President-elect Barack Obama will nominate US Senator Ken Salazar to be his secretary of the interior, US news media reported late Monday.
The nomination, to be officially announced later this week, completes the incoming administration's energy and environmental team, tasked with overseeing the United States' direction on a host of critical issues.
Salazar, a first-time Colorado senator who was in Obama's 2004 freshman senator class, headed Colorado's Natural Resources department and served as the state's attorney general before moving to Washington.
According to The New York Times, farmer and rancher Salazar is a "staunch conservationist and an opponent of developing oil shale on public lands."
Salazar, whose appointment leaves another Democratic vacancy to be filled in the US senate, joins a team facing urgency to deliver Obama's campaign trail pledges on the environment and energy dependence.
The US Department of the Interior oversees agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service and the United States Geological Survey.
The cabinet position of secretary of the interior is traditionally given to someone from a western state. The last secretary from an eastern state was Rogers Morton in the early 1970s.
Share This Article With Planet Earth
