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.