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Risch joins majority in sending Jewell Interior nomination to Senate floor

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Rocky Barker
REI CEO Sally Jewell testifies before Senate Natural Resources Committee during confirmation hearing.

REI CEO Sally Jewell testifies before Senate Natural Resources Committee during confirmation hearing.

Idaho Republican Sen. Jim Risch joined the majority on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that recommended REI CEO Sally Jewell be confirmed as Interior Secretary.

The committee voted 19-3 to send Jewell’s nomination to the floor. Agreements with other senators cleared away holds that they had placed on the nomination. Risch said he reserved the right to place a hold on the nomination if the progress he has seen lately on moving Idaho’s sage grouse conservation plan forward falters.

But overall Risch said he liked Jewell’s willingness to engage on the issues during the confirmation process.

“In meeting with her I was really impressed with not only with her willingness, but her enthusiasm to pursue the collaborative method of resolving natural resource disputes,” Rich said during the vote. “Indeed its proven to be the only path forward to get these resolved that we’ve experienced in recent years.”

Watch Risch below:

 

About

Rocky Barker is the energy and environment reporter for the Idaho Statesman and has been writing about the West since 1985. He is the author of Scorched Earth How the Fires of Yellowstone Changed America and co-producer of the movie Firestorm: Last Stand at Yellowstone, which was inspired by the book and broadcast on A&E Network. He also co-authored the Flyfisher's Guide to Idaho and the Wingshooter's Guide to Idaho with Ken Retallic. He also was on the Statesman’s team that covered the Sen. Larry Craig sex scandal, which was one of three Pulitzer Prize finalists in breaking news in 2007. The National Wildlife Federation awarded him its Conservation Achievement Award.

Posted in Letters from the West
One comment on “Risch joins majority in sending Jewell Interior nomination to Senate floor”
  1. Guardrail says:
    March 21, 2013 at 11:12 am

    Sally Jewell at a minimum comes from the private sector, is highly inteligent, NOT a professional politican and has demostrated her ability to lead. Sure she supports environment causes…we all should to a point. As the CEO of REI…she had to keep a very high profile with the enviromental community…that common sense.