Obama to nominate former Nevada official to head BLM

By Lisa Mascaro

Tuesday, June 9, 2009 | 7:26 p.m.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama intends to nominate Bob Abbey, a former top Interior Department official in Nevada, to head the Bureau of Land Management.

Abbey was the choice of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who personally recommended him to Interior Secretary Ken Salzar for the job.

“I can’t think of a more qualified person to head the BLM than Bob Abbey,” Reid said in a statement. “Our state will have a friend at the BLM who understands the challenges we face in managing and preserving Nevada’s great outdoors and its immense renewable energy resources.”

Abbey served eight years as the bureau’s director in Nevada, a state with nearly 90 percent federal lands. He led the Great Basin Restoration Initiative, which added resources to restore the area. More recently, he was in private practice as a consultant in Nevada.

Salazar called Abbey a “consummate professional natural resource manager.”

“His dedication to our country’s National System of Public Lands and his commitment to building partnerships make him an ideal choice to lead one of the most complex federal land managing agencies,” Salazar said in a statement.