President Obama Wednesday named Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI) CEO Sally Jewell as his nominee for secretary of the Department of Interior, to succeed Ken Salazar, who is departing at the end of March.

In announcing her nomination at the White House, Obama highlighted her business background and experience in the the oil and natural gas industry. Jewell joined the board of the $2 billion outdoor equipment company in 1996, becoming COO in 2000 and CEO in 2005. Her selection appeared to be a surprise, given that nominees for Interior typically are politicians who hail from Western states. An outdoors enthusiast, Jewell is the first woman chosen by Obama to serve in his second-term Cabinet.

The former Sally Roffey was born in England and moved to the United States in 1959 at the age of three when her father, an anesthesiologist, assumed a fellowship at the University of Washington. Jewell has a degree in mechanical engineering, and she worked for ExxonMobil Corp. predecessor Mobil Oil before joining REI.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said Jewell, a conservationist, was an “inspired choice” to lead the department. “Her record shows that she understands the importance of preserving our public lands for future generations, as well as the critical links between public lands, natural resources and economic growth,” he noted.

“I am looking forward to working with [her] on the diverse issues facing Interior: ensuring taxpayers receive full value for resources produced from federal lands; managing the renewable and natural gas energy boom to ensure it is done in an environmentally responsible manner; and finding a long-term solution to provide resource-dependent communities across the country a fair share of revenues from federal lands.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the ranking Republican on the committee, expressed neither support nor opposition for Jewell. “I look forward to hearing about the qualifications Ms. Jewell has that make her a suitable candidate to run such an important agency, and how she plans to restore balance to the Interior Department.”

The markedly different reactions of Wyden and Murkowski may underscore how difficult it could be to get Jewell’s nomination through the Senate. The committee will hold a hearing on Jewell’s nomination, and subsequently will vote on whether to forward it to the full Senate for a vote.

“We look forward to learning how Sally Jewell’s business background and experience in the oil and natural gas industry will shape her approach to the game-changing prospects before us in energy development,” said Jack Gerard, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, which represents major oil and gas producers.

The nominee is likely to face a number of contentious oil and natural gas issues, such as the battle over opening more offshore areas to drilling and federal onshore lands to exploration and production activity. In the Obama administration’s first term, much of the drilling occurred on private and state lands rather than on lands overseen by Interior’s Bureau of Land Management.

“Eighty-three percent of the land and offshore areas controlled by the federal government are still off-limits to oil and natural gas development. Increasing access to America’s vast energy resources should be a top priority for the next Interior secretary,” Gerard said.

The Macondo well blowout in 2010, which resulted in a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and a moratorium on deepwater drilling, was the defining event of Salazar’s term. Eleven men were killed when the BP plc-operated well blew out on April 20, 2010, causing Transocean Ltd.’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig to catch fire and sink. The resulting 87-day-long oil spill devastated the Gulf Coast in the worst oil spill in U.S. history (see Daily GPI, April 16, 2012; July 23, 2010). The Obama administration then imposed a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling.

Business groups and Gulf Coast political leaders said the moratorium crippled the oil and gas industry and cost thousands of jobs in the offshore and onshore region, even aboard rigs not operated by BP. Salazar has said the industry-wide moratorium was the correct call.

Salazar also will be known for overhauling of the beleaguered Minerals Management Service into three separate entities to avoid future conflicts of interest between the agency and oil and natural gas producers (see Daily GPI, May 21, 2010).

Salazar’s five-year Outer Continental Shelf leasing program continually came under fire during his term because, among other things, it excluded offshore Virginia and delayed Alaska drilling (see Daily GPI, July 24, 2012).

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