Department Of The Interior U S

Under orders from a federal district judge in Seattle, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Friday it will designate 11.6 million acres of forest in the Pacific Northwest as "critical habitat" for the endangered northern spotted owl. The decision, the latest in a long-running struggle between the timber industry and environmentalists, drew polarized reactions from forces representing jobs and economic interests on the one hand and efforts to save the owl and ancient forests on the other.

Interior Department officials ignored key scientific findings when they limited water flows in the Grand Canyon to optimize generation of electric power there, risking damage to the ecology of the spectacular landmark, according to documents obtained by the Washington Post. A Jan. 15 memo written by Grand Canyon National Park Supt. Steve Martin suggests that the department produced a flawed environmental assessment to defend its actions against environmentalists.

But for the dusty hiking boots and fleece pullover, Bruce Babbitt could have been a game show host: gripping a microphone, swishing the cord out of the way and announcing to the audience, "Let's have at it!"

Legislators excoriated top Interior Department officials Thursday at a hearing on the sex, drugs and gifts scandal in the oil royalties program, saying the scandal could have dire ramifications for the anticipated expansion of offshore drilling along U.S. coasts. The hearing before the House Committee on Natural Resources came a week after the department's inspector general, Earl E.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt favors a policy change that would allow members of the Hopi tribe to capture golden eaglets from a national monument in Northern Arizona, a move that critics fear could open the door to hunting in national parks. The issue at the Wupatki National Monument near Flagstaff, Ariz., has been building since summer, when the Hopi requested permission to take eaglets for use in a religious ceremony.

A federal judge has given lawyers for the Interior Department and U.S. Treasury and attorneys representing thousands of Native Americans until Nov. 1 to show that they are close to reaching agreement on overhauling the government's long-troubled Indian trust fund system. U.S. District Judge Royce C.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt was cleared by an independent counsel Wednesday of allegations that he lied to a Senate committee about his role in rejecting an Indian casino in Wisconsin four years ago. Babbitt's clearance of any criminal wrongdoing after an 18-month investigation makes him the third Clinton Cabinet officer to suffer few or no criminal consequences from an outside counsel's review.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton said Tuesday that the Bush administration is not seeking to overturn any of former President Bill Clinton's designations of millions of acres of federal land as national monuments largely off limits to mining and commercial activity.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton stood on a cliff 3,900 feet above the Pacific, a cell phone pressed to her ear, and issued an order that she said brought back memories of her early years as an Interior Department attorney. "I think it's time for freedom," she said, and the condor keepers in the canyons below opened the gate that separated five captive-bred birds from life in the wilderness.

In a move that critics say would undermine a landmark environmental law, the Bush administration is quietly trying to wrest from the courts control over the listing of endangered species and the designation of protected habitat for them. The proposal, buried in the voluminous budget President Bush sent to Congress on Monday, would give Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton wide authority to decide which plants and animals should be protected under the 1973 Endangered Species Act.

The Interior Department wants 10 more weeks to decide whether polar bears should be listed as threatened or endangered, a delay that conservation groups condemned as tied to the transfer of offshore petroleum leases in the animal's habitat. On Jan. 9 the department missed a deadline for a final decision and three conservation groups sued. In the government response Thursday, Assistant Interior Secretary Lyle Laverty said the department needed until June 30 to complete a legal and policy review.

Federal wildlife regulators will revise seven controversial decisions on endangered species and critical habitat made by an Interior Department political appointee who quit in the spring amid charges of improper meddling in scientific decisions. California's arroyo toad and red-legged frog could regain protection that federal biologists determined was crucial to their survival, according to a letter the U.S.

Former Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton is urging a federal judge in Washington to show leniency in sentencing her former top deputy, but leaders of Indian and environmental organizations want J. Steven Griles to be given a stiff sentence for his crimes. Once described by GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff as "our guy" at the Interior Department, Griles pleaded guilty in March to lying to Senate investigators as they looked into the scandal surrounding Abramoff.

The Interior Department has put the final touches on a five-year plan to expand oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and off the shores of Alaska and Virginia. Interior officials said Friday that the plan would include more environmental buffer zones around lease areas and would incorporate minor changes to a previous draft. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne is scheduled to announce the "major oil and gas development program" Monday, a department statement said.

A former Bush administration official, once described by Jack Abramoff as "our guy" at the Interior Department, pleaded guilty Friday to lying to Senate investigators probing the scandal surrounding the convicted Republican lobbyist. J. Steven Griles, a coal mining official who was deputy to Interior Secretary Gale A.

The Interior Department's former No. 2 official has been told by federal investigators that he is a target in the corruption probe of onetime lobbyist Jack Abramoff. J. Steven Griles, former deputy Interior secretary during President Bush's first term, was notified by letter and told of possible charges at a meeting last week with Justice Department prosecutors, according to people familiar with the investigation.

Tribal leaders from across the nation told Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton on Thursday that they oppose her plan to reorganize and consolidate the management of billions of dollars in Indian trust assets, saying they were never consulted. "You should be looking out for the tribes," Ernie L. Stensgar of the National Congress of American Indians told Norton, who faces contempt charges on whether she misled a judge about efforts to fix a century of mismanaged trust funds.

The abrupt shutdown of Internet Web sites run by the U.S. Department of the Interior four weeks ago has left Americans in the dark about activities on millions of acres of federal lands, national parks and monuments.

A senior Interior Department official was awarded his own buffalo to hunt and kill on a billionaire's private ranch a month before his office designated Houston as a port for exotic wildlife -- a move that benefited the ranch owner. The official's involvement "was inappropriate and violated the appearance standard," the department's inspector general said in a report. The official, David P.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday removed a judge in Washington from a long-running, contentious legal battle between American Indians and the Interior Department, concluding that the judge was prejudiced against the government. At the same time, the court blasted Interior officials for their "deplorable record" in managing trust money for Indians. In its 3-0 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit noted that it had reversed U.S. District Judge Royce C.