Interior Secretary Gail Norton to Resign

Can we count this one as a VICTORY for the home team?????????????? I guess it will depend on who we get as a replacement....................PEACE...................Scott


Interior Secretary Gail Norton to Resign
The Associated Press

Friday 10 March 2006

Washington - Interior Secretary Gale Norton is resigning after five years in President Bush's Cabinet, The Associated Press has learned.

Norton, a former Colorado attorney general who guided the Bush administration's initiative to open Western government lands to more oil and gas drilling, planned to announce her decision Friday, a senior government official and another source familiar with her decision told the AP.

Both spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they did not want to upstage an announcement from the White House.

Norton told associates she wanted to return to private life in Colorado, the source said.

One of the architects of Bush's energy policy, Norton eased regulations to speed approval of drilling permits, particularly in New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming's Powder River Basin. She also was the administration's biggest advocate for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge on Alaska's North Slope to oil drilling.

Norton, who turns 52 on Saturday, is the first woman ever to head the Interior Department.

Before joining the administration, she was one of the negotiators of a $206 billion national tobacco settlement in a suit by Colorado and 45 other states. She was Colorado's attorney general from 1991 to 1999.