Secretaries of the Interior Series
Stewart Lee Udall
Stewart Udall served as Secretary for eight years (1961–1969) under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, during which time he successfully pressed for landmark environmental legislation, including the Clean Air Act, the Wilderness Act, the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act, and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. Under his watch, the National Park Service added over 2.4 million acres to its holdings, including four new national parks, six national seashores, and five national recreation areas. Udall was known at the time not only as one of the most effective spokesmen for the West, but also for his ability to manage controversy and gain bi–partisan support for the Department of the Interior.
Read Steward Udall's interview here.
Walter J. Hickel
Walter Hickel served for two years (1969–1970) under President Nixon. As Secretary, he became known for his strong actions on behalf of a national energy policy, helping to awaken America to the emerging environmental crisis, and for his role in establishing the Environmental Protection Agency. His actions at Interior included, among other things, upgrading offshore oil drilling regulations after the Santa Barbara oil spill disaster and later getting Chevron indicted on 900 counts for breaking those regulations in the Gulf; negotiating with oil producers to build an environmentally responsible trans-Alaska pipeline; and placing all eight species of great whales on the Endangered Species List. His term was cut short when he openly criticized President Nixon’s policy towards student anti–war protesters and the Kent State University killings.
Read Walter Hickel's interview here.
John C. Whitaker
John Whitaker served on the Nixon White House staff from 1969 to 1972 coordinating environment and natural resources policy, and from 1973 to 1975 as Under Secretary of the Interior, reporting to Secretary Rogers C. B. Morton, who died in 1979. At the White House, Whitaker, a PhD in geology, dealt with issues like the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency; tightening pesticide and toxic waste regulations; new clean water and air legislation; and modernizing leasing policies on the public lands for two new potential energy sources: oil extracted from shale and electricity produced from geothermal steam. Together, Morton and Whitaker prided themselves on their ability to walk the fine line between Interior’s competing natural resources development and preservationist constituencies.
Read John Whitaker's interview here.
James Watt
James Watt served as Secretary for three years (1981–1983) under President Regan, during which time his office addressed several challenges facing the nation's public lands. When Secretary Watt came into office, the Sagebrush Rebellion was in full swing with every Western Democracy governor opposing the policies of the Carter Administration. Watt implemented a Good Neighbor Policy to quell the rebellion and instituted an aggressive leasing program in cooperation with the governors to help rebuild America’s energy base, which led to a shifting of our dependence on oil imports from the Persian Gulf nations. To help reverse a trend of deterioration in the national parks, he implemented a one billion dollar Park Restoration and Improvement Program (PRIP). He also oversaw a complete rewriting of water reclamation law, which was approved by Congress and signed into law.
Read James Watt's interview here.
Manuel Lujan
Manuel Lujan served as Secretary for four years (1989–1993) under President George H. W. Bush. During his time in office, he helped implement the President's "no net loss of wetlands" goal through actions to enlarge Everglades National Park in Florida, and by supporting passage of the North American Wetlands Conservation Act. His emphasis was on the idea that the nation could have both the resource development needed for economic security and environmental protection to ensure quality of life.
Bruce Babbitt
Bruce Babbitt served as Secretary for eight years (1993–2000) under President Clinton, during which time he, among other achievements, promulgated new grazing policies and regulations for public lands; formulated a new consultative use of the Antiquities Act, resulting in Presidential monument decrees of some four million acres; reorganized the U.S. Geological Survey to include wildlife and conservation biology, transforming it into a full spectrum natural resources science agency; led the development of regional ecosystem restoration projects in the Florida Everglades and in the California Bay Delta; and developed a landscape–scale, multi–species Habitat Conservation Planning (HCP) process under the Endangered Species Act, resulting in more than 400 HCPs covering nearly 20 million acres.
Read Bruce Babbitt's interview here.
Gale Norton
From 1991 to 1999, Norton served as Attorney General of Colorado. Prior to her election as Colorado Attorney General, Norton served in Washington, D.C. as Associate Solicitor of the United States Department of the Interior, overseeing endangered species and public lands legal issues for the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service. In 1996, she was a candidate for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, but was defeated by then–Congressman Wayne Allard, in part. It has been suggested that her pro–choice position contributed to her defeat. Before being named Interior Secretary in 2001, Norton was senior counsel at Brownstein, Hyatt & Farber, P.C., a Denver–based law firm. The firm was listed with the U.S. Congress as a lobbyist for NL Industries, formerly known as National Lead Company. In 2004, Norton was mentioned as a possible candidate for the U.S. Senate in her home state of Colorado, after the incumbent, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, decided to retire. However, she ultimately decided against it, and the seat was won by Democrat Ken Salazar.
On March 10th, 2006 Norton announced that she would resign her post at the Interior Department, effective March 31, 2006.
Read Gale Norton's interview here.
Don Hodel
Donald Paul Hodel was born on May 23, 1935, and received his law degree from the University of Oregon School of Law. In the Reagan administration, Hodel served as Secretary of Energy (1982–1985), and as Under Secretary and then Secretary of the Interior (1985–1989). During his tenure as Secretary of Interior, Hodel worked to increase domestic energy production through the expansion of off–shore drilling, with the conviction that an improvement of the environment and an adequate energy supply are not conflicting priorities. Hodel also supported the restoration of the flooded Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park. A Pulitzer Prive–winning editorial series in the Sacramento Bee newspaper in 2004 gave Hodel, along with a team of scientists who studied the issue, credit for figuring out the science of restoring the valley. The issue is still actively debated today.
Stewart Lee Udall and James G. Watt
On April 20, 2006, Stewart Udall and James Watt came together for a historic event to speak on their roles in shaping the West. This was the first public setting in which Secretaries Watt and Udall have met to discuss issues pertinent to the West.
As Secretary, Udall successfully pressed for landmark environmental legislation including the Clean Air Act, the Wilderness Act, the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. Under his watch, the National Park Service added more than 2.4 million acres to its holdings, including four new national parks, six national seashores and five national recreation areas. He was known at the time as one of the most effective spokespersons for the West, as well as for his ability to manage controversy and gain bipartisan support.
Watt entered his appointment in the face of considerable challenges resulting from the Sagebrush Rebellion – local Western reactions to the 1960s and 1970s had created a complicated set of tensions between Westerners and the Depertment of the Interior, Limerick said. In response, Watt introduced an aggressive leasing program in cooperation with the governors, which helped rebuild America's energy base and minimize U.S. dependence on foreign resources. Watt also implemented a $1 billion program to help reverse a trend of deterioration in the national parks and oversaw a complete rewriting of water reclamation laws, which was approved by Congress and signed into law.