In my time in the U.S. Senate, I tried to craft an energy

“In my time in the U.S. Senate, I tried to craft an energy policy... I will be part of President Obama's efforts to achieve energy independence and enhance the landscape. I am also part of his reform agenda.” Thus spoke Ken Salazar, a statesman of the American West, whose voice carries the steadiness of the plains and the wisdom of the land itself. His words are not merely those of a politician, but of a guardian — one who sees the earth not as a resource to be spent, but as a covenant to be honored. In this declaration, he reveals a truth both ancient and urgent: that the strength of a nation depends not only on its power to produce, but on its harmony with the earth that sustains it.

The origin of this quote lies in the dawn of a new American chapter — the early days of President Barack Obama’s administration, when hope and reform stirred the nation. Ken Salazar, then a Senator from Colorado, had long been a champion of the land — a man who grew up on the windswept ranches of the San Luis Valley, where the soil itself teaches endurance and gratitude. When he joined Obama’s cabinet as Secretary of the Interior, his mission took on a sacred dimension: to lead the nation toward energy independence, to heal its relationship with nature, and to balance prosperity with preservation. His words reflect a spirit not of conquest, but of stewardship — a calling to build a future where human ambition and the natural world walk side by side.

In speaking of energy independence, Salazar invokes more than a policy goal — he speaks of liberation. For too long, nations have chained their futures to the fortunes of others, relying on distant powers and volatile markets to fuel their existence. To achieve independence in energy is to reclaim sovereignty — to ensure that one’s destiny is not held in the hands of strangers, but cultivated from one’s own soil, wind, and sun. It is, in essence, a modern echo of the same yearning that drove the founding of nations — the desire to live freely, sustained by one’s own strength. But Salazar, in his wisdom, knows that such freedom must be tempered by foresight; for independence without respect for the earth is but another form of bondage, one that enslaves future generations.

The enhancement of the landscape, to which he pledges himself, speaks to a deeper truth still. For the land is not a silent witness to human progress — it is our mirror, our inheritance, and our test. To enhance the landscape is not to dominate it, but to restore it — to let rivers flow clean, forests breathe freely, and fields flourish without poison. The ancients understood this sacred balance. The Egyptians revered the Nile as a living god; the Greeks built temples to Demeter, goddess of harvest and renewal. Even the Native peoples of the Americas, from whom Salazar’s reverence for the land draws kinship, lived by the wisdom that man does not own the earth — he belongs to it. Thus, when Salazar speaks of reform, he does not mean mere legislation. He means renewal — of the land, of the spirit, and of the covenant between people and planet.

Consider the tale of Theodore Roosevelt, who, a century before Salazar, stood at the edge of America’s vanishing wilderness and declared that its destruction must end. Roosevelt, too, saw the peril of short-sighted gain and the necessity of reform. He established national parks, forests, and monuments, ensuring that the majesty of the land would outlast the greed of men. Like Roosevelt, Salazar calls upon the modern world to remember that prosperity built on depletion is but an illusion, and that the true wealth of a nation lies not in its vaults, but in its rivers, mountains, and meadows. Both men remind us that the path of progress must lead not away from nature, but deeper into harmony with it.

When Salazar says, “I am also part of his reform agenda,” he places himself within a larger story — one not of party or policy, but of purpose. Reform, in its truest sense, is the art of returning to rightness — of reshaping that which has been bent by neglect or corruption. It is not rebellion against tradition, but the purification of it. For every generation, the call of reform is the same: to repair what was broken, to restore what was lost, to renew what was sacred. Whether it is the reform of government, of energy, or of conscience, it demands the courage to look honestly at the world as it is, and to envision what it might yet become.

Let this, then, be the lesson carried forward: that independence without wisdom is fragility, and reform without faith is futility. The earth does not belong to one people or one era — it belongs to all generations, past and unborn. To achieve energy independence and to enhance the landscape are not tasks of policy alone, but acts of moral clarity. They are the work of those who see beyond their own lifetimes, who understand that freedom and responsibility are bound as tightly as root and soil.

So, to those who walk the paths of power and progress, take heed of Ken Salazar’s example. Craft your policies as you would tend a field — with patience, with reverence, and with hope for the harvest you may never see. Let your reform be guided not by ambition, but by the quiet wisdom of the land itself. For those who care for the earth, care also for the spirit of humankind — and in that harmony, both nature and nation shall find their truest independence.