Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who oversaw a moratorium on offshore drilling after the BP plc oil spill and the restructuring of the agency, will step down in March, the agency announced last week.

Under Salazar’s leadership, the Department of the Interior said it had played “a keystone role” in developing a secure energy future for the United States, both for renewable and conventional energy.

“We have undertaken the most aggressive oil and gas safety and reform agenda in U.S. history, raising the bar on offshore drilling safety, practices and technology and ensuring that energy development is done in the right way and in the right places,” said Salazar. “Today, drilling activity in the Gulf is surpassing levels seen before the spill, and our nation is on a promising path to energy independence.”

“I want to thank Ken for his hard work and leadership on behalf of the American people,” said President Obama. “As the Secretary of the Interior, Ken has helped usher in a new era of conservation for our nation’s land, water, and wildlife. Ken has played an integral role in my administration’s successful efforts to expand responsible development of our nation’s domestic energy resources. In his work to promote renewable energy projects on our public lands and increase the development of oil and gas production, Ken has ensured that the department’s decisions are driven by the best science and promote the highest safety standards.”

Salazar’s exit means that the administration will have a new slate of energy and environmental decision-makers. Environmental Protection Administration Administrator Lia Jackson has announced her departure, and Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu is expected to leave the Obama administration.

It’s not known who may succeed Salazar. Interior chiefs generally have been from west of the Mississippi River. Former Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire (D) is one the short list to succeed Salazar, The Washington Post said.

During his term, Salazar faced a number of controversial issues — the biggest one being 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. Eleven men were killed when the BP 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. The moratorium was criticized by the oil and gas industry and its supporters on Capital Hill (see NGI, April 16, 2012; July 26, 2010).

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 said the industry-wide moratorium was the correct call.

“I think we’re in the right direction,” he told The Associated Press during a July 2010 tour of the GOM, adding that his ultimate goal was to allow deepwater operations to resume safely. Salazar acknowledged that the drilling ban caused hardship, but he said his job was to protect the public and the environment even as the administration tried to boost domestic energy production.

The moratorium was lifted in October 2010, although offshore drilling operations did not begin for several more months as permitting requirements were reviewed. Some Gulf Coast lawmakers continue to complain about the slow pace of drilling permits under the Interior Department.

In 2010 Salazar oversaw the overhaul of the beleaguered Minerals Management Service (MMS) into three separate entities to avoid future conflicts of interest between the agency and oil and natural gas producers (see NGI, May 24, 2010). The move came one month after the Macondo incident. MMS had been accused of having a cozy relationship with producers.

Producers were never satisfied with Salazar’s five-year Outer Continental Shelf leasing program because, among other things, it excluded offshore Virginia and delayed Alaska drilling (see NGI, July 30, 2012). The existing program calls for 15 potential lease sales in six offshore areas, three of which comprise the GOM. Twelve potential lease sales would be held for the Western and Central GOM, and the portion of the Eastern GOM not currently under a Congressional moratorium.

A former senator from Colorado, Salazar pushed renewable power such as solar and wind, but gained the most attention for his role in the drilling moratorium.

“From the time we served together in the Senate to his service in the cabinet, Ken Salazar has been a force for bringing people together and coming up with fresh ideas,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who is the incoming chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “Although he’s returning home to Colorado, I’m going to continue to seek his counsel about how we can build a path forward on vital natural resources and conservation issues.”

While it is unclear who will be the next Interior Secretary, leaders of the main national oil and gas groups, gathered for the United States Energy Association’s 9th Annual State of the Energy Industry Forum in Washington, DC, last Wednesday were hopeful that changes in the administration’s energy leadership will benefit the industry.

“Early on in the administration we had our differences of opinion [with Salazar] as to the direction we should take, particularly as it relates” to the development of natural gas on federal lands, said American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard. “Eventually we found more common ground on these issues.” He had kind words for the departing Salazar, although he admitted that drilling has fallen significantly on public lands during the secretary’s stewardship.

EPA Administrator “[Lisa] Jackson is leaving [see NGI, Jan. 7], Salazar is leaving; [there’s] a new breed of people coming in,” said Regina Hopper, CEO of America’s Natural Gas Alliance. The key question is “what will the administration’s focus on energy development be? Our job is to ask the administration to give us a clear path forward.”

“I’m more hopeful than in the past about getting a cohesive message” on energy from the administration in Obama’s second term, said Natural Gas Supply Association CEO Skip Horvath.

The Institute for Energy Research (IER), which has been a vocal critic of the Obama administration’s energy policies, took a more critical view of Salazar’s time at Interior. “President Obama and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar have presided over the most abysmal stewardship of public lands in recent history,” said IER Senior Vice President Daniel Kish.

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