Department Of The Interior U S

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

The Department of Interior on Wednesday approved oil and gas drilling on Alaska land considered such sensitive wildlife habitat that it was first protected by former Interior Secretary James G. Watt under President Reagan, and by four Interior secretaries since. The decision -- decried by Native American, hunting and environmental groups -- comes just weeks after the U.S. Senate rejected drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, about 200 miles to the east.

Gale A. Norton, the Bush administration's leading advocate for expanding oil and gas drilling and other industrial interests in the West, resigned Friday after five years as secretary of the Interior Department. Norton's departure ends a controversial tenure viewed as largely favorable to energy and mining interests at the expense, critics say, of environmentally sensitive areas and a tradition that used to give more weight to science than politics.

Interior Secretary nominee Dirk Kempthorne appeared headed for a smooth confirmation process Thursday except for a single potential stumbling block: energy. Energy questions dominated a Senate hearing on the Idaho governor's appointment, and at least two senators have threatened to delay his confirmation pending resolution of gas and oil drilling issues in the Gulf of Mexico.