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Senate debates Norton nomination

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Senate dove into a debate early Monday afternoon on President George W. Bush's nomination of controversial former Colorado Attorney General Gale Norton to head the Department of the Interior, with many members from both parties taking to the floor to defend her qualifications for the job.

Gale Norton
Norton is one of President Bush's most controversial candidates and has been labeled by some environmental groups as an 'anti-environmental extremist'  

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee recommended Norton's confirmation last Wednesday on an 18-2 vote. The full Senate should vote Tuesday to confirm, despite the concerns of some who believe the views she espoused in committee conflict readily with her previous record as a lawyer and state government official.

During her hearings, Norton sought to assure Democratic skeptics that she would enforce federal environmental laws and improve the national park system as the first woman to lead the Cabinet-level department.

Norton's nomination has drawn heavy fire from environmental groups, including Greenpeace and the Sierra Club. In television, radio and newspaper advertisements, the groups have derided Norton as an "anti-environmental extremist" who would favor logging, grazing and mining interests over land conservation.

In the early 1980s, Norton served in the Interior Department under the controversial then-Secretary James Watt, with whom she had worked earlier at the conservative Mountain States Legal Foundation.

Even some Republican groups have raised their eyebrows over Bush's choice to make Norton responsible for managing nearly half a million acres of federal lands, and enforcing laws that protect threatened and endangered species.

Through her earlier confirmation hearings, Norton called herself a "conservative and conservationist." She criticized former President Bill Clinton and former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt for issuing executive proclamations protecting millions of acres of public land, saying Western lawmakers and local residents were left out of the decision-making process.

Norton, a constitutional lawyer, is a strong backer of the concept of states' rights, and has often questioned the constitutional role of the federal government in enforcing a number of environmental and other laws, including statutes governing land use, species conservation and surface mining.

Her most virulent critics have accused her of espousing radical views of constitutional law, saying her interpretation and application of the constitution while arguing land use and conservation issues often fall to the far right of the mainstream.

Like many Western Republicans, Norton has been a harsh critic of federal environmental protection efforts. As the Colorado's attorney general from 1991 to 1999, she backed the state's environmental "self-audit" law, which allows companies to review their own compliance with environmental rules an exempts them from penalties if they report and correct violation themselves.

Under the Bush administration, Norton said last week, "all interested citizens and groups including ... those most affected by federal decisions" will be consulted when land use disputes are to be ironed out.

After leaving the state attorney general's office, she worked with the Denver law firm of Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber and Strickland, and held a seat on the board of directors of the free-market Independence Institute in Golden, Colorado.

"Frankly, reconciling some of (her) past views with current testimony is not that easy, but I take Gale Norton at her word," Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-New Mexico, said Monday afternoon. "Based on her testimony, because of the promises she made at the hearing, I will support her nomination."

But her declarations weren't strong enough to convince some senators. "Gale Norton is no James Watt, but that distinction alone is not enough to justify this nomination," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon. "I will vote 'no.'"

Norton supports President Bush's plan to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. If confirmed, she promised to evaluate the "environmental consequences" before production would get under way.

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-New Mexico, said Monday that Norton was probably the most qualified person under the new Bush regime to lead the nation, particularly states in the far West, out of their current energy crisis.

"I hope she passes," Domenici said. "She is entitled to that job. We have probably never had a better candidate for that job who has been better educated, and has written more in her area of jurisdiction than has this lady."


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Monday, January 29, 2001


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