Donald P. Hodel

Donald Paul Hodel (born May 23, 1935) is a former United States Secretary of Energy and Secretary of the Interior, and Chairman of the company FreeEats.com/ccAdvertising, which has had a controversial role disseminating push polls for the Economic Freedom Fund. He was known during his tenure as Secretary of the Interior for his controversial "Hodel Policy," which stated that disused dirt roads and footpaths could be considered right-of-ways under RS 2477.

Hodel attended Harvard University. He married Barbara Beecher Stockman who was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and attended Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She married Hodel in her senior year. They moved to Oregon after graduation and Hodel earned his J.D. at the University of Oregon.^[1] While at Oregon, he and Barbara had two sons and Mrs. Hodel became a full-time mom. Following the suicide of their oldest son, the Hodels became evangelical Christians, as well as active in church and various other Christian ministries as speakers at evangelistic meetings and prayer breakfasts. The Hodels have appeared on The 700 Club with Pat Robertson, The Hour of Power with Robert Schuller and on Focus on the Family broadcasts with Dr. James Dobson, encouraging families who have lost loved ones to suicide.

Government career

Hodel served as United States Secretary of Energy from 1982 to 1985, and the Secretary of the Interior from 1985 to 1989 under President Ronald Reagan. Prior to that he was Undersecretary of Interior for James Watt.

Critics disrupted his efforts to impose a new management policy on a large amount of federal land, and blocked his efforts to create vast new wilderness areas. In spite of these criticisms, the Reagan Administration Secretaries added over two million acres (8,000 km²) to the national wilderness system. The Hodel policy was continued under Manuel Lujan Jr. (1989–93) in the Bush Administration. It was finally rescinded in 1997 by Secretary Bruce Babbitt.

In an article, Hodel wrote, "Throughout President Reagan's eight years, his secretaries of the Interior pursued these objectives within the framework of his and their conviction that America could have both an improving environment and an adequate energy supply. We did not and do not have to choose between them, as some have contended. . . ."

While secretary, Hodel proposed to undertake a study on the removal of the O'Shaugnessy Dam in Yosemite National Park, and the restoration of Hetch Hetchy Valley, a smaller, but inundated version of Yosemite Valley. Senator Dianne Feinstein, former mayor of San Francisco, which owns the dam, however, opposed the study and had it quashed.

In March 1984, the Navajo Nation requested that the Secretary of the Interior, who was then William Clark, make a reasonable adjustment of the coal lease royalty rate paid by Peabody Coal, now Peabody Energy. In July 1985, newly appointed Hodel, secretly met ex parte with Peabody’s representative (“a former aide and friend of Secretary Hodel.”). Then after very briefly reviewing the merits of the proposals, Hodel approved lease amendments with royalty rates well below the rate that had previously been determined appropriate by those agencies responsible for monitoring the federal government’s relations with Native Americans. In 2007, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit determined that these actions by Hodel breached the government's duty of trust to the Nation and established a "cognizable money-mandating claim" against the government under the Indian Tucker Act.^[2]

Post-Government Career

Hodel moved to Colorado where he engaged in the energy consulting business, and served on various charitable and corporate boards of directors. He later served as President of Christian Coalition, a nonprofit conservative group, from 1997 to 1999. He is the author of Crisis in the Oil Patch (Regnery, 1995).

From June, 1997, until February, 1999, Hodel served as President of the Christian Coalition, a grassroots political group founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson.

From May, 2003, until March, 2005, Hodel served as President and CEO of Focus on the Family, a nonprofit evangelical Christian organization. He had stated that his job was to manage the transition from the founder, Dr. James Dobson, to his ultimate successor. Hodel had, several years prior to being named President, served on its board and remained on the board until October of 2005.

In 2006, his company FreeEats.com/ccAdvertising was found to be disseminating political push polls on behalf of the Economic Freedom Fund organized by Bob J. Perry. After being sued by the Attorney General of the State of Indiana, the company countersued, claiming its freedom of speech was being squelched.

Environmental Efforts

As Secretary of the Interior, in 1985, Hodel ordered the acquisition of a ranch in southern Arizona which would become the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. Encompassing approximately 118,000 acres (480 km²) of savannah grassland in the Altar Valley, the wildlife refuge was created for the masked bobwhite quail. This refuge contains the only population of the masked bobwhite quail in the United States ^[3][4]

Currently, Hodel serves as Chairman and Senior Vice President for Strategy and Policy at Summit Power Group, Inc.,^[5] a Seattle-based developer of wind, solar and gas-fired power plants. In 1989, Hodel was the founder and managing director of Summit Power Group’s predecessor company.

References

External links

• Summit Power Principals Biography