Green team

Cover Story sidebar | Each of Obama's picks for energy and environment posts ascribe to the school of "environment first, economy third" | Mark Bergin

Browner, Jackson/Getty Images; Chu, Salazar/Associated Press

Many of President Obama's cabinet and advisor selections have displeased the far-left bloc of his supporters. Not so his energy and environment picks, each of whom ascribe to the school of "environment first, economy third," says conservative analyst Ben Lieberman of the Heritage Foundation. Ken Salazar, a former Colorado senator now confirmed as secretary of the interior, developed an adversarial relationship with the Bush administration for his work to slow oil shale development in the Green River Formation of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. He has resisted specific stateside oil drills and opposed lifting the moratorium on offshore drilling even if gasoline prices should rise as high as $10 per gallon. Salazar, 53, often talks a more moderate game, claiming general support for domestic drilling and oil shale development, but his record is lockstep with leftist environmentalism.