Idaho governor tapped for interior secretary

< Prev | 1 | 2

NBC Video: Politics

Who let the Salahis into WH dinner?
Dec. 1: A senior Pentagon official now says that Michaele and Tareq Salahi were told ahead of time that they were not cleared to attend last week’s White House Dinner. NBC’s Savannah Guthrie reports.

Salahis: ‘We were invited, not crashers’

Rove on Obama's Afghanistan decision

Obama unveils Afghan war plan

Gibbs: Crashers definitely were not invited

Huckabee's commutation record

Liberal think tank wants Afghan timeline

Conservative Blog Buzz: Huck hit hard

Slideshow

The Week in Political Cartoons
Msnbc.com’s political cartoonists take a look back at the past week.

more photos

Democrat applauds choice
One Democrat, Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, said she welcomed the appointment. “He understands the Northwest and a lot of Interior issues,” she said, adding he “stood up to the administration” over nuclear waste cleanup at a federal facility in Idaho.

The Interior Department manages one of every five acres in the United States, including 388 areas in the national park system, 544 wildlife refuges and more than 260 million acres of multiple-use lands located mainly in 12 Western states.

It also manages 824 dams and reservoirs, administers protections for endangered species and works with 562 federally recognized Indian tribes. For the past decade, the department has been embroiled in a bitter lawsuit over the department’s responsibility for Indian trust money.

Story continues below ↓

advertisement | your ad here

Drive for parks, roads
At home in Idaho, Kempthorne spent the past year pushing for more state parks and revamping and expanding the road systems with money raised from bonds.

As leader of the National Governors Association, Kempthorne emphasized the challenge of providing long-term health care, citing his experience with his own parents.

Born in San Diego, he grew up in Spokane, Wash., graduated from the University of Idaho in 1975 and worked for FMC Corp. and the Idaho Homebuilders Association before being elected mayor of Boise in 1986.

He served as mayor until 1993, going on to serve six years in the U.S. Senate.

His political career has touched on several land and wildlife issues. Kempthorne has sued the Clinton administration over its November 2000 decision to reintroduce grizzlies into the Bitterroot range, a proposal that was ultimately withdrawn in 2001 by U.S. Fish and Wildlife. He was also part of a four-state salmon recovery effort, working with Indian tribes in the region as well as the Northwest Power Planning Council.

< Prev | 1 | 2