President Obama has picked Sally Jewell, a “conservation advocate” and the CEO of outdoor retailer Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI) to be his next secretary for the Dept. of Interior, filling the post that Ken Salazar is vacating. The DOI and its Bureau of Land Management have developed new rules for hydraulic fracturing on federal lands that Obama “hopes” may serve as a “template” for fracking on private land (see Feds ‘Hope’ States will Use BLM Rules for ALL Fracking). The new BLM rules generated a lot of controversy in 2012 and Salazar and the DOI backed off implementing them until a rewrite is completed.
Jewell, if confirmed, will enter the battle over hydraulic fracturing and whether or not the federal government has a role to play in it (MDN and the U.S. Constitution says the feds don’t have a role). The extremist environmental organization Sierra Club likes Jewell, which is a huge red flag. However, she did once work for Mobil Oil (now Exxon Mobil)—for a few years just out of college.
