Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, is proposing to eliminate three of the five top assisstants to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt.
Stevens has said the Interior Department will only get the funds it has sought for historic preservation improvements and telecommunications upgrades at its headquarters if the agency eliminates the positions, according to the Anchorage Daily News.
Stevens has been "grumbling" about Babbitt's assistant in Alaska, Deborah Williams, the only one of the five Interior assistants outside of Washington, the paper reported last Saturday.
Stevens is "angered by Williams' passionate opposition" to the proposed road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, according to the paper.
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