Ken Salazar to Interior

The Denver Post is now reporting as settled the rumor it reported this morning that Sen. Ken Salazar would be named Secretary of the Interior.

Sen. Ken Salazar has agreed to become secretary of the Interior pending the outcome of a background check, The Denver Post has learned.

Democratic sources, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak on Salazar's behalf, said Monday that Salazar is all but certain to be appointed to President-elect Barack Obama's Cabinet....

Salazar is a former director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, where he wrote the Great Outdoors Colorado Amendment that used lottery proceeds for land conservation. He serves on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Speaking to reporters in Chicago this afternoon, Obama said he would name the Interior Secretary later this week.

Salazar met with members of Obama's transition team in Chicago at the end of last week to discuss a possible appointment as interior secretary, said sources close to the transition team.

On environmental issues, I think we could have done worse. California Rep. Michael Thompson, for instance, would have been much worse with his strong ties to timber and seemingly best qualification being the fishing and hunting groups like him. Much better, IMO, to have an interior westerner at interior than a coastal one. We probably could have done better, too. Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, unabashedly progressive, had been very much on top of keeping track of Dirk Kempthorne's diry deeds in the current administration.

However, having one less Blue Doggish Senator in the Dem caucus isn't bad news, particularly remember Salazar's membership in the Gang of 14 that helped land us with Roberts and Alito.

The primary question remains, then, will we end up with someone more progressive in his seat? According to the Post story, the names being floated are Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper; U.S. Reps. John Salazar, Ed Perlmutter and Diana DeGette; Denver Public Schools Superintendent Michael Bennet; outgoing state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff; and former U.S. Attorney Tom Strickland.

Among the higher profile possibilities, John Salazar is heading to Appropriations in the House. Given that he landed that plum committee membership, he might be less likely to want to move along. Hickenlooper, DeGette, and Perlmutter would all likely be more progressive than Salazar, particularly DeGette. The seat is up again 2010, so Ritter might choose to appoint a placeholder candidate giving all these Dems the chance to fight it out amongst themselves. One issue for Hickenlooper, DeGette and Perlmutter all is that their base of support is in the Denver area, and a statewide run in 2010 could be challenging.