Kenneth Lee Salazar

“ When we think about Hezbollah, Hamas and organizations that are out there, trying to destroy our way of life, and how we are putting our troops in harms way in Afghanistan and Iraq and many other places around the world, the question arises: where is the money coming from that is fueling that war against America today? Much of that money, frankly, is coming from the oil that we are buying here in the United States of America today. So our national security requires us to move forward to energy independence in a real way. ”

“ It is remarkable that with every new president, the entire leadership of the government of America changes. And with a department as large and as complex as the Department of the Interior, it is important that there be as seamless as a transition as possible. ”

“ As you saw on the campaign trail with my good friend, now president, Barack Obama, and my other good friend, Senator John McCain, there was a lot of conversation about the reality of global warming and the fact that we had to do something about it. At its core, what we do about global warming is what we do with our energy future. ”

“ If we move forward with an energy agenda, we can create economic opportunity here at home because we can be spending dollars here in the United States of America, instead of sending hundreds of billions of dollars to the Middle East and other places where they have the oil reserves. ”

“ The truth is the Department and its agencies touch all of the people of America. It protects treasured landscapes of our country from coast to coast. It provides the bulk of our energy that heats our homes and our businesses, powers our commerce and essentially enables our way of life here in America. ”

“ With Tom a former United States Attorney and me as a former Attorney General of the state of Colorado, we and those who work with this department will make sure we follow the high ethical standards that President Obama outlined in his first press conference yesterday at the White House. We will follow the law. We will hold people accountable. We will expect to be held accountable. And we will not tolerate the types of lapses that detract and distract from the good honest service to the American people that this department does every day. ”

“ We are a department with huge assets. These are assets belonging to the American people that you oversee and husband. At the end of the day, they are going to be part of what allows us to take the moon shot to energy independence and deal with so many of the challenges that America faces today. ”

“ As we move forward into that energy future, it will be important for all of us to understand that our oil and gas and coal resources are very much a part of the equation for that future. We cannot get from here to there without, frankly, developing the oil and gas resources that we have here in this nation – both on our lands as well as in some selected areas in the offshore area. ”

“ First, we must help our nation reduce its dependence on foreign oil. This is an absolute imperative of our time. I sat on the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Energy Committee for the last four years and we worked on these issues. I can tell you that there are inescapable forces on America today that will ensure that we don’t step backwards in the way that we did in the 1970s and in the 1980s. ”

“ Whether we are talking about renewable energy facilities such as solar, geothermal or wind or transmission lines across our public land that will bring that energy to the places where it is going to be used, there will be significant investments as we move forward with this economic recovery program. ”

“ Let me also say that our Native American communities are very important to us. We have more than 500 tribes across this country to whom this department has a sacred responsibility assigned to it by law. We have a trust responsibility for the Indian Tribes of America. It will be a high priority of mine and I look forward to working with those of you who work in that part of the department and with the new Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, as we move forward with that agenda. ”

“ The package, which hopefully will be completed in the several weeks, will include what will be a historic first time investment in our National Park System, in our dams, in our trail systems, and other aspects of this department. As it takes formation, it is going to give us all who are assembled here today and those who are watching across the country a great opportunity to do those things people have dreamt about but have simply not been able to do over many, many decades. ”

“ Secondly, our environmental security requires us to move forward. It was not so long ago when there were big debates on the floor of the U.S. Senate. A number of my colleagues in the Senate basically said that global warming was really not an issue, that we were just in a dry period of time. ”

“ We are going to set America free once and for all from our addiction to foreign oil. I need your help to get that done. Are you going to help me?
We must also do a lot more with a whole host of other issues including dealing with our water issues, and not just in the West. It used to be that most of water issues were out in the West on the Colorado River and a whole host of other projects that I have worked on in the past, including the Animas-La Plata project. ”