DOI Secretary, Gail Norton, resigns
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DOI Secretary, Gail Norton, resigns
The Associated Press reports it has learned Interior Secretary Gale Norton will announce her resignation today. CNN working to confirm.
Last edited by alicia-w on Fri Mar 10, 2006 1:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Thanks to Abramoff, another one bites the dust...
Interior Secretary Gale Norton resigned Friday after five years in President Bush's Cabinet and at a time when her agency is part of a lobbying scandal over Indian gaming licenses.
In a letter to Bush, Norton said she the resignation would be effective at the end of March.
"Now I feel it is time for me to leave this mountain you gave me to climb, catch my breath, then set my sights on new goals to achieve in the private sector," she said in the two-page resignation letter.
Norton, who turns 52 on Saturday, said she and her husband "hope to end up closer to the mountains we love in the West."
The leading Republican and Democrat on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee have said that e-mails uncovered by the committee show that Steven Griles, Norton's former deputy, had a close relationship with Abramoff.
Another one-time Norton associate, Italia Federici, helped Abramoff gain access to Griles in exchange for contributions from Abramoff's Indian tribe clients, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., the committee chairman, and Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., have said.
A former Colorado attorney general, Norton guided the Bush administration's initiative to open Western government lands to more oil and gas drilling.
As one of the architects of Bush's energy policy, she eased regulations to speed approval of drilling permits, particularly in New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming's Powder River Basin.
She also was the administration's biggest advocate for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on Alaska's North Slope to oil drilling
The first woman ever to head the Interior Department, Norton was a protege of James Watt, the controversial interior secretary during President Ronald Reagan's first term in office. Watt was forced to resign after characterizing a coal commission in terms that were viewed by some as a slur.
Before joining the administration, she was one of the negotiators of a $206 billion national tobacco settlement in a suit by Colorado and 45 other states. She was Colorado's attorney general from 1991 to 1999.
After working for the Agriculture Department for a year, Norton was named an assistant solicitor in the Interior Department in 1985, focusing on conservation and wildlife issues.
In 1996 she sought the Republican Senate nomination in Colorado but was defeated by Wayne Allard, who now holds the seat. Later she co-founded the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, a group that has become embroiled in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.
Interior Secretary Gale Norton resigned Friday after five years in President Bush's Cabinet and at a time when her agency is part of a lobbying scandal over Indian gaming licenses.
In a letter to Bush, Norton said she the resignation would be effective at the end of March.
"Now I feel it is time for me to leave this mountain you gave me to climb, catch my breath, then set my sights on new goals to achieve in the private sector," she said in the two-page resignation letter.
Norton, who turns 52 on Saturday, said she and her husband "hope to end up closer to the mountains we love in the West."
The leading Republican and Democrat on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee have said that e-mails uncovered by the committee show that Steven Griles, Norton's former deputy, had a close relationship with Abramoff.
Another one-time Norton associate, Italia Federici, helped Abramoff gain access to Griles in exchange for contributions from Abramoff's Indian tribe clients, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., the committee chairman, and Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., have said.
A former Colorado attorney general, Norton guided the Bush administration's initiative to open Western government lands to more oil and gas drilling.
As one of the architects of Bush's energy policy, she eased regulations to speed approval of drilling permits, particularly in New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming's Powder River Basin.
She also was the administration's biggest advocate for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on Alaska's North Slope to oil drilling
The first woman ever to head the Interior Department, Norton was a protege of James Watt, the controversial interior secretary during President Ronald Reagan's first term in office. Watt was forced to resign after characterizing a coal commission in terms that were viewed by some as a slur.
Before joining the administration, she was one of the negotiators of a $206 billion national tobacco settlement in a suit by Colorado and 45 other states. She was Colorado's attorney general from 1991 to 1999.
After working for the Agriculture Department for a year, Norton was named an assistant solicitor in the Interior Department in 1985, focusing on conservation and wildlife issues.
In 1996 she sought the Republican Senate nomination in Colorado but was defeated by Wayne Allard, who now holds the seat. Later she co-founded the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, a group that has become embroiled in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.
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