Obama to nominate REI CEO Sally Jewell as interior secretary
Sally Jewell, President and CEO of REI, introduces President Barack Obama during an event in the East Room of the White House February 16, 2011 in Washington, D.C. / Brendan Smialowski / Getty Images
President Barack Obama on Wednesday will nominate business executive and former engineer Sally Jewell to lead the Interior Department, an administration official confirmed to CBS News.
Jewell is the president and chief executive officer at the outdoors company Recreational Equipment, Inc., known as REI, which sells clothing and gear for outdoor adventures with more than 100 stores across the country. Prior to joining REI in 2000, Jewell worked in commercial banking and as an engineer for Mobil Oil Corporation.
If confirmed, Jewell would replace current Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who held the post throughout Obama's first term. Salazar announced last month that he would step down in March.
Jewell is the first woman in Mr. Obama's crop of second-term Cabinet nominees. The White House faced criticism that the new Cabinet lacked diversity after Obama tapped a string of white men for top posts, but Obama promised more diverse nominees were in the queue for other jobs.
Jewell's confirmation would also put a prominent representative from the business community in the president's Cabinet. REI is a $2 billion-a-year company and has been named by Fortune Magazine as one of the top 100 companies to work for.
Mr. Obama is expected to announce Jewell's nomination from the White House this afternoon.
In an email, the White House said, "Sally Jewell is uniquely qualified to be Secretary of the Interior. With years of experience managing a nearly $2 billion a-year company, she will bring to the position integrity, keen management skills, as well as dedication to the Department's mission of managing our nation's lands. Trained as an engineer, Jewell has broad private sector experience in energy and finance, as well as a commitment to conservation."
Under Salazar, the Interior Department pushed renewable power such as solar and wind and oversaw a moratorium on offshore drilling after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The moratorium was lifted in October 2010, although offshore drilling operations did not begin for several more months.
The Interior Department manages millions of acres in national parks and forests, overseeing energy and mining operations on some of the government-owned land.
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She's just another GOP lackey (source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertbradley/2013/02/19/peak-oil-will-be-fully-discredited-when-peak-government-is-realized/ ) and for all we know is no better than other GOP picks such as Gregg, Hagel(at least re: economic/job issues), Dimon, kept Bush buddies Bernanke and Geithner, etc...
True, it's early on in President Obama's second term, but I see no reason how Chicago Politicians(tm) end up being any different than any other sort of politician right now.
Real, positive change isn't brought about by keeping the status quo. Especially when taxpayers paid for it all.
And thank you, Littleredtop, for thanking me in advance. :)
It's pure insanity we cannot have Rep Raul Grijalva do the job he was born to do and do it well.
Oil is nature's poison. We are so selfish about our creature comforts we forget about the other creatures who share this planet. If oil drilling in the arctic has a spill and the oil gets on a polar bear the animal will die because it will try to clean itself and ingest the crude. (are you going to try and stop him from licking his fur?) If fracking goes bad then how much ground water will be contaminated? Not only for animal but human use as well.
I am sick of the politicians playing games with "life" itself. We elected (hired) them to do a job and so far they have failed miserably. They can't even make a decision without arguing, name calling, bickering, and back stabbing. And we are going to let them decide who will take charge of our public lands and the animals that live there?
I guess we have all lost our minds because we certainly have lost our voice. The President nor Congress give a damn for what WE think or are willing to pay for.
Oil has practical uses. Like feeding people (either as fertilizers or to power machines to collect food more quickly, to transport it, and use it to prevent food from spoiling.)
True poisons like SUVs just so mommy can drive the brat to a Jr High soccer game are the problem with wasting what is claimed to be a valuable resource.
So can I blindly disagree with Obama for all his choices?
No.
When we pervert valuable items just for the profit of one or two folks at the top and at the expense of everyone else, that is when I have an issue. Profiteering is a real ethical and moral problem. (And profiteering is not synonymous with profiting, BTW...)
That's all that's needed, because it shows implied bipartisanship. Or at least purported bipartisanship; Obama - by accident if nothing else - tends to come across more like a trojan horse. Progressive on the outside, corporatist on the inside. It's honestly hard to tell and I look at things waaaaay too much, but let geeks play chess. This is human civilization we're talking about.