Mar 10 - Oil-Drilling Leader Gale Norton Steps Down from Cabinet
Mike Soraghan reports in the Denver Post that Gale Norton resigns from her post as secretary for the Department of Interior. According to the AP, as “one of the architects of Bush’s energy policy, Norton eased regulations to speed approval of drilling permits, particularly in New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming's Powder River Basin.” After 5 years in her position, Norton is leaving the Bush cabinet without having achieved her goal of opening up ANWR for oil and is looking forward to working with the private sector.
Washington - Gale Norton resigned today after serving more than five years as secretary of the Interior and overseeing a dramatic expansion of drilling, logging and development on the public lands of the West.
But the former Colorado attorney general is to leave office at the end of the month without achieving her highest-profile political goal, opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to drilling.