John Salazar

the income gaps of $10,000+ between rural versus urban Americans was real, the health care disparities were real, the educational disparities were real.

failure here is not an option.

He recognizes that energy development should not override other public land and environmental priorities.

You can steal neither my wife nor my water.

Don't they say in the West you can steal my wife but don't steal my water? I don't say that.

Achieving these objectives requires a Secretary willing to engage Indian country, listen to and appreciate the wisdom and experience of Indian tribal leaders.

I will take whatever steps are necessary, and within the scope of my authority, to redress improper decision-making regarding endangered species determinations.

This combination of perspectives--sensible energy production and other resource development with a sharp eye on the need to protect more enduring values and resources--hopefully will return our national public lands management to the true…

I think solar has great potential. It's not just solar photovoltaic, but also the concentrated solar power that you speak about.

It is an honor and a privilege to come before you today, feelings matched only by the pride I bring to this chamber as I introduce to you President-elect Obama's nominee for Secretary of the United States Department of Interior, my…

The next Secretary of Interior is going to need to bring with them an abundance of selflessness and integrity, and Colorado's senior Senator has these qualities to spare.

I would not have taken this job if I was not given the assignment to help craft the energy moon shot.

There's no substitute for good science to guide the kinds of issues that you talk about with the Fish and Wildlife Service.

I hope that you will work with us and give coastal States like mine a seat at the table

I look forward specifically as part of President-elect Obama's energy team in helping craft the kinds of economic opportunities as we pursue the Renewable Energy Agenda.

We need to do everything we can to make sure that we achieve the vision of John Kennedy and Stuart Udall.

Part of what we will do for our economic renaissance here in America is take on a new energy economy.

We want to make sure that States remain and are allowed to maintain an option of when and where drilling should take place.

We do need stronger standards than what are set forth in the 1872 mining law.

water is the lifeblood of the West

Many of those have lost population and even in the good times of the 1990s, while the big cities were thriving and people were making a lot of money, the people in rural America were being forgotten.

This is an imperative agenda because our environmental and economic and national security depend on our success on this agenda.

I will assure you that the people that we will bring in to oversee those efforts will be people who will make the calls based on the balls and strikes of science, not on the balls and strikes of politics.

I think that solar has got to be one of the crown jewels, if you will, as we move forward, to creating this house of energy independence.

I've been an advocate, for a long time, for the full funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund.