Ken Salazar, considering next move, still committed to Interior

E Ken Salazar, right, is interviewed outside the Ritchie Center at the first 2012 presidential debate at the University of Denver. (Kathryn Scott Osler, Denver Post file)RelatedDec 23:Jockeying already underway for John Kerry's Senate seatDec 22:Obama nominates John Kerry as next secretary of stateDec 21:Obama nominates Kerry for secretary of stateDec 17:Biographical information for Sen. John KerryOn foreign policy, John Kerry is Obama's good soldierDec 16:Obama to nominate John Kerry for secretary of state, source saysDec 14:Susan Rice withdraws her name for secretary of stateDec 13:Embattled Rice bows out; Kerry new front-runner

WASHINGTON — Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says he is still mulling whether to stay on another four years with a second Obama term — a job that sources say he can keep if he wants it.

Heading Interior means Salazar is the custodian of managing the more than 500 million acres of the nation's public lands and another 1.7 billion acres offshore — a job rife with politics from environmentalists, energy companies and members of Congress in districts rich with natural resources.

Salazar is said to be weighing the job — it's work he very much enjoys — against the tug of his extended family in Colorado. Heading a federal agency means long hours, a life in Washington and days upon days of travel.

He is expected to make an announcement in the coming months. According to sources close to the department, his schedule has plans inked on the calendar through February.

"It is perhaps the most wonderful job of any Cabinet position in the United States," he said to the Colorado River Water Users Association conference in Las Vegas last week. "I would not say that about Agriculture or Housing and Urban Development or Transportation. ... This is the best job."

That said, the past four years haven't been exactly easy for Salazar.

He was at the helm during the biggest environmental disaster in U.S. history.

Eleven men died when the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon well exploded April 20, 2010. After it sank two days later, about 53,000 gallons of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico every day for nearly three months.

Salazar received criticism from both sides after the disaster.

Environmentalists — and the White House — said he moved lethargically in figuring out what went wrong. House Republicans on Capitol Hill lambasted him for his moratorium on new offshore drilling leases, which they say crippled domestic energy production.

The rebukes from the Hill didn't stop with Deepwater. House Republicans have continued to hammer him on his agency's handling of oil and gas leasing on federal lands — including in Colorado.

"I continue to be surprised that as secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar has pushed regulations that destroy Colorado jobs and imperil Colorado water law," said Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, who is on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "If Ken Salazar ever decides to come back to Colorado, he'll have a lot of questions to answer about some of the decisions he's made in Washington."

But Salazar has earned friends in the West on both sides of the aisle in the past year after signing a historic water-sharing treaty with Mexico. The agreement sets in place a set of

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