Sally Jewell | The PPJ Gazette

Interior Nominee Sally Jewell Stumps for Multi-National Corporations

February 14, 2013

Debbie Coffey PPJ Investigative Reporter

Director of Wild Horse Affairs, Wild Horse Freedom Federation

Copyright 2013 All Rights Reserved ___________________________________________________________________ You’ve gotta love a gal who’d enter into a conference call with Directors of the National Parks Conservation Association by saying "What we need to be concerned about is that we don't become the icing on a turd” and this observation alone would make Sally Jewell seem uniquely qualified to revamp the Bureau of Land Management’s disastrous Wild Horse & Burro Program. Sally Jewell is President Obama’s new choice to replace Ken Salazar as the Secretary of the Department of Interior.

While it was amusing when Secretary Salazar recently threatened to punch out a journalist and then had to apologize after a lot of bad publicity, it was the only thing to smile about during his tenure at the top of the heap of BLM’s mismanaged and unethical Wild Horse & Burro Program. Not to mention the whole BP disaster that happened under Salazar’s watch.

Since Sally Jewell worked in banking for many years, maybe she’ll be able to help the American public get an accurate count of the wild horses on their federally protected Herd Management Areas.

While wild horse advocates hope that the new Secretary of the Department of the Interior will do something to stop the BLM’s eradication of wild horses, just because we see photos of Jewell paddling a kayak or read that she likes to hike, we shouldn’t automatically assume that she’ll want to help save the wild horses.

The extractive industries that are leasing public lands for as little as $2 an acre have their hopes up, too (and they have a lot of money and lobbyists). “Tim Wigley, president of the Western Energy Alliance, said he hoped that time in the fields would translate into expanded oil and gas drilling on federal lands. ‘We hope to see a better balance of productive development on non-park, non-wilderness public lands that enhances the wealth of America and creates jobs while protecting the environment.”