WASHINGTON — It’s rare for Washington officials to decline a pay raise, but Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says he doesn’t want one.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is attempting to restore the interior secretary’s pay to its original rate after a constitutional clause forced Congress to reduce it in 2009. But Sen. David Vitter, R-La., still smarting over the Interior Department’s decision to scale back oil drilling after last year’s BP oil spill, said he would block Sala zar’s raise until the secretary restores all previous drilling permits and approves new ones.
A clause in Article 1 of the Constitution bars lawmakers from serving in an executive- branch position for which they voted for a salary increase. Salazar, a former Colorado senator, voted to increase Cabinet salaries before joining the Obama administration in 2009.
Salazar is now eligible for full pay because his old Senate term expired in January.
Salazar told Reid on Tuesday to abandon the raise because Vitter’s vote “is dependent upon the outcomes of his attempted coercion of public acts” at Interior.
