Bush's Interior Secy Gale Norton: Gave Shell Oil access to Wildnerness, now works at Shel

[amborin]

In early 2006, Ms. Norton’s department awarded three tracts in Colorado to a Shell subsidiary for shale exploration.

In December 2006, she joined Shell as the company’s general counsel in the United States for unconventional oils, a company spokeswoman said.

The existence of a federal criminal investigation was first reported Thursday by The Los Angeles Times.

Ms. Norton, 55, was President George W. Bush’s first interior secretary. In that job, she was an ally of Vice President Dick Cheney in the administration’s general approach of opening up more federal lands for energy exploration.

The possibility that Ms. Norton violated the law by seeking employment with a company while she was a federal official in a position to benefit the company stemmed from an investigation of many months by the Interior Department’s inspector general. The officials who confirmed the investigation did so on the condition of anonymity, citing the custom to decline to speak publicly on criminal investigations in progress.


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<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/us/politics/18norton.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=gale%20norton%20shell%20oil&st=cse>