the MMS is so disgustingly corrupt and the politics so treacherous that Bob Abbey’s skills are a good match from the available pool to choose from, from the standpoint of what can and must be done just to get the MMS up to zero, and from the standpoint of what bureaucratic tools must be used to take those first steps. The BLM is now at the point where another kind of leader is needed over there and Bob Abbey is a reasonable choice for starting the process of cleaning out the MMS and preparing it for that kind of leader as the next step.