Acting Interior secretary names temporary leadership team

By Scott Streater, Heather Richards, Jennifer Yachnin | 01/21/2025 04:31 PM EST

A separate order also temporarily suspended the authority of the Interior Department’s many agencies to advance significant actions.

Interior Department headquarters in Washington.

Interior Department headquarters. Francis Chung/E&E News

Acting Interior Secretary Walter Cruickshank has appointed more than a dozen acting agency directors and key leadership team members who will begin implementing President Donald Trump’s new vision for the agency.

The temporary Interior Department appointments include Karen Hawbecker as acting Interior solicitor, who currently serves as associate solicitor for the Division of Mineral Resources, and Jessica Bowron, the National Park Service’s comptroller, filling in as acting NPS director.

Other notable appointments outlined in a secretarial order Cruickshank signed Monday include Scott Cameron — who previously served as Interior’s acting assistant secretary for policy, management and budget in the first Trump administration — as a senior adviser to the secretary.

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Cameron will also fill two other temporary posts: assistant secretary for water and science, and assistant secretary for insular and international affairs, according to the order.

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