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JANUARY 30, 2001

SEN. CRAIG THOMAS (R-WY):
"[Gale Norton] is a superb candidate for this job. She has experience. She has experience as attorney general of the State of Colorado, during which time, of course, she had to deal with a good many land, water, and air quality issues and I think dealt with them professionally. . . She is a conservative and I am a conservative, but we are conservationists in that we want to protect the resources so they will be there in the future for our kids and future youngsters. These two things are not incompatible."

SEN. JON KYL (R-AZ):
"Gale Norton is the kind of person who throughout her public career has brought people together and has reached solutions to problems that were primarily acceptable to all sides. . . She has experience in a wide variety of areas with which she will have to deal, including environmental protection -- as I mentioned, hazardous waste cleanup, and other things."

SEN. JEFF BINGAMAN (D-N.MEX):
"I indicated that I had serious doubts about whether Ms. Norton's past views on the role of the Federal Government in enforcing environmental protection laws . . . In her many published articles, Ms. Norton had amassed a record that championed the rights of individuals over the public interest in many natural resource issues; she had argued that key environmental protection laws . . . were unconstitutional; and she had often supported the interests of economic development over environmental protection. . . During two days of hearings, however, Gale Norton presented a much different picture of her future actions as Secretary of the Interior, a different picture than her previous writings would have suggested."

SEN. RON WYDEN (D-ORE):
"Today -- and I say this with reluctance -- I rise to state that I will be voting no on this nomination. I still have reservations about the nominee's commitment to make, as the central focus of her office, the bringing together of these two camps, the environmental community and the affected industries, to find common ground. America wants and deserves this because it is the common ground where we can protect our treasures and be sensitive to local economic needs."

SEN. DAN BREAUX (D-LA):
"We want someone who brings commonsense policies to this important task, and commonsense policies is a phrase I have heard used in describing Gale Norton. In addition, I think she will be a person who will consider multiple use of these valuable properties. What do I mean by that? What I mean is that Federal lands owned by our Government can be used for more than just one purpose . . . My argument is that these areas can be subject to multiple use in a fashion that preserves the intent of why this area was set aside in the first place and at the same time allows for balanced development which is compatible with that purpose."

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Norton confirmation expected today (Politics 1/30)