The Interior Department's 'Relief Pitcher'
Myriad Contentious Issues Await the New Secretary

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 1, 2006

Even in a big bureaucracy, some things can happen fast.

On his first day on the job this week as secretary of the interior, Dirk Kempthorne found out he is already a defendant in thousands of lawsuits, give or take a few.

Interior's deputy solicitor, David L. Bernhardt, tried to break the news gently, noting that Kempthorne's name was simply replacing that of his predecessor, Gale A. Norton. And in some cases he's not formally named, or the Justice Department is taking the lead. "Don't take it personally," Bernhardt said.

Resolving the long list of lawsuits -- including one accusing the government of cheating American Indians out of as much as $137.2 billion over the past 118 years -- is one of many tasks the former Idaho governor and senator faces as the nation's 49th interior secretary. With 30 months before the administration ends, he must confront everything from a huge maintenance backlog at the national parks to a contentious debate over how to best protect endangered species.

"I'm coming in in the seventh inning. I'm the relief pitcher," Kempthorne, 54, said in an interview in the midst of his first official day, which began at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, when he left his apartment for a Fox News interview, and ended at 9 p.m., after he polished off Costco sandwiches his staff had brought in and did some paperwork. "I'm going to come in there, and I want to make sure it's a winning series."

Kempthorne spent his first day doing what he does best: stroking the egos of interest-group leaders, chatting up tourists standing by historic memorials he now oversees, and bonding with politicians. Gamely hobbling on the left foot he broke more than a week ago while jogging on uneven pavement, he shook hands with every Interior employee he could spot and signed autographs for schoolchildren before heading to the top of the Washington Monument.

Aware that federal prosecutors are investigating several current and former Interior officials for possible improper ties to disgraced GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Kempthorne began his day with an ethics briefing by agency lawyers, working on an agency-wide memo on professional conduct and asking if he could accept a personalized windbreaker from a political group or a piece of Park Service haberdashery. (Both are fine, as long as the outside gift was reported; a couple of hours later, Kempthorne sported the Park Service baseball cap on the Mall.)

During a lunch with officials from the National Congress of American Indians, he raised the possibility of settling the suit tribal members have lodged against Interior, and he told his staff that President Bush has urged him to use the department as a bridge to its often fractious constituents.

"He said, 'I don't want it to be polarized. I want us to be bipartisan,' " Kempthorne said.

Unlike Norton, who did little to cultivate environmental leaders, Kempthorne has occasionally made overtures to liberal groups. On Tuesday he held a conference call with 25 conservation, environmental and sporting organizations, including the Defenders of Wildlife and Environmental Defense. He used the word "respect" at least a dozen times during the day, telling the environmentalists at the close of their conversation: "This was my way of showing respect for all you men and women."

"The fact that he made the call was more noteworthy than the substance of the call itself," said Michael J. Bean, a senior attorney for Environmental Defense, who has worked with Kempthorne on protecting endangered species. "He's an open and accessible guy, willing to listen to points of view with which he might ultimately disagree."

Other environmentalists pointed out that in the end, Kempthorne usually goes against them. As governor, he resisted the reintroduction of grizzly bears into Idaho's Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness area (he called them "flesh-eating") and called for eradicating wolves in his state "by any means necessary." During his one term in the Senate, he earned a 1 percent voting score from the League of Conservation Voters.

"He might put it in a more charming way, but it's still going to be catering to special interests rather than serving as a steward of our public lands," said Tiernan Sittenfeld, the group's legislative director.

Kempthorne is an optimist, a former University of Idaho student president who revels in the fact that he'd found a sales clerk at the Pentagon City mall to help him pick out ties (he wore a shiny mint-green one on Tuesday) and that his father, who will turn 90 on July 4, will be able to watch fireworks on the Mall from the interior secretary's balcony.

Asked about the environmental impact of mining -- mining, timber and energy firms contributed generously to his gubernatorial and Senate campaigns -- Kempthorne said it's important to remember what mining does for average Americans.

"When we ride on a bicycle, that's brought to us by mining. When you ride in a car, that's brought to you by mining," he said, pausing to display his wedding ring. "This ring was brought to me by mining, but it's also the symbol of my love for my wife."

That's the sort of philosophy that prompted Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) to declare on the Senate floor last week: "I believe in the next 2 1/2 years [that] Dirk Kempthorne presides over the Department of Interior as the second secretary of the interior of this Bush administration, he will, by his presence and the efforts currently underway, actually produce more energy for this nation and our nation's energy consumers than will the secretary of energy."

Kempthorne shies away from such talk. He says he hopes a combination of drilling and alternative energy sources will help wean the United States from its dependence on foreign oil.

People have underestimated Kempthorne in the past, said the Idaho Conservation League's executive director, Rick Johnson: "He's viewed as not a high-powered dude, and there's more going on there."

But Johnson, who has negotiated with Kempthorne over environmental issues, suggested it will be hard for him to leave a mark or to broker meaningful compromises among farmers and American Indians, environmentalists and oil and gas developers, and other warring factions.

"The administration was looking for someone to keep a steady hand on the tiller," Johnson said. "I don't think he'll have that much of an impact."