Posted on 03/10/2006 9:41:38 AM PST by pabianice
No warning. Just resigned. No further details.
Can we get Scottie and a couple others to resign as well?
How long before someone brings up Abramhoff
and there you have it.
Wow. Strange.
I vote for Mineta to resign.
So, the rats really are abandoning ship. Never thought I'd see it.
We're really setting ourselves up to take a fall-- IMHO.
She fell on her sword as others before her have. They need to get this Indian gaming BS stopped and eliminated before it burns anymore people.
More from Fox... she is "protesting opening western land for oil drilling..."
Norton, the first woman ever to serve in the job, was expected to make the announcement Friday afternoon, according to a source who requested anonymity.
From the start, Norton, a former Colorado attorney general, has been considered one of Bush's most loyal foot soldiers, using the position overseeing vast tracts of federal land and tribal areas to increase energy exploration.
She faced fierce opposition from environmentalists, and in the early days of the Bush administration, it looked as if she would be one of the most divisive figures in the Cabinet.
YOu can read the rest at ScrippsHoward
I have met Gail Norton and really thought she was a benefit to the Department of the Interior. Sad to see her go.
They need to get rid of alot of dead wood floating around at the WH right now and totally change the WH PR machine that has fallen apart.
Maybe we should get her one of these shirts:
"I vote for Mineta to resign."
Yes please!
I guessed as much. There must be something else to this story though...guess we need to wait and watch.
http://cbs4denver.com/politics/local_story_069122555.html
Report: Norton Stepping Down As Interior Secretary
(AP) WASHINGTON Interior Secretary Gale Norton was expected to resign Friday after serving more than five years as the Bush administration's point person on the environment and natural resources, two Denver newspapers reported.
Norton's announcement was expected later in Washington, The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News reported on their Web sites. Both cited sources they did not identify.
Norton is a former Colorado attorney general and the first woman to hold the Interior job. Her background work for logging and mining interests made her a controversial cabinet nominee, and critics labeled her as "James Watt in a skirt," referring to the Reagan administration Interior secretary who once worked with Norton at the Mountain States Legal Foundation.
Norton responded with a mantra about her "Four C's" for land stewardship: "consultation, cooperation, communication -- all in the service of conservation."
Under her watch, the Interior Department stripped protection from areas previously managed as wilderness, opened forests to increased logging, reopened Yellowstone National Park to snowmobiles and urged federal land managers to speed up drilling for gas on public land.
Norton called the work "cooperative conservation," which included partnerships with landowners and developers as opposed to regulations. Still, her goal to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to drilling has not been realized.
She also had a mixed record with American Indian tribes. As secretary, she inherited a huge lawsuit over the department's alleged mismanagement of Indian trust funds, which are supposed to compensate individual Indians for the use of their land. The class-action lawsuit seeks potentially billions of dollars in compensation over botched record-keeping and missing records.
And last year, Norton's name came up during an investigation into lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who was accused of bilking Indian tribes out of millions of dollars while they sought favorable Interior Department decisions on casinos.
The Senate Indian Affairs Committee uncovered e-mails suggesting a one-time Norton associate, Italia Federici, tried to act as a conduit for Abramoff, helping arrange meetings with Norton or her former top deputy and passing information back and forth.
Indian Affairs Committee Chairman Sen. John McCain, however, said he found no evidence that Norton had done anything wrong.
This have anything to do with the Indian Affairs mess?
Another source:
Not long
>> Another Abramoff casualty? Gale Norton Announces Resignation
The Denver Post reports that Interior Secretary Gale Norton will announce her resignation today. Recall, Norton received $50,000 from Jack Abramoff:
Abramoff clients donated heavily to the Norton-founded group and to DeLays personal charity. The Coushatta Indian tribe, for instance, wrote checks in March 2001 for $50,000 to the Norton group and $10,000 to the DeLay Foundation, tribal records show.
<<
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/03/10/another-abramoff-casualty/
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.