Donald P. Hodel
Encyclopedia
Donald Paul Hodel is a former United States Secretary of Energy
United States Secretary of Energy
The United States Secretary of Energy is the head of the United States Department of Energy, a member of the President's Cabinet, and fifteenth in the presidential line of succession. The position was formed on October 1, 1977 with the creation of the Department of Energy when President Jimmy...

 and Secretary of the Interior
United States Secretary of the Interior
The United States Secretary of the Interior is the head of the United States Department of the Interior.The US Department of the Interior should not be confused with the concept of Ministries of the Interior as used in other countries...

, and Chairman of the company FreeEats.com/ccAdvertising, which has had a controversial role disseminating push poll
Push poll
A push poll is a political campaign technique in which an individual or organization attempts to influence or alter the view of respondents under the guise of conducting a poll. In a push poll, large numbers of respondents are contacted, and little or no effort is made to collect and analyze...

s for the Economic Freedom Fund
Economic Freedom Fund
The Economic Freedom Fund is a 527 group started in 2006 by Bob J. Perry, with a $5 million donation. Only one person is officially associated with the group: Charles H...

. 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-way
Easement
An easement is a certain right to use the real property of another without possessing it.Easements are helpful for providing pathways across two or more pieces of property or allowing an individual to fish in a privately owned pond...

s under RS 2477
Revised statute 2477
Revised Statute 2477 was enacted by the United States Congress in 1866 to encourage the settlement of the Western United States by the development of a system of highways...

.

Hodel attended Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

. 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
University of Oregon
-Colleges and schools:The University of Oregon is organized into eight schools and colleges—six professional schools and colleges, an Arts and Sciences College and an Honors College.- School of Architecture and Allied Arts :...

. 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
Focus on the Family
Focus on the Family is an American evangelical Christian tax-exempt non-profit organization founded in 1977 by psychologist James Dobson, and is based in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Focus on the Family is one of a number of evangelical parachurch organizations that rose to prominence in the 1980s...

 broadcasts with Dr. James Dobson, encouraging families who have lost loved ones to suicide.

Government career

Hodel served as United States Secretary of Energy
United States Secretary of Energy
The United States Secretary of Energy is the head of the United States Department of Energy, a member of the President's Cabinet, and fifteenth in the presidential line of succession. The position was formed on October 1, 1977 with the creation of the Department of Energy when President Jimmy...

 from 1982 to 1985, and the Secretary of the Interior
United States Secretary of the Interior
The United States Secretary of the Interior is the head of the United States Department of the Interior.The US Department of the Interior should not be confused with the concept of Ministries of the Interior as used in other countries...

 from 1985 to 1989 under President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

. 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.
Manuel Lujan Jr.
Manuel Lujan, Jr. , is a Republican politician from the U.S. state of New Mexico who served as the United States Secretary of the Interior from 1989 to 1993 and in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1969 to 1989. He was a colleague of George Herbert Walker Bush in the House from 1969 to 1971...

 (1989–93) in the Bush Administration. It was finally rescinded in 1997 by Secretary Bruce Babbitt
Bruce Babbitt
Bruce Edward Babbitt , a Democrat, served as United States Secretary of the Interior and as the 16th governor of Arizona, from 1978 to 1987.-Biography:...

.

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
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 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
Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park is a United States National Park spanning eastern portions of Tuolumne, Mariposa and Madera counties in east central California, United States. The park covers an area of and reaches across the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain chain...

, and the restoration of Hetch Hetchy Valley
Hetch Hetchy Valley
Hetch Hetchy Valley is a glacial valley in Yosemite National Park in California. It is currently completely flooded by O'Shaughnessy Dam, forming the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. The Tuolumne River fills the reservoir. Upstream from the valley lies the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne. The reservoir...

, a smaller, but inundated version of Yosemite Valley
Yosemite Valley
Yosemite Valley is a glacial valley in Yosemite National Park in the western Sierra Nevada mountains of California, carved out by the Merced River. The valley is about long and up to a mile deep, surrounded by high granite summits such as Half Dome and El Capitan, and densely forested with pines...

. Senator Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein is the senior U.S. Senator from California. A member of the Democratic Party, she has served in the Senate since 1992. She also served as 38th Mayor of San Francisco from 1978 to 1988....

, former mayor
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....

 of San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

, which owns the dam, however, opposed the study and had it quashed.

In March 1984, the Navajo Nation
Navajo Nation
The Navajo Nation is a semi-autonomous Native American-governed territory covering , occupying all of northeastern Arizona, the southeastern portion of Utah, and northwestern New Mexico...

 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
Peabody Energy
Peabody Energy Corporation , previously Peabody Coal Company, is the largest private-sector coal company in the world. The company is headquartered in Downtown St. Louis, Missouri....

. 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.

Post-Government Career

Hodel moved to Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

 where he engaged in the energy
Energy
In physics, energy is an indirectly observed quantity. It is often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems...

 consulting business, and served on various charitable and corporate boards of directors. He later served as President of Christian Coalition, a nonprofit conservative
American conservatism
Conservatism in the United States has played an important role in American politics since the 1950s. Historian Gregory Schneider identifies several constants in American conservatism: respect for tradition, support of republicanism, preservation of "the rule of law and the Christian religion", and...

 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
Focus on the Family
Focus on the Family is an American evangelical Christian tax-exempt non-profit organization founded in 1977 by psychologist James Dobson, and is based in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Focus on the Family is one of a number of evangelical parachurch organizations that rose to prominence in the 1980s...

, a nonprofit evangelical
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...

 Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 organization. He had stated that his job was to manage the transition from the founder, Dr. James Dobson
James Dobson
James Clayton "Jim" Dobson, Jr. is an American evangelical Christian author, psychologist, and founder in 1977 of Focus on the Family , which he led until 2003. In the 1980s he was ranked as one of the most influential spokesman for conservative social positions in American public life...

, 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
Economic Freedom Fund
The Economic Freedom Fund is a 527 group started in 2006 by Bob J. Perry, with a $5 million donation. Only one person is officially associated with the group: Charles H...

 organized by Bob J. Perry
Bob J. Perry
Bobby Jack Perry , is a Houston, Texas homebuilder, owner of Perry Homes, and major contributor to a number of 527 groups, such as the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth and the Economic Freedom Fund....

. 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
Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge
Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge provides of habitat for threatened and endangered plants and animals. The refuge was established in 1985.-Natural history:...

. Encompassing approximately 118000 acres (477.5 km²) of savannah grassland in the Altar Valley
Altar Valley
The Altar Valley is a 45-mile long north-south valley, trending slightly northeast from Sasabe, Arizona on the Mexico border to the Avra Valley, Arizona west of the Tucson Mountains...

, the wildlife refuge was created for the masked bobwhite quail
Bobwhite Quail
The Northern Bobwhite, Virginia Quail or Bobwhite Quail is a ground-dwelling bird native to the United States, Mexico, and the Caribbean...

. This refuge contains the only population of the masked bobwhite quail in the United States

Currently, Hodel serves as Chairman and Senior Vice President for Strategy and Policy at Summit Power Group, Inc
Summit Power
Summit Power Group is a Seattle-based power company, responsible for developing electric power plants , which are primarily natural gas-fired and wind-powered, with solar power recently added. Summit does not develop conventional coal-fired power plants without carbon capture...

., 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.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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