Dirk Kempthorne

The chairwoman of the Senate Environment Committee on Wednesday criticized Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne for failing to appear before her panel to explain why the Bush administration had delayed a decision on whether to protect polar bears under...

CONSIDER THE humble polar bear: Ursus maritimus to the scientists who admire it for its intelligence. Now consider President Bush, who might be classified as Executum obstreperum by the thousands of scientists who say his administration fails to...

The Grand Canyon is about to take a bath, and National Park Service officials who oversee the natural wonder are worried. Federal flood control managers, led by Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, this week plan to unleash millions of cubic feet of water...

The Bush administration has shown extraordinary disdain for the Endangered Species Act over the years, dragging its heels on listing some species (polar bear, sage grouse, wolverine) and removing vital protections for others (gray wolf, arroyo toad, red-...

WHEN THE PILGRIMS landed in Massachusetts in 1620, they encountered a land breathtaking in its bounty and beauty. They wrote of vast virgin forests; of meadows ripe with wild fruit and woods teeming with deer, turkey and mink. And in the cerulean skies,...

Congress is considering permanent protection for 26 million acres of beautiful and historic landscapes in the American West, but has quietly excluded millions of acres of California desert. In a system that would rival the national parks and forests, the...

Thanks to renewed interest in nuclear power, the United States is on the verge of a uranium mining boom, and nowhere is the hurry to stake claims more pronounced than in the districts flanking the Grand Canyon's storied sandstone cliffs. On public...

In a victory for gun-rights advocates, the federal government is preparing to relax a decades-old ban on bringing loaded firearms into national parks. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said Friday that his department would suggest new regulations by the...

They roam freely over the grassy hills, American royalty in a most unusual setting. Nearby, young Marines are being tutored in the controlled application of violence, but the 147 bison of Camp Pendleton, shaggy, rust-colored and majestic, are protected...

A platoon of double-crested cormorants took flight from the eastern shore of the Columbia River, skimming the sun-sparkled surface as two slender white egrets stood in the nearby shallows, hunting small fish hiding in the reeds. Twenty kayakers, mostly...

Sarah Palin as governor has campaigned to remove polar bears from the endangered species list -- at least in part because the listing complicates development efforts in some parts of Alaska -- and has sued the Interior Department to......

Good morning. Here are a few Washington events of note for Wednesday, November 12. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, Geological Survey Director Mark Myers and government scientists are releasing the world's first-ever resource estimate of technically...