Twins may be key to Interior job

Democratic leaders in U.S. Senate turn on Oregon's Ron Wyden and confirm Interior Department nominee. Oregon Wild still pushing for full accounting of scientific tampering inside Interior Department endangered species decisions.

A new assistant Interior secretary may owe his political promotion to an Oregon senator's newborn twins.

Lyle Laverty, former director of Colorado State Parks, was confirmed this week as assistant Interior secretary for fish, wildlife and parks. He will oversee the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Laverty's confirmation came as his chief political opponent - Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. - was away from the Capitol celebrating the birth Friday of a twin boy and girl.

Wyden's absence allowed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to schedule a vote on Laverty's nomination, despite a hold Wyden had placed on Laverty because of concerns about ethics violations at the Interior Department.

Without Wyden there to object, the Democratic-controlled Senate confirmed Laverty's nomination late Monday on a voice vote.

Wyden was not available for comment, but his chief of staff, Josh Kardon, said Tuesday he would not second-guess Reid.

"Sen. Reid worked very hard to encourage a resolution and was patient for several months, but he was receiving pressure from a couple of Democratic senators and the administration to move forward on this. We don't second-guess his decisions in the conduct of his very challenging job," Kardon said.

Reid, D-Nev., had been pushing for a vote on Laverty's nomination, citing pressure from the Bush administration and senators in Colorado and other states.

A spokesman for Reid declined to comment Tuesday.

A group of environmental activists had urged Reid to hold off, saying it was unfair to vote while Wyden was away.

Steve Pedery, conservation director of Oregon Wild, compared Reid's action to "tackling the quarterback from behind - and he's on your team."

"It's disappointing to a lot of environmental-minded voters that Sen. Reid chose to knuckle under to pressure from the vice president's office and the Bush administration," Pedery said.

Environmental groups have called on the administration to scrap a review of the threatened species status of a sea bird that nests in old growth timber, arguing that recently released documents show a former Interior official meddled with the science.

E-mails and meeting notes from the Fish and Wildlife Service, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, show that Julie MacDonald, then deputy assistant secretary of Interior, "improperly interfered with the science underlying the marbled murrelet status review," said Kristen Boyles, a lawyer for the environmental group Earthjustice.

MacDonald resigned the post overseeing Fish and Wildlife in May after the department's inspector general rebuked her for pressuring scientists to alter their findings about endangered species and leaking information about them to industry officials.

The newly released documents "uncovered the fact that the Bush administration continues to hide the ball," Pedery said. "Not only has the administration not come clean about everything Julie MacDonald did, there still isn't in place a framework to make sure this kind of interference doesn't happen again."

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne hailed the Senate's approval.

"As both director of Colorado Parks and a longtime manager with the U.S. Forest Service, Lyle Laverty understands the importance of working together with states, tribes, local communities and private landowners to address the many challenges of conserving our national parks and our wildlife and its habitat while managing for recreation and other uses of the land," Kempthorne said.