There is no question: Ken Salazar, as Interior Secretary, has doled out our public lands, natural resources and wildlife, to be exploited and destroyed by oil and gas exploration and drilling and other development.

The catastrophic oil spill now devastating marine mammals, birds, turtles, fish and other life in the Gulf of Mexico, and destroying their habitat, is the result of Salazar's callous disregard for the Marine Mammal Protection Act, Endangered Species Act and other laws his agencies are supposed to follow to protect these animals. Salazar also ignored repeated warnings of the danger of allowing BP, in particular, to have carte blanche access to the Gulf with its fragile ecosystem.

He is after all, supposed to be Secretary of the Interior, the steward of our natural resources and wildlife. Instead, Salazar allowed his agency within the Dept. of Interior, the Minerals Management Service, to operate, as one of his managers described, as if "We are all oil industry."  

Salazar has shown the same disregard for other laws, the same callous indifference to other wildlife. He has said wild horses and burros don't belong on public lands, for example, despite a law that says his agency is supposed to protect them on public lands.  He has devastated wild horse and burro populations with massive roundups, also at great expense to the taxpayers, all to facilitate livestock grazing, mining and more oil and gas development. 

It's time we had an Interior Secretary who was truly a steward and a caretaker of our public lands, natural resources and wildlife. It's time for Salazar to go!