COLORADO SENATOR KEN SALAZAR TO BE NEXT SECRETARY OF INTERIOR

National Park Trust Meets with Obama DOI Transition Team to Outline Priorities

ROCKVILLE, MD, December 2008: National Park Trust (NPT) applauds the announcement of the intention to nominate Colorado Senator Ken Salazar as president-elect Obama’s Interior Secretary. Senator Salazar supported NPT when he was a member of the Honorary Congressional Committee for National Park Trust’s 2008 Bruce F. Vento Public Service Award honoring Senator Harry Reid.

Board chair William Brownell states, “We at NPT are enthusiastic about his selection. Senator Salazar has substantial experience with parks and public lands and has shown a clear commitment throughout his career to reconnecting children and nature.”

Senator Salazar currently sits on the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and the subcommittee on National Parks. Prior to his senate career, he served as the director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources and as the state’s attorney general.

Recently, a group of NPT representatives met with president-elect Obama’s Department of Interior Transition Team. The group discussed its priorities to achieve the organization’s vision that “everyone will have an American park experience”. Those priorities include creating a seamless national system of parks, adequate federal funding and matching opportunities for land acquisition, and expanding NPT’s Youth to Park Program - a national initiative aimed at reconnecting youth, especially underserved youth, to our nation’s parks.

NPT efforts complement and support the new administration’s interests in promoting the national parks through improved diversity, expanded youth programs, and the protection of strategic lands.

Brownell says, “NPT looks forward to working with the new Secretary and his team to strengthen the integrity of our nation’s parks and our children’s connection to them.”

NPT is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit land trust and the nation’s only organization dedicated to the completion, and full appreciation, of the American system of National and State Parks through the identification of key land acquisition needs and opportunities.

Source: National Park Trust
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