Another neolib sellout on the environment by Obama

Sally Jewell, Obama's nominee to head the Interior Department, has made clear she supports expanded oil and gas drilling on Bureau of Land Management land.

Here's Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski pushing for that and more:

“We need you to affirm that public lands provide not just a playground for recreational enthusiasts,” Ms. Murkowski said, “but also paychecks for countless energy producers, miners, loggers and ranchers.”  

Fine. Let's amend the 1872 Mining Act. Let's charge ranchers fair market rates for grazing leases. Oh, and since the National Park Service generates more than $30 billion a year from tourism and recreation, with Jewell's National Parks Conservation Association, where she is on the board, estimating a 4-1 return on federal dollars, let's see Murkowski match that.

I charge bullshit on a senator who's always helped Alaska, just like her daddy-o, pig out at the federal hog trough.

Unfortunately, Jewell said nothing, however, about increased regulation of such drilling, especially protection of water supplies in the largely semi-arid to arid West. Nor did she say anything about getting more federal dinero from such drilling.

She may be even more "industry-friendly" than Kenny Boy Salazar, in fact.

Here's a tell:

Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, noted that Ms. Jewell’s résumé cites her work as a young woman as a construction worker on the Alaska oil pipeline, as a petroleum engineer in Colorado, as a commercial banker for 19 years and as chief executive of a billion-dollar company. 

“My question is this,” Mr. Alexander said. “How’d you get appointed by this administration? You sound more like a nominee of a Republican administration.” 

Sounds about right.

Wingnut Republicans questioned her background as a member of the board of directors of the NPCA, which they're trying to paint as being as radical as, say, the Center for Biological Diversity.

I'll bet Jewell will push indeed for more drilling. And as a former CEO, for more corporate partnerships with the National Park Service. The NPS' centennial in 2016 will be dripping with capitalism, folks.

Meanwhile, when this happens, will Gang Green enviros like Michael Brune at Sierra Club be as surprised and miss smelling the coffee as much as they have with Keystone XL?

Beyond that, she kind of makes me want to barf by quoting Facebook exec Sheryl Sandberg's half-baked, half-assed "leaning into" four times.