Sally Jewell, the woman President Barack Obama has nominated to be the next Secretary of the Interior, said in a 2007 interview that she was “not proud of our employee commuting footprint” during her time at the helm of outdoor retailer REI.
“Is there anything you’re not proud of or you’re looking forward to changing soon?” a reporter with the environmental Web site grist.org asked Jewell, who was the CEO of REI at the time.
“I’m not proud of our employee commuting footprint,” Jewell said. “We’re sitting out here in an office park [in Kent, Wash.], in an area that used to be farmland, probably in a floodplain.
“And many people are driving single-occupancy vehicles to get in here,” Jewell said.
Environmental groups also are praising Jewell, including Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, who said he hoped Jewell will protect the Arctic from “risky drilling” and “dirty and dangerous fracking.”
“We look forward to working closely with her to preserve more of those benefits and more of our natural heritage by designating new national monuments, protecting America’s Arctic from risky drilling, and keeping dirty and dangerous fracking out of our public lands,” Brune said.
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