"The Obama transition team, moving along smartly to fill Cabinet posts, is planning to trot out nominees as early as next week for three jobs much watched by enviros: the secretaries of energy and the interior and the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
There's been a very crowded field in the running for interior secretary. Inslee seems to have faded in the stretch, while former Oregon governor John Kitzhaber and Richard Moe, former vice presidential chief of staff to Walter Mondale and now president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, appear to still be contenders.
Rep. Raul M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), had been edging up a bit, but his rise may now have stalled. There's talk that Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) may be making a move and could land the job.
It's not lost on transition officials that Thompson is an avid hunter and angler whose candidacy has been endorsed by sportsmen's associations. President-elect Barack Obama told Field & Stream magazine in September that he wants a sportsman or sportswoman in the post. "I think that having a head of the Department of Interior who doesn't understand hunting and fishing would be a problem," Obama told the magazine. "
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