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Balash confirmed to Interior post
Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Joe Balash was confirmed 61-38 on Dec. 7 by the U.S. Senate as assistant secretary for Land and Minerals Management at the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Balash, then chief of staff to U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, was named to the post by President Trump in July.
In a statement on the confirmation Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke noted that the department had been without an assistant secretary for a while, said Balash has worked with the department on a number of Alaska projects, and that he looked “forward to his experience being brought to the table at our next meeting.”
Balash said the U.S. was “blessed with tremendous public lands and resources that give our people unparalleled opportunities for recreation and job creation for generations to come,” and said he looked forward to working with Zinke and the Interior team “to seize on those opportunities and deliver on President Trump’s America First Energy Plan.”
Balash is a former commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources and was deputy DNR commissioner from 2010 to 2013. From 2006 to 2010 he served as an advisor to two Alaska governors on natural resources policy, permitting and energy. From 1998 to 2006, he served in a variety of positions in the Alaska Legislature, including chief of staff to the president of the Senate.
Balash, a native of North Pole, fives in Washington, D.C. He is married with two children.
Pro and Con Alaska’s congressional delegation said in a Dec. 7 statement that they were pleased with the confirmation. “Today I’m pleased to see that after weeks of partisan gridlock, Joe Balash was finally confirmed,” Sullivan said, adding that Balash “understands how to build consensus, how to navigate state and federal interests, and importantly, how to work to develop our resources,” and said he also understands the importance of “stringent environmental safeguards.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said Balash “has demonstrated that he is both capable and willing to work with everyone, from hunters and tribes to environmentalists and conservationists, on the stewardship of our public lands.”
Congressman Don Young, R-Alaska, called Balash “a true public servant with a proven track record of advocating for responsible resource development.”
Environmentalists have objected to the appointment and the Alaska Wilderness League said in a statement that as Alaska DNR commissioner Balash “asserted state ownership over leases at the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s boundary and pushed for seismic studies in the Arctic Refuge,” and also supported expedited drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
“Now that Balash has been confirmed he will have a responsibility to follow the letter of the law and act in the national interest,” said Adam Kolton, executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League.
The assistant secretary heads Interior’s management of all federal lands and waters, and mineral and non-mineral resources on those lands, as well as the regulation of surface coal mining and as one of six assistant secretaries at Interior oversees the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement and the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.
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