OCR Text |
Show Uram named to head coal lease review study Assistant Interior Solicitor Solici-tor Robert J. Uram has been named to head a new Interior Department coal leasing policy study and review office in place of Michelle Zarubica of the Office of Management and Budget, who declined the job. Uram was appointed acting director for a two-month two-month period on April 3, but he is likely to be in the jod longer Decause oi me large amount of work assigned as-signed to the new office. It will be in charge of organizing organi-zing the new programmatic programma-tic environmental impact statement on federal coal leasing required as a result re-sult of the settlement of the NRDC v. Hughes case. It will work up coal leasing alternatives and strategies which will ultimately ulti-mately undergird the policy poli-cy that Interior Secretary Cecil D. Andrus will ultimately ulti-mately adopt on federal coal leasing. And it will present to Congress directly dir-ectly the first annual report re-port under the 1976 Coal Leasing Amendments Act. Gary Bennethum, who has been a staff economist on the staff of Assistant Interior Secretary Secre-tary Guy R. Martin, will do the professional staff work for the new coal policy office. Uram worked out the settlement with the environmental envir-onmental organizations in the NRDC v. Hughes case, particularly with the Natural Resources Defense De-fense Council. In a letter to Andrus dated April 12, Chairman Henry M. Jackson, Jack-son, D-Wash., of the Senate Sen-ate Energy Committee asked Interior to explain "the role to be played by NRDC in leasing decisions" deci-sions" as a result of the out-of-court settlement of the suit. Sens. Clifford P. Hansen, R-Wyo., and Floyd K. Haskell, D-Colo. joined in the letter to Andrus. |