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Gale Norton
U.S. Secretary of the Interior
National Press Club Luncheon Speaker -- April 16, 2003
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Gale Norton is the first woman to head the 154-year-old Department of the Interior, which is responsible for the nation’s natural resources and a half-billion acres of public land. Since taking the office in January 2001, Norton has focused on what she calls the Four Cs: consultation, communication, cooperation and conservation.
Norton made her first bid for public office in 1990, becoming Colorado’s first female attorney general. During her two terms, Norton gained a reputation for favoring voluntary compliance solutions for polluters.
"Companies are more likely to find out if they have environmental problems if there's some hope regulators will work with them," she said in 1998, when she supported a change in federal law that would absolve companies from legal troubles if they admitted to environmental violations and cleaned up the mess.
Norton also won a major court victory as Colorado attorney general against the federal government, forcing it to clean up hazardous wastes at Rocky Flats and the Rocky Mountain Arsenal. She also served as chair of the Environment Committee for the National Association of Attorneys General.
Norton has worked on environmental issues throughout her career; early on she worked for James Watt at a Denver legal foundation. Watt later became Ronald Reagan’s interior secretary.
Prior to her eight years as Colorado attorney general, Norton worked at the Agriculture Department, and served as assistant solicitor for conservation and wildlife at the Interior Department, overseeing endangered species and public lands legal issues for the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service. As assistant solicitor, she advocated opening parts of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil development; President Bush and Norton continue to press for the ANWR proposal as part of a U.S. energy plan.
Norton is a graduate of the University of Denver. She earned her undergraduate degree in 1975 and her law degree in 1978. She and her husband, John Hughes, live near Washington, D.C.
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