Excerpts:

If a new report from the U.S. Senate and Congressional Western Caucus is any indication, the next two years will be long and painful for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar as well as for other officials charged with managing natural resources in the West.
 

The “War on Western Jobs Report” penned by Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso and Utah Rep. Rob Bishop, the new chairman of the House Subcommittee on Public Lands, lays out grievances against the few environmental policies promoted by the Obama administration.
 

Excerpts:

Steve Black said the Obama administration is taking a deliberate, cautious approach on making federal lands available for major oil shale development because nobody has shown they can squeeze the oil out of hard rock economically.

"I don't know when we'll see commercial development on public lands," Black told the Unconventional Fuels Conference, a gathering of leading researchers and small outfits with experimental oil shale works. "It's an industry that is not ready for prime time."

Excerprs:

He is virtually rewiring the DNA of a department once focused almost exclusively on fossil fuels by pushing it to develop renewable energy on millions of acres of public lands. He has instituted new ethics regulations; raised the profile of American Indian issues; and reined in the galloping oil and gas leasing that was the hallmark of the previous administration.

Excerpts:

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has promised to bring a "balanced approach" to permitting more drilling for oil and natural gas in America's Western states. That will be a welcome change, and not only for people concerned about protecting fragile arid lands, wildlife, water and air quality, but for energy development companies.

Excerpts:

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar lashed out at the oil and gas industry Tuesday, accusing some industry trade groups of acting like an arm of the Republican Party in criticizing the Obama administration's record on energy production.