Salazar to confront pressures to drill offshore

(Reuters) - Ken Salazar, tapped on Wednesday to lead the Department of the Interior by President-elect Barack Obama, is a lawyer, farmer and small businessman who has served as Colorado's junior senator since 2004.

As secretary of the interior, Salazar would manage the department's 500 million acres of surface land as well as 1.76 billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf, including 8,300 active oil and gas leases on 44 million offshore acres.

Salazar also would be in charge of U.S. national parks -- from the panoramic vistas of the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone in the West to the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

The Interior Department also is in charge of U.S. relations with American Indian tribes and managing the endangered species program.

Here are some details on his background and the top issues facing the Interior Department in the coming years:

HIS BACKGROUND

Salazar is a fifth generation Coloradan who grew up on a remote ranch, without electricity or telephones, in the state's San Luis Valley. He attended Colorado College and the University of Michigan Law School, later practicing water and environmental law in the private sector.

He served as head of the Department of Natural Resources in Colorado, a mountainous state with some of the best-known U.S. parks, forests and winter recreation areas. In 1998 he was elected state attorney general, the first Hispanic to win a statewide office in Colorado. He ran for the Senate seat of retiring Ben Nighthorse Campbell and won against Pete Coors, the head Colorado's famous brewing family. His brother John serves in the U.S. House of Representatives from Colorado.

OFFSHORE DRILLING

The key issue will be selling leases for offshore energy exploration. Offshore drilling was banned in most areas outside of parts of the Gulf of Mexico for more than 20 years before Congress allowed its prohibition to expire at the end of September.

With energy prices at record highs during the summer, President George W. Bush began lobbying Congress to remove the ban on oil exploration in the Outer Continental Shelf and he lifted his own executive order barring offshore drilling.

The Interior Department started the process to consider selling leases to drill for oil and natural gas off the coast of Virginia in November.

Many Republicans and representatives of the oil industry are pushing to begin exploring the Outer Continental Shelf, but Democrats could pursue reimposing the ban or adding more restrictions on drilling. Obama could also reinstate the executive order against offshore drilling that Bush lifted.

DRILLING IN ENVIRONMENTALLY SENSITIVE AREAS

Another issue will be whether to curtail drilling in certain areas that were controversially opened to energy exploration under Bush, such as Chukchi and Beaufort Seas off Alaska's coast and sensitive lands in New Mexico and Colorado.

The department could issue leases with restrictions or not issue any more leases in certain areas.

PERSONNEL ISSUES/CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

Employees at the Minerals Management Service, which handles billions of dollars of oil and gas supplies received as in-kind royalty payments, have been accused of accepting illegal drugs, sex and gifts from the energy companies they oversaw. Lawmakers have called for reform of the MMS and changes to the Royalty-in-Kind program it runs. The MMS has accepted four recommendations to clean up the agency, but more may be called for.

POLAR BEARS

The Interior Department is in charge of listing endangered and threatened species and has identified relatively few under the Bush administration. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne listed the polar bear as a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act because their sea ice habitat is melting away. But he noted he was taking administrative and regulatory action to make sure the decision was not "abused to make global warming policy," a stance which could be changed.

LAND USE FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY

From geothermal companies hoping to tap the earth's heat to solar companies setting up huge arrays in pristine desert, many of the new renewable energy companies will want access to public lands, and the new secretary will have to decide how to balance developing resources with preserving the land.

DROUGHT POLICY

Water policy broadly falls under the Interior Department, and drought is becoming common from the U.S. West to the South. The new secretary will face water wars, quests for new dams and more.

(Reporting by Ayesha Roscoe, Peter Henderson; compiled by David Alexander; editing by David Wiessler)