Gale

Interior Secretary Gale Norton told California earlier this month that the federal government will not buy back offshore oil/gas leases along the state’s coast as it had done recently for Florida, noting that the two states’ circumstances are markedly different. In a letter to state officials, Norton said Florida has opposed offshore drilling; California has not, an interpretation that drew immediate criticism from top state officials and environmental organizations.

Expected to replace the current program expiring at the end of June, Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton said last week that the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) is proposing to schedule 20 lease sales in eight outer continental shelf (OCS) planning areas in the Gulf of Mexico and offshore Alaska as part of a new five-year leasing program. The proposed sale areas are in the Gulf of Mexico’s western, central and parts of the eastern planning areas, as well as Alaska’s Beaufort Sea, Norton Basin, Cook Inlet/Shelikof Strait and the Chukchi Sea/Hope Basin.

Expected to replace the current program expiring at the end of June, Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton said Monday that the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) is proposing to schedule 20 lease sales in eight outer continental shelf (OCS) planning areas in the Gulf of Mexico and offshore Alaska as part of a new five-year leasing program. The proposed sale areas are in the Gulf of Mexico’s western, central and parts of the eastern planning areas, as well as Alaska’s Beaufort Sea, Norton Basin, Cook Inlet/Shelikof Strait and the Chukchi Sea/Hope Basin.

Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton has announced the appointment of Rejane Medinger “Johnnie” Burton as director of the Minerals Management Service. Burton has served as director of Wyoming’s Department of Revenue since 1995, and is a former business owner and legislator in the state.

The civil contempt trial of Interior Secretary Gale Norton got under way last Monday in federal court in Washington, DC, with the lead attorney for Native Americans declaring that Norton and the department “have abused this court” and the “integrity of the judicial process” by failing to comply with orders in 1999 that directed the agency to clean up its management of individual Indian trust accounts.

The civil contempt trial of Interior Secretary Gale Norton got under way Monday in a federal court in Washington, DC, with the lead attorney for Native Americans declaring that Norton and the department “have abused this court” and the “integrity of the judicial process” by failing to comply with orders in 1999 that directed the agency to clean up its management of individual Indian trust accounts.

A federal judge in Washington, DC, has ordered Interior Secretary Gale Norton to face a civil contempt trial for failure to comply with court orders to clean up the alleged mismanagement of royalty monies held and overseen by the agency in the Indian Trust Fund.

A federal judge has ordered Interior Secretary Gale Norton to face a civil contempt trial next week for failure to comply with court orders to clean up the alleged mismanagement of royalty monies held and overseen by the agency in the Indian Trust Fund.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton has dashed any industry hopes that the Bush administration might consider restoring the pared-down eastern Gulf of Mexico Lease Sale 181 to its original larger size in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the nation.