Jewell Nomination

This morning the committee meets to consider the nomination of Sally Jewell, to be the Secretary of the Interior. With authorities ranging from managing National Parks to offshore oil and gas development, to protecting fish and wildlife, serving as Secretary of Interior is almost like an extreme sport for multi-taskers. We will hear this morning from Sally Jewell, who knows a bit about multi-tasking from having been a petroleum engineer, a corporate CEO, a banker, and a conservationist. She will certainly need to draw on all of these experiences and more to tackle the multiple responsibilities of Secretary of the Interior. Probably the biggest challenge Ms. Jewell faces will be striking the right balance between the Secretary's dual roles of both conserving and developing our resources. The tradeoffs, as we've talked about, are complicated because we Americans want to have it all. We want to have jobs and protect our scenic treasures and obviously that can be easier said than actually done.