Interior Secretary Ken Salazar suspended all deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico after the BP oil spill there in 2010. A few months later, he lifted the ban, and drilling levels in the Gulf have since overtaken those before the accident.

His response to the Macondo well incident is indicative of his tenure in Obama's administration -- at turns he has upset and delighted both environmentalists and the oil industry.

"Early on, we had our differences in opinion," said Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, pointing out that he did not agree with Salazar's stance on opening federal land to drilling. "Over time, we found more common ground on those issues."

Salazar announced Wednesday he is leaving his post to return to Colorado, the state he represented in the Senate (Greenwire, Jan. 16). Insiders have floated several names as potential replacements for Salazar, including Interior Deputy Secretary David Hayes and former New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D).

Salazar has proposed tougher regulations for hydraulic fracturing, the process of sending water, chemicals and sand down well bores at high pressures to free up previously unattainable reserves of shale oil and natural gas. He also greenlighted more than 10,000 megawatts of renewable projects on public lands, clearing the first offshore wind farm, the Cape Wind project in Massachusetts.

Despite these developments, some environmentalists have criticized Salazar for his "all of the above" energy strategy.

"It's sad and embarrassing that we went right back into offshore drilling after the disaster in the Gulf," said Jacqueline Savitz, deputy vice president of Oceana, a Washington-based environmental advocacy group (Bloomberg/Fuel Fix, Jan. 17). -- BS