Donald Paul Hodel (born May 23, 1935) is an American former politician who served as
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 Cabinet of the United States, and fifteenth in the presidential line of succession. The position was created on October 1, 1977, when Pr ...
and
Secretary of the Interior. 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-ways under
RS 2477.
Hodel proposed that rather than reduce the production of CFCs to prevent ozone layer destruction, people should wear hats and use sunscreen. His plan was assailed by scientists and environmentalists, who pointed out the "broad and potentially disastrous effects that increased ultraviolet radiation would have on the Earth’s climate, food chains and individual species of plants and animals other than humans". Critics of Hodel’s "Ray-Ban Plan" sarcastically depicted animals and plants wearing sunglasses to protect against increased radiation, and called for his resignation.
Early life
Hodel was born in
Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the list of cities in Oregon, largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, Columbia rivers, Portland is ...
, the son of Philip E. Hodel and Theresia R. Brodt. He attended
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
. In 1957 he married Barbara Beecher Stockman, who was born in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...
, and attended
Wellesley College. She married Hodel during her senior year.
They moved to Oregon after graduation and Hodel earned his
J.D. at the
University of Oregon
The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...
. While living in Oregon, the Hodels had two sons, and Barbara became a full-time mother.
After their elder son's suicide, the Hodels became evangelical Christians. They became active in church and other Christian ministries and began speaking at evangelical meetings and prayer breakfasts. The Hodels have appeared on ''The 700 Club'' with
Pat Robertson
Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson (born March 22, 1930) is an American media mogul, religious broadcaster, political commentator, former presidential candidate, and former Southern Baptist minister. Robertson advocates a conservative Christian ...
, ''The Hour of Power'' with
Robert Schuller
Robert Harold Schuller (September 16, 1926 – April 2, 2015) was an American Christian televangelist, pastor, motivational speaker, and author. In his five decades of television, Schuller was principally known for the weekly ''Hour of Po ...
and on
Focus on the Family broadcasts with
James Dobson
James Clayton Dobson Jr.
(born April 21, 1936) is an American evangelical Christian author, psychologist, and founder of Focus on the Family (FOTF), which he led from 1977 until 2010. In the 1980s he was ranked as one of the most influentia ...
, encouraging families that have also lost loved ones to suicide.
Government career
From 1972 to 1977, Hodel was the administrator of the
Bonneville Power Administration
The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is an American federal agency operating in the Pacific Northwest. BPA was created by an act of Congress in 1937 to market electric power from the Bonneville Dam located on the Columbia River and to cons ...
. After leaving it, he said that the Pacific Northwest would eventually need all the power that would be produced by the nuclear power plants proposed by the
Washington Public Power Supply System
Energy Northwest (formerly Washington Public Power Supply System) is a public power joint operating agency in the northwest United States, formed in 1957 by Washington state law to produce at-cost power for Northwest utilities. Headquartered in ...
.
Hodel served as
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 Cabinet of the United States, and fifteenth in the presidential line of succession. The position was created on October 1, 1977, when Pr ...
from 1982 to 1985 and
Secretary of the Interior from 1985 to 1989 under
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
* President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
Ronald Reagan. He had been Undersecretary of the Interior under James Watt.
Critics disrupted his efforts to impose a new management policy on a large amount of
federal land
Federal lands are lands in the United States owned by the federal government. Pursuant to the Property Clause of the United States Constitution ( Article 4, section 3, clause 2), Congress has the power to retain, buy, sell, and regulate federal l ...
and blocked his efforts to create vast new
wilderness area
Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural), are natural environments on Earth that have not been significantly modified by human activity or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally re ...
s. In spite of the criticisms, the
Reagan administration
Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following a landslide victory over ...
added over two million acres (8,000 km²) to the national wilderness system. The Hodel policy was continued under
Manuel Lujan Jr.
Manuel Archibald Lujan Jr. (May 12, 1928 – April 25, 2019) was an American politician from New Mexico who served in the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican from 1969 to 1989 and as the United States Secretary of the Interior from 1 ...
in the
George H. W. Bush administration
George may refer to:
People
* George (given name)
* George (surname)
* George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George
* George Washington, First President of the United States
* George W. Bush, 43rd Presiden ...
. It was rescinded in 1997 by Secretary
Bruce Babbitt
The English language name Bruce arrived in Scotland with the Normans, from the place name Brix, Manche in Normandy, France, meaning "the willowlands". Initially promulgated via the descendants of king Robert the Bruce (1274−1329), it has be ...
.
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 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'Shaughnessy Dam in
Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park ( ) is an American national park in California, surrounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers an ...
, and the restoration of
Hetch Hetchy Valley
Hetch Hetchy is a valley, a reservoir, and a water system in California in the United States. The glacial Hetch Hetchy Valley lies in the northwestern part of Yosemite National Park and is drained by the Tuolumne River. For thousands of years bef ...
, a smaller but inundated version of
Yosemite Valley
Yosemite Valley ( ; ''Yosemite'', Miwok for "killer") is a glacial valley in Yosemite National Park in the western Sierra Nevada mountains of Central California. The valley is about long and deep, surrounded by high granite summits such as Hal ...
.
Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein ( ; born Dianne Emiel Goldman; June 22, 1933) is an American politician who serves as the senior United States senator from California, a seat she has held since 1992. A member of the Democratic Party, she wa ...
, former
mayor
In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well ...
of
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
, which owns the dam, opposed the study and had it quashed.
In March 1984, the
Navajo Nation
The Navajo Nation ( nv, Naabeehó Bináhásdzo), also known as Navajoland, is a Native American reservation in the United States. It occupies portions of northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southeastern Utah; at roughly , the ...
requested that Secretary of the Interior William Clark make a reasonable adjustment of the coal lease royalty rate paid by Peabody Coal, now
Peabody Energy
Peabody Energy is a coal mining and energy company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Its primary business consists of the mining, sale, and distribution of coal, which is purchased for use in electricity generation and steelmaking. Peabody ...
. In July 1985, the newly appointed Hodel secretly met ''
ex parte
In law, ''ex parte'' () is a Latin term meaning literally "from/out of the party/faction of" (name of party/faction, often omitted), thus signifying "on behalf of (name)". An ''ex parte'' decision is one decided by a judge without requiring all ...
'' with Peabody's representative, "a former aide and friend of Secretary Hodel". After briefly reviewing the proposals' merits, Hodel approved lease amendments with royalty rates well below the rate that had previously been determined appropriate by the 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 those actions 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 (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...
, where he engaged in the energy consulting business and served on various charitable and corporate boards of directors. He is the author of ''Crisis in the Oil Patch'' (Regnery, 1995).
From June 1997 to February 1999, Hodel served as president of the
Christian Coalition, a nonprofit
conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
political group founded by religious broadcaster
Pat Robertson
Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson (born March 22, 1930) is an American media mogul, religious broadcaster, political commentator, former presidential candidate, and former Southern Baptist minister. Robertson advocates a conservative Christian ...
.
From May 2003 to March 2005, Hodel served as president and CEO of
Focus on the Family, a nonprofit
evangelical
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual expe ...
Christian organization. He said his job was to manage the transition from the founder,
James Dobson
James Clayton Dobson Jr.
(born April 21, 1936) is an American evangelical Christian author, psychologist, and founder of Focus on the Family (FOTF), which he led from 1977 until 2010. In the 1980s he was ranked as one of the most influentia ...
, to his successor. Several years before being named president, Hodel had served on its board, and he remained on the board until October 2005.
Hodel was also chairman of the company FreeEats.com, which has disseminated
push polls for the
Economic Freedom Fund The Economic Freedom Fund (EFF) 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. Bell Jr., a lawyer from California, who is the general counsel for the ...
.
Environmental efforts
As Secretary of the Interior, in 1985 Hodel ordered the acquisition of a ranch in southern Arizona that became the
Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. Encompassing approximately of savanna grassland in the
Altar Valley
The Altar Valley is a 45-mile (72 km) long north–south valley, trending slightly northeast from Sasabe, Arizona on the Mexico border to the Avra Valley west of the Tucson Mountains. It is delimited by Arizona State Route 86, from east-to-w ...
, the refuge was created for the
masked bobwhite quail. This refuge contains the United States' only population of the masked bobwhite quail.
, Hodel serves as chairman and senior vice president for strategy and policy at
Summit Power Group, Inc.,
a Seattle-based developer of wind, solar and gas-fired power plants. In 1989, he was the founder and managing director of Summit's predecessor company.
References
External links
*
, -
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hodel, Donald P.
1935 births
Living people
Harvard University alumni
University of Oregon School of Law alumni
United States Secretaries of Energy
United States Secretaries of the Interior
Reagan administration cabinet members
20th-century American politicians
American Lutherans
Lawyers from Portland, Oregon
Grant High School (Portland, Oregon) alumni
Oregon Republicans
Christians from Colorado
Focus on the Family people