Editorial: No time to coast

Monday, June 11, 2007 | 7:02 a.m.

The Bush administration nominee to head the U.S. Bureau of Land Management is a former Forest Service official who openly opposed President Clinton's protection of millions of acres of roadless land in national forests.

Jim Caswell, whom Bush nominated last week, now heads Idaho's Office of Species Conservation, where he drafted Idaho's wolf and roadless wilderness management plans, the Associated Press reported in a story on Wednesday. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, who also is from Idaho and also opposed the Clinton administration's roadless policy, recommended Caswell as a replacement for Kathleen Clarke, who resigned in December.

As head of the BLM, Caswell would oversee an agency that, under the Bush administration, often is involved in controversy over oil and gas drilling, endangered species habitat protection and public lands access for motorized vehicles. Caswell's appointment could have significant effects in Nevada, because the BLM controls 48 million acres in the state - roughly 67 percent of Nevada's total land. An additional 19 percent of Nevada's public land is managed by other federal agencies, including the Forest Service, the National Park Service, the Fish & Wildlife Service and the Defense Department.

Caswell told the AP that he supports developing domestic energy sources on public land to offset U.S. dependence on foreign oil. He declined to be more specific about how he would balance that with environmental concerns.

But President Bush routinely favors corporate interests over environmental ones, so anyone Bush chooses to head the BLM should be carefully scrutinized during Senate confirmation hearings. Still, it is unclear whether Caswell will be subjected to a rigorous evaluation.

Environmentalists told the AP that although Caswell's wolf and wilderness management plans in Idaho have won wide, but not unanimous, acceptance, those who would typically raise questions about his suitability for the BLM post aren't likely to bother because Bush's term is nearing an end. And, as one activist told the AP, with Bush in the White House "things could be a lot worse" than choosing Caswell.

That is not how the process is supposed to work. The president does have leeway in choosing people for top federal posts, but that doesn't mean the Senate has to approve every nominee.

A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Thursday that Reid will "watch the hearing closely" and make certain the Senate gives Caswell adequate scrutiny.

That is as it should be. Americans expect the Senate to sufficiently screen candidates for such important jobs as leading the BLM, rather than simply accepting the lesser of two evils.